The same principle applies to the pastorate. A man who neglects the private duties of the ministry cannot expect to be fruitful in the public duties. Despite this clear reality, however, the emphasis in pastoral training at the seminary level is usually on the outward, public duties of the pastorate. In seminary, the vast majority of time and energy is devoted to making men capable shepherds, preachers, and counselors. But the emphasis in the New Testament is on making pastors holy men who meditate on the Word who do not shrink from suffering hardship. The emphasis in modern pastoral preparation is on the pastor’s public duties, while the emphasis in the New Testament is on the pastor’s private duties.

The New Testament’s emphasis on the pastor’s private duties becomes clear if we examine all of the commands given to pastors. (A list of all these commands will follow in part 5 of this series.) When we do this, three broad categories of both public and private pastoral duties emerge:

The pastor’s private duties are the foundation of his public duties. The man who neglects the private duty of pursuing personal holiness will never be effective in shepherding the flock. The man who ignores the private duty of meditating on the Word will be a fruitless preacher and teacher. The man who fails in being willing to suffer hardship for Jesus Christ will never reprove, rebuke, and exhort in the face of opposition. In the pastorate, as in other disciplines, there is a direct connection between the quality of the private preparation and the outcome of the public ministry.

Pursuing holiness enables a pastor to shepherd the flock

There is an inseparable relationship between a pastor’s pursuit of holiness and his ability to shepherd the flock. The words of Robert Murray McCheyne to a young pastor are both familiar and true: “Remember you are God’s sword, His instrument—I trust a chosen vessel unto Him to bear His name. In great measure, according to the purity and perfections of the instrument, will be the success. It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.”[1]

The New Testament is full of commands telling pastors to pursue holiness. To the elders of Ephesus, Paul said, “Be on guard for yourselves…be on the alert” (Acts 20:28a, 31). To the young pastor Timothy, Paul gave numerous commands to pursue holiness:

But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. (1 Timothy 4:7)

Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. (1 Timothy 4:12)

Pay close attention to yourself…(1 Timothy 4:16a)

But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness. (1 Timothy 6:11)

You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:1)

Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. (2 Timothy 2:22)

But you, be sober in all things… (2 Timothy 4:5a)

In every area of life, a pastor must be vitally concerned with his own personal holiness before God.

These commands to pursue holiness form the foundation for the commands to shepherd the flock. When Paul gave his final words to the Ephesian elders, he said, “Be on guard…for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28). The elders must be on guard for the church and shepherd it. But what is the prerequisite for being able to shepherd the flock? It is what Paul says in the first part of verse 28: “Be on guard for yourselves.”

Peter gives the same kind of command to elders in 1 Peter 5:1-3.

Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.

The elders must “shepherd the flock of God.” They must “exercise oversight.” But the primary means of shepherding and leading is not by “lording it over” the church. Rather, it is by “proving to be examples to the flock.” Without a godly, holy life, the elders are unable to shepherd and provide oversight for the church. If the church sees an elder as a man who is undisciplined, greedy, hateful, harsh, weak in faith, contentious, and unconcerned about his own walk with God, the church will not follow him. They will not trust him. They will not submit to his oversight.

The Puritans clearly saw the connection between a pastor’s holiness and his ability to shepherd the flock. One of the most outspoken advocates of pastoral holiness was Richard Baxter, the author of The Reformed Pastor.

Content not yourselves with being in a state of grace, but be also careful that your graces are kept in vigorous and lively exercise, and that you preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, before you preach them to others. If you did this for your own sakes, it would not be lost labor; but I am speaking to you upon the public account, that you would do it for the sake of the Church. When your minds are in a holy, heavenly frame, your people are likely to partake of the fruits of it. Your prayers, and praises, and doctrine will be sweet and heavenly to them. They will likely feel when you have been much with God: that which is most on your hearts, is like to be most in their ears.[2]

We are the nurses of Christ’s little ones. If we forbear taking food ourselves, we shall famish them; it will soon be visible in their leanness, and dull discharge of their several duties. If we let our love decline, we are not like to raise up theirs. If we abate our holy care and fear, it will appear in our preaching: if the matter show it not, the manner will. If we feed on unwholesome food, either errors or fruitless controversies, our hearers are like to fare the worse for it. Whereas, if we abound in faith, and love, and zeal, how would it overflow to the refreshing of our congregations, and how would it appear in the increase of the same graces in them![3]

O brethren, watch therefore over your own hearts: keep out lusts and passions, and worldly inclinations; keep up the life of faith, and love, and zeal: be much at home, and be much with God. If it be not your daily business to study your own hearts, and to subdue corruption, and to walk with God—if you make not this a work to which you constancy attend, all will go wrong, and you will starve your hearers; or, if you have an affected fervency, you cannot expect a blessing to attend it from on high. Above all, be much in secret prayer and meditation. Thence you must fetch the heavenly fire that must kindle your sacrifices: remember, you cannot decline and neglect your duty, to your own hurt alone; many will be losers by it as well as you. For your people’s sakes, therefore, look to your hearts.[4]

Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine, and lest you lay such stumbling–blocks before the blind, as may be the occasion of their ruin; lest you unsay with your lives, what you say with your tongues; and be the greatest hindrances of the success of your own labors.[5]

One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action, may cut the throat of many a sermon, and blast the fruit of all that you have been doing.[6]

It is a palpable error of some ministers, who make such a disproportion between their preaching and their living; who study hard to preach exactly, and study little or not at all to live exactly. All the week long is little enough, to study how to speak two hours; and yet one hour seems too much to study how to live all the week. They are loath to misplace a word in their sermons, or to be guilty of any notable infirmity (and I blame them not, for the matter is holy and weighty), but they make nothing of misplacing affections, words, and actions, in the course of their lives.[7]

Richard Baxter was not the only man who understood the vital need for holiness in pastors. John Owen said, “If a man teach uprightly and walk crookedly, more will fall down in the night of his life than he built in the day of his doctrine.”[8] William Gurnall clearly saw the connection between holiness and shepherding: “Unholiness in a preacher’s life will either stop his mouth from reproving, or the people’s ears from receiving.”[9] If a man is going to be a faithful and useful elder in the church, he must pursue holiness. “A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.”[10]

 

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[1]A.A. Bonar, Memoirs and Remains of R.M. McCheyne, (Simpsonville, SC: Christian Classics Foundation) 1997, [Online] Available: Logos Library System.

[2]Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, (Simpsonville, SC: Christian Classics Foundation) 1997, [Online] Available: Logos Library System.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] I.D.E. Thomas, The Golden Treasury of Puritan Quotations, (Simpsonville, SC: Christian Classics Foundation) 1997, [Online] Available: Logos Library System.

[9] Ibid.

[10] A.A. Bonar, Memoirs and Remains of R.M. McCheyne, (Simpsonville, SC: Christian Classics Foundation) 1997, [Online] Available: Logos Library System.