{"id":20009,"date":"2024-08-30T07:38:16","date_gmt":"2024-08-30T07:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/?p=20009"},"modified":"2024-08-31T12:05:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-31T12:05:52","slug":"when-love-takes-precedence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/when-love-takes-precedence\/","title":{"rendered":"When Love Takes Precedence"},"content":{"rendered":"

29 August 2024 | Belgrade, Serbia [James Shepley with tedNEWS<\/em>]<\/p>\n

At the end of the second day of the European Pastors Council (EPC), dedicated to the theme of \u2018extending love\u2019, more than 1,200 delegates gathered for vibrant worship in the vast assembly hall at the refurbished Sava Centre in Belgrade, Serbia. In a hard-hitting and provocative message entitled, \u2018What is the Policy?\u2019, Pastor Jonathan Holder, serving at the North of England Conference, appealed for the Seventh-day Adventist Church to never allow knowledge to take precedence over love.<\/p>\n

Introducing the evening session, Karen Holford, Family Ministries Director at the Trans-European Division (TED), paid a moving personal tribute to the life and work of Marica Mirilov, who died in July. Jo\u00e3o Martins, ADRA Europe Director, then took the opportunity to thank church members for their selfless support in responding to the massive influx of refugees from Ukraine. Leading hundreds of delegates in inspiring worship songs, K\u00e4rt Lazi\u0107 recalled how God\u2019s lavish love continues to exceed all expectations.<\/p>\n

\"European<\/a>
Karen Holford, Family Life director giving a personal tribute to the life and work of Marica Mirilov.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In introducing the speaker, Pastor Patrick Herbert set the bar high. He recalled the first time he heard Jonathan Holder, then a 16-year-old youth, preach at his church in Nottingham. \u201cHe preached with utter conviction and a preacher\u2019s rhythmic cadence, leaving all his hearers challenged.\u201d Now, Holder is a visiting lecturer in Homiletics at Newbold College of Higher Education (NCHE), a pastor of three churches in the North of England, and is pursuing a PhD in preaching at Baylor University in the United States.<\/p>\n

With the title \u2018What\u2019s the Policy?\u2019, Holder used 1 Corinthians 8 as his text. He transported the audience back to first-century Corinth when the church was deeply split on the issue of whether or not to eat food sacrificed to idols. One group argued that this was wrong as a pagan practice. The other group argued that since idols were nothing, it couldn\u2019t possibly matter to eat food sacrificed to them. The issue was sufficiently controversial for them to write to Paul for guidance. \u201cWhat\u2019s the policy, Paul? To eat or not to eat?\u201d<\/p>\n

In his response to 1 Corinthians 8, Paul recognised that idols were nothing. Knowledge. But he also stated that \u201cif what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again.\u201d Love. Paul prioritised love over knowledge.<\/p>\n

Echoing a theme already introduced in the morning, Holder reflected on how pastors are doing in this regard. He highlighted Ellen White\u2019s response to a theological dispute among church leaders, which aired publicly in the Adventist Review. \u201cI am pained beyond measure when I see how little love is cherished and manifested among brethren\u2026. Shall we not closely examine our own souls, and see whether we are in the possession of the love of God?\u201d<\/p>\n

Moving to the present day, Holder lamented that too many colleagues had left the ministry because of sickness, burnout, and stress, but nobody had said anything publicly. \u201cHow willing are we to sacrifice for them?\u201d he asked. In particular, he highlighted the issue of the treatment of women pastors. \u201cI think the most egregious way that we have prioritised knowledge over love has to be the treatment of our sisters in ministry,\u201d he stated. \u201cWe need to say, \u2018I don\u2019t care what your theology is, there is a level of respect that is needed. Respect this call and support those who God has called too.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jonathan<\/a>
‘Love over knowledge’ was at the core of Holder’s message to TED pastors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cImagine what it would take for the Seventh-day Adventist Church to appear in the Top 100 Sunday Times list of best employers,\u201d Pastor Holder challenged the audience. \u201cIt would take love to be prioritised over knowledge. That is the only reason we are here at all. God knew He would be rejected, but He still chose to go through with the plan of redemption.\u201d Holder concluded his message with an altar call for those who wished to commit to prioritising love over knowledge in their ministry.<\/p>\n

\n

[Photos: \u00a0Tor Tjeransen and James Botha, \u00a0Adventist Media Exchange CC BY 4.0].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Call to Prioritise Compassion Over Knowledge at EPC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":20012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1592,7,1577],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bosnia-herzegovina-montenegro-north-macedonia-serbia","category-news","category-organisational-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20009"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20048,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20009\/revisions\/20048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}