A church generally will follow the example of its pastor. Through their teaching, through their example, pastors play a huge role in setting the culture of the church. Whatever the pastor is passionate about, that will come through, and the congregation usually will follow. As a general rule, the pastor will generally be the most spiritually-minded person in the congregation, because they’re the ones giving themselves to studying and preaching God’s Word. Which means how we live really matters. We want pastors to be men of “eminent piety.”

For Spurgeon, the Pastors’ College, out of all the many institutions of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, was the one that was “dearest to his heart.” Every Friday afternoon, after a long week of study, one of the favorite times of the students was when Spurgeon would lecture on a variety of topics related to pastoral ministry. And out of the many topics that he preached on, the one that he emphasized the most was the importance of the pastor’s “eminent piety,” that is his character.
We live in a day when so many gifted pastors and church leaders with large public ministries go astray in their private lives, in their character. And as a result, all that public ministry comes crashing down. This was no different in the 19th century. Spurgeon understood this well and he placed “eminent piety” as his first qualification for his students who were aspiring to be teachers. All who find themselves in the position of being a teacher of God’s Word should follow Paul’s admonition to Timothy: “Pay close attention to your life and your teaching.” This is what Spurgeon called “the minister’s self-watch.”
But why does a pastor’s character matter?
We Are Our Own Tools
Spurgeon puts it this way:
We are, in a certain sense, our own tools, and therefore must keep ourselves in order. If I want to preach the gospel, I can only use my own voice; therefore I must train my vocal powers. I can only think with my own brains, and feel with my own heart, and therefore I must educate my intellectual and emotional faculties. I can only weep and agonize for souls in my own renewed nature, therefore must I watchfully maintain the tenderness which was in Christ Jesus. It will be in vain for me to stock my library, or organize societies, or project schemes, if I neglect the culture of myself; for books, and agencies, and systems, are only remotely the instruments of my holy calling; my own spirit, soul, and body, are my nearest machinery for sacred service; my spiritual faculties, and my inner life, are my battle ax and weapons of war.
When it comes to the ministry of the Word, we are the tool, the instrument for conveying the gospel. That’s not to say that we ourselves are the Good News. No, we are jars of clay, bearing the treasure of the gospel. But at the same time, it matters how we conduct our lives. I think of Paul’s words to Timothy
2Tim. 2:20       In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. 21 If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.
It is interesting to think about all the other things we think make for an effective minister: the latest laptop, a massive pastoral library, a powerful Bible study software tool, resources to help with sermon illustrations, on and on it goes. There is no shortage of pastoral tools and resources that Lifeway, Crossway, Logos, and everybody else wants to sell you. And in one sense, all those things are fine. But at the end of the day, as a minister of God’s Word, those things are not what carry the gospel. You are the vessel, the instrument of the gospel. As a pastor who owned thousands of books, Spurgeon reminds us that in the end, it’s character and life that matter.
Robert Murray M’Cheyne writing to a minister friend who had gone to study German theology put it like this,
I know you will apply hard to German, but do not forget the culture of the inner man — I mean of the heart.
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The seeker-driven church movement may have a formula for drawing a crowd but don’t for a second think it means they’re drawing people to Christ. Countless people are attracted to programs, entertainment, and even the casual nature of anything deemed “worship.”

I recently met a pastor in passing who offered me encouragement regarding our upcoming church plant. He pastors a massive church (several thousand) so he took the opportunity to overflow some of his wisdom in our direction.
After the brief conversation, I quickly realized that his methods weren’t exactly going to help me grow a church spiritually, but they would certainly help me launch a social club. Here are 4 of his heavy-hitting growth tactics:

Drop all churchy language. The Bible is old and dated. Try to use slang whenever you can.
Play golf with influencers more than you study. Preaching doesn’t matter, just use sermons from other preachers and focus on hanging out with people. Playing golf with influencers grows the church. Preaching isn’t that important.
Put sports on all the TVs around the church campus if you have one. Men will come to church and hang out for that.
Make children’s ministry a party. If the kids have fun everyone comes back.

In that list (which is not exaggerated), there are a few ideas that aren’t bad. Golf is a great chance to bond with brothers, we all want children to enjoy church, and some pastors would do well to explain things in simpler language. But, that’s not the driving motive behind advice like this. The goal of this advice is church growth. It’s pragmatism; the idea that if it works it must be good. Or in the church world: if it works it must be God. In this sphere of thinking the Bible is a footnote, Jesus is a good luck charm, and the church is a social gathering for suburb folks who dabble in soft moralism.
Is that what Jesus died for? Is that what discipleship is? Did He call His Church to turn on the playoffs to make His house more attractive?
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The Christian life has many ebbs and flows. Among the flowing, we find patterns of our own life and that of our brethren which are reflective of our Savior. We see patterns of grace, obedience, conquering, acquiring heaven, and perseverance. When the world, flesh, and devil tell the Christian that his life is a fake, that Christian may promptly respond, “It is not a fake—it remains a masterful work.” It is the work of Christ in us and to us, and for his glory. He is doing a masterful work.

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: Romans 8:3
Among the years of fruitfulness in the ministry of Thomas Manton, an unknown Dutch artist was completing a painting in 1650 that would be titled, “An elderly man with a gilt helmet.” That painting hung in Amsterdam until 1898, then purchased for a German collection in Berlin. For the whole of the nineteenth century and a good part of the twentieth, the painting was attributed to the Dutch master, Rembrandt van Rijn. An art expert recently discovered that the work was not Rembrandt’s, but by the hand of a skilled, yet unknown student of his.
As word of the “elderly man” spread, the news that the painting was a fake became well known. “It is not a fake…it remains a great masterful work,” responded Jan Kelch, the German art historian that discovered this truth. The student had reflected that which the teacher put forth—to the point where the world saw the pattern of the teacher, rather than the student.
Thomas Manton, looking at the life of Christ in the greatest chapter, saw “Jesus condemning sin in the flesh” as a means of giving the Christian a pattern to follow in the Christian life. The pattern would not be redemptive, of course, but one of godliness and encouragement in living out the Christian life. Manton said, “Christ, by taking our flesh is become a pattern to us of what shall be done both in us and by us (Works of Manton, 11.425).”
Manton put forth five ways that Christ, our master, was a pattern for us and in us, His students.
1. Pattern of Grace
The first of the patterns is that of grace. Manton said of Jesus, “His own holy nature is a pledge of the work of grace, and the sanctification of the Holy Spirit… (Ibid).” When the Christian looks to the life of Christ and sees the work of the Holy Spirit and the outpouring of grace upon his life, the Christian can be certain that God will provide grace and the work of the Holy Spirit to all who call on him by faith.
Grace is a gift of the Spirit, and that same Spirit working in us was first working in Christ. Manton makes that connection by saying, “For the same holy Spirit that could sanctify the substance that was taken from the virgin, so that that holy thing that was born of her might be called the Son of God, can also sanctify and cleanse our corrupt hearts (Ibid).”
The Apostle Paul said in I Corinthians 6:11, “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” The Spirit gives grace for sanctification, even over our “such were some of you” sins. Christ has promised grace and patterns grace as well.
2. Pattern of Obedience
Secondly, Christ’s life is a pattern of obedience for the Christian.
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