The Reformed Pastor Quotes

Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow.

To live among such excellent helps as our libraries afford, to have so many silent wise companions whenever we please.

If people think honoring pastors means doing everything they say, why don't they honor Jesus the same way?

Alas! can we think that the reformation is wrought, when we cast out a few ceremonies, and changed some vestures, and gestures, and forms! Oh no, sirs’! it is the converting and saving of souls that is our business. That is the chiefest part of reformation, that doth most good, and tendeth most to the salvation of the people.

Of all preaching in the world, (that speaks not stark lies,) I hate that preaching which tendeth to make the hearers laugh, or to move their mind with tickling levity, and affect them as stage-players use to do, instead of affecting them with a holy reverence of the name of God.

Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature, till we know it as it stands related to the Creator: single letters, and syllables uncomposed, are no better than nonsense. He who overlooketh him who is the 'Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,' and seeth not him in all who is the All of all, doth see nothing at all. All creatures, as such, are broken syllables; they signify nothing as separated from God. Were they separated actually, they would cease to be, and the separation would be annhiliation; and when we separate them in our fancies, we make nothing of them to ourselves. It is one thing to know the creatures as Aristotle, and another thing to know them as a Christian. None but a Christian can read one line of his Physics so as to understand it rightly. It is a high and excellent study, and of greater use than many apprehend; but it is the smallest part of it that Aristotle can teach us.

Publicans and harlots do sooner come to heaven than Pharisees, because they are sooner convinced of their sin and misery.

But in every church there are people who, for reasons which seem sufficient to them, do not approve of their pastor and seek to harry him and bully him into some condition pleasing to themselves. The democracy which the Reformation brought into the Christian Church rages in their bosoms like a fire; they would deny that they regard their clergyman as their spiritual hired hand, whom they boss and oversee for his own good, but that is certainly the impression they give to observers.

You are likely to see no general reformation till you procure family reformation. Some little obscure religion there may be in here and there one; but while it sticks in single persons, and is not promoted by these societies, it doth not prosper, nor promise much for future increase.

Anybody can live in flesh and blood, but to live on long after the flesh has dissipated into nature – that’s the life I always wanted.

In many ways the Reformation was born out of the sense of the hopelessness and spiritual powerlessness of sinners.

Lord, will you send me with such an unbelieving heart to persuade others to believe? Must I daily plead with sinners about everlasting life and everlasting death, and have no more belief or feeling of these weighty things myself? Oh send me not naked and unprovided to the work; but, as you command me to do it, furnish me with a spirit suitable thereto." Prayer

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.

I’ll forever be grateful to my childhood pastor for making me read the Heidelberg Catechism and meet in his office with him to talk about it before I made a profession of faith in the fourth grade. I was nervous to meet with him, even more nervous to meet before all the elders. But both meetings were pleasant. And besides, I was forced to read through all 129 questions and answers at age nine.That was a blessing I didn’t realize at the time. Ever since then I’ve had a copy of the Catechism and have grown to understand it and cherish it more and more over the years.

Many who have undertaken the work of the ministry, do so obstinately proceed in self-seeking, negligence, pride, and other sins, that it is become our necessary duty to admonish them. If we saw that such would reform without reproof, we would gladly forbear the publishing of their faults. But when reproofs themselves prove so ineffectual, that they are more offended at the reproof than at the sin, and had rather that we should cease reproving, than that themselves should cease sinning, I think it is time to sharpen the remedy. For what else should we do? To give up our brethren as incurable were cruelty, as long as there are further means to be used.

Because of the widespread illiteracy during the period of the Reformation, catechesis often took place in face-to-face discussion. This is why “Luther intended his catechism to target primarily pastors, but also parents, and other ‘opinion makers’ who would in turn share the teachings of the catechism orally with children and illiterate members of the household.

It matters little whether you are the mother of active children who drain away your energy, an important executive in a major multinational corporation, a graduate student cramming for impending comprehensives, a plumber working overtime to put your children through college, or a pastor of a large church putting in ninety-hour weeks: at the end of the day, if you are too busy to pray, you are too busy. Cut something out.

Must I go to turn to my Bible to shew a preacher where it is written, that a man's soul is more worth than a world, much more than a hundred pounds a year; much more are many souls worth? or that both we and that we have are God's, and should be employed to the utmost for His service? or that it is inhuman cruelty to let many souls go to hell, for fear my wife and children should live somewhat harder, or live at a lower rate, when according to God's ordinary way of working by means, I might do much to prevent their misery, if I would but a little displease my flesh, which all that are Christ's have crucified with its lusts?

in a chapter on “repairing God’s house,” they’ll find no new ideas for projects, programs, studies, procedures for nominating bishops, committees, structures, offices, synods, councils, pastoral plans, changed teaching, new teaching, budget realignments, sweeping reforms, or reshuffled personnel. None of those things matter. Or rather, none of them is essential. The only thing essential, to borrow a thought from the great Leon Bloy, is to be a saint. And we do that, as a Church and as individuals, by actually living what we claim to believe, and believing the faith that generations of Christians have suffered and died to sustain.

Make use of your people's parts to the utmost, as your helpers, in an orderly way, under your guidance, or else they will make use of them in a disorderly and dividing way in opposition to you. It hath been a great cause of schism, when ministers would contemptuously cry down private men's preaching, and with desire not to make any use of the gifts that God hath given them for their assistance; but thrust them too far from holy things, as if they were a profane generation. The work is likely to go poorly on if there be no hands employed in it but the ministers. God giveth not any of His gifts to be buried, but for common use. By a prudent improvement of the gifts of the more able Christians, we may receive much help by them, and prevent their abuse, even as lawful marriage preventeth fornication.

In other words, in the long list, most everything is about a leader’s character; only a single characteristic pertains to giftedness (teaching). Depending on how the traits are counted, the ratio is as drastic as twelve to one. There’s nothing on this list about being a strong leader, being able to cast a vision, or being charismatic or dynamic. I am not suggesting those aspects of leadership are irrelevant, but they certainly are not the heart of God’s concern for a pastor. Nor are they ever to trump God’s concern over character. As the Reformer Martin Bucer noted, “It is better to take those who may be lacking in eloquence and learning, but are genuinely concerned with the things of Christ.”33 When this God-given ratio is reversed and churches prefer giftedness over character, churches inevitably begin to overlook a pastor’s character flaws because he’s so successful in other areas. Leadership performance becomes the shield that protects the pastor from criticism. As Michael Jensen observed, “We frequently promote narcissists and psychopaths. Time and time again, we forgive them their arrogance. We bracket out their abuses of their power, because we feel that we need that power to get things done.”34

In the chapter entitled “You Can’t Pray a Lie” in Twain’s beloved novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck Finn has helped hide Miss Watson’s runaway slave, Jim. But Huck thought he was committing a sin in helping a runaway slave. Huck had learned in Sunday school “that people that acts as I’d been acting … goes to everlasting fire.” So in an act of repentance in order to save his soul, Huck wrote a note to Miss Watson and told her where she could find her runaway slave. Now Huck was ready to pray his “sinner’s prayer” and “get saved.” I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off but laid the paper down and set there thinking—thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ‘stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world and the only he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see the paper. It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming.1 Huck Finn had been shaped by the Christianity he’d found in his Missouri Sunday school—a Christianity focused on heaven in the afterlife while preserving the status quo of the here and now. Huck thought that helping Jim escape from slavery was a sin, because that’s what he had been taught. He knew he couldn’t ask God to forgive him until he was ready to “repent” and betray Jim. Huck didn’t want to go to hell; he wanted to be saved. But Huck loved his friend more, so he was willing to go to hell in order to save his friend from slavery.

The cane is just not going to cut it. I shared with some of my colleagues that these brothers live in neighborhoods where they are getting whapped with a piece of stick all night, stabbed with knives, and pegged with screwdrivers that have been sharpened down, and they are leaking blood. When you come to a fella without even interviewing him, without sitting him down to find out why you did what you did, your only interest is caning him, because you are burned out and frustrated yourself. You say to him, ‘Bend over, you are getting six.’ And the boy grits his teeth, skin up his face, takes those six cuts, and he is gone. But have you really been effective? Caning him is no big deal, because he’s probably ducking bullets at night. He has a lot more things on his mind than that. On the other hand, we can further send our delinquent students into damnation by telling them they are no body and all we want to do is punish, punish, punish. Here at R.M. Bailey, we have been trying a lot of different things. But at the end of the day, nothing that we do is better than the voice itself. Nothing is better than talking to the child, listening, developing trust, developing a friendship. Feel free to come to me anytime if something is bothering you, because I was your age once before. Charles chuck Mackey, former vice principal and coach of the R. M. Bailey Pacers school.

In answer to questions the Barbes said: “All our ministers live in celibacy, and work at some honest trade.” “Marriage, however”, said Œcolampadius,, “is a state very becoming to all believers, and particularly to those who ought to be in all things examples to the flock. We also think that pastors ought not to devote to manual labour, as yours do, the time they could better employ in the study of Scripture. The minister has many things to learn; God does not teach us miraculously and without labour; we must take pains in order to know.” When the Barbes admitted that under stress of persecution they had sometimes had their children baptized by Romish priests, and even attended mass, the Reformers were surprised, and Œcolampadius, said: “What! has not Christ, the holy victim, fully satisfied the everlasting justice for us? Is there any need to offer other sacrifices after that of Golgotha? By saying Amen’ to the priests’ mass you deny the grace of Jesus Christ.

I seldom come out of the pulpit but my conscience smiteth me that I have been no more serious and fervent. It accuseth me not so much for want of ornaments and elegancy, nor for letting fall an unhandsome word; but it asketh me, 'How couldst thou speak of life and death with such a heart? How couldst thou preach of heaven and hell in such a careless, sleepy manner? Dost thou believe what thou sayest? Art thou in earnest, or in jest? How canst thou tell people that sin is such a thing, and that so much misery is upon them and before them, and be no more affected with it? Shouldst thou not weep over such a people, and should not thy tears interrupt thy words? Shouldst thou not cry aloud, and show them their transgressions; and entreat and beseech them as for life and death? Truly this is the peal that conscience doth ring in my ears, and yet my drowsy soul will not be awakened. Oh, what a thing is an insensible, hardened heart! O Lord, save us from the plague of infidelity and hardheartedness ourselves, or else how shall we be fit instruments of saving others from it? Oh, do that on our souls which thou wouldst use us to do on the souls of others!

Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, if God is not studied.

It is around the time of the passing of Elizabeth of England, as the Nativity carols began finding their way back into print, and as cultured Protestant noblemen began risking pictures of scriptural scenes from the life of Our Lady in their private chapels, that one finds hints of a different voice within Protestantism.85 With the passage of time, the heirs of the Reformation were better able to reflect on what might be missing in the Protestant devotional revolution. So, in the 1630s, the French Reformed pastor and popular devotional writer Charles Drelincourt was able to write a tract and a substantial follow-up book concerning the honour which was appropriate to the Blessed Virgin Mary, rather to the surprise of his Roman Catholic clerical contemporaries.

O brethren! It is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it.

The office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord’s flock has especially this duty assigned to it by Christ, namely, to guard with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking “men speaking perverse things” (Acts xx. 30), “vain talkers and seducers” (Tit. i. 10), “erring and driving into error” (2 Tim. iii. 13). Still it must be confessed that the number of the enemies of the cross of Christ has in these last days increased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts, entirely new and full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly Christ’s kingdom itself. Wherefore We may no longer be silent, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be attributed to forgetfulness of Our office. GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION 2. That We make no delay in this matter is rendered necessary especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; they lie hid, a thing to be deeply deplored and feared, in her very bosom and heart, and are the more mischievous, the less conspicuously they appear. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, nay, and this is far more lamentable, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, feigning a love for the Church, lacking the firm protection of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt themselves as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious daring, they reduce to a simple, mere man.

For a church that proclaims the truth of the gospel, and for the believer who loves Christ, apologetics is not only the defending of the Christ of Scripture from the world, but also the constant cleansing of our union with Christ from the pollution of sinful thought. Through the power of Christ’s Spirit, we are to live out our self-conscious identity in Christ (Gal 2:20). As pastors prepare to preach, the transcendental method will need to be employed. As the church makes decisions about her philosophy of ministry, the method will need to be employed.

He felt oppressed by the ignorance, laziness, and licentiousness of the clergy, which had been exposed by a parliamentary committee in their report The First Century of Scandalous Malignant Priests (1643), which supplied one hundred shocking case histories. So Baxter addressed his Reformed Pastor to his fellow clergy,

How much more would a few good and fervent men effect in the ministry than a multitude of lukewarm ones!” said Oecolampadius, the German Reformer

Earl Paulk Says, Jesus is Not the Only Begotten Son of God: Earl Paulk claims that Christians “are the begotten of God, even as Jesus Himself is begotten of God” (1). Paula White is the co-founder of Church Without Walls and the spiritual advisor to former President Donald Trump. She interviewed Larry Huch on her show Paula White Today (2). Mr. Hutch is the pastor of New Beginnings Church in Bedford, Texas (3). During their interview, Mr. Huch claims that Jesus is not the only begotten Son of God, and Ms. White agrees with him (4). John 3:16-19 says: God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believes on him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil (AKJV). Jesus became the only begotten Son of God when the Spirit of God impregnated the Virgin Mary. On the other hand, God formed Adam from dirt, and then he breathed life into him. So, we are a creation of God, not begotten Sons of God. References 1. Paulk, Earl. The Wounded Body of Christ, 1985, pp. 62, 92-95. 2. Zauzmer, Julie. “Paula White, Prosperity preacher once investigated by Senate, is controversial pick for inauguration.” 12-12-2016. The Washington Post. Accessed 05 May 2017. 3. “Home Page.” NB Church: New Beginnings. 4. Paula White. “Paula White, Larry Huch and FALSE TEACHING - EXPOSING CHARLATANS.” YouTube.

Little gods Heresy: Bishop Earl Paulk (1927-2009) was a founding member of the New Apostolic Reformation. He is the former pastor of the Cathedral of Chapel Hill in Decatur, Georgia (1). He writes in The Wounded Body of Christ, that the Church’s goal is to incarnate Christ so we can bring Him back. He says Jesus was the incarnation of God from the past, but the Church is “the only Christ, the only incarnation of God in the world today (2).” “We are the essence of God, His ongoing incarnation in the world (3).” He says we are little gods, “Just as dogs have puppies and cats have kittens, so God has little gods.” Bishop Paulk states that when God said, “Let us make man in our image,’ he created us as little gods….” He says the Church cannot manifest the Kingdom of God until they start acting like gods (4). Finally, he states “We are ‘little gods,’ whether we admit it or not (5).” References: 1. White, Gail. “Sex Charges cast pall on Bishop Paulk.” Atlanta Constitutional Journal. 08-31-2007. 2. Paulk, Earl. The Wounded Body of Christ. 2nd ed., K Dimension Publishers, 1985, pp. 92-95. 3. Paulk, Earl. Thrust in the Sickle and Reap. K Dimension Publishers, 1986, pp. 132, 70. 4. Paulk, Earl. Satan Unmasked. K Dimension Publishers, 1984, pp. 96-97. 5. Paulk, Earl. Held up in the Heavens Until... God's Strategy for Planet Earth. K Dimension Publishers, 1985, p. 171.

Rev. David Wilkerson Warned that Former Witches Have Infiltrated Many Christian Churches: David Wilkerson exposed the current efforts of false teachers to infiltrate Christianity. Rev. Wilkerson was the pastor at Times Square Church in New York City, where he founded Teen Challenge, an addiction recovery program. He wrote, The Cross and the Switchblade, and he served as an evangelist for over 50 years (1). Throughout his ministry, Rev. Wilkerson preached against apostasy, including dominionism and the teaching that there is no literal return of Jesus (2). Shortly before his death, he stated that several former witches warned him that occultists were infiltrating the Church. They said witches are penetrating congregations and masquerading as super-spiritual Christians (3). Today, it is difficult to find a Christian Church that has not been transformed by this occult revival. References: 1. Wilkerson, David. The Cross and the Switchblade. Jove Publications. 1962. 2. Wilkerson, David, Rev. “Witchcraft in the Church.” Believers Web.org, 3. IBID.

When we are commanded to take heed to all the flock, it is plainly implied that flocks must generally be no larger than we are capable of overseeing, or taking heed to. God will not lay upon us natural impossibilities. He will not require men to leap up to the moon, to touch the stars, or to number the sands of the sea. If the pastoral office consists in overseeing all the flock, then surely the number of souls under the care of each pastor must not be greater than he is able to take such heed to as is here required.

It is not only the work that calls for carefulness, but the workman also, that he may be capable for business of such importance. We have seen many men who lived as private Christians in good reputation for work and piety, when they took upon them either political or military employment, where the work was above their gifts. Temptations then overpowered their strength, and they proved to be scandalous, disgraced men.

The work of God needs to be done. Souls must not perish while you give your attention to your worldly business or worldly pleasure, take your ease, or quarrel with your brethren.

My last request is that all the faithful ministers of Christ would, without any more delay, unite and associate for the furtherance of each other in the work of the Lord and for the maintaining of unity and harmony in His churches, and that they would not neglect their brotherly meetings to those ends, nor yet spend them unprofitably, but improve them to their edification and the successful carrying on of the work.

We are responsible for the care of Christ’s little ones. If we neglect to take food ourselves, we will starve them. It will soon be visible in their weakness and inability to carry out their various duties. If we let our love decline, we are not likely to raise theirs. If we decrease our holy care and fear, it will appear in our preaching. If the matter does not show it, the manner will. If we feed on unwholesome food, either errors or fruitless controversies, our hearers are likely to end up worse for it. However, if we abound in faith, love, and zeal, it will overflow, to the refreshing of our congregations, and it will appear in the increase of the same virtues in them.

The sanctification of your studies is when they are devoted to God and when He is the end, the object, and the life of them all.

People would more readily believe that the gospel is from heaven if they saw more such effects of it upon the hearts and lives of those who profess it. The world is perhaps better able to read the nature of religion in a man’s life than in the Bible.

The life of the Christian religion and the welfare and glory both of the church and of the state depend much on family government and duty. If we allow the neglect of this, we will bring harm to it all.

It is not wise for humans to argue against the ordinances of God as useless, to find fault with His service instead of doing it, or to set their minds in opposition to their Maker.

God can make His own ordinances useful, or else He would never have appointed them.

What an excellent life it is to live in the studies and preaching of Christ. How excellent to be still searching into his mysteries or feeding on them, to be daily in the consideration of the blessed nature, works, or ways of God!

It is important not to underestimate the cost. He took a full two days out of each busy week to do this work. Touchingly, he later described how the very poorest families of the parish would come to him for instruction, leaving a “plentiful” supply of lice to inhabit his chamber “for a competent space of time.”6 His new system demanded dedicated, painstaking, careful work. Preaching, he discovered, was not enough to bring about the reformation he sought. It also required these one-on-one, individually tailored conversations. But the work paid off. Baxter felt he had hit on the decisive method to bring about a true reformation. As he declared in his preface to The Reformed Pastor, “We never took the best course to demolish the kingdom of darkness till now.”7

Reverence is that affection of the soul that proceeds from deep apprehensions of God and signifies a mind that is much conversant with him.

Esteem the church fathers and other writers, but value none of them as equivalent to the word of God.

Many ministers study only to compose their sermons and very little more, when there are so many books to be read and so many matters that we should be acquainted with. In the preparation of our sermons, we are too negligent, gathering only a few bare headings and not considering the most forcible expressions by which we should set them home to men’s hearts.

Brethren, experience will teach you that men are not made learned or wise without hard study, unwearied labors, and experience.

have found by experience that an ignorant man who has been an unprofitable hearer has received more knowledge and remorse of conscience in half an hour’s close discourse than he did in ten years of public preaching. I know that the public preaching of the gospel is the most excellent means of conversion because we speak to many at once, but it is usually far more effectual to preach it privately to an individual sinner.

If your hearts are not set on the goal of your labors, if you do not desire to see the conversion and edification of your hearers, and if you do not study and preach in hope, you are not likely to see much success. Just as it is the sign of a false, self-seeking heart that can be content to be doing without seeing any fruit of his labor, so I have observed that God seldom blesses anyone’s work so much as his whose heart is set upon the success of it.

Prayer must carry on our work as well as preaching. He who does not pray earnestly for his people does not preach wholeheartedly to them. If we do not prevail with God to give them faith and repentance, we will never prevail with them to believe and repent. When our own hearts are so far out of order, and theirs are so far out of order, we are unlikely to be successful if we do not prevail with God to heal and help them.

Suddenly Moore began to understand the quiet faith of his father. Having grown up as the pastor’s son in Jim Crow–era Mississippi, Gary Moore had seen things inside the church that haunted him. The story of the Southern Baptist Convention, after all, was inseparable from America’s original sin. Formed in 1845 by slave-owning whites who were alarmed at abolitionist efforts within the national Baptist Church, the SBC became an avatar of religious justification for the trafficking and ownership of human beings. Losing the Civil War did little to reform the Southern Baptist worldview: For most of the century that followed Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House, SBC churches were intentionally and proudly segregated. Gary

As the process of reform unfolded, Zwingli came increasingly to see himself as a prophet to his people. Like the prophets of the Old Testament, the “shepherd” or “watchman” (Zwingli’s preferred words for pastor) needed to guard zealously the flock against attacks from the evil one and be ready to die fighting for the cause of Christ.

Like Bergoglio, Pironio was no revolutionary, but something deeper: a Gospel radical with a pastoral strategy that prioritized the poor. As rector of the Máximo after 1980 and later as bishop and archbishop, Bergoglio would take that strategy—Pironio’s vision, and that of Evangelii Nuntiandi—onto the street.

I know necessity may cause the Church to tolerate the weak; but woe to us if we tolerate and indulge our own weakness.

An ingenious man can hardly stay with a people against their will; and a sincere man can more hardly, for any interest of his own, remain in a place where he is likely to be unprofitable, to hinder the good which they might receive from another man, who hath the advantage of a greater interest in their estimation and affection.

I like not charity unreasonably large for the exempting of ourselves from the labour of duty: I would not choose such a charitable physician that would make his patients believe that they are in no danger, to save himself the labour of attending them for the cure.

Our church has a set of 8 books that each new elder is given, along with a monthly reading plan to use as a guide for meetings with a more experienced elder. There are many good resources out there, but a few of my most highly recommended are The Deliberate Church by Mark Dever and Paul Alexander, The Trellis and the Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands by Paul Tripp, the 9Marks volumes on Church Membership and Church Discipline by Jonathan Leeman, and The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter.

Like Bergoglio, Pironio was no revolutionary, but something deeper: a Gospel radical with a pastoral strategy that prioritized the poor.

If you must needs have your pleasures, you should not have put yourselves into that calling that requireth you to make God and His service your pleasure, and restraineth you so much from fleshly pleasures.

Do you know that much of the Christian warfare consisteth in the combat between the flesh and the Spirit; and that is the very difference between a true Christian and a wicked wretch, that one liveth after the Spirit, and mortifieth the deeds and desires of the body, and the other liveth after the flesh?

The ministry is another kind of business than too many excellent preachers take it to be.

The ministerial work must be managed purely for God and the salvation of the people, and not for any private ends of our own.

If only preaching be necessary, let us have none but preachers. What needs there, then, such a stir about government? But if discipline (in its place) be necessary too, what is it but enmity to men's salvation to exclude it?

I would put no man upon extremes; but in this case flesh and blood doth make even good men so partial, that they take their duties, and duties of very great worth and weight, to be extremes. If worldly vanities did not blind us, we might see when public or other greater good did call us to deny ourselves and our families.

Recreations for a student must be especially for the exercise of his body, he having before him such variety of delights for his mind; and they must be as whetting is with the mower, only to be used so far as is necessary to his work.

during the years 1797–98. In the 1790s, revivals (led by Reformed pastors) also broke out in the Connecticut Valley in the United States. They became early manifestations of the so-called “Second Great Awakening” (late 1780s – early 1840s). This awakening encompassed multiple disparate elements: the widespread distribution of Christian literature; Reformed preaching in Connecticut by theological descendants of Jonathan Edwards; the faithful gospel witness of Methodist circuit riders; the occurrence of emotionally high-octane camp

A man may be a faithful minister, and yet never preach a sermon. If a great congregation have six or more pastors, and two or three of them be the ablest preachers, and the rest more judicious, and fit for discourse and private oversight, these latter may well employ themselves in such oversight, conference, and other ministerial works, and leave public-speaking in the pulpit to them that are more able for it, and so they may divide the work among them according to their parts: and it will not now follow that they are no pastors that preach not publicly.

They will understand a familiar speech, who hear a sermon as if it were nonsense, and they have far greater help for the application of it to themselves. And withal you will hear their objections, and know where it is that Satan hath most advantage over them, and what it is that stands up against the truth; and so may be able to shew them their errors, confute their objections, and more effectually convince them.

All that are upright are not equally fitted for the work, and many that are learned, judicious, and more able to teach the riper sort, are yet less able to condescend to the ignorant, and so convincingly and fervently to rouse up the secure, as some that are below them in other qualifications; and many that are able in both respects, have a barren people; and the ablest have found by experience that God hath sometimes blessed the labours of a stranger to that which their own hath not done.

Rick Warren, the influential evangelical pastor of Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, says that what the church needs now is a “second Reformation,” one based on “deeds, not creeds.”2

You come hither to learn to die, I am not the only person that must go this way: I can assure you, that your whole life, be it ever so long, is little enough to prepare for death. Have a care of this vain deceitful world and the lusts of the flesh: Be sure you choose God for your portion, heaven for your home, God's glory for your end, his word for your rule, and then you need never fear but we shall meet with comfort.

As one writer comments: Mr. Pink's view of the Scriptures, of doctrine and of Christian practice was not the view of many of his contemporary evangelicals. Few men have traveled so widely and yet remained so uninfluenced by prevailing opinions and accepted customs. Independent Bible study convinced him that much of modern evangelism was defective at its foundation; when Puritan and Reformed books were being thrown out, he advanced the majority of their principles with untiring zeal.13 Another writer says that Pink has become more popular today because of the awakening of an interest in the truths he so faithfully presented in his writings.14 That statement certainly has a measure of truth to it, but one also wonders how much Arthur W. Pink was responsible for the above mentioned awakening of interest in these old truths of the past. The present writer has on file numerous letters from pastors, who attribute their theological journey from Arminian theology to Calvinistic theology to A. W. Pink and his influence upon them. These letters are small in number to those who have encountered Biblical truth in a personal way by the means of Pink's writings.

Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We

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

When I let my heart grow cold, my preaching is cold; and when it is confused, my preaching is confused; and so I can often observe also in the best of my hearers, that when I have grown cold in preaching, they have grown cold too; and the next prayers which I have heard from them have been too like my preaching. We are the nurses of Christ’s little ones. If

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. It

Beware lest, while you proclaim to the world the necessity of a Savior, your own hearts should neglect him, and you should miss an interest in him and his saving benefits. Take heed to yourselves, lest you perish, while you call upon others to take heed of perishing; and lest you famish yourselves while you prepare food for them. Though there

A graceless, inexperienced preacher is one of the most unhappy creatures upon earth: and yet he is ordinarily very insensible of his unhappiness; for he has so many counters that seem like the gold of saving grace, and so many splendid stones that resemble Christian jewels, that he is seldom troubled with the thoughts of his poverty; but (Rev3:15) thinks he is "rich, and increased in goods, and stands in need of nothing, when he is poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked." He

When preaching, the Reformer writes, "The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off ... wolves.

In the mainstream of evangelicalism, where female senior pastors were often unwelcome, most leaders and laypeople had adopted the conservative Reformed view of gender and had forgotten (or never knew of) women’s leadership in the moral crusades of the nineteenth century, or even their prominence as Bible teachers, relief workers, and missionaries prior to the 1930s.

God has always been pleased to honor His Word—especially His Word preached. The greatest seasons of church history—those eras of widespread reformation and great awakening—have been those epochs in which God-fearing men took the inspired Word and unashamedly preached it in the power of the Holy Spirit. As the pulpit goes, so goes the church. Thus, only a reformed pulpit will ultimately lead to a reformed church. In this hour, pastors must see their pulpits again marked by sequential exposition, doctrinal clarity, and a sense of gravity regarding eternal matters. This, in my estimation, is the need of the hour.

For you, little child, Jesus Christ has come, he has fought, he has suffered. For you he entered the shadow of Gethsemane and the horror of Calvary. For you he uttered the cry, “It is finished!” For you he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and there he intercedes—for you, little child, even though you do not know it. But in this way the word of the Gospel becomes true. “We love him, because he first loved us.” —French Reformed Baptismal Liturgy

As a child, Andrew Murray’s “world” spanned two continents, Africa and Europe; but ultimately his preaching, teaching, and writing fueled spiritual awakening and revival with a worldwide impact. Andrew Murray was born in 1828 in South Africa, into a Dutch Reformed parsonage. At age ten he and a brother sailed to Scotland for schooling and later to Holland for theological studies, before returning ten years later to South Africa for pastoral ministries of their own.

Abortion is one of the most commonly performed medical procedures in the United States, and it is tragic that many women who have abortions are all too often mischaracterized and stigmatized, their exercise of moral agency sullied. Their judgment is publicly and forcefully second-guessed by those in politics and religion who have no business entering the deliberation. The reality is that women demonstrate forethought and care; talk to them the way clergy do and witness their sense of responsibility. Women take abortion as seriously as any of us takes any health-care procedure. They understand the life-altering obligations of parenthood and family life. They worry over their ability to provide for a child, the impact on work, school, the children they already have, or caring for other dependents. Perhaps the woman is unable to be a single parent or is having problems with a husband or partner or other kids.2 Maybe her contraception failed her. Maybe when it came to having sex she didn’t have much choice. Maybe this pregnancy will threaten her health, making adoption an untenable option. Or perhaps a wanted pregnancy takes a bad turn and she decides on abortion. It’s pretty complicated. It’s her business to decide on the outcome of her pregnancy—not ours to intervene, to blame, or to punish. Clergy know about moral agency through pastoral work. Women and families invite us into their lives to listen, reflect, offer sympathy, prayer, or comfort. But when it comes to giving advice, we recognize that we are not the ones to live with the outcome; the patient faces the consequences. The woman bears the medical risk of a pregnancy and has to live with the results. Her determination of the medical, spiritual, and ethical dimensions holds sway. The status of her fetus, when she thinks life begins, and all the other complications are hers alone to consider. Many women know right away when a pregnancy must end or continue. Some need to think about it. Whatever a woman decides, she needs to be able to get good quality medical care and emotional and spiritual support as she works toward the outcome she seeks; she figures it out. That’s all part of “moral agency.” No one is denying that her fetus has a moral standing. We are affirming that her moral standing is higher; she comes first. Her deliberations, her considerations have priority. The patient must be the one to arrive at a conclusion and act upon it. As a rabbi, I tell people what the Jewish tradition says and describe the variety of options within the faith. They study, deliberate, conclude, and act. I cannot force them to think or do differently. People come to their decisions in their own way. People who believe the decision is up to the woman are typically called “pro-choice.” “Choice” echoes what is called “moral agency,” “conscience,” “informed will,” or “personal autonomy”—spiritually or religiously. I favor the term “informed will” because it captures the idea that we learn and decide: First, inform the will. Then exercise conscience. In Reform Judaism, for instance, an individual demonstrates “informed will” in approaching and deciding about traditional dietary rules—in a fluid process of study of traditional teaching, consideration of the personal significance of that teaching, arriving at a conclusion, and taking action. Unitarian Universalists tell me that the search for truth and meaning leads to the exercise of conscience. We witness moral agency when a member of a faith community interprets faith teachings in light of historical religious understandings and personal conscience. I know that some religious people don’t do

You see, the biggest protection against the kingdom of self is not a set of self-reformative defensive strategies. It’s a heart that’s so blown away by the right-here, right-now glories of the grace of Jesus Christ that we’re not easily seduced by the lesser temporary glories of that claustrophobic kingdom of one, the kingdom of self.

Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature, till we know it as it stands related to the Creator: single letters, and syllables uncomposed, are no better than nonsense. He who overlooketh him who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,' and seeth not him in all who is the All of all, doth see nothing at all.

As the profession of social work evolved, it became a common practice to describe unmarried mothers in psychiatric terms. The unmarried mother was no longer viewed as having “bad blood,” but instead as a criminal needing correction or as a “girl” needing “a cure” for her neurosis. In other words, the mother as sick, but her soon-to-be-born baby was not. Once unmarried mothers were no longer viewed as having genetic deficiencies - the “bad blood” that could be passed on to their children - their babies became highly adoptable. Hastings Hornell Hart, an ordained pastor with a national reputation in penology and prison reform, described the standard procedure for admitting an unmarried mother to a maternity home and referring to her and the home’s “inmates” as “homeless and wayward white girls and women” who came from any part of the United States, who required physical examinations to detect the presence of venereal disease, who could be used to do the chores and thus save money for the institution, which was maintained  for the care of “inmates” by public monies from the District Board of Charities (Hart, 1924).

One recent example of my fear of ambiguity was the instance with the beaten slave. Completely aware I was bluffing, I insisted that Ken Lar misinterpreted the Bible verse he quoted, but again, I was bluffing. I thought that that Bible verse was ambiguous. It could have actually been used to justify slavery, but I always thought that God was a pacifist, so I tried to comfort myself with the theory that God was forced to accommodate slavery because the world had gone corrupt, but then again, that verse described slaves’ submission as a way that helps them “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior,” so there is still a possibility that God would actually approve slavery. But still, the passage describes slaves to be faithful and to not steal and argue, which have been commands for Paul’s followers, who were not slaves. The passage could have been encouraging slaves to try to follow the path of God the way free people do. Still, if I recall correctly, in Leviticus it mentioned that the Israelites, right after being released from slavery in Egypt, were allowed to buy slaves from nations surrounding them, and it even said that the slaves could be the Israelites’ PROPERTY!!!! But then, I have heard of many African American pastors who use the Bible to support equality. But could it all be a scam? Who knows? That was ambiguity in its biblical form. There was even more ambiguity associated with that incident, because after thinking about that controversial passage, I wondered whether or not I was screwing my chances in Heaven for thinking like that. The Bible says that you shouldn’t lie, and by thinking like that, I was being honest with myself, but people died for blaspheming God, and if thinking those thoughts was considered blaspheming God, then who knows?

Convince them what a contradiction it is to be a Christian and yet to refuse to learn. For what is a Christian but a disciple of Christ, and how can he be his disciple if he refuses to be taught by him? He who refuses to be taught by his ministers refuses to be taught by Christ. He will not come down from heaven again to teach them by his own mouth, but he has appointed his ministers to keep school and to teach those under him.

I don’t know.” The cat says, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.” Many people today are like that. They have no idea where they are and no clue where they’re going. Their whole lives consist of wandering about aimlessly, without purpose, design, meaning, or significance. It’s one thing to be lost; it’s another to be lost and not know it. When a person is in that state, it is inevitable that they will experience a crisis and realize they have no idea where they are or how they got there. God puts a priority on seeking people like that. After the lost coin and the lost sheep, Jesus turns His attention to people. The parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32) is a familiar story, and it’s important to keep the focus where it belongs: not on the lost son, but on the father and his great joy at the repentance and return of the son. When the father sees his son far off, he races down the road and embraces him, kills the fatted calf, gives the signet ring to him, and clothes him with a cloak of honor. As he says to the older brother, “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (v. 32). This parable tells us what God is like. He runs after the lost, and He rejoices when one person is redeemed. That is the mission of the church, and each of us has a responsibility to make sure that the lost are sought and found. We’re not dealing with coins or sheep, and we’re not dealing with dogs or keys. We are dealing with people whom Christ loves. He said so Himself. About the Author Dr. R.C. Sproul was founder of Ligonier Ministries, founding pastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla., first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. His radio program, Renewing Your Mind, is still broadcast daily on hundreds of radio stations around the world and can also be heard online. He was author of more than one hundred books, including The Holiness of God, Chosen by God, and Everyone’s a Theologian. He was recognized throughout the world for his articulate defense of the inerrancy of Scripture and the need for God’s people to stand with conviction upon His Word.

The universal church of Christ must consist of individual churches guided by their own overseers, and every Christian must be a member of one of these churches (except those who are away on business or travel or are in other similar cases of necessity). Though a minister is an officer in the universal church, yet in a special manner he is the overseer of that particular church committed to his charge.

It is no small matter to stand up in the face of a congregation and deliver a message of salvation or damnation as from the living God in the name of our Redeemer.

Hard studies, much knowledge, and excellent preaching are but a more glorious hypocritical sinning if the ends are not right.

Truth loves the light and is most beautiful when it is most naked. If you would not teach men, why are you in the pulpit? If you would teach men, why do you not speak so as to be understood?

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?

He then made an appointment with his childhood minister to tell him the news that he had had a spiritual rebirthing experience—an encounter with the real, personal, resurrected Christ. To his chagrin, however, his pastor quipped, “If you believe in the resurrection of Christ, you’re a damn fool!” R.C. couldn’t believe his ears. He feebly replied, “Don’t you believe in the resurrection of Christ? You’re a minister. You preach about it all the time. You talked about it at my father’s funeral.” However, the minister dismissed the sentiment: “Nobody takes it literally in this day and age except illiterate fundamentalists, and you’re far too intelligent for that.”14