The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter (A Discussion) Part 1

In the upcoming days, that could become weeks I plan on posting challenges that arise while reading The Reformed Pastor by the great Puritan pastor Richard Baxter. Baxter began his ministry different that he ended it as the Lord revealed his weaknesses and he was transformed into the reformed pastor that he writes.  As I go along I will also give more information about Baxter himself as I give the challenges he shares with us in his book.

Section 1: The nature of this oversight

Baxter makes it clear that before we even attempt to pastor we must ‘take heed to ourselves.’ There are often times where ministry gets in the way of our own relationship with the Lord and we may offer something we do not have. There have been times where I have given biblical advice or counsel but have refused it myself when it was desperately needed.

Baxter said, “Take heed, therefore, to yourselves first, that you be that which you persuade your hearers to be, and believe that which you persuade them to believe; and heartily entertain that Saviour whom you offer to them.”

In reading this section, the nature of this oversight, there were a few key thoughts that I observed…

1. The pastorate can become more of a job or a duty.

The meaning of this is that one cannot look at the ministry just as something that we are giving or offering to others. Instead the bread of life that we hold we must take and eat or else we will famish with it in our hands. Baxter said, “Oh what aggravated misery is this, to perish in the midst of plenty! – to famish with the bread of life in our hands, while we offer it to others, and urge it on them!” Instead of urging the bread on others we must eat of it first so that we do not die of starvation. We must take of the work of the Gospel before practicing our duty of giving it to others.

2. Preach to one’s self before preaching to others.

Just like the latter, this thought comes with the idea that we must be concerned about our own faith. How has the Gospel affected you, the preacher? If the Gospel has not affected you then how can you preach? Baxter urged his readers to preach to themselves first: “If such a wretched man would take my counsel, he would make a stand, and call his heart and life to an account, and fall a preaching a while to himself, before he preach any more to others.”

3. Gospel ministry is effectual.

Again the previous thoughts play into this one as well. As one preaches to one’s self and eats of the bread of life one undertakes the knowledge of the Lord. In so doing one can preach a Savior that one knows personally. Talking of this fact Baxter continued that the preacher will “desire their earnest prayers to God for pardoning and renewing grace; that hereafter they may preach a Saviour whom they know, and may feel what they speak, and may commend the riches of the gospel from their own experience.”

4. The pastor must begin with God and theology.

In this Richard Baxter shared that before philosophy and before any other thinking or school that, “Theology must lay the foundation, and lead the way of all our studies. If God must be searched after, in our search of the creature, (and we must affect no separated knowledge of them) then tutors must read God to their pupils in all; and divinity must be the beginning, the middle, the end, the life, the all, of their studies.”

May the Grace of the Lord be with you,

Kelley