These insights concerning the relationship between a pastor’s private and public duties should be a vital part of pastoral training. Seminaries spend most of their time and energy in cultivating a pastor’s public duties. This is only natural, since a student cannot be graded on his personal holiness, meditation on the Word, or willingness to suffer hardship. Skills related to a pastor’s public duties are much easier to evaluate and hone in a seminary setting. Potential pastors must certainly be taught the practical aspects of shepherding the flock...
The work of pastoral ministry requires a man to have close personal involvement with others. The nature of this involvement depends on the need of the moment. Paul commands Timothy to be involved personally in the lives of people in many ways. He must “appeal” and “rebuke” and “reprove” and “exhort” and “speak” and “urge.” If a pastor is going to fulfill the duties of the ministry, he must heed these commands. A man is no shepherd who refuses to dirty his hands in the fleece of the sheep...
Meditating on the Word enables a pastor to preach and teach
It is self evident that if a man desires to preach the Word, he must first know the Word. But this knowledge must not be the cold, academic, theoretical knowledge of the detached scholar. It must be the warm, spiritual, experiential knowledge of the meditator. “A faithful minister must see before he say.”[1]
Playing a musical instrument requires hours and hours of private practice and study before it can be done in public. A man who has never touched an organ would be a fool if he thought he could publicly perform a Bach fugue on the first try. The same is true with playing basketball. One does not learn to play like Michael Jordan simply by watching from the stands. A surgeon does not perform intricate brain surgery without years of preparation.
