Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Lutheranism has much to offer the church catholic at this moment in time. Like all confessional Christianity, it is anchored in realities that transcend the political particularities of our day; and it also reminds us of the church’s true task and realistic expectations in a time such as this.

This week I had the privilege of speaking at a seminar for the Collegium Fellows of Doxology, a group of Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod pastors committed to spiritual care and counsel. There are serious theological differences between the Lutheran tradition and my own Reformed tradition, most obviously in the area of the Lord’s Supper. But there is an ethos that binds confessional Protestants together in a world where Catholics are in frequent turmoil over the actions of the present pope and where evangelicals are tearing themselves apart over attitudes to the current political malaise that has enveloped American public life.
Toward the end of the seminar, one pastor asked what I thought confessional Lutheranism could offer to the church catholic at this moment in time. My answer was threefold.
First, confessional Protestantism in general, when faithful to its defining documents, focuses the minds of believers upon the great truths of the Christian faith that take no account of the vicissitudes of the age. God, Trinity, Fall, Incarnation, redemption, and grace: These are truths that feed the mind and the soul, regardless of which side wins and which side loses elections. And they are the central concerns of the great confessional documents of Protestantism. Whether the Book of Concord for Lutherans; the Westminster Standards for Presbyterians; the Three Forms of Unity for the Reformed; or the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Homilies for Anglicans—all speak of the eternal weight of glory that is to come and thereby relativize the slings and arrows of this world as so many light, momentary afflictions. The implications of this are liturgical: The church goes about its ordinary work of proclaiming Christ in Word and Sacrament even as earthly regimes come and go. Thus it was in the time of Nero. So it is today.
I went on to say that confessional Lutheranism, more specifically, has two particularly important contributions for the church catholic today. First, the Lutheran distinction (echoing Augustine), between the heavenly kingdom and the earthly kingdom. This distinction is vital, especially in a time of deep political division and seductive political temptation. Much has been made of Christian nationalism as an “existential threat” to the nation and to democracy. Setting aside the rather fluid definitions of Christian nationalism, even in its most extreme form it is unlikely to pose a significant threat to society at large. But it may well prove to be a threat in the much smaller world of our congregations and denominations, where a confusion between church and world and between the power of the Word and the power of the sword would devastate the gospel.
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Calvin is a resource to struggling ministers: he offers them a path forward, not out of their sufferings, but through them with patience. Present evangelical leadership culture tends to assume that unpopular and opposed leaders are either doing something wrong or need to go look for a better position; Calvin assumes they are doing something right and that they need to stay. He is that rare voice that commends patiently staying the faithful, difficult and unpopular course in ministry. Additionally, Calvin commends a much-needed balance between personal tenderness and convictional courage in the way pastors remain faithful. If heeded, Calvin’s admonition to exercise courage but to also be tender with and willing to suffer for one’s people would cure a thousand ministry leadership ills. With the present challenges and looming future evangelical leaders face, Calvin’s balanced counsel to courageously and tenderly stay the suffering course could not come at a better time.

This article examines John Calvin’s theology of pastoral suffering, an overlooked but relevant aspect of his theology for pastors struggling with the trials and difficulties of ministry. Calvin pictured the pastor as the chief agent of edification for God’s people, and therefore, the primary target for the assaults of Satan. Pastors will therefore suffer in the ways that all believers suffer but also suffer peculiarly as pastors–especially from opposition in their churches, criticism, slander, and possibly martyrdom. Calvin encouraged pastors to prepare themselves for sufferings, to set their eyes on Christ, and to patiently and gently deal with those causing their sufferings.

While many pastors might turn to John Calvin for faithful exposition and solid reformed theology, he may be the last resource they consider when the elders are about to vote for their termination or when the all-caps email comes hours after Sunday’s sermon. Even to Calvin’s theological friends and fans, he is often merely a great theologian–most of us do not see him as a resource for the struggles and sufferings of ministry. My purpose in this article is to offer Calvin as a profound resource to those suffering both the mundane and more intense trials of pastoral ministry.
Recent scholarship has retrieved Calvin as a more beleaguered and suffering pastor than the typical portrayals of him as the victorious reformer of Geneva. Elsie McKee has attempted to “reintroduce” pastor John Calvin as “a religious exile whose wife and infant child die prematurely, while he himself suffered increasingly ill health, in a lifelong ministry to other religious refugees, the resident alien-pastor to a people of a beleaguered city-state, precariously situated between large, hungry neighbors.”1 McKee argues that even the most unsympathetic reading of the biographical details of Calvin’s life demonstrates that he was far from a privileged religious dictator and much more than a systematizing theologian who believed in double-predestination and participated in Michael Servetus’ trial. When we consider that Calvin’s ministry was opposed for most of his time in Geneva and that he was not even made a citizen of Geneva until five years before his death, we see that in addition to being a great theologian, Calvin was an opposed pastor who suffered much at the hands of his own people and spent the lion’s share of his ministry not getting his way.
With that in mind, it should be no surprise that Calvin wrote a great deal about the peculiar sufferings that attend pastoral ministry. For Calvin, the pastor was edifier-in-chief—the key agent in God’s work of building up the church. But as edifier-in-chief, the pastor was also sufferer-in-chief because he bore the brunt of Satan’s opposition to the church’s spiritual well-being. What follows is Calvin’s general sketch of the pastor, with a focus on edification as the essential pastoral task. Coupled with this picture is Calvin’s articulation of pastoral ministry as spiritual warfare against Satan, who assaults ministers above and beyond the way he attacks all believers. Finally, I will show the peculiar sufferings Calvin said pastors would bear—opposition from their own people, slander and its resulting public disgrace, and potentially even martyrdom—and the counsel he gave pastors on how to bear these things well. We will see Calvin as a profound resource both for the work of modern pastoral ministry and for various trials that attend ministry.
1. Calvin’s Picture of the Pastor
Calvin described the pastor as the most important officer of the church, a gifted and called man whose Word-centered ministry built up the church. For Calvin, the pastorate was essential for the spiritual health of the church and focused on what he called edification—the spiritual growth and well-being of God’s people.
1.1. Pastors Are Gifted and Called to Edify
With Ephesians 4:1–16 as his key text, Calvin placed the office of pastor within an order of offices with which God gifts the church for its spiritual maturity and growth. There were four post-apostolic offices according to Calvin: doctor, elder, deacon, and pastor.2 Doctors were the teachers of the church who taught the Scriptures and trained other ministers to do so. Elders oversaw the moral and spiritual discipline of the congregation, while deacons cared for the poor. Pastors were charged with preaching the gospel, administering the sacraments, and overseeing the spiritual care of a particular congregation.3 These four offices formed the “quadriform ministry, providing a symphony for unity of the church.”4 Important for understanding his view of pastoral suffering is how Calvin focused on the gifts given to pastors for the church’s health. Though the other offices were important, it was the pastor who chiefly pursued and (under God’s blessing) produced the edification of the church.5 Calvin did not ignore the role and gifts of other believers, but he emphasized above all else that it was pastors who built up the church.6
Calvin emphasized that it was God himself who ordained and empowered pastors to build up the church. Commenting on 1 Corinthians 3:1, Calvin said, “‘What else,’ says he, ‘are all ministers appointed for, but to bring you to faith through means of their preaching?’”7 Ministers are sovereignly appointed by God for the faith of God’s people. For Calvin, faith was at the center of Christian experience.8 This faith came by hearing the gospel preached, and since pastors were those chiefly charged with preaching, they were God’s gift to the church—their preaching was the primary means of the church’s good.9 Calvin found this choice of God to use humans in his work to be an occasion for joy and wonder, writing, “Here we have an admirable commendation of the ministry—that while God could accomplish the work entirely himself, he calls us, puny mortals, to be as it were his coadjutors, and makes use of us as instruments.”10 The primary wonder was that God would stoop so low as to use men as his means for building the church. Another wonder from this truth that God works through the preaching and labor of pastors was that he is glorified regardless of the results of a pastor’s preaching. God is honored and pleased by faithful pastoral ministry whether he chooses to save individuals through it or not.11
Calvin regularly articulated the weight of the pastoral calling and argued that men who would take on such a weighty office must be called by God and have this call demonstrated through outward evidence of giftedness for the work. Calvin understood there to be two callings on a pastor’s life: the internal calling and the external calling. In the internal call, a man was conscious before God that he was called by him to preach the gospel; the distinctive feature of the internal call was that it was not and could not be tested by the church.12 On the other hand, the external call could and must be tested by the church in four categories: the giftedness of the candidate, the possession of sound doctrine, a holy life, and necessary ministry skills.13 This conception of the external call demonstrates that Calvin thought it necessary for prospective pastors to be shown able to edify the church in order to be called to edify the church. Regarding ordination, Calvin said, “We must always take care that [prospective pastors] are not unfit for or unequal to the burden imposed upon them; in other words, that they are provided with the means which will be necessary to fulfill their office.”14 The burden of a pastor is to edify God’s church; therefore, prospective pastors must demonstrate the skills necessary for this work before taking it up.
1.2. Edification as Pastoral Motivation
Pastors must not only be skilled to edify the church; they must also be motivated solely by this goal. Pastoral motivation was a consistent theme in Calvin’s comments on pastoral ministry; the number of passages in which he speaks of it is remarkable.15 A particularly revealing example is Calvin’s commentary on 1 Corinthians 4:2, which according to Calvin mitigated against any ministers who “have any other object in view than the glory of Christ and the edification of the church.”16 True ministers exclusively desire “from the heart” to serve Christ and advance the kingdom. Otherwise, they are what Augustine called “hirelings,” those teachers that serve a middle place between true shepherds and wicked false teachers.17 Edification to the glory of God is a pastor’s role in the church; it must also be his sole motivation.
1.3. Pastors Edify through Preaching
Pastors edify their people through faithful and wise preaching. For Calvin, “The basic and fundamental character of the pastoral ministry is the proclamation of the gospel, both publicly and privately. In so doing the pastor is exercising the cure of souls.”18 The public preaching of a pastor ought to be faithful to the whole counsel of God, understandable to hearers, and directed at application—in other words, his preaching must be suited for edification. Calvin emphasized wisdom in directing one’s preaching to the most important and useful doctrines, encouraging pastors to focus their preaching on the doctrines and truths that are “chiefly necessary” for their people’s benefit and to “dwell” on these doctrines regularly.19 The manner, content, and frequency of preaching must be aimed at the spiritual benefit of the hearers. Calvin had harsh words for those that would bring irrelevant speculations into the pulpit: “God does not wish to indulge our curiosity, but to instruct us in a useful manner. Away with all speculations, therefore, which produce no edifications!”20 (Today we might hear Calvin say, “Away with your 7-minute sermon illustrations that produce no edifications!”) A pastor must discipline and focus his preaching for the spiritual maturity of his people.
A pastor preaches both publicly and privately. Calvin admonished pastors to not merely engage in edifying public preaching but to also imitate the apostolic model of going “house to house” (Acts 20:20), giving private instruction and admonition to his people.21 Calvin remarked that
Christ hath not appointed pastors upon this condition, that they may only teach the Church in general in the open pulpit; but that they may take charge of every particular sheep, that they may bring back to the sheepfold those which wander and go astray, that they may strengthen those which are discouraged and weak, that they may cure the sick…. Wherefore the negligence of those men is inexcusable, who, having made one sermon, as if they had done their task, live all the rest of their time idly.22
According to Calvin, Scripture’s use of the terms “shepherd” and “overseer” for pastors implied the personal and personalized care for individual people in the congregation. He also reasoned that pastors must admonish and instruct privately because “common doctrine” can “wax cold.”23 This expression means that doctrine preached to all can easily be misunderstood or left unapplied in hearers’ hearts. Therefore, pastors must bring personal admonition and application of the gospel suited to the condition of the individuals he ministers to: the various wandering, discouraged, or sick sheep. As we will see, this call to admonish and instruct people individually is one of the reasons pastors suffer.
1.4. Implications
In a day where pastors are often loaded with administrative tasks and expected to be vision casters/organizational leaders/relational gurus/pundits on every cultural issue, Calvin’s focus on the one main thing ministry is about is a refreshing and much-needed reminder. Pastors are gifted and called by God for one thing: the spiritual maturity of God’s people through the public and private teaching and preaching of the gospel. When pastors give themselves to this one thing, they have the awe-inspiring honor of participating in God’s work and being the instruments of God’s sovereign and efficacious grace. If ministers are to be effective, they must arrange their days, examine their hearts, and give themselves most to this central task God has entrusted to them, whatever the costs may be. As will be shown, Calvin argued the costs would be high.
2. Pastoral Ministry as Spiritual Warfare
In C. S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, Aslan describes a good king at war as the one who is the “first in the charge and the last in the retreat.”24 For Calvin, Christians were constantly at war with the spiritual forces of darkness, and pastors were to be the first in the charge and last in the retreat: as the edifiers-in-chief, they were therefore the sufferers-in-chief.

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It would be a mercy of God to take a man’s mind away in hell, but that surely is the agony of hell. Mercy was for another time, now so long ago. A man must live with himself, without the dignities of feigned kindness and pretended beauty. His mind is the most tortured part of him, regardless of what pains he is afflicted within the body.

At 3:30 a.m., I awoke to a black room, so dark that my eyes could not see even one inch away, much less to the other side. The simple room in a Romanian home in Brasov had one of those metal external shades that are lowered over the window, capable of completely deleting light. I was in the darkest place I had been in perhaps for years. And, since it was night and I was alone in the house, I thought.
“Outer darkness.” I’ve been troubled by those words before—not blindness in this world where others may help, but “outer,” away from all others, forever. I do not understand why hell is described as both “outer darkness” and a place of fire, for where there is fire there is light. Perhaps these are only feeble descriptors meant to approximate the reality, the best that words can do. Perhaps the darkness of “outer darkness” and the fire of “the lake of fire” cannot perfectly convey the emptiness and pain of that future place, but are only signposts to something worse. The signpost isn’t the city itself. What if the worst we can think about hell would one day seem pleasant by comparison to the one experiencing it? What if the true hell can only be experienced, and not described?
What does a man think about in outer darkness? Could he think of, say, a day at the beach with his family? Impossible. For if he were to think of a day at the beach with his family he would immediately moan in agony for he will never see his family nor a day at the beach again, ever. If a man has no hope, nor any prospect of arriving at a place where the slightest wisp of hope could blow like a gentle breeze over him, how could he ever be happy again? Every joy is an eternal pain—a reminder of what will never be.
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