Discernment: Doctrine Matters

Albert Mohler blogs about The Shack by William P. Young (no relation to me as far as I’m aware). This novel is immensely popular. Mohler points out that it has become one of the best-selling paperbacks of all time. I know that much has been written about the book in the blogosphere and in print. While I have not read the book myself, I did appreciate Mohler’s post. He argues that the book is a sustained theological argument, even if it is fiction.

Given the central place accorded to theology in the book, any evaluation of it as a work of literature must consider the theology it presents. Mohler concludes: “The popularity of this book among evangelicals can only be explained by a lack of basic theological knowledge among us — a failure even to understand the Gospel of Christ.” That final statement particularly caught my attention; it seems to me that Mohler’s point is well taken. The widely accepted notion that there can be such a thing as an atheological Christian is incoherent. Such a notion is self-contradictory.

 

Christian Bloggers?

Carl Trueman  has written a piece here exploring how Christians are using blogs. Every Christian contemplating how he or she ought to participate in the blogosphere will find Trueman’s article thought provoking.

 

How We View Death

Carl Trueman, professor at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, has an interesting post about how we view death. He explores the loss of meaning reflected in the media’s use of language about death. Through that exploration he challenges us as Christians to think biblically about life and death. The article is fairly short, but well worth a read. Please check it out!

 

Foundations for Pastoral Ministry

Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Ministry

by Eugene H. Peterson

241 pages

William B. Eerdmans (1992, originally published 1980)

Since we live in a time of rapid change characterized by staggering leaps in knowledge and technology, there is a compelling assumption that what worked for pastors in an earlier age cannot work now. Pastors are thus urged to learn the latest from the behavioral sciences or the marketing masters. These are the experts from whom they can learn a thing or two. With their help the ministers might be able to accomplish something useful. Eugene Peterson advocates a monumental departure from this way of thinking. It is significant that he wrote this book in 1980. It seems to me he was ahead of his time; there is some hope that this book (along with the others he has written) has begun to have a positive effect.

Peterson recognizes that the approach to pastoring he advocates is unattractive. True pastoral work is, he says, specialization in the ordinary. Perhaps the best way to capture what this book is about is through an analogy that Peterson employs at the end of the book. He writes:

What strikes me so forcibly in that picture is that David was both modest enough and bold enough to reject the suggestion that he do his work inauthentically (by using Saul’s armor); and that he was both modest enough and bold enough to use only that which he had been trained to use in his years as a shepherd (his sling and some stones). And he killed  the giant….No one could have guessed that the man picking stones out of the brook was doing the most significant work of the day.

In this manner, Peterson writes this book to encourage pastors to lay aside the shiny armor handed to them by the behavioral sciences and marketing gurus. Instead they need to use the simple stones they will find in the word of God alone. He does not use the word “inauthentic” as we have recently become accustomed to it being used. For him inauthentic is not living in a manner that departs from what I really want to do deep down in my heart. Rather, inauthentic is what is false or an imitation. He wants pastors to be real pastors.

His “five smooth stones” are five pastoral practices drawn from the five books that make up the Megiloth; we know these books as Song of Songs, Ruth,Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther. Peterson relies significantly upon insights from form criticism to establish the pastoral usefulness of these books. I do not find this method helpful because I reject the so-called form critical insights from which he draws.

But that does not mean that I do not like this book. On the contrary it is sufficient for me that the one who inspired these five books is the Great Shepherd. He is the true Pastor to whom our pastoral work is increasingly to conform. Because He is the Pastor, we can learn from all the Scriptures how He pastors His people and how He calls His under-shepherds to carry out their work. These five books, then, do contain very helpful lessons for pastors.

Furthermore, I have no doubt that the pastoral work that Peterson highlights does represent the true work of pastors. In the Song of Songs he finds the pastoral work of “prayer-directing.” He rightly sees Song of Songs not merely as a sexual handbook for the people of God (though he affirms that it upholds to goodness of the married sexual relationship), but as a treatise upon the love between Christ and His bride, the church. The pastor is called to direct people in prayer. Prayer is a vital means God has provided for his people to cultivate and realize the intimacy that belongs to the covenant relationship into which they have been brought.

When pastors begin grasp the great love with which God loves His people, their approach to their work will change. Peterson explains:

With the help of the vocabulary learned in the Song we see God’s people (and ourselves) not through the dirty lens of our own muddled feelings, and not through the smudgy window of another’s carping criticism, but in terms of God’s word. We never know how good we can look, how delightful we can feel, or how strong we can be until we hear ourselves addressed in love by God or by the one who represents God’s love to us.

It is the work of the pastor to attend to God’s love for His people in order that He might also be used by God to proclaim to them the great love with which they are loved in Christ. One of the most important things a pastor can do for his people is to be grateful to God, and to give thanks for them (like Paul).

The pastoral work found in the book of Ruth is “story-making.” Ruth is probably the last person anyone would have predicted as being significant in the history of redemption. She was a Moabitess and of seemingly little account in Israel. She becomes the mother of the Messiah. The pastor must realize that every person of God has an unfolding story that fits into the larger story of God’s redemptive work. The pastor’s work in story-making is to help every child of God to recognize that he or she has a vitally important story, and that it fits into the larger story of redemption.

Pursuing the ministry of story-making saves the pastor from two egregious pastoral errors: condescension and moralism. Pastoral moralism fixes on what is wrong. By so fixating on the trouble he alienates the person even further. Pastoral condescension sets in when pastors get bored, frustrated, or irritated with people. Peterson goes on to explain that cultivating this ministry of story-making requires a certain degree of leisure and privacy. Pastors need to make the necessary arrangements to insure that times of counseling and visitation can fill this need for leisure and privacy.

As far as I am concerned Peterson’s most valuable contribution in this book comes in his chapter exploring the pastoral work of pain-sharing from the book 0f Lamentations. Pastoral work engages suffering. Peterson explains, “The biblical revelation neither explains nor eliminates suffering. It shows, rather, God entering into the life of suffering humanity, accepting and sharing the suffering.” Further, he wisely observes that pastors are called to develop a detailed sympathy for those who are suffering, and at the same time insist on a termination. Sorrow and suffering are important in the life of faith; but they are not infinite.

Peterson also insists that biblical suffering requires that feelings are firmly attached to facts. Suffering is never to be allowed to be mere feeling; anguish must not have an independent existence. He clarifies:

When a pastor asks, ‘What happened?’ (after having asked, ‘How do you feel?’) it is not in order to minimize suffering, or to ‘put it into perspective.’ It is, rather, to pin it to the actual and so make it accessible to the grace that operates, as we know from biblical accounts, in the historical.

Not only is suffering historical from a biblical perspective, but it is also deeply personal. Since God is the person ruling over all creation, suffering is never random. It always has to do with God. With this in mind, Peterson says, “Prayer is suffering’s best result.” Pastoral ministry brings a different message concerning suffering. It insists, “Take it personally.” The modern humanist traditions consider suffering a deficiency; it must be eliminated. The pastor understands that to treat suffering as a problem is to demean the person. Pastors are therefore called uphold the dignity of suffering.

From the book of Ecclesiastes Peterson observes the pastoral work of “nay-saying.” His job in this regard is essentially to strip God’s people of the false expectations they have developed concerning God. He explains the difficulty of this work:

Pastors are in the awkward position of refusing to give what a great many people assume it is our assigned job to give. We are in the embarrassing position of disappointing people in what they think they have a perfect right to get from us. We are asked to pray for an appropriate miracle; we are called upon to declare an authoritative answer. But our calling equips us for neither. In fact, it forbids us to engage in either the miracle business or the answer business.

In this chapter Peterson reminds us that pastors are not cheerleaders. We have little to learn and much to fear from the public relations industry. Not everything done or said in the name of the Lord is either right nor good. And everything that happens to believers does not simply turn out well if we put a happy face on it. Pastors must speak the truth in love.

The book of Esther speaks to the pastoral work of “community-building.” All pastoral work, says Peterson, takes place in the context of the church, the community of faith. His calling also enlists him to help build that same community. The pastor does not create the community; but he is called to build the community that God has created. Crucial to this work is that the pastor see himself as a servant of the people of God. He is not to engage in self-assertion or ego-fulfillment. He is to be a man of God serving the church as he has been called to do that biblically.

 

Preacher and Pastor

The Christian Ministry

by Charles Bridges

390 pages

Banner of Truth (2006, first published 1830)

This book is a must-read for ministers. While Bridges was an Anglican minister, Reformed pastors will find the theological perspective he displays in this work amiable. In Reformed circles Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor is widely considered a definitive work on Pastoral Theology. While I do not  begrudge the well-deserved reputation it receives (indeed Bridges quotes Baxter liberally in this book), in my opinion Charles’ Bridges fine work, The Christian Ministry exceeds Baxter’s classic.

For one thing, Bridges’ adopts an endearingly humble, sympathetic tone in his writing. He cultivates within the reader a congenial desire to learn from him. He manages to uphold the high calling of the minister with all its sobering responsibilities without leaving the reader to conclude that none but the Lord Himself ought to ever undertake it. Further, Bridges sets forth a magnificently biblical conception of the minister’s work. He sees the work of the minister as consisting of two distinct but related avenues of service: preaching and pastoring. If the minister neglects either, he neglects his calling. Preaching and pastoring wonderfully combine to form the completeness of the sacred office.

In addition, Bridges skillfully grounds the work of the minister in the fertile soil of the good news of Jesus Christ. He constantly reminds the pastor that his motivation must be drawn from the grace found in Jesus Christ. His fruitfulness depends relatively little upon his innate skill, no matter how great his native talents. Rather it grows especially out of the promises of God and powerful ministration of the Holy Spirit. Since the minister’s task is spiritual, it requires the working of the Holy Spirit to be effective.

I could cite numerous other attractive features of this work. Bridges has a beautifully Trinitarian understanding of ministry. For example he directs the minister’s work to all three persons of the Godhead, writing, “The three adorable persons are severally and distinctly glorified. The ministry has an equal concern and dependence upon each, and owes equal honour and service to each.” Similarly, he offers a number of practically helpful suggestions for pastoral study and sermon preparation that remain relevant after 180 years.

A final reason I believe this work exceeds even Baxter’s is that he conceives of the Christian life in thoroughly biblical terms. The minister is called to serve in such a way as to help the people of God arrive at maturity. Bridges has a lucid understanding of what constitutes Christian maturity biblically. On the one hand he refuses to allow any place for the sort of moralistic self-righteous religion that is so easily mistaken for biblical maturity. But on the other hand, he leaves no place for the passive pseudo-Christianity in which adherents are in no way conformed to the image of Christ.

I found a great deal of personally helpful advice in this volume. Bridges reminds me of the biblical confidence of the work of ministry. It rests not upon any efforts of human wisdom or persuasion, but upon the “word forever settled in heaven.” At the same time the visible indication of success is various. He reminds, “Apparent must not be the measure of the real result.” Likewise I was convicted by his insistence that while various objects of study are valuable, the minister must make Scripture the chief object.

I also found instructive his discussion of the proper place for law and gospel in the ministry. He reminds the reader that these two are not opposed to one another in Christ. They work together. Indeed Christ fulfills the law as a covenant for us, and in doing so he brings us under its rule. He wins for us the ability to exercise that love which is the fulfillment of the law. As to the proper treatment of law and gospel by the minister, he writes:

We must therefore maintain the spiritual inefficacy of mere lectures on morality, irrespective of the Gospel. If they convert the brute into the man, they will never accomplish that higher and indispensable change, of converting the man into the saint.

To limit the gospel merely to justification and forgiveness of sins is to offer the part for the whole. But at the same time he does not fall into advocating a gospel bereft of justification and forgiveness in Christ:

We are not to commence with the outskirts of the Gospel, and so reason on step by step till we come to Christ–thus keeping the sinner waiting in the dark. He wants to see the king. There needs no long ceremonial approach from a distance. Let the great object be placed in immediate view….Let Christ be the diamond to shine in the bosom of all your sermons.

Indeed, much enrichment is offered as concerns preaching. And preachers need to carefully digest what Bridges has to say. Perhaps his most salient point is that biblical preachers should not aim for any person’s admiration, whether his congregants or other ministers. Rather the most effective preaching is that which the hearers have neither stopped to criticize nor to admire because, “…Each carried away the arrow fastened in his heart, considering himself to be the person addressed, and having neither time, thought, nor inclination to apply it to others.”

I was further struck by Bridges understanding of the place of what he calls pastoral ministry (which he distinguishes from preaching). He observes:

A pulpit Ministration may command attention and respect; but except the preacher convert himself into a Pastor, descending from the pulpit into the cottage, and in Christian simplicity ‘becoming all things to all men;’ there will be nothing that fastens on the affections–no ‘bands of love.’ The people cannot love and unknown and untried friend, and confidence without love is an anomaly.

Speaking from personal experience as well as observation, there is great temptation for ministers to pursue due diligence in preaching, and be satisfied with that. But Bridges insists that even the minister’s work as a preacher cannot be truly effective unless he also pursues with equal diligence his pastoral duties. My experience seems to confirm that he is exactly correct in this regard.

 

Feed the Sheep

The Work of the Pastor

by William Still

152 pages

Christian Focus (2001, first published 1984)

For William Still the essence of pastoral ministry is to feed the sheep. This is the bulk of his work with the residue of remaining labor flowing from it. The Work of the Pastor compiles five addresses originally given at two different InterVarsity Theological Students’ conferences in 1964 and 1965. If the length of his pastoral tenure says anything, Still probably knew a thing or two about pastoral ministry. He was pastor of Gilcomston South Church, Aberdeen, from 1945 to 1997. Sinclair Ferguson has been quoted as saying that no single person had a greater spiritual impact on him than Still.

The five addresses compose the five chapters of the book. “Feed My Sheep” establishes preaching and teaching the word of God as the main work of the pastor. “The Pastor Outside the Pulpit” explores the comparatively little work that remains in addition to preaching and teaching. “Complete and Contemporary” commends the word of God as eternal, living and active. In this manner it is ever-contemporary. The pastor must be disciplined to look no further than the word of God to minister in a manner relevant to the contemporary needs of the people of God.

In “Commissioned by God” Still pleads with hopeful ministers to be convinced of their calling before entering into the ministry. Apart from that bedrock conviction, he says, the pastor will be swept away by the myriad difficulties that accompany the calling. Finally, in “Walking the Tightrope” he presents the work of ministry as a work in the Holy Spirit that defies the laws of nature. That people become saints of God at all is a truly supernatural work.

As far as Still is concerned, a minister is a pastor if he feeds the sheep. Many other seemingly good work will vie for his primary attention. But all other work will prove worthless apart from the ministry of the word. He writes:

To put it otherwise and more simply: a shepherd is no mere warder-off of wild beasts. To save the sheep from wild beasts and all other dangers is not to feed them; and if they are not fed, what matters whether they are safe or not? What is the good of being saved to starve? We must be saved in health and strength, unto maturity and power to reign with Christ in His kingdom. And for that we must be fed.

This is probably the chief contribution of Still’s book. He sounds a crystal-clear call to pastors and to the church in general to view pastoral work as foremost a ministry of feeding the sheep from the word of God.

Still affirms that pastors must be evangelists. They must set forth Christ. But he jealousy guards the pulpit from a reductionist definition of the gospel. He has no use for pastors who would limit their preaching to a few elementary propositions about justification. He commends the whole counsel of God. He argues that the people of God need more than milk. They need the meat that is to be found in all of Scripture. The pastor must give them what they need, and he must do so even if they think it is not what they want.

In addition, Still does identify and provide counsel concerning a number of difficult pastoral quandaries. He identifies the person who becomes attached not to the word, but to the personality of the preacher. Such a person is difficult to discern because he or she may appear to be fruitful due to being within the proximity of the Word’s ministry. For such a person the ministry of the word remains external and never becomes internal.  In the end, says Still, they do not want the Word Himself.

Still also discusses how pastors ought to deal with seemingly chronic difficulties. He has much to say here that undoubtedly is worth considering. For example he writes, “Jesus allowed people, when he had challenged them, to choose their level. That is why He let the rich young ruler go.” Similarly:

…There are those who must not be allowed to devour your time and energy because their problems are beyond you. It is not that they are beyond God. Rather, there are limits to your ability and calling, and, this being a world not only of sin but of the fruits of sin, it is constantly strewn with the wrecks of God’s judgements; that’s what ruined lives are.

I am not sure that every broken person can simply be cast into the category of “wrecks of God’s judgements.” However, I also tend to think that Still has a valid point. There is such a thing as living under God’s judgement. Whether in the end one agrees completely with his advice, the wise pastor will certainly profit considerably from wrestling with his advice.

Indeed, the book contains a number of pastoral gems. Regarding the pastor’s work, Still advises, “But, remember, the pastor is not a spiritual doctor. The tension in his work is between the ministry of the Word and the guiding of the soul. The Holy Spirit is the Doctor.” Quite right. Likewise he warns pastors they must not think that the church will be smothered by facing trials. Rather she is much more likely to be smothered by wealth, ease, and complacency. Further, the pastor will find that his love for people is most sure and fruitful when his love for God burns more brightly than his love for man. More in the same vein are to be found in the pages of this little book.

Still argues in this work for something that sounds a great deal like a two kingdom view. He argues that ministers must remain laser-focused upon the task that is before them. They must not think that their work is to wield political power, or to transform cultural institutions. Their task is to evangelize the lost and edify the church. They have no business seeking to Christianize the state. He does not begrudge Christians taking up vocational calling in government. But he sees that as the work of individual Christians, and not the work of the local church per se.

My one quibble with Still is that he does not even mention the sacraments as being part of the work of the pastor. Now I must admit that I do not know why he omits mention of them. There may be any number of reasons, and I will not venture to speculate. I do not know Still’s views regarding the place of the sacraments (although he was a Presbyterian minister). Perhaps the ommission was primarily a function of his purpose or the audience he addressed.

However, he is treating the subject of the pastor’s work. Indeed, given the fact that he heavily emphasizes both word and prayer, I found the lack of any mention of the ministry of sacraments to be glaring and unfortunate. I fear that Still is emblematic of an unfortunate trend of his time. In an effort to maintain the primacy of the ministry of the word, it will not due to jettison the importance of the sacraments. Notwithstanding this ommission, there is much good to be gleaned from these pages. Anyone desiring to better understand the work of the pastor will benefit from reading this work by Still.

 

Pastoring and Poetry

The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction

by Eugene Peterson

171 pages

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (1989)

More than twenty years of pastoring left Eugene Peterson with the sense that the word “pastor” was deathly diseased and in need of resuscitation. In his introduction he writes:

The culture treats me so amiably! It encourages me to maintain my orthodox creed; it commends me for my evangelical practice; it praises me for my singular devotion. All it asks is that I accept its definition of my work as an encourager of the culture’s good will, as the priest who will sprinkle holy water on the culture’s good intentions.

And therein lies problem. In the first section of his book, Peterson offers three adjectives to help breath new life into the word “pastor” more in keeping with the actual biblical calling. In his next section, he explores the work of pastors between Sundays. In the final section, he commends words as a key tool for pastoral work, and offers some of his own poetry to demonstrate the reverent use of words.

In the first section, Peterson explores the work of pastoring through the adjectives: unbusy, subversive, and apocalyptic. He begins by observing that pastors generally become busy for two reasons: because they are vain or because they are lazy. In their vanity they crowd their schedules with things that will make them appear important. In their laziness they fail to properly plan their own agenda and thus allow other people to plan it for them.

Pastors must instead learn to organize their schedules around three biblical priorities of their calling: prayer, preaching and listening to God’s people. I find this counsel helpful. I am one of those pastors who is very tempted to be sidetracked by activities that I enter into in order to appear important. Peterson helpfully reminds me of the true priorities of my calling. He advocates actually scheduling these priorities into one’s calendar so that they do not become crowded out. That is advice I hope to put into practice.

Pastors must also understand they are subversive. The methods that have made America strong are: economic, military, technological, and informational. These are not the methods of the kingdom. Pastors must learn kingdom methods: truth-telling, loving, prayer and parable. Learning to rely on these methods is not easy. They have the appearance of weakness and ineffectiveness. Likewise they are employed against stubborn human nature. Human nature dictates that the goals I have for myself must also be the goals that God has for me. We imagine God to be “a vague extrapolation of our own desires” and then we hire a priest to manage the affairs between ourselves and the extrapolation.

The pastor’s calling is to refuse to have anything to do with managing affairs between the self and the extrapolation. Peterson explains, “The kingdom of self is heavily defended territory. Post-Eden Adams and Eves are willing to pay their respects to God, but they don’t want him invading their turf.” To pursue his calling faithfully, the pastor must understand that the status quo is wrong and that it must be overthrown if the world is going to be livable. He must be subversive, and prayer and parable are the weapons of this gorilla warfare.

The model for the apocalyptic pastor is the apostle John. The defining posture of the apocalyptic pastor is prayer. Peterson insightfully nails down the temptation that entices me away from prayer:

And so pastors, instead of practicing prayer, which brings people into the presence of God, enter into the practice of messiah: we will do the work of God for God, fix people up, tell them what to do, conspire in finding the shortcuts by which the long journey to the Cross can be bypassed since we all have such crowded schedules right now. People love us when we do this. It is flattering to be put in the place of God.

This temptation to substitute the work of God for the work of man in ministry is an important thread running throughout the book. We want change to happen more quickly than it often does in the kingdom of God; we foolishly take matters into our own hands in order to try to make things happen according to our timetable. A crucial aspect of the pastoral calling is learning to wait patiently upon God in our own lives and the lives of others. When we are taken up with prayer, we have begun to learn the lesson of patiently waiting upon God.

Peterson is convinced that pastors must recover the forgotten art of curing souls. He clearly articulates what he sees as the work of pastoring between Sundays when he writes:

Until about a century ago, what pastors did between Sundays was a piece with what they did on Sundays. The context changed: instead of an assembled congregation, the pastor was with one other person or with small gatherings of persons or alone in study and prayer. The manner changed: instead of proclamation, there was conversation. But the work was the same: discovering the meaning of Scripture, developing a life of prayer, guiding growth into maturity.

That, in nutshell, is the art of curing souls. The pastor is not a spiritual guru who provides magical formulas that properly employed will yield the life of our dreams. Nor is he the man who will build the organization with his tremendous charisma and leadership skill. Neither is he a therapist who doles out comfort and techniques for self-improvement; nor an ear-tickling motivational speaker who is guaranteed to gather a big crowd. He is simply a minister of word, sacrament and prayer from Sunday through Saturday. He must believe that his only usefulness in the kingdom is thus employed.

As the pastor does his work, he must use language for something more than information and motivation. To be sure, these will find their place in his communication. But pastors must understand that their primary task is to cultivate the language of intimacy and relationship in themselves and the people of God. What Peterson means is best illustrated through what he says about prayer: “It is not language about God or faith; it is not language in the service of God and the faith; it is language to and with God in faith.” I wholeheartedly agree with him in this regard, but it is helpful to be reminded. The Triune God is the goal of our salvation and not the means to something else.

This book is overflowing with other useful insights regarding the proper practice of pastoral ministry. Pastors must be convinced of the biblical fact of sin. Otherwise their ministry will go badly wrong. But they must equally believe that God in his grace initiates his people into a participatory life of faith. “We learn to live with praying-willing involvement in an action that we did not originate. We become subjects in an action in which we are personally involved.” God and grace are all-important. But we are not merely passive spectators as His people. God’s grace fully activates us into a life of faith in this present world.

Perhaps the best way for me to commend this book is to close with a final quotation. I think it summarizes well the overall thrust of the book.

Two facts: the general environment of wreckage provides daily and powerful stimuli to make us want to repair and fix what is wrong; the secular mindset, in which God/kingdom/gospel are not counted as primary, living realities, is constantly seeping into our imaginations. The combination–ruined world, secular mind–makes for a steady, unrelenting pressure to readjust our conviction of what pastoral work is. We’re tempted to respond to the appalling conditions around us in terms that make sense to those who are appalled.

But instead we must lash ourselves to the mast of our biblical calling: the ministry of word, sacrament and prayer.

 

Agrarian Pastoral Theology

What Are People For?: Essays by Wendell Berry

by Wendell Berry

210 pages

North Point Press (1990)

In this Mars Hill Audio conversation Eugene Peterson directs people to read Wendell Berry for pastoral theology (I think he calls it “spiritual theology”). Peterson says all you need to do is substitute “parish” wherever Berry uses the word “farm” and you will have good, solid pastoral theology. I decided to take Peterson’s advice and see what I could learn about pastoring from Berry.

What Are People For? is a collection of Berry’s essays and poems. The collection begins with a couple of Berry’s poems, proceeds to a section of essays reflecting on authors and their literary work, and ends with several essays concerning ecology, anthropology, economics and technology. It would not be fair to simply conflate his work with pastoral theology. He has other purposes in mind as he writes, purposes which are very much worthy of attention in their own right.

In this collection he seeks to call people to be attentive to our own nature. He further asks us to consider that the economic goals that drive most Americans fail miserably to achieve truly beneficial ends. The consequences of this failure are many. We undermine family, community, and thereby even individual happiness. In the process we have separated ourselves from creation; we have become disconnected from the land. Consequently we are not caring well for the creation in which we live. We are not being faithful stewards. Since my concern in this review lies elsewhere, I will commend the book to those of you who are interested in entering further into Berry’s specific arguments.

Even though Berry does not write pastoral theology per se, I definitely can see why Peterson commends him in this regard. Several themes emerge in his agrarianism that have rich application in the realm of pastoral ministry. Many of these same themes are evident in Peterson’s own writing. To begin with, Berry is a writer and as such he is deeply concerned with the best use of words. He holds words in high esteem, and he understands the importance of structure for literary beauty. His concern for good writing is evident, and undoubtedly part of the reason Peterson commends him for pastoral theology. Words are primary tools for good pastoral work, and much can be learned from Berry in using them well.

Next, Berry models methodologically how a proper understanding of anthropology (who we are as human beings) must precede the goals we pursue. The importance of understanding biblically who we are as people is every bit as important when it comes to pastoral ministry as it is when it comes to economics. The goals that I have for myself, for my family, and for church members will take shape from my understanding of who we are as people. Good pastors are people who care well for souls. But to care well for souls they must have a proper understanding of the nature of those souls. Such understanding will enable the pastor to guide people upon the proper path. But it will also protect him against disappointment, disillusionment, and frustration.

The importance of place is another prominent theme in this collection. For whatever reason, Americans (including American Christians) have by-in-large forgotten the importance of place. For Berry, real action–and thus true character–implies place and community (surely both are Christian concerns). He writes:

There can be disembodied thought, but not disembodied action. Action–embodied thought–requires local and communal reference. To act, in short, is to live. Living is a ‘total act. Thinking is a partial act.’ And one does not live alone. Living is a communal act, whether or not communality is acknowledged.

Berry helpfully reminds us that place and community are not two separate things. They go together in their particularity. Christians need more than “a community.” They need a particular community of which they are part for better or for worse. In this sense one community is not as good as another. For Berry community is not an amorphous utopia. Rather, as he says, it is: “…common experience and common effort on a common ground to which one willingly belongs.” As pastors we need to learn to better attend to this importance of place in our own lives, and also to guide Christ’s people in attending more faithfully to it.

A final theme from which pastor can benefit is the importance of affection, or what Berry prefers to call “pleasure.” Berry argues that when it comes to something like ecology, bumper stickers and political lobbying will never get the job done. Rather, he says, true ecology requires pleasure. The people who really care for the land will be people who take pleasure in the land. In short, true ecology will be pursued by people who have a particular love for it.

It should go without saying that the same is all the more true for the work of shepherding. True shepherding requires a pleasure in the people, an affection for them. Good pastoral work can only take place if the shepherd loves the sheep. The hired hand will not really shepherd the sheep. As long as nothing threatens the sheep, what he does may look like shepherding. However, when the threat comes, affection for the sheep is what leads the shepherd to lay down his life for them. As I reflect on the importance of affection, I am reminded that it is something for which I must beg the Chief Shepherd. The people of God ought to also pray regularly for their pastors that God would give them true affection for the sheep.

 

Reformation Pastoral Theology

Concerning the True Care of Souls

by Martin Bucer

218 pages

Banner of Truth (2009)

Martin Bucer was the de facto leader of the Protestant Reformation in the city of Strasbourg from 1523 to 1548. When John Calvin was kicked out of Geneva in 1538, he found respite in Strasbourg. Bucer had significant influence in shaping Calvin’s understanding of the church and its ministry. The form Calvin’s ministry would take when he returned to Geneva was markedly indebted to Bucer.

Bucer wrote Concerning the True Care of Souls in 1538. He wanted to impart to the people of God a thorough understanding of the nature of the church of Christ, what rule and order it must have, and the responsibilities of true ministers in the church. From the outset of this book, he insists on the central importance of the church in Christian nurture. While the Reformers sought to disentangle the church from the abuses of the Roman Catholic hierarchy of the time, they did not throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater.

Bucer’s understanding of the central importance of the church is instructive for us as American Christians living in the 21st century. He teaches that the church is not merely an ancillary good to be taken or left according the personal preferences of individual Christians. Bucer is quite clear that the church is necessary for the Christian life:

From this we must go on to learn how harmful and pernicious those people are who teach that the church is of no importance, a merely outward activity which does not contribute in any particular way to our salvation, and without which it is quite possible to become a Christian and receive God’s gifts.

Bucer is acutely aware of the dangers of mere outward participation in the church. He strongly warns against it himself, and expects true believers to demonstrate a congruence between outward participation in the church and inward conviction and zeal. Nevertheless he refuses to allow the potential of abuse in regard to the ministry of the church to nullify its proper use.

In Bucer’s estimation the church is much more than a social institution in which to enjoy relationships with other believers. Referring to several texts such as John 20:21-23, Matthew 10:20, 1 Corinthians 4:1, 2 Corinthians 3:2-6, and 1 Thessalonians 2:13, he argues against the assertion that the church is superfluous. He writes:

This is why all pious Christians should use the texts we have set out to guard themselves against the wholly pernicious error which despises the church’s ministry of word and sacrament as a superficial and unnecessary thing, and would have everything given and received from Christ in heaven without using the means which the Lord himself desires to employ.

Bucer inveighs against precisely the view that many American Christians (perhaps most?) hold in our time  concerning the church. It is easy to view the church’s ministry as superficial and unnecessary. It appears all the more so today when we can hear our favorite preacher with a turn of the radio dial, or a click of the mouse. Bucer would undoubtedly be in favor of believers listening to good preaching in this manner. But he would also warn that it is no replacement for participating the ministry of word and sacrament in the local church.

Once Bucer is satisfied that he has adequately set forth the importance of the church and the work of its ministers, he outlines of the role of civil authorities in maintaining Christian discipline. Modern readers will find this treatment strange and for the most part inapplicable. While not completely irrelevant, historical circumstances with regard to civil government have changed substantially from his time to our own.

However, Bucer mainly focuses his efforts upon explaining the responsibilities of pastoral ministry in the church. His exploration of specific pastoral duties is another needful corrective for us. Whereas it is easy to underestimate the importance of the church, it is equally easy to confuse what constitutes the proper ministry of the church.  Bucer draws our attention to the biblical responsibilities of pastors. They are not called to be political activists or culture-transformers. They are carers-of-souls.

The pastor’s ministry is carried out publicly through preaching the word of God, administering the sacraments, and attending to discipline. But it is also carried out privately through ministering the word individually and house to house. Bucer presents a helpful taxonomy of what he calls, “the five main tasks required in the pastoral office and true care of souls.” This taxonomy provides a basis for deliberate ministry to people with various needs in the community and the congregation.

The tasks Bucer identifies for pastoral care are: first, to lead to Christ and his communion those who are as yet estranged from him; second, to restore those who have once been brought to Christ, but have been drawn away by the flesh or false teaching; third, to assist in true reformation those who have remained in the church, but who have grievously fallen and sinned; fourth, to re-establish in true Christian strength those who have become somewhat feeble or sick in their Christian life (though not due to sin); fifth, to protect and encourage in all good things those who stay with the flock.

Each task is identified with distinctive conditions of the sheep. Each type of sheep has certain needs and the ministry must be carried out in a manner suited to the needs. I will not take space here to rehearse each category of sheep, and the treatment each requires. Some readers will probably have quibbles with the categories identified by Bucer. Others will have quibbles with the treatments he prescribes.

Regardless of any quibbles, however, shepherds will find much help in Bucer’s work. It is certainly helpful to note the kinds of sheep identified in Scripture, and think through how best to treat them based on their particular needs. An awareness of different groups within the church that require different kinds of care highlights pathways for shepherding ministry. These pathways cry out for deliberate shepherding. Such a deliberate undertaking of shepherding is needful because we shepherds can easily fall into an essentially reactive approach to our ministry. On the whole, I would recommend this book as a helpful resource for anyone who is interested in better understanding the church and the work of the sheperding in it.

 

The Gospel Ministry by Thomas Foxcroft

Thomas Foxcroft preached this sermon at his own ordination. It is remarkable that someone who was just embarking upon his pastoral ministry could already have such breadth and depth of insight into his calling. According to the preface, his intent in preaching this sermon was not so much to instruct the congregation, but to impress upon himself the duties of his calling. If this book is any reflection upon his subsequent ministry, he must have been a highly commendable pastor.

Foxcroft was pastor of First Congregational Church in Boston from 1717 until his death in 1769. His Calvinist and puritan sensibilities (in the best sense) are evident throughout this work. Though penned  nearly 60 years before the United States would become an independent nation, his treatment of the pastoral ministry remains poignantly relevant given its grounding in the Biblical text. Ministers who undertake to strengthen their own understanding of the gospel ministry through this little book will find ample reward for their study.

Though this book is relatively brief (87 pages), Foxcroft provides a comprehensive overview of the minister’s calling. He begins with the minister as preacher, proceeds to the relationship of the minister to his flock, and continues with a discussion of the manner in which the minister should discharge his calling. He ends the body of his sermon with a discussion of the source of strength for the work of ministry. Before leaving his subject, he provides a very brief exhortation for how congregations should treat their pastors.

Given contemporary conceptions of pastoral ministry, it is noteworthy that Foxcroft begins his treatise with the minister as preacher. How many “successful” pastors of our own time would give preaching such a prominent place? It is also noteworthy that he did not consider preaching anymore popular during his own time than it is considered in ours. He writes, “However ignoble, trivial, and minute the work may appear to some, however contemptible this foolishness of preaching may be, yet the great doctor of the Gentiles, a star of the first magnitude, the very chief of the apostles…did not think that he was stooping when he gave himself to the ministry of the Word.”

Reading Foxcraft dispels the prevalent notion that preaching was done in the past because it was popular or readily received by listeners. It was as contemptibly foolish during his day as it is during ours. Therefore, we should resist the temptation to discard preaching in the hope of finding something that will be more palatable and thus more effective. Now, as then, the preaching of the word requires the work of the Holy Spirit for its effectiveness. We should undertake the ministry of preaching not because we expect it to be readily received, but because we expect the Holy Spirit to make God’s word effectual according to His promise.

What should the minister preach? Foxcroft says that Christ is the grand subject, “…which minister of the gospel should mainly insist upon in their preaching.” He goes on to say, “He must be the substance and bottom of every sermon. ” While it may surprise us that he sees no shortage of people who would preach anything but Christ, it should not. Apparently the ministers of his day were as tempted as we are to find a more relevant subject for their sermons than Christ. Acutely aware of this temptation he commends Christ as the main subject and object of preaching. Nothing less than the bread of life will satisfy the hunger of God’s people. Ministers should offer only the best for the nourishment of the children of the King.

While preaching is a great and noble duty of the pastoral ministry, it is not the only one. Pastors must counsel, correct, comfort and care for the people of God, always through and with the word of God. They must be fishers of men as well. Foxcroft spends less time outlining the specific duties of a pastor than he does exploring the manner in which they should be undertaken. Ministers must discharge all of their duties with a thorough and intimate knowledge of those to whom they are called to minister. In all of these duties they must be wise and prudent. He goes on to provide particulars in which ministerial wisdom must be evident.

This treatment of ministerial wisdom is a particularly helpful section of the book as far as I am concerned. Foxcroft says several things that are grounded in the Scriptures which we might be given to easily dismiss. For example, he robustly emphasizes the duty of pastors to order their private conduct in a manner that will add authority to their public ministry. He says, “The want of this unhinges the door and opens the gate to floods of contempt; it unpins the whole frame of their ministry, makes the very pillars shake and totter, puts the foundations out of course, and threatens all with shipwreck and dissolution.”

I suspect that most of us are painfully aware of public and not so public examples of the truth of that statement. It is just possible that I am too quick to remind myself that, “pastors are sinners too.” In doing so I may too easily relieve myself of the sober responsibility to flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace (2 Timothy 2:22). Foxcraft commends pastors to diligently seek the grace of God in sanctification, and to quickly repent from their sins. Surely, this is an exhortation that I need to hear as a pastor.

Any temptation to dismiss Foxcroft as outdated and insufficient to the challenges of pastoral ministry in the 21st century should be adamantly resisted. Actually the very fact that he writes in a period historically removed from our time makes him all the more worthwhile to read. But he is vitally relevant in particular because he is thoroughly biblical in his treatment of his subject. I would heartily commend The Gospel Ministry as a challenging, biblical, and enrichening treatment of the ministerial calling.