The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great

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I recently read Benjamin Merkle’s The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great (not the Ben Merkle at Southeastern Seminary). I have commented often here on the value of history reading for pastors (as well as others), and this book has much value in this realm as well. Alfred was an amazing man who accomplished much.

The first six chapters of the book primarily tell of the struggle of Alfred and his predecessors against the Viking invasions. There are compelling battle stories and reminders of the blessing of peace. Also the description of the “shield wall” formation used in battle provides a powerful picture of church unity.

The great strength of the book in my opinion, though, is chapter seven which describes Alfred’s effort to rejuvenate his country. They had resisted the foreign invader, but he realized they needed more to ensure domestic health. He believed the Vikings were only a symptom of the greater problem of his people’s turn away from Christianity and the resultant loss of learning and character. Here are a few quotes:

“The English church had grown complacent, indolent, and lethargic. Numbed by their prosperity, their love of learning grew cold, and their interest in Christian study died off altogether. . . . By neglecting the study of the great works of Christendom, the Bible in particular, the Anglo-Saxon people had lost not only the ability to read but more important, the ability to understand the wisdom of God. England, through her intellectual lethargy, was slowly devolving into a pagan nation, a people who neither knew nor served the Christian God.” (179)

“If Christian virtue were to return to England, then the Anglo-Saxons would need to return to Christian learning. With an eye toward restoring this learned piety to the people, Alfred orchestrated a tremendous revival of literacy, a revival that culminated in the greatest literary renaissance ever experienced in Anglo-Saxon Britain.” (184)

“Alfred truly was the great king of England, the one monarch who rightly understood the needs of the nation and unrelentingly gave all he had to supply those needs.
England, and the many nations descended from her, still have Alfred to thank for a substantial portion of the heritage and freedoms that they enjoy today. The title ‘Alfred the Great,’ so strangely offensive to the modern ear, was well deserved by the Anglo-Saxon warrior-king.” (233)

There is much to glean from Alfred on the work of restoring a culture, of the value of learning, and the renewal of the church.

Pastoral Ministry: Hard Work for the Salvation of Souls and the Restoration of the World

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Calvin commenting on 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 states well the importance of hard work in pastoral ministry and what our work actually is.

In the first place, he says that they labor. From this it follows, that all idle bellies are excluded from the number of pastors. Farther, he expresses the kind of labor when he adds, those that admonish, or instruct, you. It is to no purpose, therefore, that any, that do not discharge the office of an instructor, glory in the name of pastors. …

Now, this work is the edification of the Church, the everlasting salvation of souls, the restoration of the world, and, in fine, the kingdom of God and Christ. The excellence and dignity of this work are inestimable: hence those whom God makes ministers in connection with so great a matter, ought to be held by us in great esteem.

(emphasis added)
(HT: Gentry Hill)

Practical Shepherding, new blog

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Brian Croft, pastor of Auburndale Baptist Church, Louisville, KY, is a faithful pastor whom I am blessed to call a friend. He has written two very helpful books on pastoral ministry (Visit the Sick, & Test, Train, Affirm, and Send into Ministry: Recovering the Local Church’s Responsibility to the External Call), so I am pleased that he has launched a blog dedicated to specific issues in pastoral ministry. It is titled Practical Shepherding. Some of his current posts deal with helping a wife who is hurt by her husband’s use of pornography, ministering to widows, and identifying men in your church who are called for ministry. This is useful material for pastors and I encourage you to give it a look.

Communion with Christ and with the Saints

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“Communion with Christ and with the Saints”

Isaac Watts

Jesus invites His saints
To meet around His board;
Here pardoned rebels sit and hold
Communion with their Lord.

For food He gives His flesh,
He bids us drink His blood;
Amazing favor, matchless grace
Of our descending God!

This holy bread and wine
Maintains our fainting breath,
By union with our Living Lord,
And interest in His death.

Our heavenly Father calls
Christ and His members one;
We, the young children of His love,
And He, the firstborn Son.

We are but several parts
Of the same broken bread;
One body hath its several limbs,
But Jesus is the Head.

Let all our powers be joined
His glorious name to raise;
Pleasure and love fill every mind,
And every voice be praise.

Quoted in Worthy Is the Lamb: Puritan Poetry in Honor of Christ
Maureen Bradley; Edited by Don Kistler and Joel Rishel (page 238)

Don’t Seduce the Church

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Here is a good warning to preachers against exalting ourselves before the church:

“For that man is an enemy to his Redeemer who on the strength of the good works he performs, desires to be loved by the Church, rather than by Him. Indeed, a servant is guilty of adulterous thought, if he craves to please the eyes of the bride when the bridegroom sends gifts to her by him.” (Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care, 75)

Longing for Resurrection

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Even the ancient pagan stories bear witness to the universal human longing to overcome death. In the Aeneid Aeneas begs for permission to visit the realm of the dead to consult his father. In response he is told by the prophetess:

The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies. (Dryden trans.)

Indeed! It is easy to enter the realm of the dead. To come back out, that is the trouble. We gather in the morning to worship the one who did just this, who entered death and emerged triumphant enabling all his people to do the same.

The prophetess tells Aeneas that only a few in Greco-Roman mythology have been able to re-emerge from the realm of the dead and they were all semi-divine sons of gods. In fact only one conquered death, the fully divine Son of God. And, now He has made it possible for all those who believe in him to be made children of God who will also re-emerge from the realm of the dead.

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor 15:54b-57)

Testimony

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I have often commented here on the importance of pastors being involved in the lives of their people. Here is a comment from a student paper in my pastoral ministry class affirming this truth.

“My best memory of my pastor is not a great sermon that he preached, but the fact that he invited me into his home on Thanksgiving when he found out my step-dad was in the hospital and my family wasn’t having a Thanksgiving dinner. I feel like I learned more from that than I have from a message he preached, and through him doing that I’m more prone to listen to his messages and believe him on Sundays.”

Older Saints are a Treasure

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In our age which idolizes youth we often miss the biblical teaching which esteems age and, as a result, miss the treasure that our older saints are. They are a great blessing to the church too often overlooked.

Recently I had the opportunity to converse with an elderly lady from out of town. She has memories of life during World War II and primarily told me of her father, a faithful man of God of whom she is very proud. She related incident after incident where God intervened and provided for her father or for her in amazing and sometimes miraculous ways. These were not the outlandish fantasies of youth but the measured steady testimony of one who has walked with God for many decades. She often apologized for “going on” and said apologetically, “I could keep you here for a year with such stories.” I assured her that hearing these was good for my soul.

I started to leave, but some comment stirred another story. She related how her marriage had been difficult years ago when her husband, whom I had just met, was unconverted. There was a time when he was regularly drunk and abusive. Her children had even intervened at one point offering her the opportunity to move in with them or with another friend. She told me what she had said to them. “No. You do not understand. I chose to marry this man. I was only 17 at the time, but I promised ‘for better or for worse.’ Right now all you see is the worst. But a better day is coming.” A few years later he was converted and has now walked with the Lord for years. I had noticed earlier in the visit his Bible, pen and brief commentary situated neatly at a table where he obviously met with God regularly. He now serves as a deacon and was at that moment out making visits for the church.

What a blessing to see and hear faithfulness and God’s care lived out. Take time to hear the stories of those who have walked with God for years. Thank God for the gift of senior saints.

Ortlund on Wisdom

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Ray Ortlund, always worth hearing, has a good word on “How to become a Sage.” Here is an excerpt:

Principle: The further we advance in Christ, the more we marvel at his untapped riches.

Corollary: The more we feel people need our opinions, the more obvious it is they don’t.

Another corollary: The more we feel we have to learn, the more we might have to offer.

So, how to become a sage? “Let the wise hear . . . .”

So true.

“Strive to Be Ordinary”

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In my Pastoral Ministry class today B. J. Maxwell, pastor of Unity Baptist in Millington, TN, gave a lecture titled, “Strive to Be Ordinary.” It was an excellent exhortation to pursue faithful ministry to people rather than the trappings of success. I attempted to record it but was unsuccessful. The manuscript should be available soon, and I will link to it.

Maxwell began by rooting pastoral ministry in a proper understanding of the church. Is it a business to keep profitable? A team to be coached? A brand to be marketed? Or God’s redeemed and sojourning people who need shepherding on their journey home? Because the church is a unique entity, pastoral ministry is a one-of-a-kind service. It cannot be approached or defined by categories of this world.

He described pastoral ministry as helping people to die well.

The heart of the presentation was “five rungs for climbing down the ladder toward ordinariness.”

1. Get acquainted with suffering

2. Develop a theology or vocabulary of encouragement. Learn how to encourage God’s people with the gospel.

3. Focus largely on micro-ministry before macro-ministry (i.e. needs of specific people before structural or programmatic issues)

4. Think in terms of decades and generations rather than weeks and years.

“Work today not with an eye to impressing the state paper, but with an eye to shaping your grandchildren.”

5. Recover simple personal discipleship

UPDATE: The manuscript is now available here. Highly recommended!