能力被低估的归信教义
正确的归信教义会给你牧养的能力。
个人例证
让我先分享一个例证。我曾在一个朋友面前为我错误的欲望认罪。我很沮丧地解释说，我的神学知识告诉我它是错的，但我身体的一部分却试图证明它是正当的，因为它已经“深入我全身每个细胞”，并且“溶入我灵魂每个角落”。那时欲望这样深深地抓住我。
我朋友亲切地直接引用了以弗所书第四章给我：“脱去你们从前行为上的旧人，这旧人是因私欲的迷惑渐渐变坏的。”并且他强调“你的老我”就是如此。是啊，这些私欲可能确实已经深入到我里面。你的老我是变坏了的。你还能期望什么呢，约拿单？简单来说，那些私欲就是我。
但别急，好消息即将来到。我的朋友继续道：但“要将你们的心志改换一新，并且穿上新人；这新人是照着神的形象造的，有真理的仁义和圣洁。”等一下，我有一个新我，不是吗？有一个老我，但同时也有一个新我。且注意，这个新我是照着神的形象造的。
简单来说，我朋友用几节圣经经文提醒了我的归信。在我心情郁闷的那天，再加上欲求不满的沮丧，他的提醒让我重新喜乐并且满有盼望。
两方面的牧养能力
你是否看到，正确地理解归信可以带来牧养上的能力？ 这能力来自于新造生命的事实及应许。
1. 它使你能鼓励并焕发那些被罪辖制的弟兄姐妹。
这罪或许是一种瘾症，或许是对教会内某弟兄或姊妹的仇恨，或许是一种莫名的绝望。不管它是什么，在许多情况下，这罪（其实是说谎者）迷惑你，使你认为你胜不过它。它带上了“真实的”、“正宗的”、“我真正的感觉“、甚至”就是如此“的面具。但是正确归信的教义把谎言全部揭开。“是的，你的感觉可能是自然产生的，但你不受它的约束，因为基督信仰是超越性的。你是自由的。”
有人感到被自己的的罪所定，基督教归信的教义告诉基督徒们真理并非如此。尽管“新我”与“老我”之间的征战会持久，并且走两步又退一步（甚至更多），但改变的力量来自于认识到：基督为了更新一个人的生命所成就的。
2. 它给你能力使基督徒们确信他们有新的、不同的生命。
我们按基督的形象而被新造，有基督的生命入住。这是一个有圣洁、爱、与神的儿女合一的生命。这生命会经历苦难，但苦难中却清楚知道基督复活带来的盼望与能力。
奇妙的是，这种确信不仅只存在于新约的所谓命令祈使句里：“（你们）要圣洁，并彼此合而为一“；而且在陈述式里：“你已经就是这样“。 是的，你有一个新的自己，这个新的生命如与圣徒们同在，且圣洁如圣子。
文化背景
现在，有一个文化背景值得所有人注意。我们浪漫化的文化倾向于真实、 自然、 可信的东西。自我发现和自我表达是我们最大的道德行为。这种态度已渗入教会并影响了我们对归信、会员制及我们基督里新身份的看法。许多牧师会说我们都是探索者。 我们都在旅程中。这就意味着你走一步，然后是下一步，再下一步。
但在这种流行的比喻里，你找不到与过去的决裂：黑暗统治下的拯救；死亡与复活。一个探索发现的行程完全不同于从埋葬到复活，或从老我到新我。
诚然，生命旅程确实会改变我们。我们会在过程中进化。并且实话来讲，属灵的成长不怎么像毛毛虫蜕变成花蝴蝶，倒更像进化过程曲线。我要讲的并不是说这种旅程的说法与属灵层面毫无连接点。但是我们千万不要忘记新约圣经所昭示的末世的力量，这力量突然打破了历史在当今的轨迹。现在是新的创造。这就是归信。
面前坐着的酒鬼
那么你瞧，面对着对面的酗酒成瘾者、婚姻不忠的受害者、好争论正造成教会分裂的执事、唱赞美诗时不站起来的年轻夫妇，你的任务是什么？ 任务是提醒他们：你们的身份是基督徒。
或许你可以帮他们明白他们所接受的洗礼，像保罗在罗马书第六章里那样。他们已经被埋葬并且复活了－哇！他们真的还想要继续犯罪，还想寻求自由？或者要得着饶恕的能力，还是继续坚持世界的方式？ 他们怎能（还按世界的方式）？他们已经向罪而死了，并且带着基督的新生命复活了。
无论如何，你牧养的任务就是通过话语或者提问，让那些还在罪性中的圣徒明白，一个重生的基督徒到底意味着什么。
底线是：讲道、教导、唱诗、祷告中赞美神，并且用正确的归信教义来辅导。这里有被低估的能力。你的会众越多理解它，你就越有能力牧养他们。不仅如此，他们也会有能力来引导和装备其他的人。
The Underestimated Pastoral Power of a Proper Doctrine of Conversion
A proper doctrine of conversion will give you pastoral power.
PERSONAL ILLUSTRATION
Let me jump right in with an illustration. I once confessed a wrongful desire to a friend of mine, and I explained that, frustratingly, my theology knew it was wrong, but part of me was tempted to justify it because it felt “woven into the very fabric of my person” and “part of the very wiring of my soul.” Those were the words I used to explain how much the desire felt like me.
My friend, sweetly, simply quoted Ephesians 4 to me: “put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires.” And he emphasized “your old self” like that. Yes, it’s true that such desires may be woven or wired into my very person. You’re old self is corrupt. What did you expect, Jonathan? Those desires, in one sense, are me.
Ah, but there was good news just around the corner. My friend finished the passage: but “be renewed in the spirit of your minds…and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Wait a second, I have a new self, don’t I? There is an old me, sure, but there is also a new me. And this new me is being created…hold on, get this…after the likeness of God.
In short, my friend reminded me of my conversion with a few choice words from Scripture. And where my mood had been melancholic that day, fueled by the frustration of wanting something I couldn’t have, his reminder restored my joy. It gave me hope.
TWO PLACES OF PASTORAL POWER
Do you see how there’s pastoral power in a proper understanding of conversion? In the realities and promises of a new creation life?
1. It gives you the ability to encourage and enliven your brothers and sisters in Christ who are gripped by sin. Maybe it’s an addiction. Maybe it’s a feeling of hatred toward another brother or sister in the church. Maybe it’s an untraceable sense of despair. Whatever. In many such cases, the sin—liar that it is—pretends to be inevitable. It dons the mask of “real” or “authentic” or “just how I feel” or “natural” or even “just.” But a right doctrine of conversion exposes the lie in all such posturing. “Yes, your feelings might be natural, but no, you are bound by it, because Christianity is supernatural. You are free.”
People feel determined by their sin; the Christian doctrine of conversion helps Christians to know that they are not. Even when the fight is long, and every two steps forward seems to be followed by one step backward (or more!), the power of change comes from the recognition of what Christ has done in making a person new.
2. It gives you the ability to assure Christians of their new and different kind of life. Christianity gives the life of the Son, in whose image we are being remade. It’s a life of holiness, love, and unity with God’s people. It’s a life of suffering, but of knowing the hope and power of the resurrection amidst such suffering.
And here’s the amazing thing. Such assurances belong not only to the so-called imperatives of the New Testament: “Go and be holy and united with each other.” They belong to the indicatives: “This is what you are.” There is a new self, and that new self is one with the saints and is holy like the Son.
THE CULTURAL BACKDROP
Now, there is a cultural backdrop to all of this that’s worth recognizing. Our romanticized culture favors the real, the natural, the authentic. Self-discovery and self-expression are our greatest moral acts. And these attitudes have seeped into churches and refashioned our ideas about conversion, membership, and our new identities in Christ. We’re all just seekers, pastors will say. We’re all on our journey. That means you take one step, and then another, and then another.
But what’s missing from the logic of these popular pastoral metaphors is the idea of a decisive break with the past—a rescuing from the domain of darkness; a death and resurrection. A journey of discovery is a vastly differently kind of thing than a burial and a resurrection, an old self and a new self.
Admittedly, journeys do change us. We evolve through journeys. And, truth be told, spiritual growth can feel less like caterpillars and butterflies and more like an evolutionary progression chart. My point is not to say that such language has no points of spiritual connectivity. But we must not forget what the New Testament teaches about the power of the eschaton breaking into history now. New creation now. That’s conversion.
SITTING ACROSS FROM THE ALCOHOLIC
So there you are, sitting across from the alcoholic, the victim of marital infidelity, the ornery deacon who is causing a church split, the young couple who cannot stand singing hymns. What is your task? It’s reminding them that they are Christians.
Perhaps you help them go back to their baptism, like Paul does in Romans 6. They’ve been buried and raised—wow! Do they really want to go on sinning, or look for freedom, or look for the power to forgive, or keep insisting on their own way, just like the world does? How can they? They’ve died to sin, and been raised in newness of life with Christ.
Your pastoral task, one way or another, is to find the words and ask the questions that enable the still-sinful saint to understand what it means to be…now get this…a born again Christian.
Bottom line: preach, teach, sing, praise God in prayer, and counsel a proper doctrine of conversion. There’s underestimated power there. The more your people understand it, the more pastoral power you will have to shepherd them. Not only that, they will possess such power for persuading and equipping one another.
作者：Jonathan Leeman
Jonathan Leeman毕业于美南浸信会神学院（道学硕士），现在是国会山浸信会的长老，同时也是九标志事工的总编辑。李曼是威尔士大学的神学博士，著有多本著作，例如《教会成员制》、《教会纪律》等。
翻译肢体: 刘立君
用圣经视野和实用资源装备教会领袖
进而通过健康的教会向世界彰显神的荣耀
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