James - Be Mature - Interview with Warren Wiersbe

Arnie Cole: Warren, I've heard so much about you, and one of the things you've been known for is being a pastor's pastor. Another thing you've been known for is as a broadcaster and as a world-famous author. Which of these experiences have you enjoyed the most, or do they all complement one another?

Warren Wiersbe: I think that complementing one another is the answer to that question because I began as a pastor. I think I was only twenty years old when I started pastoring, and you learn so much from people—working with people, praying with people, weeping with people—you learn so much. And then when I got into broadcasting, it was just ministering to people that you couldn't see. And yet people are people, and we're all more or less alike. And so broadcasting helped to sharpen things up. I taught homiletics at Trinity University up in the greater Chicago area, and I used to tell my students, "I wish every one of you could be on the radio for one year to learn one thing: say it right the first time." And I found that broadcasting sharpened up my preaching. And of course, the writing, they came to me, I didn't go to them. And God has been so good. The "Be" books alone, I think over five or six million are out there now. So God's been good. I don't deserve it.

Arnie Cole: What have you been busy with since you were last at Back to the Bible?

Warren Wiersbe: Well, we were in conference ministry quite a bit, and that was a joy. We've been in pastors' conferences, I've preached in many churches, but about six years ago, four doctors ganged up on me. And they said, "You're no longer in the air, and you're no longer on the highway. Stay home." So for the last six or seven years, Betty and I have been home. I've enjoyed it. Our family comes to us, and we don't have to go to them. And good friends here in Lincoln have been so wonderful to us. And so what I've been doing is writing primarily. I enjoy writing, I learn from it myself, and if I'm not writing, my wife will find something for me to do, and I would much rather do the writing.

Arnie Cole: Have you written any books or studies lately?

Warren Wiersbe: Yes, I'm always writing. My primary publisher is Baker Books. And sometimes they say, "How about a book on this?" or sometimes I say, "Well, what do you think of this idea?" It's like a family situation. Yes, I've done a lot of writing—at least, sometimes three books a year have come out. That doesn't make me a great writer, it just means I've got more time than other people. I enjoy writing because these books are going to be speaking long after I'm gone.

Arnie Cole: What put you on the path to writing the famous "Be" books?

Warren Wiersbe: That's an interesting story. I was in Youth for Christ for four years at the level of the leaders; we were in the Wheaton office. I edited the magazine and put out the books that they wanted, and so forth. Then we went down to Covington, Kentucky, and I became pastor of Calvary Baptist Church there for ten years. My predecessor, Dr. D.B. Eastep, had set up his own Sunday School curriculum from the junior high level on up. Well, when I joined the staff, Dr. Eastep was still alive; he said, "You're going to write this material from now on." I said, "Fine." So the "Be" books are actually an expansion and a deepening of the material I wrote for the Sunday School in the second church I pastored. Now, we moved to Moody Church, and I had a phone call—it was 1971—had a phone call from the Scripture Press people. And they said, "We're inaugurating a whole new series of books to be called Victor Books, after Victor Cory, who with his wife founded Scripture Press." And they said, "Write us a book for laypeople and young people." Now there's a challenge right there. So I did 1 John. Well, the committee met to discuss titles. My title was "On Being a Real Christian." Well, there was another book out with almost that title, and somebody on the committee, who should be blessed—I don't know who it was—said, "Let's just call it Be Real." And so out of the mouth of babes came this marvelous suggestion. So the next one I did was Ephesians, Be Rich. And then Galatians, Be Free. And we finished the New Testament, and they said, "Well, let's go in the Old Testament."

Arnie Cole: What about the Bible? You did a commentary on the entire Bible, didn't you, Warren?

Warren Wiersbe: Well, we covered the entire Bible in the "Be" series, and that's out in two big volumes. But there is a Bible, it's called the Transformation Study Bible. The purpose of the Bible is to transform us from being what we were to what God wants us to be—to be more like Jesus. And it was a challenge to go through all fifty of the "Be" books and pull out the "guts" of it, if I can use that term, the heart of it, and get it into the footnotes so that when they read that verse, they can read the footnote and say, "Oh, now I understand." But it isn't just explanation; it's motivation. Too many study Bibles are just full of facts. And I didn't want that. And I said, "We have to motivate the people."

Arnie Cole: Oh, it's excellent. I thought it must have taken a long time to put that together.

Warren Wiersbe: Well, I had the assistance of a very intelligent and godly man up in Wheaton, Illinois. And his gift is to take big slices of Scripture and put them into chewable forms. And he's the one who divided things up for me. But I just simply—we just simply had to take the "Be" books and try to get the wealth out of it on the page.

Arnie Cole: What new things are you experiencing and learning from the Lord these days?

Warren Wiersbe: Well, the first lesson is how to grow old and stay young. I'm eighty-five, and little by little, as all of us know, we change. We even change our attitudes. And the thing I'm trying to do, with the Lord's help—and He is helping me—is to have new experiences, learn new things from the Word of God, but still stay young in my mind and my heart. Now, one way I do that is by hobnobbing with the young preachers. Several years ago, I used to meet with a dozen or so young men in the church I was attending and just prepare them for ministry. Ship them off to Moody Bible Institute or someplace, and now they are starting churches in various places. It's a great feeling. I was in the hospital a year or so ago, and I opened my eyes one day and here were three of those fellows sitting there waiting for me to wake up. And they've been a great blessing to me. You know, the Bible tells us, Paul admonishes us, to pass the word along to others so they can teach others also. That is 2 Timothy 2:2. That is not a suggestion. But how many churches do you know that do that?

Arnie Cole: Right. Well, I've heard that about you, that you mentor young people even today. Is that true?

Warren Wiersbe: I say to these young men, "How's the preaching going?" "Well..." and then we get to talking about that. And I have learned so much from others. And I'm trying to stay young while getting old. I have my physical problems, but I think the one word needed today in the ministry is encouragement. Every year, thousands of pastors resign. Every year, churches close up. People need encouragement. Somebody asked me one day, "What is your definition of preaching?" and I said, "Preaching is loving God's people through the Word." That's what it is.

Arnie Cole: Warren, can you tell us a little bit about the background of James? Like who was James, what was James writing to, and why did he even write this letter?

Warren Wiersbe: Well, James was one of the family of Mary and Joseph. The family names are listed in Scripture. He was a—I'd say a half-brother to Jesus. And I've often thought, how did his brothers respond to Him? Was there envy? Was there jealousy? During His earthly ministry, our Lord did not see them saved. But apparently, the resurrection made the difference because Jesus appeared to some of those, and James was saved. He became the leader of the Jerusalem church. And he had a great concern for the Jewish people. So here is James—he's now a Christian, he's leading the Jerusalem church—but there had been a movement of God's people. They were dispersed like seeds. The Lord didn't want them to stay in Jerusalem. He said, "Get out there, plant the seed, witness for Me, tell them about Jesus." And they were going through some troubles. So James had a pastor's heart. He knew just what to write, and he wrote this marvelous book. The major theme of James is simply: grow up. Grow up. Be patient. Children who haven't grown up, children are impatient. You know, "Are we there yet?" "No." You've been through that, I've been through that. Then he says, "Look, practice what you've learned. Don't just study it and argue about it, practice it." And he said, "Please, control your tongue." One of the marks of maturity is a controlled tongue. If you've ever been to some board meetings, you know something about that. Then he said, "Look, be a peacemaker. Don't be a troublemaker." And then he said, "Finally, you want to change things? Pray." So those five marks of a mature Christian are the theme, the development of the theme, there in the book of James.

Arnie Cole: Warren, James talks about the sin of partiality. Do you see that as a problem in our churches in North America today?

Warren Wiersbe: I think we have seen improvement here. Mr. Graham began with integrated rallies. Some of the saints didn't like it; today it's a normal thing. I think that in another area, our Christian women have been seen not as second-class saints. I used to tell my students at seminary that if you want to discuss a subject, get the men together. If you want to get something done, get the women together. And I've seen that over and over again. I think there is a lot less of this, but in some churches, it's still there. I used to get to the church—three churches I pastored—I used to get there very early, greet the people as they came. I'd walk around the congregation, meet the visitors, shake hands, you know. They weren't used to that. "Who is this guy?" And I found out that everybody is wearing a sign around his neck that says: "Make me feel important." And there's nothing wrong with that because they are important. They're God's people, or they're sinners who need to be saved. And so I would just make friends that way, especially with the children. Children love that. So it's important for us to treat each other like Christians and like human beings made in the image of God. You see, I need to love you and you need to love me. Well, how can we accomplish that? The Holy Spirit's down inside. You see, I can love you because Jesus died for you. And if you're not a Christian, I should love you because you need to be a Christian. I think one of the professors down at Dallas Seminary used to say that love is the circulatory system of the church. That covers everything. We don't have to be critical of each other, you know. "Your hair is too long." I don't have to worry about that, I don't have any hair at all. But "Your hair is too long," or "You like music I don't like." Come on now. Let's just love each other, be thankful for each other, and grow together.

Arnie Cole: So why is it so important for Christ-followers to put their faith into action?

Warren Wiersbe: Because that's the only faith we really have. I have a great deal stored up in my head, so do you. I thank God for my professors who were so knowledgeable. But if we don't practice it, what good is it? The Bible was written that we might become bibles ourselves. We get the Word of God in our hearts. I remember Cedric Sears—I don't know if you knew him or not—he was in Youth for Christ. He was called "The Walking Bible." Name a topic, he'll quote you ten verses. He's in heaven now, I'm sure he's enjoying it. But if we don't practice the Bible, it gets into our heads but not into our hearts. Obedience is what puts the Word of God in your heart. And the Bible doesn't say "Your word have I memorized in my head," no, no, it says "Your word I have hidden in my heart," Psalm 119:11. So the only Bible I really possess, no matter how much I know, is that which I practice. And that's convicting. It is, it certainly is. Have you ever prepared a sermon you couldn't preach? I remember, I was preparing a message—in fact, it was in James—the Lord said to me, "You can't preach this. Remember this?" Uh-oh, I remembered. I made a long-distance phone call, made an apology, came back, finished the sermon. It's pretty powerful.

Arnie Cole: Warren, in your book Be Mature, you say that the secret to a happy life is to delight in duty. What do you mean by that?

Warren Wiersbe: Well, I'll just tell you another story. They discovered some years ago that I was diabetic. Not radically so, but just enough I better be careful. So the doctor is telling me about testing your blood and all this sort of thing. And he said, "And by the way, learn to like the things you should eat and to hate the things you shouldn't eat." Now, I'm Swedish in background. The Swedes love sweets. My mother baked all kinds of wonderful sweets. We always had candy in our home. And he says to me, "No more." So I had to learn to hate things that were bad and like things that were good. And you know what? It worked. If we look at obedience to the Lord as a burden, the Christian life is not going to be the Christian life. No. My Bible says that His commandments are not grievous. They're not a burden; they're a blessing. The purpose of life is not to enjoy what I enjoy, but to enjoy what God enjoys. And what a difference it makes. What a difference it makes. So when I say that, I'm saying simply obedience is the key to blessing. Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work." Most people don't think that the commandments of God are nourishment. It's punishment. "Oh, God may send me to Lower Slobovia." Ridiculous. One day when I was discouraged—you ever have those days? One day when I was discouraged, I opened my New Testament and I have the Psalms in the back of it, and I was reading Psalm 33:11. Now you've had this experience: you hit a verse and you say, "How long has that been there?" And the verse was Psalm 33:11: "The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations." And I said to myself, "What am I griping about? God's will comes from God's heart." Doesn't come from a computer. God's will comes from God's heart. He has willed this because He loves you. Oh, what a difference that makes.

Arnie Cole: One more question. There's this legend that goes around about you. I heard you came to know the Lord in a Billy Graham Youth for Christ rally and that you were the only one saved at that—and Billy was actually discouraged because only one person came forward. Is there any truth to that?

Warren Wiersbe: It's a legend. Yeah, Billy asked me the same question. I was down at The Cove teaching and he said, "Now you sit here and tell me what really happened." Number one, I was a counterfeit all during my early teen years. I was confirmed in the church, passed all the tests, learned all the verses, but I was a counterfeit. And I went to this Youth for Christ rally and Billy Graham was preaching, and they asked me to be one of the ushers because I was a Christian, you see. And I'm standing in the back and Billy's preaching, and the longer he preached the more convicted I got. And there were others saved at that rally. There were a number that went forward. I didn't go forward. I didn't raise my hand, I didn't sign a card, I just gave my heart to Jesus. And I thank God for it. Now, after the rally, a group of pastors of a certain denomination jumped Billy. And scolded him for not preaching baptism. That's where he was discouraged. That they didn't come to pray for souls to be saved, they came to argue theology. But I was saved that night. And the people who organized the rally set up follow-up. So we went to—every Thursday evening for weeks, I went to a home where this man taught us the Bible. Do you know what he was teaching us? The book of Hebrews. We didn't have follow-up material in those days. My follow-up was the book of Hebrews. And I thank God for it. He gave me an appetite for the Word of God.

Arnie Cole: And were you a speaker for Youth for Christ?

Warren Wiersbe: Oh yeah, I used to speak on weekends at rallies and then I'd go to churches. And here's the interesting thing: there were three of us on the international staff who could be called Bible teachers. And it was a desperate need. We had hundreds and hundreds of people were getting saved and we needed Bible teaching. And I was one of them. I'm basically a Bible teacher. So Ted would get phone calls from the Bible conferences—Maranatha and Winona and so forth—and he'd say, "We want somebody from Youth for Christ to come and teach. We don't want an evangelist, though, we've got those." So they'd send me. And here I am, a kid. I was just a kid. And I'm hobnobbing with Vance Havner and you name them. And what friendships we made. That was such a—such a wealthy experience from the Lord. And those people built into my life.