I am not complaining, but I am wondering why this is so. Through the years I have had to sew together my own patchwork quilt of pastoral work. With snatches of verses from this text and that, with pieces of advice from this prominent pastor and that ministry workshop, from paragraphs in this leadership book and that management seminar, I created the fabric of personal pastoral practice. I am indeed a man of the cloth. Jesus Christ has life and ministry, and the apostle Paul's life and ministry simply are not the focus of Five Smooth Stones.
Pride sets in and with it distancing.
Near the end of my training at Moody Bible Institute, my mother gave me a book of poetry. Jesus, brilliant man that he was, never allowed his knowledge and skills to create distance between him and unlearned people. He came close to us. True pastoral knowledge and skills break the distance barrier and get us close to people. The apostle Paul, excellently trained and highly gifted as he was, never used his knowledge and skills to distance himself.