John Newton, Poem on Pastoral Ministry

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Tom Ascol posted this poem by John Newton, and I thought it was a powerful portrait of pastoral work.

A Minister’s Burden

What contradictions meet
In ministers’ employ!
It is a bitter sweet,
A sorrow full of joy:
No other post affords a place
For equal honor or disgrace.

Who can describe the pain
Which faithful preachers feel,
Constrained to speak in vain,
To hearts as hard as steel?
Or who can tell the pleasures felt,
When stubborn hearts begin to melt?

The Savior’s dying love,
The soul’s amazing worth,
Their utmost efforts move,
And draw their bowels forth;
They pray and strive, the rest departs,
Till Christ be formed in sinners’ hearts.

If some small hope appears,
They still are not content,
But with a jealous fear,
They watch for the event:
Too oft they find their hopes deceived.
Then how their inmost souls are grieved!

But when their pains succeed,
And from the tender blade
The ripening ears proceed,
Their toils are overpaid:
No harvest-joy can equal theirs,
To find the fruit of all their cares.

On what has now been sown,
Thy blessing, Lord, bestow;
The power is Thine alone,
To make it spring and grow:
Do Thou the gracious harvest raise,
And Thou alone shalt have the praise.

Incarnation poem from Bede

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In Bede’s A History of the English Church and People, he includes a hymn in honor of a woman named Etheldreda.  I can’t endorse all that is in the poem, but I appreciated this portion on the Incarnation.

See! God most high resigns His royal throne,
Descends to earth, and enters Mary’s womb;
To free the sons of men from all their tears
A spotless Virgin her Creator bears

Journibles

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Last year one of the things I requested and received for Christmas was a couple of volumes of Journibles, from Reformation Heritage Books. I have loved them!

It is a pretty simple concept (see the series website).  They essentially journals- like ones you might purchase from any bookstore- devoted to certain books or collection of books of the Bible.  They are designed for you to write out the Scriptures yourself, and there is space for taking notes or making observations.  In the journal the right hand page has space for a certain number of verses to be written.  Verse numbers are listed along the margin as in the layout of KJV bibles.  The left hand page is lined for note taking.  Some prompting questions are given but they are printed lightly so they can be written over and ignored if you prefer.  I really appreciate the light printing because I have other things to write and I have not found these questions to get in my way.

I have really enjoyed the discipline of writing out the Scripture.  It has often been helpful to focus my mind in the mornings.  I also appreciate having the space to record thoughts or not to do so.  The space given for each verse is sometimes odd (too little, too much) but overall it has worked very well.  Also, at $10 per volume they are reasonably priced for nice bound volume.

I like the idea of one day having these journals with a copy of the Scriptures and some of my thoughts and prayers to hand down to my children.

Lord Peter Wimsey & Biblical Studies

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I am catching up with everyone else by finally reading one of Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey novels (actually listening to it thanks to the free audio at Librivox).  It is an entertaining story with several insightful comments on life.

This morning I was captivated by the section below from Chapter 7 in which the detective, Parker, and Wimsey discuss “modern” commentators.  This is a shrewd criticism from Sayers of academic biblical studies (not unlike C. S. Lewis’ comments in “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism”).  Too much in biblical studies is concerned with pursuing communities and documents we are not sure even existed while people miss Christ and “the household” of faith which are clearly there.

Lord Peter spent the afternoon in a vain hunt for Mr. Parker. He ran him down eventually after dinner in Great Ormond Street.

Parker was sitting in an elderly but affectionate armchair, with his feet on the mantelpiece, relaxing his mind with a modern commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians. He received Lord Peter with quiet pleasure, though without rapturous enthusiasm, and mixed him a whisky-and-soda. Peter took up the book his friend had laid down and glanced over the pages.

“All these men work with a bias in their minds, one way or other,” he said; “they find what they are looking for.”

“Oh, they do,” agreed the detective, “but one learns to discount that almost automatically, you know. When I was at college, I was all on the other side – Conybeare and Robertson and Drews and those people, you know, till I found they were all so busy looking for a burglar whom nobody had ever seen, that they couldn’t recognize the footprints of the household, so to speak. Then I spent two years learning to be cautious.”

“Hum,” said Lord Peter, “theology must be good exercise for the brain then, for you’re easily the most cautious devil I know. But I say, do go on reading – it’s a shame for me to come and root you up in your off-time like this.”

“Now Thank We All Our God”

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For Thanksgiving I am posting one of my favorite hymns of thanks.  It was written in the 17th century by Lutheran pastor, Martin Rinkart, after his city had endured horrible death and devastation in the midst of the Thirty Years’ War (at one point he was leading 50 funerals a day). Yet, the city was spared from total destruction and in response he penned this hymn.  The story is briefly told at NetHymnal, and more thoroughly in Douglas Bond’s, Mr. Pipes and Psalms and Hymns of the Reformation.  May it aid you in giving thanks to God today.

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and bless’d peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

(Translated by Catherine Winkworth)

Andrew Fuller, Blessings of Preaching through Books

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In the dedication of his Expository Discourses on the Book of Genesis, Andrew Fuller wrote to his church reflecting on “pleasures we have enjoyed together in exploring the treasures of the lively Oracles.”  This dedication is a beautiful, powerful testimony to the affection between pastor and people that is only heightened as they build a life of working through the Bible together.  Fuller’s words mean much to me because I am blessed to be part of a congregation who has also walked through the Bible together where we commonly with affection refer back to “when we were going through John” or when “we were going through Hebrews,” etc.

If this is your practice, too, may this encourage you.  If it is not your practice may this entice you to it.

MY DEAR BRETHREN,

It is now upwards of twenty-two years since I first took the oversight of you in the Lord.  During the last fifteen years, it has, as you know, been my practice to expound amongst you on the Lord’s-day morning some part of the Holy Scriptures, commonly a chapter.  From all that I have felt in my own mind, and heard from you, I have reason to hope these exercises have not been in vain.  They have enabled us to take a more connected view of the Scriptures than could be obtained merely by Sermons on particular passages; and I acknowledge that as I have proceeded, the work of exposition has become more and more interesting to my heart.

I have not been in the habit of writing Dedications to what I have published; but in this instance I feel inclined to deviate from my usual practice.  Considering my time of life, and the numerous avocations on my hands, I may not be able to publish any thing more of the kind; and if not, permit be to request that this Family book may be preserved as a Memorial of our mutual affection, and of the pleasures we have enjoyed together in exploring the treasures of the lively Oracles.

You will consider these Discourses as the result of having once gone over that part of the Scriptures to which they relate.  Were we to go over it again, and again, such is the fulness [sic] of God’s word, that we should still find interesting and important matter, which had never occurred in reading it before; and this should encourage us not to rest in any exposition, but to be constantly perusing the Scriptures themselves, and digging at the precious ore.

As the Exposition was delivered in public worship, it was not my wish to dwell upon particular words, so much as to convey the general scope and design of the Scriptures.  Whether I have in any considerable degree caught the spirit which runs through them, is too much for me to decide: but this I can say, that such has been my aim.  I know by experience, that, with respect to this, when I have been the most spiritually-minded, I have succeeded the best; and therefore conclude, that if I had lived nearer to God, the work had been better executed.  But such as it is, I commend it to the blessing of God, and your candid acceptance.

And remain,

Your affectionate Pastor,

THE AUTHOR

Kettering,

October 19, 1805.

–Andrew Fuller’s dedication to his book Expository Discourses on the Book of Genesis.

Benjamin Keach as Pastor

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Benjamin Keach was one of the leading Baptist pastors in England in the 17th century. In the memoir included in a 19th century reprint of his book, The Travels of True Godliness, the following assessment of his ministry is included (it is an excerpt from Crosby’s History of English Baptists).  This is an excellent summary of ministry including his personal care of individual souls and faithful preaching- preaching which was not flowery or “showy” but solid and straightforward.

He discharged the duties of his pastoral office with unwearied diligence, by preaching in season and out of season, visiting those under his charge, encouraging the serious, defending the great truths of the gospel, and setting them in the clearest light. He was not addicted to utter hard censures of such as differed from him in lesser matters, but had a love for all saints, and constantly exercised himself in this, to keep a conscience void of offences towards God and towards man. He showed an unwearied endeavor to recover the decayed power of religion, for he lived what he preached; and it pleased God so to succeed his endeavors, that I doubt not but some yet living may call him their father, whom he hath begotten through the gospel. He affected no unusual tones, nor indecent gestures in his preaching…his style was strong and masculine. …if his sermons had not the embellishments of language, which some boast of, they had this peculiar advantage, to be full of solid divinity; which is a much better character for pulpit discourses, than to say they are full of pompous eloquence, and flights of wit. It was none of the least of his excellent qualifications for the ministerial work, that he knew how to behave himself in the house of God, in regard of the exercise of that discipline which is so necessary to a Christian society.

Hezekiah Harvey, Personal Dealing with Souls

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I have previously mentioned an address I had the opportunity to give which drew together key portions of my biblical and historical argument for the centrality of the oversight of souls in pastoral ministry.  That presentation is now a chapter in the book, Southern Baptists, Evangelicals, and the Future of Denominationalism, which is due out in April 2011.

Over the last few weeks I have been posting quotes which I would have loved to have included in that chapter as they are further confirmations of this theme.  In the chapter I cite leading 19th century Baptist pastor Hezekiah Harvey from his book, The Pastor: His Qualifications and Duties, but I have recently come across another valuable quote from him on this topic:

“[The responsibility of a pastor includes] Wise and faithful dealing with the individual souls of his charge. Paul went ‘from house to house,’ from soul to soul: he ‘ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears,’ and he proposes this as an example of ministerial fidelity, requiring the pastor to be ‘instant in season, out of season.’  Evidently he did not regard the work of a minister as done when performed only in the study and the pulpit: it included personal dealing with souls.” (p151-2)

H. Harvey, The Pastor: His Qualifications and Duties, Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1879

May we see the flourishing of this sort of pastoral ministry.

Segler on the Care of Souls

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Here is a strong comment from 1960 by widely published Baptist pastor Franklin Segler on the centrality of the care of souls in pastoral ministry.

“The care of souls is central in the church’s ministry.  Therefore, pastoral care is a primary function of the pastoral office.  No part of the pastor’s ministry is of greater importance than this ministry to individual persons and families.  Helping other persons to grow up in Christ is the very essence of the Christian ministry.  Ministering to persons in need is the primary objective of the pastoral ministry.  Ideally, preaching and the care of souls are the two major functions of the pastoral office.  Phillip Brooks insisted that the work of the preacher and the pastor belong together and ought not to be separated.  The preacher who is not pastor grows remote, and the pastor who is not preacher grows petty.

History witnesses to the centrality of the care of souls in the church.” 165

“As leader in worship, the pastor is more than an actor performing for his public; he is a guide in the nurture of souls.  As a preacher of the gospel, he speaks to the condition of people as he knows them in the community and in the life of the church.  His preaching is always “pastoral preaching…” 167

“…the care of souls is always the pastor’s concern, whatever the area of his functional ministry.” 168

Franklin M. Segler, A Theology of Church and Ministry. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1960.