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An Underrated Trilogy

A few weeks ago I was at a pastors’ conference sponsored by Reformation Heritage Books. One of the free giveaways was James Garretson’s excellent volume on Samuel Miller and pastoral ministry. After the session, I talked to numerous men who hadn’t heard of the book, let alone read it.

“My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”

Usefully and Diligently

For some years now, Garretson has quietly assembled an arsenal of work on pastoral ministry in the tradition of Old Princeton. He’s edited two volumes of various material from the Princeton men on Christian ministry. He’s also put together a collection of funeral sermons, memorial addresses, and magazine articles, honoring the labors of Princeton’s leading faculty.

In my view, his best work comes to us in three different books that each unveil one Princetonian’s teaching on gospel ministry. A feast awaits any hungry pastor. The Princeton men gave us a model of what pious, learned ministry looks like—and can achieve for Christ. Don’t let these volumes go unnoticed, brother pastor. Tolle lege!

0851518931Princeton and Preaching: Archibald Alexander and the Christian Ministry. How does one know whether God is calling a man to the pastoral ministry? Are we aware of the moral, intellectual, and physical qualifications needed for the Christian ministry? What are the best methods of sermon preparation and should the preacher pay as much attention to preparing his own heart as to preparing the message he is to preach? On what kinds of subjects should a pastor preach, and how should such preaching be done? What is really involved in being a shepherd of Christ’s flock? Do we know what kinds of discouragements and encouragements face the pastor in his ministry?

These are some of the issues this book addresses. Dr. James Garretson has drawn together wise, practical, and relevant insights into the call, qualifications, and work of the Christian pastor from the extant lecture notes of one of Princeton’s best loved and most respected teachers, Dr. Archibald Alexander. As you read this book you will feel as if you were sitting at the feet of this ‘first-class theologian, mentor and minister of the gospel’, alongside the many students of ‘Old Princeton’ whose lives and future ministries were moulded by Alexander’s inspiring classroom instruction. You will also discover to your lasting profit that Alexander’s wise counsel on pastoral theology, drawn as it was from the ever-fresh spring of Holy Scripture, remains of continuing value for today’s preachers who seek to walk in the sound and fruitful paths of their godly forefathers.

9781601782984An Able and Faithful Ministry: Samuel Miller and the Pastoral Office. Samuel Miller (1769–1850) played an integral part in founding Princeton Theological Seminary, which became one of the most influential training grounds for Presbyterian ministers in the nineteenth century. While Miller is most commonly remembered for his writings on church office, he also played a significant role instructing students and shaping their theology of preaching and pastoral ministry. In the present volume, Jim Garretson highlights the narrative of Miller’s life and the major ministerial emphases found in his published writings, sermons, and unpublished lecture notes. As a result, readers will come to know the spiritual convictions of Miller’s heart and understand the theology of ministry he imparted over the course of his lifetime.

9781601784131Thoughts on Preaching and Pastoral Ministry: Lessons from the Life and Writings of James W. Alexander. In Thoughts on Preaching and Pastoral Ministry, James M. Garretson provides a detailed narrative of James W. Alexander’s life in order to better understand his approach to gospel labors. Garretson draws deeply from Alexander’s correspondence, tracking the spiritual development of his life as it shaped his practice of pastoral ministry. In addition, assessments of Alexander’s sermons, books, and especially reviews provide valuable personal statements that shed light on his character and convictions. Throughout, Alexander is allowed to speak for himself so that the reader may enter into the spiritual pulse that animated his life and actions. Bracing, heartening, and at times frustrating, Alexander’s growth as a Christian and development as a minister is the story of a man subdued by God’s grace and a life marked by a growing conformity to the likeness of Christ. For those whose privilege it is to serve as ministers of the gospel, Alexander’s life and instruction provide inspiration and wisdom for how to do pastoral ministry well and with all of one’s heart.

If you want to listen to Garretson speak on Princeton and pastoral ministry, try this message from the 2012 Conference at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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What Brings Revival

James-W.-Alexander-Frontispiece-from-Vol.-1-of-his-Memoirs-by-Hall-7-28-20151James Waddell Alexander (1804–1859) was the eldest son of the legendary Archibald Alexander, first professor at Princeton Seminary. James himself was a formidable force for Christ’s kingdom. He pastored the famous Duane Street Presbyterian Church in New York City and was eventually appointed Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Government at Princeton.

He was an enthusiastic proponent of and participant in revival. But not the kind Charles Finney advocated—a spiritual stirring based on human engineering. Alexander once wrote about the necessary conditions for true revival. He said,

For my own part, I believe that revivals depend not so much, as is thought, upon phases of doctrine, or petty arrangements, as upon the ardent piety and zealous labours of humble Christianity, apart from all these things.

Do you want to see a revival in your ministry? Alexander would say pursue an ordinary ministry. Love Christ enough to prize holiness. Love Christ enough to proclaim Him zealously in every place. Leave the rest to our Sovereign King.

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In Praise of Plain Preaching

A lovely movement of retrieval is happening in Puritan studies. William Perkins is once again moving to center stage. How important is Perkins? J.I. Paker once said, “No Puritan author save Richard Baxter ever sold better than Perkins, and no Puritan thinker ever did more to shape and solidify historic Puritanism itself.” For too long the only work Christians have known from Perkins is his magnificent The Art of Prophesying. Thanks to Reformation Heritage, Perkins’ broader labor is readily available in The Works of William Perkins (projected to be a ten-volume collection).

If you’re unfamiliar with Perkins, you could pick up this little biography or this useful treatment of his Sermon on the Mount expositions. Or you might watch Sinclair Ferguson’s recent lecture entitled, “William Perkins: A Plain Preacher.” It’s full of wisdom and usefulness.

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Advice on Prayer Meetings

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Oh, how I wish more churches had a regular prayer meeting. Could it be that our shortcomings in piety, worship, and witness have a direct correlation to how few congregations spend time in earnest prayer? I tend to think so.

Studying M’Cheyne has reminded me of the prayer meeting’s significance. He understood concerted prayer to not only be a prerequisite to revival, but also an evidence of revival. One fruit the St. Peter’s revival of 1839–1840 was the commitment to prayer. In December 1840, the Presbytery of Aberdeen appointed a committee to inquire about the revivals taking place throughout Scotland. They wrote to M’Cheyne asking him to answer a series of fifteen questions related to the revival in Dundee. His answers were published later as Evidences on Revivals. He said during the revival “thirty-nine prayer meetings [were] held weekly in connection with the congregation, and five of these were conducted and attended entirely by little children.” After twelve months, M’Cheyne wrote, “I believe the number of these meetings is not much diminished,” although many were more private in nature.

Congregational prayer was something M’Cheyne prioritized from the beginning at Dundee. Not long after his installation at St. Peter’s he began a Thursday night prayer meeting that 800 people attended. He apparently earned a reputation for skill in leading congregational prayer, as Mr. J.T. Just wrote to him asking for advice in conducting prayer meetings.

M’Cheyne begins by saying, “No person can be a child of God without living in secret prayer; and no community of Christians can be in a lively condition without unity in prayer.” A true church is a praying church. And every church can always grow in prayer. Here then are some bits of wisdom M’Cheyne offers.

12 Helps For Prayer Meetings

  • “One great rule in holding them (prayer meetings) is, that they really be meetings of disciples.”
  • “The prayer-meeting I like best is where there is only praise and prayer, and the reading of God’s word.”
  • “Meet weekly, at a convenient hour.”
  • “Be regular in attendance. Let nothing keep you away from your meeting.”
  • “Pray in secret before going.”
  • “Let your prayers in the meeting be formed as much as possible upon what you have read in the Bible. You will thus learn variety of petition, and a Scripture style.”
  • “Pray that you may pray to God, and not for the ears of man.”
  • “Pray for the outpouring of the Spirit on the Church of Christ and for the world; for the purity and unity of God’s children; for the raising up of godly ministers, and the blessing of those that are so already.”
  • “Pray for the conversion of your friends, of your neighbours, of the whole town.”
  • “Pride is Satan’s wedge for splitting prayer-meetings to pieces: watch and pray against it.”
  • “Watch against seeking to be greater than one another; watch against lip-religion.”
  • “Above all, abide in Christ, and He will abide in you.”

Around this time M’Cheyne wrote to his great friend Andrew Bonar asking for more advice on prayer meetings. In the letter, M’Cheyne gives some humorous sanity on a pastors’ prayer meeting he just began. May those of us who minister the gospel remember it: “We began today a ministerial prayer-meeting, to be held every Monday at eleven for an hour and a half. This is a great comfort, and may be a great blessing. Of course, we do not invite the colder ministers; that would only damp our meeting. Tell me if you think this right.” I for one think it right, very right indeed.

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Twin Lakes 2017

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A few weeks ago I attended the annual Twin Lakes Fellowship. It was an edifying time with other like-minded pastors. The campground was beautiful; the conversations enjoyable; the singing exceptional. But the highlight, for me at least, was Ian Hamilton.

On three successive nights, Dr. Hamilton preached on “The Glory of Christ.” His expositions mined the depths of Scripture and had John-Owen-like substance to them. In each message, Dr. Hamilton gave heart-stirring encouragements for faithful ministry that will exhort any pastor. Listen in or download the sermons below:

Bonus audio, full of his characteristic dry wit and profound wisdom, comes from an interview David Strain did with Dr. Douglas Kelly on “Lessons from Life and Ministry.” It was a delight to hear Dr. Kelly’s reflections.

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I Am Persuaded

M'Cheyne

A few months before his death, Robert Murray M’Cheyne wrote his Personal Reformation. He began by saying, “It is the duty of ministers in this day to begin the reformation of religion . . . with confession of past sin, earnest prayer for direction, grace, and full purpose of heart.”

He then gives us simple, but challenging insight into how a pastor must go about loving God and loving others.

How to Glorify God and Do Good

M’Cheyne writes, “I am persuaded that I shall obtain the highest amount of present happiness, I shall do most for God’s glory and the good of man, and I shall have the fullest reward in eternity,” by doing three things:

  1. “By maintaining a conscience always washed in Christ’s blood.”
  2. “By being filled with the Holy Spirit at all times.”
  3. “By attaining the most entire likeness to Christ in mind, will, and heart, that it is possible for a redeemed sinner to attain to in this world.”
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5 Keys to Worshipful Preaching

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Earlier this year Joel Beeke and Dustin Benge put together a festschrift for Steve Lawson entitled, Pulpit Aflame. The quality of festschrifts can vary greatly from one volume to the next. I was pleasantly surprised to find Pulpit Aflame abundantly useful.

One standout chapter is Sinclair Ferguson’s, “Preaching as Worship.” The chapter closer with Ferguson calling on an unknown Puritan named William Fenner. In 1657, Fenner published a work on the affections under, as Ferguson says, “a characteristically delicious Puritan title,” A Treatise on the Affections, or The Souls Pulse whereby a Christian may know whether he is living or dying: Together with a lively description of their nature, signs, and symptoms: As also directing men to a right of them.

Channeling Fenner, Ferguson gives us several reflections on worshipful, affectionate preaching.

5 Keys to Worshipful Preaching

  1. Affections are raised, fixed, and enflamed when ministers “preach to the life,” that is, when their exposition explains, describes, and expounds reality as it is. As James VI and I note of one Puritan, “He preaches as if death were at my back.”
  2. For this to become a reality in our own ministry of the word, we preachers must be full of affection. “Affection in the speaker is likely to beget affections in the hearer.” Fenner distinguishes this from mere externals in preaching. It is not a matter of personality type or communication skills, certainly not “emotionalism.” As Calvin notes, there are preachers who thus preach, but they leave their hearers cold and unmoved because they perceive that what they hear is only surface emotion and not truly the affections of the reasonable and volitional soul.
  3. Preachers must be marked by godliness in their own lives. Only in this way will their own affections be pure and worshipful, and only thus will they be appropriate vessels through whom Christ will touch and move the affections of their hearers. This is merely a matter of style but a quality of life.
  4. Intriguingly, Fenner adds that affectionate preaching will be expressed in the voice. Here he stands consciously in a long line of rhetorical theorists stretching back at least to Augustine who acknowledged that they could not explain this relationship, but they knew that it was the case. Fenner held that when the preacher’s affections are moved, this will become evident in the vehicle by which he expresses them to others.
  5. Fenner also notes that affections are expressed and evoked through the preacher’s actions in his preaching—admitting his own limitations precisely here.
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Foundations of Preaching

I’ve always found Tony Merida to be an underrated teacher of preachers. His revamped book on preaching, The Christ-Centered Expositor, is well worth your investment. Merida recently taught a seminar on preaching at the Bethlehem Pastors Conference that will edify any preacher.

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A Trial for Future Ministers

M'Cheyne

One of my goals for 2017 is to write three hundred words a day on Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s theology and ministry. If I can do that, I’ll have the first draft of my dissertation for The Institution done by November. Every morning I wake up early and, while the house is silent, I find M’Cheyne speaking. He never ceases to stir and shake my ministerial soul.

His Early Joy

This morning I worked on M’Cheyne’s first pastoral post as assistant to John Bonar in Larbert and Dunipace. Larbert was more industrialized, while Dunipace remained somewhat agricultural. The two parishes had more than seven hundred homes, and the spiritual concerns were common to the day. Most shepherding dealt with illness and impending death.

John Bonar was an earnest minister of Christ. He’d regularly visit upwards of thirty homes a day, pressing his people to think of Christ. After visiting Robert, M’Cheyne’s sister said of Bonar, “He seems a very active pushing man—very peculiar, very zealous—quite wrapped up in himself and his parish.” While God honored the preaching Larbert and Dunipace, what’s clear is how the pastor’s visitation work was unusually blessed. Faith became strong; comfort was felt in the last hours of life. The ministers shepherded so well that M’Cheyne told his mother, “There is not a Carroner’s wife takes pain in her head or foot but she has a minister at her door weekly till she gets well.”

I typically assume that preaching God’s word is what most excites every young pastor. After sensing God’s call, and (likely) going through years of training in Bible and theology, every young minister is bursting to herald the gospel. Nothing else energizes a young pastor as ascending to the sacred desk. But M’Cheyne was different. He told his parents he enjoyed the work of visitation more than any other aspect of ministerial life in Larbert and Dunipace.

So much so that he wanted nothing more than to excel at the work.

On the Job Training

M’Cheyne assessed his demeanor during the visits, analyzing how he could have more effortlessly turned the conversation to spiritual matters. One example of such evaluation from his notebook is: “Not simple enough—and yet may some words be carried home” and “spoke plain but not with power.” He even tried different conversational techniques to see which on most ordinarily led to spiritual benefit. Not surprisingly, he found no conversational/spiritual silver bullet.

After several months visiting the people, M’Cheyne wished “the church commissioners would make a trial of a day’s visiting and see how they cast a burden of so many souls on one set of shoulders.”

That wish got my attention.

Examination for Ministry

My theological transition means I’ve given a lot of thought to examinations for ordination. I’m thankful for churches that make ordination mean something. Every pastor should be examined on his knowledge of Bible, theology, church history, sacraments, polity, etc. How else are you to know if he can rightly handle God’s word (2 Tim. 2:15)? Many good brothers have asked me the last few weeks, “What does it matter if you can’t outline the book of Jeremiah? My answer always is, “Why wouldn’t every pastor want to know Jeremiah well enough to outline it on the spot?” Skill with the Word means skill with every part.

I’m also more aware than ever at how insufficient such examination is to test out the full ability needed for faithful ministry. The brightest theological mind may have an astonishing lack of pastoral sensibility. The most skilled exegete may care little for lost souls.

This is where M’Cheyne’s wish comes into play. Is there a better way to assess a potential pastor’s wisdom, compassion, and humility than seeing him in the work of visitation?

I’m not convinced that presbyteries and denominations should add visitation to their examinations. But why wouldn’t every pastoral internship (which should be a prerequisite) aim for regular visitation of members? Think of everything a young man would learn as he observes healthy visitation and engages in it: how to turn conversations to Christ, speak to the hurting, evangelize the lost, exhort the weary, and help the dying. These are the skills of ordinary ministry; these are the skills of love.

Almost every pastor I know would say it’s easier to preach God’s word to hundreds than minister God’s word to one family. But is not the latter what most of our ministry looks like throughout the week?1 So should not our examination process place more emphasis on what is ordinarily the majority of our ministry? Would not our congregations be well served?

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  1. I’ll leave aside the matter of most churches today having no visitation/shepherding plan. Thus, many pastors don’t have a house-to-house aspect to their ministry. For that, just read The Shepherd Leader. ↩
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Book Recommendation: On Pastoral Ministry

A couple of weeks ago I came across John Henry Jowett’s 1912 Lyman Beecher lectures at Yale University entitled, “The Preacher: His Life and Work.” What a work! Jowett’s exhortations on the ministry are some of the more exhilarating ones I’ve read in some time.

Behind the Message, There Was a Man

blrudgbgkkgrhgookjqejllmvowobjikfzeqq_35After hearing the great Dr. Fairbairn preach, Jowett told his students at Airedale College, “Gentlemen, I will tell you what I have observed this morning: behind that sermon there was a man.” Although The Preacher provides scant autobiographical information, I had the same sense in reading Jowett’s work—there was a weight in its message.

Jowett was born in 1863 in Halifax, West Yorkshire. Like many great ministers before him, Jowett initially resolved to study law. God soon called him into the gospel ministry. He went on to train at Edinburgh and Oxford before assuming his first pastoral position at St. James Church in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The church held over 1,000 seats, and none were empty during Jowett’s ministry.

In 1911 he became the pastor at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York. John Bishop says,

The church was crowded long before the hour of Jowett’s first service. Reporters crowded the side galleries, expecting to find a sensational preacher with dazzling oratory and catchy sermon topics on current events. Instead they found a shy, quiet little man, bald-headed and with a cropped white moustache, who spoke in a calm, simple manner.

He was at Fifth Avenue when he delivered the Lyman Beecher lectures on a pastor’s life and ministry. He stayed in New York until 1918 when we was called to succeed G. Campbell Morgan at Westminster Chapel in London. It was his last pastoral post, as he died in 1923.

Pithy and Practical

The Preacher contains seven different lectures: 1) The Call to Be a Preacher, 2) The Perils of the Preacher, 3) The Preacher’s Themes, 4) The Preacher in His Study, 5) The Preacher in His Pulpit, 6) The Preacher in the Home, and 7) The Preacher as a Man of Affairs. If you read anything in the book, read lectures 2, 4, and 5. Here are a few appetizers for you to meditate on:

  • “We may become so absorbed in words (of preaching) that we forget to eat the Word.” (42)
  • “We may become more intent on full pews than on redeemed souls.” (54)
  • Worldliness will cause “our characters to lose their spirituality. we shall lack that fine fragrance which makes people know that we dwell in ‘the King’s gardens.’ There will be know ‘heavenly air’ about our spirits.” (55)
  • Worldliness will cause us to be “wordy, but not mighty. we are eloquent, but we do not persuade. We are reasonable, but we do not convince. We preach much, but accomplish little. We teach, but do not woo.” (57)
  • If the gospel “is to be the weighty matter of our preaching, we surely ought to be most seriously careful how we proclaim it. The matter may be bruised and spoiled by the manner. The work of grace may be marred by our own ungraciousness.” (101)
  • “Happy-go-lucky sermons will lay no necessity upon the reason nor put any constraint upon the heart. Preaching that costs nothing accomplishes nothing.” (114)
  • “Here (in private prayer), more than anything else, our secret life will determine our public power.” (158)
  • “Men never learn to pray in public: they learn in private. We cannot put off our private habits and assume public ones with our pulpit robes.” (159)
  • “If men are unmoved by our prayers they are not likely to be profoundly stirred by our preaching.” (159)

Where to Find It

You can find reasonably priced reprints of Jowett’s book on Amazon. If you don’t want to spend money from your book budget, you can read it for free on Archive.com or Google Books.

Tolle lege!