http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15354599/what-kind-of-conduct-validates-the-gospel
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The New Pastor’s Library: My Ten Favorite Books for Ministry
What would you give to attend a conference where bygone giants of the faith — men like Richard Baxter, Charles Bridges, and Charles Spurgeon — spoke about pastoral ministry? The tickets would sell out in just seconds.
We love to consider the coming day when we will meet our favorite long-departed preachers around the throne of the Lamb. But until then, we already enjoy access to their wisdom through the body of writings they have left us. We can trust such faithful men to guide us through the voyage of pastoral ministry, for they never cease to point us to Scripture as they offer precious insights from the past. The classics are classic for a reason.
I am grateful for the wealth of resources that God has provided to aid ministers and theological students in their spiritual growth. During my lifetime, I have read almost every major classic Reformed book on pastoral ministry. If, however, I were to choose only ten books on pastoral theology to have in my library, I would pick the ten listed below.
In this list, I have reluctantly bypassed several excellent books on preaching because I wish to emphasize those works that treat pastoral ministry in general. May the Lord bless you, dear brothers, as you walk with these pastors of days past and lean on them to counsel you in “the old paths” (Jeremiah 6:16 KJV).
1. The Christian Ministry by Charles Bridges
The Christian Ministry is my all-time favorite treatise on pastoral ministry. In this exceptional work, Charles Bridges (1794–1869) provides a comprehensive survey of poimenics (pastoral theology) deeply steeped in scriptural faithfulness, conveying a tender fear of God flowing out of personal experience.
In this work, Bridges considers the nature of the ministry, the calling to and the qualifications for ministry, and the difficulties involved. Of particular importance is his treatment of causes for the lack of success in the ministry. He closes with a thorough outline of the minister’s pastoral and preaching labors. This work is outstanding in its biblical faithfulness, experiential warmth, and searching application. He also has an invaluable (and quite rare!) section on experiential (“experimental”) and discriminatory preaching.
No minister of the gospel should bypass this book, for it will immensely aid and enlighten him in both his personal life and his public ministry. I cannot recommend this book highly enough; I would urge you to purchase and read it before any other book on this list.
2. Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon
Charles Spurgeon’s (1834–1892) piety, love for Christ, insights into human nature, intense spirituality, realism, healthy sense of humor, and practical wisdom saturate every lecture in this priceless anthology. For Spurgeon, faithful preaching and pastoral ministry are simply the overflow of vibrant piety and heartfelt spirituality. Spurgeon was an experiential pastor who emphasized the union of head, heart, and hands in the Christian life and stressed vitality over method in pastoral ministry. Here, he deals with some unique topics, like posture and gestures in preaching. Some of his comments are very entertaining, but each is laced with remarkable wisdom. He is weighty and thorough, as always.
Above all, read his lectures on “The Minister’s Self-Watch,” “The Preacher’s Private Prayer,” “The Minister’s Fainting Fits,” “The Minister’s Ordinary Conversation,” “The Holy Spirit in Connection with Our Ministry,” and “The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear.” Every theological student and minister — both young and old — would benefit from reading and rereading these.
While I’m writing about Spurgeon, can I cheat a bit by making this a double selection? If so, I would encourage you to read his All-Round Ministry as well. It is packed with Spurgeonic wisdom (and sprinkled with humor), well-suited even for seasoned pastors.
3. The Christian Pastor’s Manual by John Brown
This collection of pastoral insights from John Brown (1784–1858) is the best compilation I have read on practical pastoral ministry. It features contributions from ministers such as Philip Doddridge, Abraham Booth, Isaac Watts, John Newton, and Thomas Scott. These authors investigate the character, calling, duties, difficulties, and dangers of the Christian minister.
My favorite part of the volume is John Jennings’s chapter on discriminatory and experiential preaching titled “Particular and Experimental Preaching” — a piece that ably reflects the Puritan homiletical tradition. For self-examination, young ministers can profitably peruse Isaac Watts’s “Questions Proper for Young Ministers Frequently to Put to Themselves.” This compilation offers particularly edifying reading for frequently overlooked aspects of pastoral ministry.
4. Pastoral Theology by Albert N. Martin
This magisterial three-volume set emerged from lectures that Albert Martin (1934–) delivered in the late twentieth century (1978–1998) at Trinity Ministerial Academy in New Jersey. After Pastor Martin retired and moved to Michigan, I had the privilege of encouraging him to adapt his recorded lectures into a volume on practical theology. He did even better than I hoped! After having his messages transcribed, he revised them with painstaking detail; then he flew out to New Jersey to deliver his revised and improved lectures for the final time — the sum of which filled three hefty volumes instead of one.
One need not agree with every detail of Martin’s advice to appreciate his seasoned pastoral wisdom. His seven axioms in the first volume are perhaps the best work ever done on the foundations of pastoral ministry. His work in all three volumes is engaging, practical, and comprehensive. In my view, this set is the best twenty-first-century survey of pastoral theology from a practical and historical-theological perspective. With relevance and application to contemporary life and ministry, Martin brilliantly draws from the full range of Reformation-era and Puritan theology on the pastorate. This set will become one of the most definitive pastoral theologies in the Reformed world for many years to come.
5. Lectures in Pastoral Theology by Robert James George
This three-volume set from the pen of Reformed Presbyterian minister Robert James George (1844–1911) is overshadowed perhaps only by Albert Martin’s Pastoral Theology. This work is ideal for those looking for an older, thorough pastoral theology that provides wisdom for every area of ministry. Here, George emphasizes the character, calling, and duties of ministers. He focuses as well on piety, especially in his chapter titled “Personal Acquaintance with God.” In my opinion, this is the best comprehensive work on pastoral theology written in the twentieth century.
6. Hints and Helps in Pastoral Theology by William S. Plumer
Everything of Presbyterian pastor and scholar William S. Plumer (1802–1880) is worth its weight in gold, and this book is no exception. It may not be as thorough as one could wish, but his hints and helps are invaluable to the minister. Plumer discusses topics like piety, ministerial character, evangelism, pastoral duties, assessing one’s call to missions, and what he calls the “matter” and the “manner” of preaching. This book is an excellent read.
7. Pastoral Theology by Thomas Murphy
With comprehensive scope, Thomas Murphy (1823–1900) — the erstwhile pastor of Frankford Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia — analyzes the nature, history, sources, and necessity of poimenics as a discipline. He covers the life of the pastor in the closet, study, and pulpit, as well as in shepherding, leadership, and church ministries. He also stresses the importance of piety, and provides practical directions for cultivating it through the means of grace.
8. The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter
Taking Acts 20:28 as his point of departure, Richard Baxter’s (1615–1691) work is heart-stirring, convicting, and enlightening. He sharply rebukes lukewarmness in the ministry, declaring that “a sleepy preacher will hardly awaken drowsy sinners” and exhorting the pastor to preach “as a dying man to dying men.”
The Reformed Pastor is full of memorable phrases. The last third of the book is an exhortation with practical directions for personally catechizing the congregation in pastoral visits. Above all, Baxter demonstrates that faithful care for the flock begins with the pastor’s consistent walk before God. This work is not only Richard Baxter at his best; it is Puritan poimenics at its best as well.
9. Homiletics and Pastoral Theology by William G.T. Shedd
William G.T. Shedd’s (1820–1894) volume on homiletics and pastoral theology is a historical standard and has been widely used for scores of years. In his discourses on homiletics, Shedd treats matters as varied as style, sermon choice and planning, and extemporaneous preaching. Most importantly, he considers the spiritual, intellectual, and social character of the minister. This is a basic but trustworthy guide to poimenics.
10. Pastoral Theology by Patrick Fairbairn
In my younger years, I read Patrick Fairbairn’s (1805–1874) rather dense tome with great profit. Here, he considers the nature of pastoral ministry, the call to the ministry, the life of the pastor, and the duties of the pastor, such as catechesis and visitation. Find here a timeless work from the height of nineteenth-century Scottish evangelicalism.
Take Up and Read!
Someone might peruse this list and exclaim, “What pastor has time to read ten books on pastoral theology?” As a busy pastor, seminary professor, and conference speaker, I certainly understand time limitations. So, allow me to make a suggestion: Start with just one book for this year — the first one on this list that you haven’t yet read. And then consider making it a goal to read at least one book a year on pastoral theology (aside from your other reading). If God preserves you, you really could read dozens of volumes over the course of a lifetime of ministry.
If God has called us to serve him as a minister of the gospel, we have a responsibility to develop our knowledge and gifts to be the best pastors we can be. Books give us access to the thoughts of some of the best pastors who have ever lived. Let’s take advantage of the wisdom they found in the word of God in their many trials and temptations. Take up and read!
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Fathering Future Men: Twelve Lessons from Four Decades
We live in an era when it can be fashionable to be unsure what a man or woman is. It depends, the theory goes, on how you identify.
But theologians talk about something called common grace. Because God created humans in his image, we possess some innate knowledge of who we are. The Bible says, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).
Throughout history and across cultures, great similarities exist in the characteristics of men (no less than in women). Certainly in cultures influenced by Christianity, like North America, good men are recognized by qualities like bravery, self-control, kindness, ambition, responsibility, honesty, selflessness, industriousness, humility, generosity, and skillfulness. Traditionally, women sought such men for husbands. Boys looked up to such men as models.
In today’s climate of male-and-female confusion, how can we raise sons into men who escape becoming fragile or soft or lazy or endlessly distracted? While parents cannot guarantee the character of their children, there are some ways to encourage positive outcomes and discourage negative ones.
My wife and I raised two sons (now 40 and 34). The following contains a dozen considerations from my experience raising boys to men.
1. Get right with God.
“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward” (Psalm 127:3). A son is a gift you can nurture effectively only with divine aid. Do you know this Lord yourself? Are you trusting and growing in Christ? The best fathers know the guidance and discipline of the heavenly Father in their own lives (Hebrews 12:5–11). They learn to transfer those same dynamics in gracious ways toward their sons.
2. Look in the mirror.
What kind of man are you? Sometimes sterling men arise from perverse home settings, but it is folly to sin while hoping for grace to abound (Romans 6:1–2). If you are bitter, critical, and angry, do not be surprised if a son mimics your bad habits. Fathers need to be humble enough to accept correction (from Scripture, from their wife, from a friend or pastor or even a child) and dedicate themselves to self-improvement. Many a son has learned self-righteousness from a hard-hearted, self-important dad. Teachable dads often cultivate teachable kids.
3. Love your wife.
She is your helper and sometimes mentor in the childrearing process. God says to love her as Christ loved the church and as you love yourself (Ephesians 5:25, 32). Sons (and daughters!) need to see and deeply sense a strong and steady affection from their dad for their mom. The security of marital ardor creates a forcefield that fortifies (and in the long run can help purify) the souls of sons. They rest in the joyful overflow. They observe how to express the love and respect they feel, but that their sinful souls can tempt them to neglect or withhold (boys can be real pills toward mom).
“Sons (and daughters!) need to see and deeply sense a strong and steady affection from their dad for their mom.”
I remember hugging my wife one evening, a rug rat at our feet. He tugged on my jeans at the knee to be picked up. I did so and the hug became three-way. Then my son announced, “Kiss fight!” and began pecking left and right. How could we not join in? Boys can turn anything into a war. It still makes me laugh to think about.
4. Check your loves.
The pastor who baptized both my sons joined with us at a church retreat one summer. He bought me a bait bucket to encourage me to fish with my sons. Then he said to me, “Bob, your sons will grow up to love what you love.” It was friendly counsel from a man with a bit more experience with his own sons. It was priceless guidance. If I love myself more than God, my wife, and my children, if I neglect my sons as I chase career glory or disappear on weekends playing golf and drinking beers with buddies, I shouldn’t be surprised if my sons end up chasing the twisted and unenviable life.
5. Learn from your via negativa.
A via negativa is a wrong path, a negative example. Experts know that bad parenting patterns often get handed down and replicated. If your dad beat you, you will be inclined to beat your kids. A man who is right with God and his wife (see the first and third points above) can break this cycle. Be alert to the danger of replicating nasty patterns under which you suffered. Pray and strategize so you can turn the dark paths you knew into sunlit trails for sons.
6. Set aside more time as boys get older.
I expected that babies and toddlers would take a lot of time, and I was right. In our case, my wife quit her job as a nurse to be with the kids at home; she bore the brunt of childcare. But over the years, she went back to work, and I tried to spend as much time as I could with our sons.
I was not prepared to discover that the older kids get, the more they need you around. And you may be surprised to find they want you there! This trend may slack off some during the teen years, but not necessarily. Creative parents may find ways to make common cause with sons so they are in proximity without smothering them. One of my sons had baseball talents. This drew me into ten years of coaching, including some time-intensive seasons. He took far less time as a toddler! But the rewards for our relationship — his character development and enduring family memories — were simply incalculable.
7. Read to and worship with your kids.
Remember, kids will love what you love. If you love Scripture and times of prayer and singing hymns, your kids will learn and feel that. If your “Bible time” (or “Bible tible,” as it came to be called in our home) is daily, not sporadic and haphazard, you can cover a lot in just ten or fifteen minutes each morning or evening over the course of weeks and months.
We ended up combining this with reading (out loud) classics like C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia or Ralph Moody’s epic Little Britches. I also dug up old poems like “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” “Casey at the Bat,” and many others. Combine this with discussion that runs where kids lead it, along with time for prayer, and you have ingredients for some soul-searching exchanges.
8. Teach them to work by working alongside.
Households survive on chores getting done, whether inside or outside. You can always do them faster without the “help” of young kids. But slow down and make them part of the crew. Teach them how to crack an egg if you are baking or turn a screwdriver if you are putting up a board fence. Get sweaty splitting and stacking firewood. Rake the fall leaves and ambush each other in the leaf piles. (We had a German shepherd who would bury himself in the leaves and wait for someone to jump on him. That’s the spirit!)
“One of the most valuable gifts a father can give a son is a robust work ethic.”
One of the most valuable gifts a father can give a son is a robust work ethic. Figure out what you can do together, and then create space for it to happen. Sons who know how to work with confidence, skill, and maximum effort are not apt to fail when they are out on their own.
9. Model Christian consumption of culture.
Mass and social media can dominate our consciousness. Christian husbands and wives should not be cyber-junkies or television addicts. Following Jesus calls for other emphases and pursuits. As they limit themselves, they have moral authority to help their children set their own limits — like no devices after a certain time in the evening, or time limits for online gaming. The easiest way to address bad habits is to prevent their onset. Help sons find richer, more productive horizons than excess Internet use. (Internet employment or online research for academic assignments, of course, is something different.)
10. Keep it physical.
Fathers, talk to your sons even while they are in the womb. They will know your voice when they emerge. Then hug and snuggle them. Hold them when you read to them and pray for them and sit with them in church. Carry them on your shoulders, roughhouse on the living-room carpet (“rassling,” I called it). Let them carry the feel of one last hug into their night’s sleep. Dads and sons alike need this expression and reinforcement of the love God has granted.
11. Teach them successful risk-taking.
We want our kids to be safe, but not at the cost of cowardice. You want sons to be risk-savvy, not risk-averse. Help them learn to swim as they overcome their (well-advised) fear of drowning. At appropriate ages, teach them to climb rocks, walk across a log spanning a ditch, befriend the neighbor’s barking dog, scale a fire tower, carry a box heavier than they thought they could, and sustain some scratches as they help clear land, prune trees, or repair the deck.
Boys that don’t learn bravery descend to knavery. Life is full of danger, and it can’t all be avoided. Figure out risks you can manage and surmount them as father and son. This parallels working side by side with them. Some tasks, like cleaning out gutters, can be two-men operations. Let your 12-year-old son shoulder the responsibility of steadying the ladder — or even climbing aloft if he’s ready (monitor closely, of course).
12. Show them how to care for others.
All the attention to sons prescribed above could leave the impression that to raise boys, you need to dote on and spoil them. Nope. If your home and marriage are trending Christ-centered (we never fully arrive in this life), sons will learn that God is the center of our lives, not us, and our daily prayer is for his kingdom to come and his will to be done. This also means we love and care for neighbors near and far. It means that part of our family income goes to the church, our family table is open to those God brings into our lives to be cared for, and we plan our futures with God’s call and will at the forefront of our thinking.
The list above is representative, not comprehensive. But with prayer, a lot of effort, perceived self-sacrifice (it’s actually a privilege), and God’s grace, parents and especially dads can increase the odds that the boys they rear will rise above the indolence, insecurity, and fear that studies say bedevil too many younger males at present.
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God’s Plan When Our Plans Fail
Audio Transcript
God can prevent every trial from entering our lives. He can. And he doesn’t. Why not? That’s the question every believer must eventually answer, especially if you believe God is all-powerful. If God is all-powerful, why does he allow trials into our lives? Why does he let the car break down in the middle of nowhere?
To that end, we have a fascinating clip to address this very point, a clip from a 1996 sermon that marked the 125th anniversary of Bethlehem Baptist Church. Pastor John was preaching Jeremiah 32:36–42. To introduce the text, he shared a poem and a personal story. Have a listen.
Our aim is to celebrate the sustaining grace of God for 125 years, and my first question is, What is that? What is sustaining grace? And I want to put it in a four-line poem that I took about an hour to figure out yesterday, and I want to say it over and over again, because when I take the time to put truth in a rhyme, it just helps me. It helps me. So you have to tolerate this. What is sustaining grace?
Not grace to bar what is not bliss, Nor flight from all distress, but this:The grace that orders our trouble and pain, And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.
“Grace does not prevent pain, but orders it, arranges it, measures it out, and then, in the darkness of it, sustains us.”
Now, the reason I stress this is that if we were to celebrate a grace this morning that bars us from what is not bliss, and that gives flight from all distress, and that does not order our pain, it would be biblically false and experientially unrealistic. Our experience and the Bible teach us that grace does not prevent pain, but orders it, arranges it, measures it out, and then in the darkness of it sustains us.
Car Accident and an Air Tube
For example, yesterday, Bob — I’m going to borrow your story. (You go to him and get it corrected afterward if I’ve missed anything.) He told us in that other room over there that God ordains that the people of the Lord, from time to time, take stones and make memorials out of them, so that when they look at them and children say, “What’s that?” parents and others can say, “That’s because God did that.”
And then he told the story of how, a little less than ten years ago, their daughter was in a very serious automobile accident — so serious that she would have died. But the car behind, providentially, had a doctor in it. The doctor, providentially, had in his pocket an air tube. He also had the presence of mind, and got to her just as she was turning blue, to force this into her throat, and she lived. And he did her wedding here in 1992. And as he looked at her, doing the wedding as the pastor, and saw these little scars that remained, he said to her, “Those are a memorial of sustaining grace.”
“God ordains that the people of the Lord, from time to time, take stones and make memorials out of them.”
Now, Bob is not naive. He knows that if God can manage a doctor in the car behind, and if God can manage a little air tube in his pocket, and if God can manage to put him on the scene with the presence of mind and the saving action to save her life, he could have stopped the accident in the first place.
Not grace to bar what is not bliss, Nor flight from all distress, but this:The grace that orders our trouble and pain, And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.
A Radiator and a Catfish
Another story, a little lighter this time. Noël, Abraham, Barnabas, and Talitha are in the car, two Saturdays ago, driving from here to Georgia. The car breaks down three times, and Daddy is at home, comfortable. The third time it broke down was about an hour outside of Indianapolis on a lonely stretch on Saturday afternoon. And the radiator crumbles to pieces, basically. The car overheats. They’re off on the side of the road — a baby, two kids, a mom, and no daddy. What do you do on Saturday afternoon?
A 67-year-old farmer stops and says, “Can I help?”
And Noël says, “Well, we just need a motel and a garage somewhere on Monday morning. Where are we?”
And he says, “Well, would you be willing to come stay with us, my wife and me?”
Pause.
“Well, I’m not sure we would want to impose.”
And he says, “You know, the Lord says that when you serve people in need, it’s like serving the Lord.”
And she says, “Well, can we go to church with you tomorrow morning?”
And he says, “Can you take a Baptist church?”
Not only is he a farmer, but he is also a retired aviation mechanic, and he sets them up. Monday morning, he drives to Indianapolis at 6 a.m., buys the radiator, puts it in, will not charge her for the labor, and they’re on their way mid-morning on Monday. And the icing on the cake is that he has a pond on his farm, and Abraham catches a nineteen-inch catfish.
Now, if God can manage a farmer on the scene who happens to be a Christian — and a Baptist to boot — and an aviation mechanic, and an open home, and a heart for the hurting, and a fishpond, he could have saved the radiator. And he didn’t because sustaining grace is
Not grace to bar what is not bliss, Nor flight from all distress, but this:The grace that orders our trouble and pain, And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.