The Reformed Pastor (Foreword by Chad Van Dixhoorn)

Updated and Abridged Edition

Richard Baxter, Tim Cooper

• Editorial: Crossway
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781433573217
• Categoría: Theology & Religion
• Categoría: Christian Ministry

An Updated and Abridged Edition of Richard Baxter's Classic Text

Originally written in 1656 and endorsed by generations of leading pastors as an essential book on the work of ministry, this abridged version of The Reformed Pastor presents the best of Richard Baxter's timeless advice in simple, modern language that's more accessible to a new generation of church leaders.

In inspiring communications to his fellow ministers, Baxter challenged them to pursue teaching and personal pastoral ministry with an exceptional degree of faithfulness. His words were grounded in the apostle Paul's encouragement to the leaders in Ephesus to "take heed unto yourselves and all the flock." Baxter's advice remains relevant today as Christian leaders face both new and age-old challenges in ministry. With this updated, abridged version of The Reformed Pastor, editor Tim Cooper retains Baxter's passionate message in a modern, simplified style that speaks clearly to today's Christian leaders.

1

Take Heed unto Yourselves

In this chapter Baxter offers four reasons for the importance of Paul’s command to the Ephesian elders to “take heed unto yourselves.” He then offers eight reasons why this is so critical to effective ministry. The essential problem is the deceitfulness and stubborn staying power of indwelling sin. Just as it can subvert the heart of any believer, it is still at work in the hearts of pastors. They must pay close attention to themselves.

If the people in our charge are to teach, admonish, and exhort each other daily (Col. 3:16; Heb. 3:13), no doubt we may do the same for one another. We have the same sins to kill and the same inner workings of God’s grace to be enlivened and strengthened as our people have. We have greater works to do than they have and greater difficulties to overcome, so no less necessity is laid on us. Therefore, we need to be warned and awakened as well as they do, and we should deal with one another as plainly and intimately as the most serious pastors among us do with their flocks. Otherwise, if only our people have the benefit of sharp admonitions and reproofs, only they will be sound and lively in the faith. I need no other proof that this was Paul’s judgment than his rousing, heart-melting exhortation to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20: a short sermon but not quickly learned. If the leaders and teachers of the church had thoroughly learned this short exhortation, how happy it would have been for the church and for them! Therefore, let us consider what it is to take heed unto ourselves.

The Importance of Taking Heed unto Ourselves

1. Take heed unto yourselves lest you be void of that saving grace of God that you offer to others and be strangers to the effectual workings of the gospel you preach. Take heed unto yourselves lest while you proclaim the necessity of a Savior to the world, your own hearts neglect him and you miss out on an interest in him and his saving benefits. Take heed unto yourselves lest you perish while you call on others to take heed of perishing and lest you starve yourselves while you prepare their food. Can any reasonable man imagine that God should save men for offering salvation to others while they refused it themselves and for telling others those truths that they themselves neglected and abused? Many a tailor goes in rags who makes costly clothes for others. Many a cook barely licks his fingers when he has prepared for others the most costly dishes. Believe it, brethren, God never saved any man because he was a preacher, nor because he was an able preacher, but because he was a justified, sanctified man and consequently faithful in his Master’s work. Therefore, first take heed unto yourselves so that you will be that which you persuade your hearers to be, believe that which you persuade them daily to believe, and have heartily accepted that Christ and Spirit whom you offer unto others.

2. Take heed unto yourselves lest you live in those actual sins that you preach against in others and lest you be guilty of that which you daily condemn. Will you make it your work to magnify God and, when you have finished, dishonor him as much as others do? Will you proclaim Christ’s governing power and yet treat it with contempt and rebel yourselves? Will you preach his laws and willfully break them? If sin is evil, why do you live in it? If it is not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it is dangerous, how dare you venture upon it? If it is not, why do you tell men that it is dangerous? If God’s threatenings are true, why do you not fear them? If they are false, why do you trouble men needlessly with them and put them into such a state of fear without cause? Do you know the judgment of God that those who commit such things are worthy of death (Rom. 1:32), and yet will you do them? You who teach another, do you not teach yourself?

3. Take heed unto yourselves that you are not unfit for the great employments that you have undertaken. He must not be himself a babe in knowledge who will teach men all those mysterious things that are to be known in order to enjoy salvation. Oh, what qualifications are necessary for the man who has such a charge on him as we have! How many difficulties in theology to be opened! How many obscure texts of Scripture to be expounded! How many duties to be done wherein ourselves and others may miscarry if they are not well informed in the matter, end, manner, and circumstances! How many sins to be avoided, which cannot be done without understanding and foresight! What manner of people ought we to be in all holy endeavors and resolutions for our work! This is not a burden for the shoulders of a child. What skill does every part of our work require, and of how much importance is every part?

4. Take heed unto yourselves lest your example contradict your doctrine and you lay stumbling blocks before the blind that may be the occasion of their ruin. Take heed unto yourselves lest you deny with your lives that which you say with your tongues and so be the greatest hinderers of the success of your own labors. This is the way to make men think that the word of God is merely an idle tale and to make preaching seem no better than prattling. He who means as he speaks will surely do as he speaks. One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless disagreement, one covetous action may cut the throat of many a sermon and destroy the fruit of all that you have been doing.

Tell me, brethren, in the fear of God, do you value the success of your labors, or do you not? Do you long to see it in the souls of your hearers? If you do not, why do you preach? Why do you study? Why do you call yourselves ministers of Christ? It is a palpable error in those ministers who will allow such a distance between their preaching and their living that they will study hard to preach exactly and yet study little or not at all to live exactly. All the week long is little enough time for them to study how to preach for an hour, 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 blemish (I do not blame them, for the matter is holy and weighty), but they make nothing of misplacing affections, words, and actions in the course of their lives. Oh, how carefully have I heard some men preach, and how carelessly have I seen them live!

Certainly, we have very great cause to take heed what we do as well as what we say. If we will be the servants of Christ indeed, we must not be tongue servants only. As our people must be doers of the word and not hearers only, so we must be doers and not speakers only, lest we deceive ourselves (James 1:22). A practical doctrine must be practically preached. We must study just as hard how to live well as how to preach well. We must think and think again how to compose our life as well as our sermons so that both may encourage men’s salvation in the best way that they can. When you are preparing what to say in a sermon, you will always ask, “Which way should I lay it out for the greatest good, especially to men’s souls?” You should ask the same question concerning the money in your purse. Oh, that this were your daily study: how to use your wealth, your friends, and all you have for God, as well as your tongues. Then we should see fruit for your labors that is never likely to be seen otherwise.

Why We Should Take Heed unto Ourselves

Having showed you in four particulars how it is that we must take heed unto ourselves and what is included in this command, I will now give you the reasons for it, which I entreat you to take as motives to awaken you to your duty.

Reason 1. You yourselves have a heaven to win or lose. You have souls that must be happy or miserable forever. Therefore, it concerns you to begin at home and to take heed unto yourselves as well as unto others. Preaching well may succeed to the salvation of others without the holiness of your own hearts or lives. It is possible at least, though less likely. But it is impossible that preaching well should serve to save yourselves. “Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?’” They will be answered with “I never knew you, depart from me, you who work iniquity” (Matt. 7:22–23).

Oh, sirs, how many men have preached Christ and perished for lack of a saving interest in him? How many who are now in hell have told their people of the torments of hell and warned them to avoid it? How many have preached of the wrath of God against sinners who are now feeling it? Oh, what sadder case can there be than for a man who made it his very trade and calling to proclaim salvation and to help others attain it—after all that to be himself shut out! Alas, that we should have so many books in our libraries that tell us the way to heaven, that we should spend so many years in reading those books and studying the doctrine of eternal life, and yet after all that to miss it! All because we preached so many sermons about Christ while we neglected him, about the Spirit while we resisted him, about faith while we did not heartily believe, about repentance and conversion while we continued in the state of flesh and sin, and about a heavenly life while we remained carnal and earthly ourselves. Believe it, brethren, God is no respecter of persons. He does not save men for their clerical clothes or callings. A holy calling will not save an unholy man.

Reason 2. Take heed unto yourselves, for you have a depraved nature and sinful inclinations as well as others do. If innocent Adam needed to take heed unto himself and lost himself and us for lack of it, how much more need have such as we? Sin dwells in us even when we have preached much against it. Alas, even in our hearts as well as in our hearers there is an averseness to God and a strangeness to him, along with unreasonable and almost unruly passions. In us there is at best the remnants of pride, unbelief, self-seeking, hypocrisy, and all the most hateful deadly sins. Does it not then concern us to take heed? Alas, how weak are those of us who seem strongest! How apt we are to stumble over a mere straw! How small a matter will cast us down by enticing us to folly or kindling our passions and inordinate desires, thus perverting our judgments, abating our resolutions, cooling our zeal, and dulling our diligence. Ministers are not only sons of Adam but sinners against the grace of Christ as well as others. Those treacherous hearts will one time or another deceive you, if you do not take heed. Those sins will revive that now seem to lie dead. Your pride, worldliness, and many a noxious vice will spring up that you thought had been weeded out by the roots. It is most necessary, therefore, that men of such infirmities should take heed unto themselves and be careful in the feeding and nurture of their souls.

Reason 3. Take heed unto yourselves, because such great works as ours have greater temptations than many other men face. Smaller strength may serve for lighter works and burdens. But if you will venture on the great undertakings of the ministry; if you will lead on the troops of Christ against the face of Satan and his followers; if you will engage yourselves against principalities, powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12); if you will undertake to rescue captive sinners and to fetch men out of the devil’s paws: do not think that a heedless, careless minister is fit for so great a work as all this. If you think tha...