The Pastor as Theologian
Topic The pastor as theologian Time October 2016 Place APC, South Africa
The second thing we want to talk about today is the Pastor as theologian. Let me begin by repeating the story of the minister walking through a cemetery with his little girl. The girl stopped at one of the graves and read the inscription. “O look” she said “two men are buried in this one grave.” “Why do you say that, dear?” says her father. The reply? “Because on the tombstone it says, “Here lies a pastor and a theologian.” This little girl didn't realise that one person could be both a pastor and a theologian! Hopefully, her father did and hopefully you do too.
In an interesting article on the subject, Southern Baptist Seminary President Al Mohler, expresses the opinion that “every pastor is called to be a theologian”. As he notes, this assertion may come as a surprise to some pastors. This is because they see theology as an academic discipline studied at a seminary rather than as something that should characterise the life and ministry of every pastor.
Part of the reason for this way of thinking is the transformation of theology that has taken place since the time of the Puritans, whereby it has increasingly become the province of the university rather than of local churches and their pastors. If you go back to someone like the Elizabethan Puritan William Perkins (1558-1602), or the later Dutch theologian, Hermann Witsius (1636-1708), you will get quite a different understanding of theology. In his Golden Chain of 1590 Perkins famously calls it “the science of living blessedly forever.” In an essay on The character of a true theologian, his inaugural lecture at the University of Franeker,
Witsius similarly wrote
By a theologian, I mean one who, imbued with a substantial knowledge of divine things derived from the teaching of God Himself, declares and extols, not in words only, but by the whole course of his life, the wonderful excellencies of God and thus lives entirely for His glory.
When we take that view of things, it is clear that what Al Mohler says is true
the health of the church depends upon its pastors functioning as faithful theologians - teaching, preaching, defending, and applying the great doctrines of the faith.
He is surely correct to say that “the pastoral calling is inherently theological”. The pastor is called to be a teacher and preacher of the Word. “The idea of the pastorate as a non-theological office is inconceivable in light of the New Testament.” This is made explicit in the pastoral letters.
Tom Ascol says that in the 242 verses that make up the three letters, the word, “doctrine” appears at least 16 times. “Theology” he says “was to be at the heart of Timothy’s and Titus’ understanding of what a pastor is to be and do.”
Take these verses from 2 Timothy for example
2 Timothy 1:13, 14 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you – guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
2 Timothy 2:2 And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.
2 Timothy 2:15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
2 Timothy 4:1-4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Also see 1 Timothy 4:13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.
Titus 1:9 which says of the elder He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
If we are to teach people, if we are to faithfully defend the truth, if we are to be effective evangelists, then we need to be theologians. Indeed, as Mohler says, again
There is no dimension of the pastor’s calling that is not deeply, inherently, and inescapably theological. There is no problem the pastor will encounter in counselling that is not specifically theological in character. There is no major question in ministry that does not come with deep theological dimensions and the need for careful theological application. The task of leading, feeding, and guiding the congregation is as theological as any other vocation conceivable. People regularly point to various models or styles of pastoral ministry – the manager, the helper, the coach and it may be that such models have something to teach us but the New Testament approach is clearly one in which the pastor is a theologian. The very shape of Paul's letters, where he regularly begins with doctrine and moves on to practice is a powerful witness on its own.
That is why “today’s pastors must recover and reclaim the pastoral calling as inherently and cheerfully theological”. In his Preachers and preaching Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones raises the question of what preaching is. His answer is evocative. “Logic on fire!” he says, “Eloquent reason!” “Are these contradictions?” he asks.
Of course they are not. Reason concerning this Truth ought to be mightily eloquent, as you see in the case of the Apostle Paul and others. It is theology on fire. And a theology which does not take fire, I maintain, is a defective theology. Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire. A true understanding and experience of the Truth must lead to this.
He also says
Preaching must always be theological, always based on a theological foundation. … There is no type of preaching that should be non-theological.
He especially advocates systematic theology
To me there is nothing more important in a preacher than that he should have a systematic theology, that he should know it and be well grounded in it. This systematic theology, this body of truth which is derived from the Scripture, should always be present as a background and as a controlling influence in his preaching.
B B Warfield's essay on The indispensability of systematic theology to the preacher begins similarly
Professor Flint, of Edinburgh, in closing his opening lecture to his class a few years ago, took occasion to warn his students of what he spoke of as an imminent danger ... a growing tendency to "deem it of prime importance that they should enter upon their ministry accomplished preachers, and of only secondary importance that they should be scholars, thinkers, theologians." "It is not so," he is reported as saying, "that great or even good preachers are formed. They form themselves before they form their style of preaching. Substance with them precedes appearance, instead of appearance being a substitute for substance. They learn to know truth before they think of presenting it. … They acquire a solid basis for the manifestation of their love of souls through a loving, comprehensive, absorbing study of the truth which saves souls." In these winged words is outlined the case for the indispensableness of Systematic Theology for the preacher. It is summed up in the propositions that it is through the truth that souls are saved, that it is accordingly the prime business of the preacher to present this truth to men, and that it is consequently his fundamental duty to become himself possessed of this truth, that he may present it to men and so save their souls. It would not be easy to overstate, of course, the importance to a preacher of those gifts and graces which qualify him to present this truth to men in a winning way - of all, in a word, that goest to make him an "accomplished preacher." But it is obviously even more important to him that he should have a clear apprehension and firm grasp of that truth which he is to commend to men by means of these gifts and graces. For this clear apprehension and firm grasp of the truth its systematic study would seem certainly to be indispensable. And Systematic Theology is nothing other than the saving truth of God presented in systematic form
Not that either would undervalue biblical theology. However, they would hold that biblical theology should lead to systematic theology so that when we come to a fresh passage of Scripture we have a systematic understanding of Scripture undergirding the way we approach the passage. One useful tip here. If you want to know whether you understand a doctrine properly then try to simply explain it out loud. Try justification or regeneration, for example.
Cautions
There was an article in Christianity Today last year called Why being a pastor-scholar is nearly impossible where Andrew Wilson sounded some warning bells regarding being both a pastor and a scholar. He asks there
But how feasible is it to be both a scholar and a pastor? I suspect many of us know individuals who, by aiming to be both a pastor and a scholar, have ended up being neither. More commonly, some aspire to be both equally, but indicate by their speech and actions - let alone by their weekly timetables - that they major in one and minor in the other.
He points up three obvious areas of tension. First, the generalist-specialist one. Pastors are generalists who have to know a lot about many things, while scholars tend to specialise. Pastors can rarely say “but that I not my field” or “I will do a paper on that and let you have it in six months time”. Second, the practical-theoretical tension. Scholars tend to theorise, while pastors need to be practical. The congregation wants to know what to do next and is seldom interested in the history of theories of how the soul is generated or the ins and outs of early Christian heresies. Thirdly, he consider the university-church tension. If you have studied at university or seminary level you will know how different these spheres can be. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
As he says,
full-time academics have to play by all sorts of scholarly rules, many of which constrain them from speaking with confidence about any number of issues. The academy loves nuance and finesse. But when transplanted into a local church context, such speech can seem evasive, flowery, and obscure. Although sounding quite negative about scholar-pastors he ends more positively by reminding us that tension can be good for us. Of course, what we are arguing for here is not that we become scholars in the sense of entering the academic world, Rather our concern is that pastors think in a theological way. Whether that includes any academic activity is another question entirely.
Practical steps
Given that all pastors should be theologians, what practical steps can we take to ensure that, if we are pastors we are pastor-theologians, a we ought to be. In an essay from the 1980s by James Montgomery Boice on The preacher and scholarship he gives four recommended guidelines.
1. Get all the formal training you can
Our circumstances differ and some will only be able to get a limited amount of formal training or none at all. Whatever opportunities come your way, grab them with both hands. You will not regret it.
2. Never stop learning
It is important that whether or not you are able to get formal training or not that you do not stop there. Your study should be ongoing. Read books, make judicious use of the Internet, attend conferences like this one and take other opportunities to learn. Boice suggest we focus on three areas
1 The Bible. This must always be first and foremost. Above everything else, we must know our Bibles. This is our textbook. Read the Bible daily. As a minister you should be reading the Bible once through at least every year. The M'Cheyne reading calendar which takes you through the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice every year is demanding but very profitable. Really get to know your Bible inside out. One of the points that John Piper makes in a paper on Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) and what he teaches us is that pastors ought to “labour earnestly to know the Scriptures”. He recalls Edwards' 28th resolution in the series of such resolutions he made while studying at Yale.
Resolved: To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
Piper says
Don't get your vision of God secondhand. Don't even let Edwards or Packer be your primary source of divinity. This was the example Edwards himself sets for us. His early biographer Sereno Dwight said that when he came to his pastorate in Northampton, "he had studied theology, not chiefly in systems or commentaries, but in the Bible, and in the character and mutual relations of God and his creatures, from which all its principles are derived" (Works, I, xxxvii).
He quotes an Edwards sermon called The Importance and Advantage of a thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth.
Edwards says
Be assiduous [!] in reading the Holy Scriptures. This is the fountain whence all knowledge in divinity must be derived. Therefore let not this treasure lie by you neglected (Works, II, 162).
Perhaps you know how one day Edwards took a Bible apart page by page and then sowed it back together interleaved with blank sheets. He then drew a line down the centre of each blank page in order to make two columns for notes. The Bible still exists and is in the Beinecke Library at Yale. Piper says that on page after page in the remotest parts of Scripture there are extensive notes and reflections in his tiny almost illegible handwriting.
He asks
How many of us have a plan for growing in our grasp of the whole terrain of Scripture? Don't most of us use the Bible as a source for getting sermons and devotionals and personal devotional help? But do we labour over the Scripture in such a way that we can plainly see that today we understand something in it that we did not understand yesterday? I fear that many of us work at reading books on theology and church life with a view to growing, but have no plan and no sustained effort to move steadily and constantly forward in our understanding of the Bible. … Study the Bible so steadily and constantly and frequently that you can clearly perceive yourself to grow in them.
Someone (Charles Graham) once wrote
It is said of some of the mines of Cornwall that the deeper they are sunk the richer they prove; and though some lodes have been followed, 1000 and even 1500 feet, they have not come to an end. Such is the Book of God ... a mine of wealth which can never be exhausted. The deeper we sink into it, the richer it becomes.
2 Theology. Keep reading theology. Preaching on 2 Timothy 4:13 where Paul urges that Timothy bring him books, C H Spurgeon (1634-1892) says
He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. YOU need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. We are quite persuaded that the best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service.
Tom Ascol says, very practically
The recent reprinting of older works makes the Puritans and their heirs more accessible today than at any time in the previous century. Get on the mailing lists of trusted publishers of such works, like Banner of Truth … Talk to fellow pastors and discover what books they are finding helpful. Read good theological journals and don’t skip the book reviews!
3 Other books. Here he mentions several areas and names specific volumes, As he says,
for the minister reading in almost any area can be useful and so we will vary from person to person. Do take advantage of books on church history, however, including biography. All sorts of things can be learned from Christian books of various sorts and from some of the more widely read secular books too, at times.
3. Set aside specific times for study.
Bopice recommends that we take time in the mornings and/or the evening and during holiday periods to give ourselves to serious study. This is an area where any sabbatical time given would be very usefully spent. To do this we will need to find somewhere where we are not going to be interrupted. He points out that unless we are vigorous about this, it simply will not happen.
4. Tackle some big problems. His final recommendation is that we give some time to tackling areas of thought where we are not so sure of ourselves. However much training you mange to get, you are bound to find that there are gaps in your thinking. May be you are not very clear on covenant theology,what it is and how you understand it. Perhaps it is eschatology or how exactly we are to understand Song of Solomon or Ecclesiastes. Somehow time needs to be found to give yourself to these questions. It is on this basis that I have written the books I have written – on conscience, in the heavenly intercession of Christ, on regeneration, etc. You don't have to write a book on a subject to study it!
Let me close with a paragraph or two from John Piper on The pastor as scholar. This is where he talks about the link between Christ exalting joy and scholarly effort. He says
The question here is how the life of the mind relates to treasuring Christ - how thinking relates to joy in God. I would state it like this: Right thinking about God exists to serve right feelings for God. Logic exists for the sake of love. Reasoning exists for the sake of rejoicing. Doctrine exists for the sake of delight. Reflection about God exists for the sake of affection for God. The head is meant to serve the heart. So knowing truth is the proper means to admiring truth. Both thinking and feeling are indispensable. But they are not both ultimate. Thinking exists to serve admiring. Thinking is meant to serve worship and delight and satisfaction in God. The Devil himself has many right thoughts about God. My guess is that the Devil, on some doctrines, is more orthodox than us - more correct than we are. But none of these doctrines, in the mind of the Devil, gives rise to any love for God, any worship of God, any delight in God. The Devil believes that Jesus died for sinners. The Devil believes that Jesus rose from the dead. The Devil believes that Jesus is coming back. And the Devil hates him! So knowing right things about Jesus doesn’t automatically produce right affections. But knowing those right things about Christ is essential for having right affections for God. What I am getting at is that Christ-exalting joy depends on right thinking about God. If God is going to be glorified in our being satisfied in him, then our satisfaction in him must be based on truth. And truth is what we find by the right use of the mind - by scholarly effort.
In an interesting article on the subject, Southern Baptist Seminary President Al Mohler, expresses the opinion that “every pastor is called to be a theologian”. As he notes, this assertion may come as a surprise to some pastors. This is because they see theology as an academic discipline studied at a seminary rather than as something that should characterise the life and ministry of every pastor.
Part of the reason for this way of thinking is the transformation of theology that has taken place since the time of the Puritans, whereby it has increasingly become the province of the university rather than of local churches and their pastors. If you go back to someone like the Elizabethan Puritan William Perkins (1558-1602), or the later Dutch theologian, Hermann Witsius (1636-1708), you will get quite a different understanding of theology. In his Golden Chain of 1590 Perkins famously calls it “the science of living blessedly forever.” In an essay on The character of a true theologian, his inaugural lecture at the University of Franeker,
Witsius similarly wrote
By a theologian, I mean one who, imbued with a substantial knowledge of divine things derived from the teaching of God Himself, declares and extols, not in words only, but by the whole course of his life, the wonderful excellencies of God and thus lives entirely for His glory.
When we take that view of things, it is clear that what Al Mohler says is true
the health of the church depends upon its pastors functioning as faithful theologians - teaching, preaching, defending, and applying the great doctrines of the faith.
He is surely correct to say that “the pastoral calling is inherently theological”. The pastor is called to be a teacher and preacher of the Word. “The idea of the pastorate as a non-theological office is inconceivable in light of the New Testament.” This is made explicit in the pastoral letters.
Tom Ascol says that in the 242 verses that make up the three letters, the word, “doctrine” appears at least 16 times. “Theology” he says “was to be at the heart of Timothy’s and Titus’ understanding of what a pastor is to be and do.”
Take these verses from 2 Timothy for example
2 Timothy 1:13, 14 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you – guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
2 Timothy 2:2 And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.
2 Timothy 2:15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
2 Timothy 4:1-4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Also see 1 Timothy 4:13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.
Titus 1:9 which says of the elder He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
If we are to teach people, if we are to faithfully defend the truth, if we are to be effective evangelists, then we need to be theologians. Indeed, as Mohler says, again
There is no dimension of the pastor’s calling that is not deeply, inherently, and inescapably theological. There is no problem the pastor will encounter in counselling that is not specifically theological in character. There is no major question in ministry that does not come with deep theological dimensions and the need for careful theological application. The task of leading, feeding, and guiding the congregation is as theological as any other vocation conceivable. People regularly point to various models or styles of pastoral ministry – the manager, the helper, the coach and it may be that such models have something to teach us but the New Testament approach is clearly one in which the pastor is a theologian. The very shape of Paul's letters, where he regularly begins with doctrine and moves on to practice is a powerful witness on its own.
That is why “today’s pastors must recover and reclaim the pastoral calling as inherently and cheerfully theological”. In his Preachers and preaching Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones raises the question of what preaching is. His answer is evocative. “Logic on fire!” he says, “Eloquent reason!” “Are these contradictions?” he asks.
Of course they are not. Reason concerning this Truth ought to be mightily eloquent, as you see in the case of the Apostle Paul and others. It is theology on fire. And a theology which does not take fire, I maintain, is a defective theology. Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire. A true understanding and experience of the Truth must lead to this.
He also says
Preaching must always be theological, always based on a theological foundation. … There is no type of preaching that should be non-theological.
He especially advocates systematic theology
To me there is nothing more important in a preacher than that he should have a systematic theology, that he should know it and be well grounded in it. This systematic theology, this body of truth which is derived from the Scripture, should always be present as a background and as a controlling influence in his preaching.
B B Warfield's essay on The indispensability of systematic theology to the preacher begins similarly
Professor Flint, of Edinburgh, in closing his opening lecture to his class a few years ago, took occasion to warn his students of what he spoke of as an imminent danger ... a growing tendency to "deem it of prime importance that they should enter upon their ministry accomplished preachers, and of only secondary importance that they should be scholars, thinkers, theologians." "It is not so," he is reported as saying, "that great or even good preachers are formed. They form themselves before they form their style of preaching. Substance with them precedes appearance, instead of appearance being a substitute for substance. They learn to know truth before they think of presenting it. … They acquire a solid basis for the manifestation of their love of souls through a loving, comprehensive, absorbing study of the truth which saves souls." In these winged words is outlined the case for the indispensableness of Systematic Theology for the preacher. It is summed up in the propositions that it is through the truth that souls are saved, that it is accordingly the prime business of the preacher to present this truth to men, and that it is consequently his fundamental duty to become himself possessed of this truth, that he may present it to men and so save their souls. It would not be easy to overstate, of course, the importance to a preacher of those gifts and graces which qualify him to present this truth to men in a winning way - of all, in a word, that goest to make him an "accomplished preacher." But it is obviously even more important to him that he should have a clear apprehension and firm grasp of that truth which he is to commend to men by means of these gifts and graces. For this clear apprehension and firm grasp of the truth its systematic study would seem certainly to be indispensable. And Systematic Theology is nothing other than the saving truth of God presented in systematic form
Not that either would undervalue biblical theology. However, they would hold that biblical theology should lead to systematic theology so that when we come to a fresh passage of Scripture we have a systematic understanding of Scripture undergirding the way we approach the passage. One useful tip here. If you want to know whether you understand a doctrine properly then try to simply explain it out loud. Try justification or regeneration, for example.
Cautions
There was an article in Christianity Today last year called Why being a pastor-scholar is nearly impossible where Andrew Wilson sounded some warning bells regarding being both a pastor and a scholar. He asks there
But how feasible is it to be both a scholar and a pastor? I suspect many of us know individuals who, by aiming to be both a pastor and a scholar, have ended up being neither. More commonly, some aspire to be both equally, but indicate by their speech and actions - let alone by their weekly timetables - that they major in one and minor in the other.
He points up three obvious areas of tension. First, the generalist-specialist one. Pastors are generalists who have to know a lot about many things, while scholars tend to specialise. Pastors can rarely say “but that I not my field” or “I will do a paper on that and let you have it in six months time”. Second, the practical-theoretical tension. Scholars tend to theorise, while pastors need to be practical. The congregation wants to know what to do next and is seldom interested in the history of theories of how the soul is generated or the ins and outs of early Christian heresies. Thirdly, he consider the university-church tension. If you have studied at university or seminary level you will know how different these spheres can be. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
As he says,
full-time academics have to play by all sorts of scholarly rules, many of which constrain them from speaking with confidence about any number of issues. The academy loves nuance and finesse. But when transplanted into a local church context, such speech can seem evasive, flowery, and obscure. Although sounding quite negative about scholar-pastors he ends more positively by reminding us that tension can be good for us. Of course, what we are arguing for here is not that we become scholars in the sense of entering the academic world, Rather our concern is that pastors think in a theological way. Whether that includes any academic activity is another question entirely.
Practical steps
Given that all pastors should be theologians, what practical steps can we take to ensure that, if we are pastors we are pastor-theologians, a we ought to be. In an essay from the 1980s by James Montgomery Boice on The preacher and scholarship he gives four recommended guidelines.
1. Get all the formal training you can
Our circumstances differ and some will only be able to get a limited amount of formal training or none at all. Whatever opportunities come your way, grab them with both hands. You will not regret it.
2. Never stop learning
It is important that whether or not you are able to get formal training or not that you do not stop there. Your study should be ongoing. Read books, make judicious use of the Internet, attend conferences like this one and take other opportunities to learn. Boice suggest we focus on three areas
1 The Bible. This must always be first and foremost. Above everything else, we must know our Bibles. This is our textbook. Read the Bible daily. As a minister you should be reading the Bible once through at least every year. The M'Cheyne reading calendar which takes you through the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice every year is demanding but very profitable. Really get to know your Bible inside out. One of the points that John Piper makes in a paper on Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) and what he teaches us is that pastors ought to “labour earnestly to know the Scriptures”. He recalls Edwards' 28th resolution in the series of such resolutions he made while studying at Yale.
Resolved: To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
Piper says
Don't get your vision of God secondhand. Don't even let Edwards or Packer be your primary source of divinity. This was the example Edwards himself sets for us. His early biographer Sereno Dwight said that when he came to his pastorate in Northampton, "he had studied theology, not chiefly in systems or commentaries, but in the Bible, and in the character and mutual relations of God and his creatures, from which all its principles are derived" (Works, I, xxxvii).
He quotes an Edwards sermon called The Importance and Advantage of a thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth.
Edwards says
Be assiduous [!] in reading the Holy Scriptures. This is the fountain whence all knowledge in divinity must be derived. Therefore let not this treasure lie by you neglected (Works, II, 162).
Perhaps you know how one day Edwards took a Bible apart page by page and then sowed it back together interleaved with blank sheets. He then drew a line down the centre of each blank page in order to make two columns for notes. The Bible still exists and is in the Beinecke Library at Yale. Piper says that on page after page in the remotest parts of Scripture there are extensive notes and reflections in his tiny almost illegible handwriting.
He asks
How many of us have a plan for growing in our grasp of the whole terrain of Scripture? Don't most of us use the Bible as a source for getting sermons and devotionals and personal devotional help? But do we labour over the Scripture in such a way that we can plainly see that today we understand something in it that we did not understand yesterday? I fear that many of us work at reading books on theology and church life with a view to growing, but have no plan and no sustained effort to move steadily and constantly forward in our understanding of the Bible. … Study the Bible so steadily and constantly and frequently that you can clearly perceive yourself to grow in them.
Someone (Charles Graham) once wrote
It is said of some of the mines of Cornwall that the deeper they are sunk the richer they prove; and though some lodes have been followed, 1000 and even 1500 feet, they have not come to an end. Such is the Book of God ... a mine of wealth which can never be exhausted. The deeper we sink into it, the richer it becomes.
2 Theology. Keep reading theology. Preaching on 2 Timothy 4:13 where Paul urges that Timothy bring him books, C H Spurgeon (1634-1892) says
He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. YOU need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. We are quite persuaded that the best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service.
Tom Ascol says, very practically
The recent reprinting of older works makes the Puritans and their heirs more accessible today than at any time in the previous century. Get on the mailing lists of trusted publishers of such works, like Banner of Truth … Talk to fellow pastors and discover what books they are finding helpful. Read good theological journals and don’t skip the book reviews!
3 Other books. Here he mentions several areas and names specific volumes, As he says,
for the minister reading in almost any area can be useful and so we will vary from person to person. Do take advantage of books on church history, however, including biography. All sorts of things can be learned from Christian books of various sorts and from some of the more widely read secular books too, at times.
3. Set aside specific times for study.
Bopice recommends that we take time in the mornings and/or the evening and during holiday periods to give ourselves to serious study. This is an area where any sabbatical time given would be very usefully spent. To do this we will need to find somewhere where we are not going to be interrupted. He points out that unless we are vigorous about this, it simply will not happen.
4. Tackle some big problems. His final recommendation is that we give some time to tackling areas of thought where we are not so sure of ourselves. However much training you mange to get, you are bound to find that there are gaps in your thinking. May be you are not very clear on covenant theology,what it is and how you understand it. Perhaps it is eschatology or how exactly we are to understand Song of Solomon or Ecclesiastes. Somehow time needs to be found to give yourself to these questions. It is on this basis that I have written the books I have written – on conscience, in the heavenly intercession of Christ, on regeneration, etc. You don't have to write a book on a subject to study it!
Let me close with a paragraph or two from John Piper on The pastor as scholar. This is where he talks about the link between Christ exalting joy and scholarly effort. He says
The question here is how the life of the mind relates to treasuring Christ - how thinking relates to joy in God. I would state it like this: Right thinking about God exists to serve right feelings for God. Logic exists for the sake of love. Reasoning exists for the sake of rejoicing. Doctrine exists for the sake of delight. Reflection about God exists for the sake of affection for God. The head is meant to serve the heart. So knowing truth is the proper means to admiring truth. Both thinking and feeling are indispensable. But they are not both ultimate. Thinking exists to serve admiring. Thinking is meant to serve worship and delight and satisfaction in God. The Devil himself has many right thoughts about God. My guess is that the Devil, on some doctrines, is more orthodox than us - more correct than we are. But none of these doctrines, in the mind of the Devil, gives rise to any love for God, any worship of God, any delight in God. The Devil believes that Jesus died for sinners. The Devil believes that Jesus rose from the dead. The Devil believes that Jesus is coming back. And the Devil hates him! So knowing right things about Jesus doesn’t automatically produce right affections. But knowing those right things about Christ is essential for having right affections for God. What I am getting at is that Christ-exalting joy depends on right thinking about God. If God is going to be glorified in our being satisfied in him, then our satisfaction in him must be based on truth. And truth is what we find by the right use of the mind - by scholarly effort.
