Abraham’s Servant & Pastoral Ministry

For fifty years, Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. He is regarded as one of the most important musicians in American history. A reporter once asked him, “What is the most difficult instrument to play?” Bernstein reflexively replied, “Second fiddle! I can always get plenty of first violinists, but to find one who plays second violin with as much enthusiasm… now that’s a problem. And yet if no one plays second, we have no harmony.”

It’s as true of music as it is of ministry. Servant-hearted craftsmen who are happy to play the humbler harmony, eager to use their gifts, time, and energies to magnify the glory of another are uncommon. Yet this is the sacred task to which pastors have been called. In the age of celebrity preachers, bestsellers and mega churches, it’s tempting to confuse fame with faithfulness. So, it’s good for pastors to be reminded that our place is one of selfless service; what Neil Stewart called, “shrinking your way to greatness.” Unto that end, Abraham’s servant in Genesis 24 has much to teach us.

First, he is an oath bound servant. The chapter begins with Abraham summoning his servant and making him swear an oath by placing his hand under Abraham’s thigh. While the logistics of that gesture might not culturally translate, the gravity of the matter certainty does. We find this same seal only one other time; when Jacob makes Joseph swear to bring his bones up from Egypt to Canaan (Genesis 47:29). In the servant’s case, he vowed to take a wife for Abraham’s son, Isaac, not from the Canaanites, but from Abraham’s believing kindred to the north.

We know next to nothing about this servant. In Abraham’s day, a servant was one who’d been bought with a price and belonged to another. His will was bound to the will of his master. But by this special oath, Abraham’s servant became doubly bound.

Likewise, Christians are servant of Christ. Paul said, “You are not your own, you were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20), the precious blood of Jesus shed on the cross for the forgiveness of sins. But through the vows of ordination and laying on of hands, some servants of Christ are doubly bound to, “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2). We who have the sacred honor of serving Christ as heralds of his word must preach the whole counsel of God, publicly and privately, with all tenderness and boldness, as dying men to dying people. We have promised to feed the lambs of Christ, stand as watchmen on the wall, and sound the trumpet of the imminent judgment of God for sin and the refuge from the wrath of God that can be in Christ alone. As Abraham’s servant stayed on mission, may we pastors never forget that we are doubly bound servants, consumed by this one thing Christ has called us to do.

But Abraham’s servant was also a believing servant. After his 500-mile journey the servant arrived at the city of Nahor. Can you see him there, in the soft light of evening, standing by the well outside the city, his camels kneeling beside him? Can you see the women of the city streaming to the well to draw water for their families? Among all these women, how was he to know which were Abraham’s kin? How was he to convince her to come with him? What could he do in the face of impossible odds? He prayed. Right then and there he silently cried, “O LORD, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham” (Genesis 24:12).

The obstacles facing a gospel minister are no less daunting. In a world of touch screens and TikTok how are we to capture and keep the attentions of our people with a sermon? In a world obsessed with self-esteem how can we convince people that they are more sinful than they could ever imagine and that a single sin merits eternal punishment in hell because God is so dazzlingly holy? In a world in which nothing is free and everything is earned, how can we make them believe that the love of God in Christ is at once priceless and costless to us though it cost Christ everything? How can the foolish word of the cross become the power of God to those who are being saved?  Prayer. Prayer transforms a sermon into a battering ram that can break down the Jerichoan walls of pride sinners have built around their consciences. Prayer opens the Lydian-heart to pay attention to the word of Christ as it is preached. Prayer is the torch that makes our preaching melt the sinner’s glaciated affections for Jesus. Prayer is the open hand by which the minister reaches for a faithful and fruitful ministry. Preacher, God will not share his glory. If our preaching be blessed, if our mission be successful, we must come to an end of ourselves and stay there, begging God to grant us success for his glory.

Abraham’s servant was also a boasting servant. After it was revealed to him that Rebekah was the woman of God’s choosing, he decked her in the treasures of his master: golden rings and bracelets. And when he’d gone to Rebekah’s home and met her family, he revels in the riches of his master, “I am Abraham’s servant. The LORD has greatly blessed my master, and he has become great. He has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male servants and female servants, camels and donkeys. And Sarah my master’s wife bore a son to my master when she was old, and to him he has given all that he has” (Genesis 24:34–36).

This is the longest chapter in Genesis, some 1500 words, many of them spoken by this servant. And yet, not one of those words is the servant’s own name. This admirably anonymity is reminiscent of William Carey, the father of modern missions, who labored long and hard to bring the gospel to India. But as he lay dying, his fellow missionary Alexander Duff came to his sideCarey whispered, “Mr. Duff! You have been speaking about Dr. Carey, Dr. Carey; when I am gone, say nothing about Dr. Carey. Speak about Dr. Carey’s Savior.”

Pastor, you cannot strive to make a name for yourself and for Jesus. You must choose. Will the aim of your ministry be to make yourself great or to make Christ great? “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31). The call to pastoral ministry is a call to boast in the wonders of the love of God, the radiance of his character, and the loveliness of Christ. It is to impress the people of God with the riches of your Master as you deck the church with God’s gold and silver: the word, prayer, and sacraments. Your heart’s desire must not be to woo the people of God to yourself, but unto Christ as this servant wooed Rebekah to Isaak.

Finally, this servant was a blessed servant. One evening weeks later, Isaac was out in the field when he looked up to see a camel train approaching. We can almost hear the swelling symphony, as Rebekah lifted her eyes to see him walking towards her across the sunset field. Then, my very favorite part: She asked the servant, “ ‘Who is that man, walking in the field to meet us?’ The servant said, ‘It is my master.’ So she took her veil and covered herself… Then Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her…” (Genesis 24:65-67).

If the motions of this story seem strangely familiar, it’s because they trace the lines of a divine romance. Pastor, you are the servant of God the Father. And he has sent you to find a bride for his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And there’s no one else like him. Like the beams of the sun, “He is the radiance of the glory of God” (Hebrews 1:3). Though perfect in power, he is perfect in gentleness, and will not break the bruised reed or quench the smoldering wick. A man of war whose ferocious protection of his bride is so complete, the gates of cannot harm his bride. He is so good and wise that he is working all things together for blessing of his bride. Though he owns the cattle on a thousand hills, all for the sake of his beloved he became poor so that, by his poverty, she might become rich. All for loves sake, he surrendered not only riches, his very own life and endured the hell of God’s wrath on the cross in payment for her sins for the joy set before him, the joy of obedience to his Father and the joy of endless bliss with his bride. When time shall end and mortal life shall cease, when the full number of the elect have been brought in and the bridal church has been glorified, the angels will look on as the Lord Jesus and his beloved, blood-bought, church walk hand in hand through the new heavens and new earth. And the angels will marvel, “And she became his, and he loved her.”

Pastor, in the sweet providence of God, ours is the inestimable privilege of playing a small part in the divine romance of redemption. What greater joy is ours, watching from the best seat in the house, Lord’s Day by Lords Day, as the bride of Christ gathers before the one her soul loves, to lavish him with praises and to bask in the fullness of his love? Such a privilege ought to make us ministers, the nameless servants of God, the humblest and happiest men alive.

“The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:29–30).

Jim McCarthy is the Senior Pastor of Trinity PCA in Statesboro, GA.