Puritan Exhortations To Pastors
I found the following quotes to be extremely challenging and inspirational from a book I’m reading called Light and Heat: The Puritan View of the Pulpit.
“We must study as hard how to live well as how to preach well” – Richard Baxter
“He that is more frequent in his pulpit to his people than he is in his closet for his people is but a sorry watchman” – John Owen
“Believe it brethren, it is easier to declaim like an orator against a thousand sins of others than it is to mortify one sin like Christians in ourselves; to preach twenty sermons than one to our own hearts” – John Flavel
“Ministers knock at the door of men’s hearts, the Spirit comes with a key and opens the door” – Thomas Watson
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Mike… I am excited that you are reading about puritan theology. I am currently taking a class on the missional leader and we have been discussing the puritan message in light of the 1st great awakening! How is the puritan view of the pulpit different from our modern view?
February 26, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Hey Harvey,
The book stresses the Puritans high view of God and Scripture which led to their high view of the pulpit. They believed the preaching of the Word was the main and highest calling of the pastor.
In their preaching the puritans strove to convey “light” to the understanding and “heat” to the heart. To inform the mind of truth and to compel the heart with passion through the exposition of biblical texts.
The author believes that many churches in America today have lost their confidence in the power of God’s word to change lives. He claims that a subsequent loss of confidence in preaching the word has resulted.
I’m really intrigued by studying the life and ministry of the Puritans. Especially Edwards and Owen. I’m planning on taking a course on the theology of Jonathan Edwards this summer. Have you been learning anything cool in your class?
February 27, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Great stuff!
February 28, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Yes, I have been learning a lot of cool things!
The Class is taught by a reformed theologian, He is the Pastor of one of the Largest Presbyterean churches in fresno. He is heavily influenced by the desert fathers and the 1st great awakening.
One of my assignments is to use a daily prayer book. Its pretty cool, I chose a celtic prayer book. It talks a lot about the office of prayer, which it speaks directly to prayer being a job and function of the believer.
We are currently discussing the book, “Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform” by William G. Mcloughlin. One of the main concepts I have recieved from it is the cycle of Revival. The idea of revival being aware of what God is doing – then becoming to familiar with it where it becomes expected, regular, and routine. Which leads us back to dryness, That requires for us to begin to once again look for it!
I have really become fascinated with the desert fathers and their communities! I am also intrigued with the idea of the itenrant preacher! I am still trying to process my thoughts on it!
Mike, What have you been intrigue with by Jonathan Edwards?
February 29, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Wow, that sounds amazing. He sounds like a really cool prof. I haven’t studied the desert fathers in depth, but I have loved what I’ve read so far. Thomas Merton has a good little book I enjoyed called “The Wisdom Of The Desert” and Henri Nouwen’s “The Way Of The Heart” is a about bringing “desert” spirituality into contemporary ministry.
I’ve also been really intrigued by Celtic Christian spirituality. Have you read “The Celtic Way of Evangelism?”
I’ve been interested in Jonathan Edwards through the preaching of John Piper and the writings of Sam Storms. I was also really impacted by reading his “Life Of David Brainerd” and his life “Resolutions”.
I read Storms’ primer on Edwards’ “Religious Affections.” I can’t wait to read the original. Plus I’m interested in anybody who pastored a church through a great awakening and also managed to study for nearly 13 hours a day!
March 3, 2008 at 9:12 am
Mike, you are pastoring a church during a great awakening! Just the so called established church has not recognized it, because the main stream is not apart of it!
they had more time, becuase they had to walk everywhere or rent a horse! Who would want to make mutliple trips to the store in a day? LOL
Its our generation that has become disheartened and fragmented from a church which is struggling for significance in a world that doesn’t care. We are in the second cycle of revival where we have grown up in the dry times and we are desperately seeking for God to show up and to show off. The church will only regain significance when we decrease and he increases!
My ministry is heavily inlfuenced by the celitc way of evangelism. I believe that in this new era we are going to have to establish ministry communities that sustains community life in between itenarant style pastoring which cultivates the call, the burden, and the mission! I believe that every church must be invovled in a berean study center where we help facilitate people coming into ministry and getting involved in ministry.
I no longer believ that the ministry is a calling, but I believe it is a cognitive choice that one struggles over and through until one can come to terms with the apostle Paul’s idea of being Bond servants!
I have been reading a lot of Augustines work, St. Francis of Assis, Brother Lawrence… A lot of things coming out of the desert Monastic communities. There writings have a lot to do with understanding Spiritual seasons and times of work and rest. One of the biggest things I have been learning, is why do we as ministers have one dream, vision, or type of ministry that we bring to every church? We need to discover what God’s plans are so we can show up at his staff meetings!
I have really been becoming aware of the story that God is writing and I am priviledge to be inter-woven into his portraits. Eugene Peterson wrote a book called, “Christ PLays in Ten thousand places” and basicly he is reminding us that you and me are living parables of God’s grace, love, redemption, and care! So I have been trying to ask in every ministry and every context I go into, “Okay God, what story have you been writing and how do you want me to fit in?”
I haven’t read very many things from John Piper or Sam Storms. I am going to a Mennonite Brethern Seminary which is heavily Anabaptist. It is very cool because I am getting the other side of stories that I got at CBC and from the Assemblies. They are heavily influenced by a theologian named John Yoder!
March 3, 2008 at 2:27 pm