Spiritual Stress in Ministry

I must apologise that it has taken me 2 years to respond to the important issue in Essentials, Summer 2022 on stress in ministry. The emphases on supervision (Preston, Kettleton), a supportive community (Morse) and looking to Jesus (King) were very helpful. However, I was surprised by a glaring omission. No-one noted that we do not minister in a spiritually neutral environment. Comer quotes Willard that ‘Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life…’ (p 17). By contrast, the NT would affirm that spiritual evil is. Consider the following.

1. In the OT, there are less than 10 references to spiritual evil such as unclean spirits. By contrast, most books in the NT contain references to evil spirits. The exceptions would appear to be Titus, Philemon and 2 and 3 John.
2. In Mt 6:13, we ask God to deliver us not from some sort of generalised evil but from ‘the evil one’, Satan.
3. In the OT, spiritual evil can still appear in God’s presence in heaven eg. Job 1-2 and Zech 3. In the NT, all recorded interactions between deity and spiritual evil happen on earth; the most obvious being Satan tempting Jesus (Mt 4 etc). Despite Revelatrion being filled with scenes of heaven, there is nothing similar, most likely because evil has been expelled from heaven (Lk 10:18, Rev 12:9). While the timing of this is heavily disputed, I believe that it happened around the time of the Massacre of the Innocents (Mt 2).
4. While Satan is called ‘the accuser of the brethren’ (Rev 12:10), his accusations in Job and Zechariah are unsuccessful and he makes no recorded accusations in the NT. As though an all-knowing God needs the prince of evil to accuse God’s own people! There may be some irony in calling Satan an accuser: a prosecutor who cannot make a charge stick.
5. While the OT is filled with warnings against idolatry and the NT does warn against idolatry (1 Cor 10, 1 Jn 5:21, etc), the most severe warnings are against evil itself (1 Pet 5:8 ‘Resist him [the devil]…).
6. In summary, there has been a big change from the OT to the NT. Evil is still very real and malicious but can no longer access heaven so all its fury is directed against God’s people. This is a particular problem for evangelicals as we want to help people move from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light (Col 1:13, 1 Pet 2:9, etc). Evil does not take this at all well and if we are not obedient to what the NT says about resisting evil then our marriage partners, our families and ourselves will be targets.

What should we then do?

1. A necessary first step is to remove our cultural blinkers which say that this sort of thing does not exist in Australia. It most certainly does. Or, that evil was so decisively defeated at the cross that it is no longer a threat. The NT reached its final written form decades after the first Easter and still includes the most graphic warnings about evil. The cross provides the tools for dealing with evil and we have a responsibility to use them.

2. Our theology must be Biblical, in particular our belief in Jesus’ redemptive death and bodily resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit. If you have a face to face confrontation in the early hours of the morning with an unclean spirit, you cannot say to them, ‘Liberal theology says that you don’t exist.’!

3. Unconfessed sin and unforgiveness weaken our spiritual authority and thus our ability to resist evil. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal these things to us and then deal with them.

4. We must check our obedience to the fourth commandment to honour parents, which is the first one with a promise (Eph 6). This requires honouring parents, repenting of any sin against them and renouncing their sins. I have seen this lead to visible, overnight healing without that healing even being prayed for. This is vital where parents and other ancestors have been involved in activities inconsistent with the gospel.

5. I am also concerned that accounts of defeating evil in Jesus’ name are derided as ‘war stories’ (thankfully not in Essentials). When I started as an aged care chaplain, we had a couple of apparitions which made one corridor unusable by staff at night. Answering residents’ buzzers then required a much longer route, where any delay could have serious even fatal consequences. The other chaplain and I sat in the chapel and said that these things could either come to us and explain their right to be there or go straight to Jesus, never to return. We never saw them again. This was a valuable demonstration of Jesus’ authority over evil, Arranging supervision and supportive communities must never take the place of obeying the NT’s clear instructions on resisting evil. We can do both and a good place to start is to write down every NT command about resisting evil and make sure that we are being obedient. It is also vital that we ask God to guide us to someone with experience in this area as mistakes can be costly. CS Lewis warned us many years ago of two equal but opposite dangers – either being obsessed with evil or completely ignoring it. Neither is helpful but if we are willing, God can open our eyes to this whole realm and show us his authority over evil.

Revd Dr Richard Harvey.
Associate minister Holy Trinity, Terrigal