Pastoral Colleague

Sometimes God prods us into a deeper relationship with Him and focuses our mission, when we go through negative experiences. Such was the case when I almost lost my job.

As a young pastor, I was puzzled to discover, over time, that I was working with a senior pastor who didn’t believe that Jesus was divine or that He died for our sins. The pastor and I had many conversations about this, with him assigning me reading from different scholars. Eventually, after reading conflicting views from the “scholars” and beliefs that seemed far from Scripture, I asked if we could just focus on what Jesus said in the Bible, starting with the Gospel of John. But the pastor said that we don’t know if Jesus actually said those words or if John was just saying that Jesus said them. I started crying—Are you telling me that I’ve been wrong all these years, telling people that the OT and NT tell the story of Jesus, the divine Son of God, who died for our sins. The pastor looked at me with compassion and said, “God forgives.” [God would forgive me for my error.]

One day I was called to his office. He asked me if I felt he should not be paid as an Adventist pastor because of what he believed. I responded that I did not think that a person who teaches things contrary to the Adventist Church should be paid by the Adventist Church. His firm response was, “Cease to think that, or cease to work here.” Then he added, “Well I can’t tell you what to think.”

I was devastated that my friend and mentor would speak in such a way. Since pastoral positions for women were somewhat limited, I wasn’t sure where I would go. After much prayer, God moved that pastor into a different line of work.

I re-read the Bible, accepting it as God’s revelation of Himself to us human beings. I believed again that from eternity, Jesus was God—the Divine Son of God who died for my/our sins. God used this experience to solidify my commitment to the message of the Bible as expressed through the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.