The Curious Art of the Qualified Endorsement
There exists in Christian circles a peculiar form of communication that has become so commonplace it barely registers as remarkable. A pastor or teacher recommends a book, a sermon, or a Bible Teacher, genuinely good work, but cannot resist appending a disclaimer that transforms the recommendation into something altogether different from what it appears to be. “I recommend this book,” the recommendation begins, “but I must point out that I disagree with him on…” The sentence trails toward its real purpose, which has little to do with the book and everything to do with the one making the recommendation.
What, precisely, is being accomplished in that moment?
The surface answer seems innocent enough: We are simply protecting our people from error. We are applying discernment. We are maintaining doctrinal purity. These are defensible purposes, or so it would seem. Yet something rather different, something more revealing, lurks beneath the surface of such careful qualifications. The disclaimer, however well-intentioned, broadcasts a claim that deserves examination. It announces, in effect: “I possess the apparatus by which this man’s teaching must be judged. I am the standard. Measure what he says against my assessment, my doctrinal precision, my spiritual understanding.”
This is the grand irony that Christians have largely failed to observe about themselves.
The Paradox of the Lesser Brother
Consider the logical structure of the qualified recommendation. A pastor directs his congregation toward a preacher or author, someone whose work he genuinely judges to be valuable. Yet in the same breath, he introduces a caveat that subtly repositions himself above that resource. He becomes not only a fellow traveler in truth but a filter through which all truth must pass. He is the arbiter, the official standard, the one whose judgment supersedes even the written or spoken word of the man he is recommending.
One might fairly ask: If this man is so sound that he is worth your people’s time, why could they not simply read or listen to him and weigh his words against scripture themselves? If they are capable of recognizing your errors, which surely they must be, to benefit from your ministry, why not grant them the same capacity to evaluate others?
The qualification itself suggests an answer that the recommender has not fully acknowledged. It suggests that the people in question cannot be trusted to think independently. They require the recommender’s constant mediation. They must be told not only what to hear but also how to hear it, which parts to accept and which to reject, where the safe boundaries lie. The qualification transforms the people from readers and hearers into simple consumers of a pre-digested product shaped by the recommender’s own prejudices and limitations.
Here is the deepest irony: The pastor who recommends a brother with a disclaimer reveals that he does not actually trust his own recommendation. If the work is truly valuable, it stands. If it is flawed, those flaws belong to the work itself, not to the recommender’s carefully calibrated assessment of them. By inserting himself as intermediary, he accomplishes something unintended but unmistakable: He diminishes both the man he is recommending and the capability of those he is recommending him to.
The Temptation of Elevation
Let us be candid about the psychological and spiritual reality at work here. Human nature gravitates toward elevation. We wish to be recognized as discerning. We desire to be seen as the ones who know better, who see farther, who possess a standard that exceeds what others possess. When a pastor recommends a book but disagrees with portions of it, he positions himself as superior to the book’s author. He is, in that moment, claiming a vantage point of truth that the author has not reached. He is, whether consciously or not, presenting himself as more faithful, more balanced, more sound.
The scripture speaks directly to this impulse. Titus 1:7-8 sets forth the character required of those who shepherd God’s people: “For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate.” Note that peculiar phrase, “a lover of good men.” Not only a defender of truth, though that is implied. But a lover of those who are good. This suggests a fundamental orientation that differs markedly from the stance of the self-appointed arbiter.
A lover of good men celebrates goodness wherever it appears. He does not diminish it by surrounding it with caveats about his own superior understanding. He recognizes that truth is not his private possession. He understands, with genuine humility, that God may speak through voices whose other convictions he does not share, through vessels that he might have formed differently had the task been his to do.
The verse continues: “Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.” Here is the mandate, to hold fast and to teach. But notice what precedes it: the character requirement of not being selfwilled. The one who holds the faithful word must not do so from a posture of personal elevation or as proof of his own superiority. He must hold it because it is faithful, not because holding it makes him important.
The Corrosive Effect of Self-Appointment
When a minister positions himself as the official arbiter of truth, the one who must qualify every recommendation, who cannot allow his people to encounter goodness without his mediating stamp of approval, something slowly corrodes within the community. People begin to understand that they cannot trust their own judgment. They become dependent not on scripture itself but on the pastor’s interpretation of scripture, not on genuine discernment but on permission. They lose the capacity to think, which is a far more serious loss than losing access to any particular book or sermon.
Moreover, such a stance unwittingly teaches a dangerous lesson about how one should approach any authority figure. If the pastor teaches his people to view all outside voices through his filter, to accept nothing without his qualification, he has taught them to approach his own words with the same apparatus. The sheep learn from their shepherd not only what to think but how to think, and if thinking means “requiring the arbiter’s stamp of approval,” the result is a community of spiritual dependents rather than a community of mature believers capable of testing all things and holding fast that which is good.
There is an unspoken arrogance in this arrangement, even when it is motivated by genuine pastoral concern. The arrogance consists in the assumption that one man’s judgment is sufficient to mediate between his flock and all the resources God has provided for their growth. It consists in the belief that God has not already equipped His people with the Holy Spirit, with the scriptures, with the capacity to discern truth from error. The qualified recommendation, intended as protection, becomes instead a statement of profound distrust, both in God’s provision and in the spiritual capacity of the people being served.
The Better Path
There is a richer, more generous, and ultimately more faithful way to engage with the good work of others. It begins with genuine recognition of one’s own limitations. No pastor, no matter how faithful, sees all truth. No teacher, however sound his doctrine, has grasped every facet of scripture’s multifaceted wisdom. To acknowledge this is not weakness but wisdom. It is the recognition that we “know in part, and we prophesy in part,” and that our seeing is like looking through a glass, darkly.
From this recognition flows a different kind of recommendation. It is one that says, quite simply: “This man or this book contains truth. Take it and test it against scripture. Where you find agreement with God’s word, receive it with gratitude. Where you discern error, reject it. I trust you to do this because I trust the Holy Spirit who dwells in you.” Such a recommendation elevates the people being addressed. It treats them as thinking beings capable of discernment. It honors the work being recommended by permitting it to stand on its own merit.
This is not naïveté or a failure of pastoral responsibility. Rather, it is the application of a principle set forth in Proverbs: “That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.” The shepherd’s task is to point the way, to encourage walking in good paths. But the walking itself must be done by each individual believer. No mediator can do it for them. No qualifier can protect them into righteousness.
The pastor who truly loves his people will not appoint himself their arbiter of all truth. Instead, he will do something far more humble and far more powerful. He will point them toward the scriptures. He will introduce them to the good work of others without feeling compelled to diminish those others to maintain his own sense of authority. He will trust that the Holy Spirit is quite capable of guiding individual believers into all truth, and that no man’s disclaimer can improve upon that guidance.
The Invitation to Humility
The irony cuts deepest when we reflect on what the self-appointed arbiter has actually done. He set out to protect his people from error. In doing so, he has placed himself above error, or attempted to, which is precisely where pride most loves to hide. He has claimed a vantage point of truth that belongs only to Christ. He has forgotten, perhaps, that even the most faithful Pastor is himself a learner, still growing, still discovering, still being shaped by God’s Spirit.
There is an invitation here, not a condemnation. The invitation is to step down from the arbiter’s throne, a throne that was never meant to be occupied by mortal man. It is an invitation to the far greater joy of being a fellow traveler with one’s people, a companion in the discovery of truth, a pointer toward resources rather than a filter of them.
When we stop needing to qualify every recommendation, when we can genuinely celebrate the goodness and truth in the work of others without needing to remind people that we have seen farther or understood better, something beautiful happens. We become transparent. We become vehicles for truth rather than obstacles to it. We become, in the truest sense, servants of the servants of God.
The passage in Titus speaks of a bishop who is a “lover of good men.” This phrase contains a whole theology of Christian relationship. It assumes that goodness exists in others, that it is worthy of love rather than suspicion, that it can be recognized and celebrated without threatening one’s own standing or authority. It suggests a security in one’s own calling that does not require the constant reinforcement that comes from positioning oneself above others.
A Closing Word
Let the churches hear this gently but plainly: Ministers, pastors, teachers, recommend with courage. Point your people toward the good work of others without feeling compelled to diminish it with your qualifications. Trust that God is not dependent on your mediation to protect His people. Trust that the Holy Spirit indwelling each believer is a more effective arbiter than any man could ever be.
And let the people hear this as well: You need not wait for permission to learn. You need not accept as truth only what has been filtered through someone else’s prejudices, however well-intentioned. Test all things. Read widely. Listen carefully. Compare all that you hear against the scripture itself. The greatest gift a shepherd can give his flock is not his constant mediation but his willingness to let them stand on their own before God.
In this way, we move from a Christianity of dependence to a Christianity of maturity. We move from a system where one man appoints himself arbiter to a system where each believer, guided by scripture and the Holy Spirit, becomes his own faithful discerner of truth. We trade the false security of the arbiter’s pronouncements for the genuine security of standing directly before God’s word.
This is the path of humility. This is the path of genuine shepherd-care. And paradoxically, it is the path that does more to preserve truth and protect from error than all the careful disclaimers in Christendom.
Pastor Thomas Irvin
George County Baptist Church
Lucedale, Mississippi
