This post is comprised of two separate offerings of ministry given during the hour of worship at Seekers’ Haven Worship Group[1] on October 25, 2026. Evan Knappenberger spoke first, and approximately 30 minutes later, I spoke. Both offerings addressed the distinction between true and false ministry. The ministry that Evan gave begins here:
I have been struggling with conceiving the ministry lately, for some time. The text that comes is from Jeremiah [23], who struggled with these same issues quite a bit. It is easy for a person to say “the Lord says” or “thus sayeth the Lord,” but how are we to be able to distinguish between a true and a false message?
Jeremiah answers by asking those he sees as false prophets a question: Have you stood in the council of the Lord? Have you heard his words or are you just stealing each other’s dreams? The true answer comes in a form of wordplay: Jeremiah uses the word “oracle,” which in the Hebrew is the same as the word “burden.”
A prophesy or an oracle is a burden. Those who misunderstand the ministry fail to see that it is a burden; it is also a fire, says Jeremiah, and one cannot hold onto a fire or one will be burned. A true prophecy is not a light and easy thing. False prophecy seeks to comfort those who are already comfortable. False oracles serve to make the stubborn more stubborn. True prophecy is an affliction of the comfortable, and only a comfort to the widows and the orphans.
The world is built on comfort: a lack of trust in the Lord but a trust in the things of the world, a comfort at others’ expense. This is not of the Lord, and false prophecy upholds it. It must be from the council of the Lord and not from this other.
Ministry given by Patricia follows:
The problems in the faith community are the same in every age. In the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had doctrines that were seemingly the same as the words that Jesus spoke, and his response to that was, do as they say and not as they do.[2]
Always there is a tendency to learn from the tradition and take those words to heart, because they have been judged to be true. It is easier to take the words than to find the Spirit. But the letter is not Life, and what we are about is Life in Christ, which is where true ministry finds its source.
There are advantages to being pharisaical, but it is not what the Quaker of the 17th century knew. The question has been asked this morning: “Do we know the Spirit?” because that is the essential thing: not the words that we can formulate from our tradition, from our minds, from our desires. No, there is a difference, and it is the essential difference between faith in Christ and faith in self.
Can we see and honor the difference, because there is no grace in simply repeating the words that have been spoken before, repeating the ideas that we are all comfortable with. This is not an impossible task for us to find Christ, but it isn’t an easy one. Where does it come from, this knowledge? It comes from discomfort! that deep, deep thing in the center of being that says, “This isn’t enough,” and to remain with it in that painful awareness. That is faith in life before Life is given.
To use the old words we have heard a hundred times is not Life; it is spiritual death. We are human beings who are called to Life in Christ. And our honesty will protect our souls until grace is given and we receive it and truly become the sons and daughters of God, and not of the religious tradition. The difference is real, and all hinges upon it. Unity is found within it; peace, grace, beauty—all within the Spirit, not the flesh. Thanks be to God!
[1] If you wish to visit Seekers’ Haven Worship Group for worship, please contact Conrad Lindes at (yourfriendinchrist.net) for a Zoom link. We meet for an hour each Sunday, beginning worship at 10:30 Eastern Standard Time, with discussion following. Please note that we move from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time on November 1st (next Sunday), which is to say, we move the clock back one hour.
[2] These words paraphrase the passage in Matthew 23:2—3 [NEB]: “The doctors of the law and the Pharisees sit in the chair of Moses; therefore do what they tell you; pay attention to their words. But do not follow their practice; for they say one thing and do another.”
Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem, Rembrandt 1630, Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam
