Discipleship: Past and Present

Study Bible by Gene A. Getz:  Life Essentials Study Bible: Biblical Principles to Live by

Study Bible by Gene A. Getz: CSB Life Essentials Interactive Study Bible

Study Bible by Gene A. Getz:CSB Men of Character Bible

Interactive Teaching Site for CSB Life Essentials Study Bible: Bible Principles

Book by Gene A. Getz: Sharpening the Focus of the Church

Book by Gene A. Getz: The Measure of a Man

Book by Gene A. Getz: The Measure of a Church

Darrell Bock:
Welcome to The Table, we discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Darrell Bock, Executive Director for Cultural Engagement at the Hendricks Center at Dallas Theological Seminary. And our topic today is discipleship and pastoral leadership. And my guest is someone who I've known for a long time and who has had a stellar career in ministry, Gene Getz, who is former pastor at Fellowship Church, former faculty member at Dallas Seminary, came to Dallas through Moody and just it's a real pleasure to have you with us, Gene.

Gene Getz:
Well thanks Darrell, and thanks for the opportunity.

Darrell Bock:
Yeah. So, we're going to be discussing discipleship and church leadership. And my opening question is always the same. How did a guy like you get into a gig like this? How in the world did you get started? This is 50 plus years of doing this kind of ministry. How did you get started in your work? And I'm thinking about going all the way back to your training.

Gene Getz:
Well, I left the farm in Indiana to go to Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. I didn't know my right hand from my left, basically, and came out of a sect basically that was… had a lot of false theology. And I didn't have the assurance of my salvation even at Moody, but a professor took an interest in me and saw potential and believed in me. And he said, "Gene, I want you to go on for more education and someday maybe you could come back and teach here."

Gene Getz:
Well, that kind of went in one ear and out the other Darrell, but I did go on for more education, went to Montana. Was in ministry there, radio, and music. And this professor stayed in contact with me. Came back and entered the Wheaton Graduate School and started teaching at Moody part-time.

Gene Getz:
And I didn't know where all that is going to lead, but… And you'll be fascinated with this because they needed a course in the evening school in media. I told this professor, I said, "you know, I'm not sure I'm qualified." And he said, "Well maybe you can take a course in the undergraduate school at Wheaton while you're in the graduate school on media, and then teach it here at Moody in the evening school." And that's how I got started.

Gene Getz:
And in 1956, I joined the faculty full-time. I think Darryl, I was the youngest member of the faculty. I was 23 when I started teaching at Moody. I had students older than I was, that had been in the war, and it was a great growth experience, and little did I realize that I would go on and get my PhD at New York University.

Gene Getz:
And one day the phone rang and it was Howard Hendricks on the other end of the line saying, "Gene, I'd love to have you join me as my associate at Dallas. Would you consider that?" And at first, I was hesitant because I was part of the brick and mortar at Moody, really. I'd already moved into administration. And then Dr. Walvoord called me in. And because I wasn't even going to come down to take a look at it. And he said, "You owe yourself just to at least come down here." And I did. And three days later we were already building a home in Dallas.

Darrell Bock:
Oh, wow. Well, that's… I mean, that's amazing. I didn't know about the media piece of that. That's very, very interesting. Neither did I know that you spent time at Wheaton in the Wheaton graduate school. So that's very, very interesting in terms of preparation.

Gene Getz:
Merrill Tenney was a fantastic, as you know, New Testament scholar. And his approach to biblical studies was incredibly influential in my life. And I got my PhD at NYU with a lot of work in historical research. And when I put together what I was getting at NYU and historical research with the… Just watching Tenney and hearing him and being in those classes and watching him do biblical theology, following the unfolding story, just impacted me tremendously. And I would say that that was foundational to my tackling these two study Bibles.

Darrell Bock:
Interesting.

Darrell Bock:
So… And you actually, you've almost stole my next question, which is how foundational biblical studies, and biblical theology in particular, I think, has been in your own particular ministry, obviously flowing also into expository preaching and emphases that you brought to Fellowship. Talk a little bit about the origins of Fellowship Church as well. Let's talk a little bit about that.

Gene Getz:
Well, that goes back to Dallas. Because you remember back in the late sixties, early seventies, a lot of upheaval in our culture. The middle of the Vietnam war, free speech movement, rebelling against institutional forms and structures. And I had students in the class had been converted I think, maybe through a crusade, had no background in ecclesiology. But they… Remember those days? They encouraged them to go to seminary. And I had one guy in class one day, and I was teaching this introductory course, assuming knowledge of the church and belief in the church, and he said, "Who needs the church? Maybe God's going to bypass the church." Well, I knew that was not accurate. And Jesus said, "I'll build my church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it." But I found that there were other students in the class that had been influenced by the culture tremendously.

Gene Getz:
And so consequently, I did something I've never done before and never have since, sometimes I think I was nuts… But students did too, but I came to the class, middle of the semester, told them to tear up the syllabus, told them that I had not prepared the class to answer their questions. I said, "We're going to go back to the syllabus, namely the Great Commission. We're going to follow the unfolding of that Commission in the Book of Acts, and on into the Epistles where they wrote to the churches that were found in the Book of Acts. And we're going to go as far as we can with the rest of the semester.

Gene Getz:
And boy, that was a challenge because that was on a Thursday and on Tuesday we were meeting again.

Darrell Bock:
Oh wow.

Gene Getz:
Well I went down to the seminary up there on the fourth floor of Davidson and I just took out my Bible, and these were pre-computer days, I just built some columns: "How did they go and make disciples in the Book of Acts?" And "What happened? And in the area of evangelism, making disciples and then building those disciples. And so I just began to note in these columns how it happened. And when the sun went down, I'd gotten halfway through the New Testament.

Gene Getz:
I was pretty motivated as you can imagine, and I went back on Sunday and did the same thing and finished the New Testament. I had 25 pages, single space, of just scripture. And I got that already and handed it out on Tuesday and said, "Guys, here's what I've been doing on the weekend. I want you to take what I've done and go through it very carefully and color code and underscore: "How did they make disciples? You know, what resulted? Then, how did they build the disciples?"

Gene Getz:
And so they… We looked at the functions and the activities in the book of Acts and went right on into the Epistles, which become now directives and exhortations to the churches, and the results of that. And we just went through that process and began to move right on through until as far as we could go. Next semester I picked up where I left off and… Through what we had to start over, obviously, but I had a lot more time. There were two-hour classes. You remember Phil Hook?

Darrell Bock:
Oh yes.

Gene Getz:
Phil, bless his heart, he was so interested in this, what I was doing, that he came in and volunteered to sit in my class several semesters. And what I had him do, I did these lectures based on this biblical research and asked him the second hour to evaluate my lectures. And the students loved it, and Phil enjoyed it. And it was encouragement to me because I saw Phil was learning too, and he was from the theology department.

Darrell Bock:
Yes.

Gene Getz:
[inaudible] and then eventually I brought Dr. Peters in to debate Zane Hodges on form and function. And Peters won hands down every time. Zane, by the way, he was a real gentleman. And after the process, and I eventually wrote, "Sharpening the Focus of the Church," Zane actually came to me and told me the things that he had learned about the church going through that process.

Darrell Bock:
That process never left you, because I'm thinking about some of the other books that you did, "Measure of a Man," "Measure of a Church," that kind of thing, which basically had the same kind of approach. Just working your way systematically through the scripture with a biblical theology and eye very focused on the topic that you were presenting. And so obviously the scripture was very foundational and is very foundational to the way you approach discipleship. It was both relational and content related, and you combine those together in a very effective way. Even naming a church with the term, "fellowship," shows the relational side of what you were doing.

Darrell Bock:
So talk about that relationship a little bit, the combination of relational and content. I like to tell people that the church needs to get refocused on what I call the two Greats: the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. And if they can stay focused in those two places, then that'll keep you pretty focused on… That and knowing of course who God is… That'll keep you pretty focused on where you ought to be going.

Gene Getz:
Yeah and I agree a hundred percent. The… Actually what happened is that there were several families that heard about these dynamic discussions. And by the way I have to throw something in here, you'll love this Darrell, but Walvoord called me in one day and he said, "Getz," he said, "I'm getting some negative feedback from a few on what you're doing in the class." And I said, well, I said, "What are you doing?" And I said, "Well, I have the hard copy of "Sharpening." It's at Moody Press." I said, I'll get it and you can read it and that'll give you the essence of it. He said, "I'd like that." I got it to him on a Friday, he gave it back to me the next week. And he said, "Gene, there's nothing in here I disagree with." He said, "But let me give you a little practical advice." He said, "Just throw something in for the traditionalist to keep them happy."

Darrell Bock:
Classic Dr. Walvoord. Yeah.

Gene Getz:
I was home free. I knew that.

Darrell Bock:
Yeah.

Gene Getz:
And I'm very encouraged. And actually, I had him preach at the original Fellowship, I still remember that. And he preached on, Oil and the Middle East… Remember that little book he wrote? Boy, we had people sitting on the floor and I think we had four services going, and people eating it up and buying his books. And he said, "Gene," afterwards he said, "God's at work here." That was a thrill.

Gene Getz:
But anyway, what happened is these families found out about what was going on at the seminary. Because some people thought I kind of lost my mind, I think. And some of the profs… Because we went to one major two-and-a-half-hour service, canceled midweek services, that we were short cutting and going liberal, I guess. And I talked with them and helped clarify it. In fact, even Stan Toussaint had questions. He ended up pastoring [inaudible] the Fellowship.

Gene Getz:
But we started… And back to your basic question, I was very impressed with the succinct outline that Luke recorded in Acts 2:42 and following: "They continued in the Apostles' teaching." Obviously, that was the Holy Spirit unveiling scripture and truth to Peter and the Apostles as he promised the Holy Spirit would do in John 14: 15 and 16, and eventually that became the word, the New Testament. So, we've got to continue there. That's foundational.

Gene Getz:
"They continued in fellowship," which he referred to the relational dimension. You know "breaking bread," and that was more than just eating. That was remembering the Lord, the "agapae." And "continuing in prayer," which was a whole new experience: to have a high priest that they could go to the father. And continuing prayer for one another, continuing and sharing. And of course, in that dynamic, they cared for each other. And then, they praised the Lord. And then it says, "They had favor with all the people," and all the people were those who were looking in on all this that was happening. "Because the Lord added to the church daily, those who were being saved." So you have the three dimensions there of the word Fellowship with God and one another, and I see those interrelated.

Darrell Bock:
Yes.

Gene Getz:
And then, evangelism or outreach. And what was happening was what Jesus said would happen. And what he prayed for is when they saw the love and unity, that became the basic apologetic to convince them that Jesus Christ was the Messiah.

Darrell Bock:
Yeah. You know the… I often like to say that the Bible is built around an ethical triangle, which is the better you relate to God, the better position you are to relate to others. And that that is intentional. I like to draw people's attention to a passage in Luke where John the Baptist is preparing a people for the coming of the Lord. And it says he's going to turn Israel back to God and he's going to turn the fathers back to their children and the disobedient to the just.

Darrell Bock:
And so normally we think a prophet's role is to turn someone back to God, but in John the Baptist case in preparing a people, he's doing both. He's turning people back to God so they're in a position to relate to one another better. And really the core of discipleship and following God and being a learner who follows in the way of God, which is the essence of what this meaning the disciple is, is designed to have us reflect the character of God and the care of God and the love of God and the grace of God and the kindness of God and the justice of God and the righteousness of God. There are lots of aspects to that.

Darrell Bock:
But that relational dimension is so important. And I sometimes think in conservative churches, we're so committed to being right we forget the relational base of what we ought to be about. And the way in which that relational base and that community that we build actually becomes the magnet, as you were suggesting, of what it is that draws people to the Lord. Because they see people living in a different way than they're used to in the world, and that becomes attractive.

Gene Getz:
Right. And that's exactly what Jesus prayed for when he was on… Excuse me, this COVID has gotten to my vocal chords so can you hear me okay?

Darrell Bock:
I can hear you fine.

Gene Getz:
Okay. But he prayed that for love and unity so that they would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. And you remember the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer wrote the church at the end of the 20th century. He called that the final apologetic. And I loved that, what Jesus prayed for.

Gene Getz:
But anyway, to answer your question, so there were several people that found out about what we were doing, invited Elaine and me to come and share in a home. Don Kerr, I don't know if you remembered Don? He was on the faculty, or on the board of Dallas too. He was a businessman. And we met in his home, about eight couples. I shared the essence of those three experiences. And I said, "The thing that the church needs to do is to look at those three experiences. And then those are the absolutes. Then look at their forms as non-absolutes and say, "What do we need to change to have people have these three experiences in Dallas right now in this century?" And they said, "Well would you come and help us start a church?" And that's how it got started.

Darrell Bock:
Interesting. I know that one of the things that you definitely developed a reputation for, you alluded to it nicely in talking about your little visit with Dr. Walvoord and the "negative" feedback that you were getting, was your ability to innovate in terms of the way in which church was done without altering the core commitments of what a church is supposed to be. And so we talked, I said we talk about discipleship and church leadership. This is more of the church leadership side of things. And I guess I have a two-part question. One is what led you to think about that kind of a distinction on the one hand, and what advice would you give to churches today that often get caught in the middle of the same debate? In my career we've been through the worship wars with music styles and format and that kind of stuff, where that has created sometimes some tension in the church.

Darrell Bock:
And obviously you describe what the sixties are like. I think the period that we're in is the closest thing to the sixties that I've seen in my lifetime since, and just the same kind of battles. It seems like we have to go through the same space generationally on a regular basis just to remind ourselves where we are and where we ought to be.

Darrell Bock:
So talk a little bit about that. Talk about the way in which you handled and, evaluated, I think would be also a good part of this question, the idea of innovation and determining what you could do that would be innovative and creative and speak to the moment on the one hand, and yet what needed to remain so that you were faithful to what scripture was asking on the other?

Gene Getz:
Well Darrell, that was the essence of that debate between Peters and Hodges. Is there absolute form in scripture? Or just absolute function? Peters took the position only absolute function. And that was aligning with what we were discovering in the research we were doing just with the students. And so consequently, when we started the first Fellowship Church, I outlined for that small group and eventually for the elders, eventually for the church, that God has given us the absolute functions, such as those three experiences, but gives us the freedom in form so that we can apply this anywhere in the world. For example, you remember Musa Asake?

Darrell Bock:
Yeah sure.

Gene Getz:
I was in Nigeria, I was in the Bush with him with his tribal group, the Hausa. And I had 300 pastors, 300 wives, and I stood up and I taught them Acts 2:42 through 47.

Gene Getz:
I didn't talk about what we were doing in Dallas. I talked about what was happening in Jerusalem. And I pointed out these were three experiences we can have today. But then I had Musa come up behind me, we had agreed to this. And he then picked up in the Hausa language, summarized those three experiences, and for an hour they talked to each other about how they could apply those three experiences there in the Bush, actually in Nigeria.

Gene Getz:
Now that's what I think the Holy Spirit designed for us. Because if he gave us absolutes in form, he would have locked us into Jerusalem or into the Middle East, but has given us this freedom to take the gospel and carry out the Great Commission around the world and develop the forms that are necessary. And that's what I shared with the people. I said, let's do that here in Dallas. And so that-

Darrell Bock:
That's interesting. I like to tell people, so who tells us that we have to have three hymns? That we have to have a bulletin? What the style… I mean, where is that in the Bible?

Gene Getz:
Nowhere.

Darrell Bock:
Exactly. That's the point: and so, the way in which you reach people with biblical truth, the way in which you form your community, and the way in which you serve in that community so that people can see that God cares. The one point I like to say is, is that when we preach and teach through our words that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, if we don't model that kind of service to those on the outside, in the way that we engage, that somehow we're failing to deliver on God's message, which is not only to be heard, but it's to be seen.

Darrell Bock:
And so thinking through how the church can do that in their own community, both building up the Saints on the one hand and yet on the other hand equipping them so that they're able to serve and take the gospel to a needy community is at the core of what a church is supposed to be. And a lot of times what I see our churches have become holy huddles and kind of safe places to not engage with people outside the church. And then I ask, "Well, how then can you accomplish the Great Commission? Because the Great Commission doesn't say, go into the church and make disciples. It says, go into the world and make disciples."

Darrell Bock:
And so just thinking about how the church balances its nurture of its membership, its commitment to growth and discipleship on the one hand. But that discipleship is always outward reaching and always moving in a direction towards people who need what the gospel has to offer. And I think that's the essence of what a church is supposed to be.

Gene Getz:
Well I agree, and you summarize it with a little different spin, but saying the same thing. And the same thing is true with music. You see, it's very interesting because we have some dear brothers and sisters in Christ who are non-instrumentalists. I was one of those growing up in a religious sect, and I'm not equating the two because ours was very works oriented. It was an acapella church. But the thing that I think they miss there in terms of music is that God in the Old Testament was working with a stable culture of Israelites who had their own perspectives on music. David did and through the Psalms, and they had all this instrumental background with the walls being built and rebuilt and so forth, with the choirs. However, when you get to the New Testament, the Holy Spirit, I believe, purposely left out any reference to instrumentality because a lot of that is cultural. But the thing that is enduring is to teach one another with Psalms, that's content, with spiritual songs, spiritual odes, hymns, making melody in your hearts to the Lord. It says nothing even about counterpoint, says nothing about musical scales. Because that's cultural, that shifts over culture. And God gives us freedom in our culture to use the instruments that fit our culture, to carry out the never changing message of the hymns, the Psalms, and even the spiritual odes that are written to worship the Lord. And once we understand that we have freedom in form in music, it at least helps those who are emotionally tied in with certain forms in music to accept the fact that God has given people freedom to worship the Lord with different types of instrumentality. And so I think those who are acapella today, miss that cultural dimension in the Old Testament and why there are no instruments in the New Testament because the gospel now is going to the whole world.

Darrell Bock:
And of course I think about services where people do some really beautiful blending in comes of worship, you'll sing a hymn and then sometimes you'll sing that hymn and you won't have any instruments in the background. And in the midst of the shift, there oftentimes is something very beautiful that happens in singing something in which there is instrumentation and support, and then, the next moment, it's just the voices. And that flexibility is part of the beauty of what God has designed for us in the way in which we creatively apply the fact that we're… I tell people: we were made in the image of God. We're made to think, analyze, and be creative in a positive sense. That's what God is in his character. And we can bring that to our worship. And when we bring that to our worship, we open up avenues for the different personalities that are in the audience, some of whom are attracted in one way to God and others who are attracted in another way to God. We also build our ability to appreciate that difference with and among one another as we, in unity, share God together, in our walk with God together. And I think that harmony, if I can use a picture, is important for the church. Everybody's not exactly the same. We all have different gifts that we bring to the body of Christ to complement one another and to collaborate together. Collaboration was at the core of the creation. I tell people, God didn't promote the creation to being very good until he put the woman next to the man and they were collaborating together and supposed to take care of the garden together well. And so all of that fits in theologically at the core of what we're supposed to be as a community.

Gene Getz:
Yeah. And I agree a hundred percent. I just reflected back on my experience in Nigeria because when Musa opened the session with those 600 people, pastors and wives, we sang some traditional American hymns that had been brought over there when they did missions. And then when Musa took over to talk about form, they restructured, they had a group of women and men come forward and they segwayed into their African instruments and their beat and their chants. And it was a beautiful demonstration of freedom and form. I think the only problem that we made in missions is we too quickly took our forms over there in hymns and songs rather than encouraging them to develop their own styles in order to worship. They were doing both though and it was beautiful.

Darrell Bock:
Yeah. Well, Gene this is the first segment. We're going to take a break here and do a second half.  That's for the other part of what we do in The Table. We're in the process of splitting our podcasts into that, which we offer for free and that which we're putting behind a subscription wall that we're calling, “DTS Plus.” And so, we come back, we're going to talk about in a little more detail, some of the principles of leadership and discipleship that you think are foundational. And I'd like for you to address for us how you think pastors in today's swirling cultural climate, I think that's the only way to describe it, can lead the church well in a situation which pastors are under terrific pressure because of what's going on around them. So, we'll be back on the other half. We thank you for joining us on The Table and we hope you'll join us for part two.