Yesterday I reflected a bit on some soul-searching wisdom from DA Carson. He said, “If I have learned anything in 35 or 40 years of teaching, it is that students don’t learn everything I teach them. What they learn is what I am excited about, the kinds of things I emphasize again and again and again and again. That had better be the gospel.”

One question that always pops into my mind when reading those words is, “What am I known for?” I, like every pastor, probably fit some bill as “that guy,” but what “guy” am I? What guy do I hope to be?

I remember reading an interview with Matt Chandler and he was asked, “To what level do you reveal to your people the suffering and hardship you deal with as a pastor? Is there a point you can exploit suffering?” The first part of his answer was challenging:

One of the things I wanted to be careful about with my ministry was becoming “the cancer guy.” I wanted to be the “gospel guy.”

That answer made me ask, for the first time, “What “guy” am I?

THE “2 TIMOTHY 2:24-25 GUY”

For better or worse, I think about that question a lot. If my wife or my church was asked to identify a few markers of my ministry I have a good hunch how they would answer. And if my hunches were in fact prophetic, I would be ok with the characterization.

But the more and more I preach, pray, and pastor the more I am hopeful that two verses in Scripture would become abundantly true in my ministry: 2 Timothy 2:24-25.

“And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.”

Exactly how these two verses could be codified into a “that guy” phrase, I don’t know. But I know this, I want to be that guy.