The pastor as parent

In class yesterday we spent some time thinking about Paul’s letter to the Galatians as a model for us of pastoral ministry. Of course the whole letter is an exercise in pastoral ministry, but we focussed on 4:12-20 and read through Calvin’s commentary on that section which draws out many helpful implications for pastors (you can find that text here).

In particular there is the arresting image of Paul as a mother in the pains of childbirth (4:19). Paul uses the parent metaphor in several places to describe his relationship to those converted under his ministry (e.g. Paul and his companions as mother and father in 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12, Paul as father in 1 Corinthians 4:14-15, Philemon 1:10), but it’s an image that many people have rightly applied to ministry more generally. 

In Galatians, the power of the metaphor is that it is able to express Paul’s anguish as well as his affection for his people, a point wonderfully explored by the lesser-known Reformer Rudolf Gwalther (son-in-law of Ulrich Zwingli):

This passage reminds us of the many things needed for our understanding. First of all, we have to realize that the ministry of the Word is something full of hard work and trouble. Just as a mother carries a fetus in her womb with great effort, losing her appetite for food and appealing to others for help, and just as she gives birth in great pain and then feeds and educates her child with enormous effort, so the trials laid on the backs of ministers of the Word are infinite, and those who risk their reputations in order to win others for Christ have to suffer great trouble (as we are taught by the example of Elijah). The innate depravity of our mind and nature does not accept that we are children of God. The world is against them, because it does not let people escape from its clutches. What grieves ministers the most is that those for whose salvation they sacrifice everything are often not only ungrateful to them for their efforts but even hostile to them. But just as a mother’s love conquers everything and turns sorrow and trouble into joy, sustaining her through the birth process and the education of her children, so ministers should burn with unquenched love for Christ and the church, so that however hard the going may be, nothing will overpower the joy and delight that they get from fulfilling their ministry. (Quoted in Gerald L. Bray, ed., Galatians, Ephesians, Reformed Commentary on Scripture 10 (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2011), 154.

Lots there to ponder, and in the midst of the passage an interesting thought: that one of the key roles for pastors in this parental role is to assure believers that they are God’s children.

Kevin DeYoung on UK evangelicalism

I greatly enjoyed being back at St Helens Bishopsgate this weekend for the South East Gospel Partnership conference, having spent two very happy years there as a church apprentice. Not least it was a pleasure to see again the memorial stone one husband erected to his wife, having decided that of all his wife’s many accomplishments, he would record for posterity that she breast-fed all ten of their children. But I digress.

Kevin DeYoung and Justin Mote were speaking on Scripture and gave a thoughtful Q&A session, during which Kevin was asked what his impressions are of British evangelicalism, and any constructive critique he’d offer.

He mentioned two things and they both deserve some reflection and development…

      1.      British evangelicals are generally very strong on the Bible. They promote and champion expositional preaching. But, they are relatively weak on doctrine and historical theology.

It’s a similar point to one he made a couple of years ago:

“Our biggest strengths tend to be some of our nagging weaknesses. While the training programs are impressively robust, my sensibilities as a Presbyterian/Reformed pastor make me wish more full-time church workers and pastors could benefit from a seminary education. I sensed that young men and women in England were Bible people (which is most important), but less in tune with old books and any particular theological tradition.” http://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/kevindeyoung/2014/02/18/reflections-of-my-trip-to-england/

What strikes me is that adding church history and doctrine to the mix is not like adding a second string to our bow: such that we can say now we do Bible and theology. Rather, church history and doctrine and the Bible are more integrated than that. If theology is asking the question of how the Bible coheres and applies to our thinking about God, salvation, the world, and so on, and church history is the transcript of the ways in which those questions have been answered for 2000years, then the neglect of theology and church history is more serious. Put simply, without them, we might be emphasising the Bible, but not actually reading it in very self-aware or informed ways.

      2.      UK evangelicalism appears to be actually composed of a number of subgroups and they tend to view each other with a degree of suspicion. That is, UK evangelicalism has a unity problem. I think this is spot on.  In my experience of a number of subgroups, we do not think or speak of one another as we should.

There are several causes. As de Young said in the same article mentioned above there are historical and cultural reasons for this, but there are others. In a time of scarce resources it is very easy to think (somewhat perversely) of the ministries that are most closely sympathetic to your aims as competition. In addition, it is striking that a recovery of doctrine and church history can have a negative impact: a greater emphasis on ecclesiology and polity can mean that we start to make the growth of our denomination/grouping our chief goal, and to see conversions to our tribe rather than to Christ as a cause for celebration. There is a Corinthian spirit to it all (1 Cor 1:10-17); indeed I wonder if our relative neglect of those letters is another contributing cause. To generalise, we preach a cross that atones for sins, but we speak far less of a cross that confronts sins, and sins of these very kinds. The divisive, self-promoting, glory-seeking, kinds of sins. So, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Cor 1:31). Taking that to heart, and reckoning with the scale of the evangelistic task before us, would, I suspect, do us all some good.

How like angels and how like devils. A tragic both/and

There’s a beautifully expressed and biblical view of humanity in Hamlet if you just put two quotes side by side:

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! Act 2 Scene 2

I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all. Believe none of us. Act 3 Scene 1

books on the Bible

In light of Primer Issue 01’s focus on the doctrine of Scripture, here’s an annotated list of recent books on the Bible, from the basic to the more stretching.  

Primer itself is written for pastors.  The first four of these books would be great to give to anyone interested, the first couple are especially suited to read and give away, the third and fourth great to recommend to believers. The last three would be a great help for pastors to dig deeper…

Andrew Wilson. Unbreakable: What the Son of God Said About the Word of God. 10Publishing, 2014. (78 pages)

-         A nice compact version of the argument John Wenham made years ago (see his Christ and the Bible): the best way for Christians to know how they should treat the Bible is to see how Jesus treated his Scriptures. Admirably draws out quite a full doctrine of Scripture from Jesus’ teaching: the Bible is clear, authoritative, coherent, sufficient and so on.

Barry Cooper. Can I Really Trust the Bible? The Good Book Company, 2014.

-         Similar length to Andrew’s (81 pages), but broader in scope. Starts where Andrew does with Jesus’ view of Scripture, and branches out to look at questions around the formation of the canon, the transmission of Scripture etc. Lots of fantastic little asides on questions people ask/objections they raise.

Kevin DeYoung. Taking God at His Word. Nottingham: IVP, 2014.

-         Like Andrew, Kevin works through the attributes of Scripture: it is authoritative, sufficient, clear. The differences are: this one is more in depth (138 pages) and aims to see what the whole Bible says about the Bible, rather than simply what Jesus says about the Bible. Less suitable for non-Christians, ideal for Christians who enjoy a read.

Michael Ovey and Daniel Strange. Confident: Why We Can Trust the Bible. Christian Focus Publications, 2015. 

-         A book of two halves: The first half (Dan) has some very helpful reflections and ideas on how to make an authoritative Bible plausible and appealing in a sceptical culture. The second half (Mike) carefully meditates on the Gospels and what they reveal both about God’s word and about human nature and our posture towards Scripture. That is, if Andrew shows us what Jesus says about the Bible, Mike adds in what Jesus says about us. The result is that we are rightly encouraged to be more self-suspicious and humble before God’s word.

Ward, Timothy. Words of Life: Scripture as the Living and Active Word of God. Nottingham: IVP, 2009 (186 pages).

-         Tim’s book gets round to the attributes of Scripture (ch3) but starts by thinking about the foundational role God’s word plays in salvation history (ch1) and by arguing that the Bible is best seen as God at work, it is his speech-act (ch2). The pay-off is that the attributes of Scripture become inevitable: God’s word is true, coherent, authoritative and clear because God doesn’t lie or contradict himself but is the sovereign Lord who communicates perfectly.

Frame, John M. The Doctrine of the Word of God. Phillipsburg, N.J: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2010.

-        Kevin de Young describes this as beginner level (unusual for a book that is 684 pages long!). Mike and Dan put it in the advanced category. They’re both right in a way. Frame writes beautifully clear books, but the size and some of the detail and quirks are more stretching, so it’s probably somewhere in the middle along with Tim Ward.  Comprehensive and comprehendable. Definitely one for the pastors shelf.

Coming soon:

Don Carson ed., The Enduring Authority of the Scriptures. (1256 pages)

-         Take John Frame, double it, and you have this book, coming out in April 2016.

According to the blurb: In this volume thirty-seven first-rate evangelical scholars present a thorough study of biblical authority and a full range of issues connected to it. Recognizing that Scripture and its authority are now being both challenged and defended with renewed vigor, editor D. A. Carson assigned the topics that these select scholars address in the book. After an introduction by Carson to the many facets of the current discussion, the contributors present robust essays on relevant historical, biblical, theological, philosophical, epistemological, and comparative-religions topics. To conclude, Carson answers a number of frequently asked questions about the nature of Scripture, cross-referencing these FAQs to the preceding chapters.

You can browse much of the book here. The FAQ, starting at page  1157(!), looks terrific.

Preaching in step with the Spirit: Spurgeon on how not to be boring.

“The surest way to maintain variety is to keep to the mind of the Holy Spirit in the particular passage under consideration. No two texts are exactly similar; something in the connection or drift of the passage gives to each apparently identical text a shade of difference. Keep to the Spirit’s track and you will never repeat yourself or be short of matter; his paths drop fatness.”

From Lecture 5 of Lectures to My Students.