Lecture three, a pastor's training. Number one, seminary. One one, develop a positive view of seminary preparation. Some of you are just here and you think, how can it be possible to be other than positive about seminary preparation? Others of you are here a bit longer. And that positive view seems a long time ago maybe. I think it's important to not view seminary as a necessary evil or as an obstacle, something to be endured, but really to take a positive view of it. In Ian Murray's biography of Jonathan Edwards, he says, as we shall see, the three years now before him were not among those which he regarded as his happiest, yet the additional discipline involved was to contribute largely to his future usefulness. Many a young man since, as well as before his time, of narrow views and crude knowledge, has rushed into the pastoral office with scarcely any of that furniture which enables the shepherd of souls rightly to divide the word of truth. But Jonathan Edwards, with a mind of superior grasp and penetration, with attainments already greater than common, did not think three full years of diligent professional study enough to prepare him for this arduous charge. until after his graduation, he had devoted six years to close and appropriate study. Philip Eveson says, the main purpose of a seminary should be to make people think, so that when they leave the college, they will go on thinking and not simply return to their notes. The business of the college is to give men a greater love of the word than they have ever had, a greater desire to dig into its profundities, to read everything they can, which will help them to that end, and then to go on doing this, to go on learning and increasing and developing in every respect until they are called home to their eternal reward. Look at that last sentence. He says, if men's hearts are not warmer when they go out from this college than when they come in, then these tutors will have failed. Very challenging, at least to teachers. That's one of the reasons I gave you that project for this, really. is to train you how to think as you read a biography, how to benefit from the multiple biographies I believe you will read in your life when you go into the ministry. One, two, remember that seminary is only a beginning. Remember that seminary is only a beginning. John MacArthur says, preparing for the pastoral ministry is a multifaceted journey, a process consisting of diverse elements occurring over an extended time. Contrary to expectations of some seminarians, three or four years is not long enough to complete the process. Rather, it's a pilgrimage that never ends, requiring commitment to an endless quest. Etymological significance of the word seminary, for example, includes the idea of seat bed. That's what training for ministry must embody, whether the setting is formal or informal, whether within structure of seminary or incorporated into the ongoing life of pastor or local church. In either situation, there must be a careful and systematic watering, nurturing, cultivating, pruning, and protecting. Only then will fruit result. Then he goes on to talk about the three phases of training noted in Paul's exhortation to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4.12 and following. Godly character, what a man should be. Biblical knowledge, what a man should know. And ministry skills, what a man should be able to do. So seminary's only a beginning. 1.3. Seek to grow in. Then I've given you a list there with biblical references. Again, I think that's from MacArthur's wonderful volume on pastoral ministry. You see the number of areas here that require training, learning. I won't read the quotes, but let me just go through the list. Praying, evangelizing, equipping, defending, loving, laboring, modeling, leading, feeding, watching, warning, teaching, exhorting, encouraging, correcting, confronting, rescuing, What grade would you put yourself in in each of these classes? And then another list there from the same book a bit further on, page 31. So seek to grow in all these areas. Use that as a checklist maybe. Find out where you're weak. Find out where the seminary is weak, and try to fill it with other resources. Let's look though, secondly, at time. 2.1 Pastoral Time Management begins in seminary. John Stott's biography says, it was during these early days at Trinity that John Stott began to cultivate the habit of early rising that was to stay with them all his life. He would set his alarm for 6 AM, later 5 AM in his life, giving himself an hour and a half for quiet time in Bible study, before crossing for breakfast in the hall at 8 o'clock. So don't wait till pastoral ministry to start managing your time. 2-2, redeem the time for study. Redeem the time for study. Jonathan Edwards says, how shall I make advantage of all the time I spend in journeys? Part of his answer to that latter question, says Murray, was the commencement of a practice which he was to continue. He decided to have with him some means of writing notes when he travelled. Remember, he wrote, as soon as I can get to a piece of slate or something where I can make short memorandums while travelling. We were saying, I want to get an iPad or an iPhone. I want to get a piece of slate. Ian Murray says, we shall return again in another chapter to the subject of Edward's 13 hours every day commonly spent in his study. And we'll know later how this statement needs to be qualified. But he says, that kind of practice was not extraordinary in his day. And he says, if it was excessive in one direction, it was in the right direction. Because he says, there's no doubt that the routine of our contemporary Christianity is excessive in another. And that the basic reason why so much church busyness accomplishes so little at the present time is that private spiritual priorities are being neglected. Edward says Murray would have certainly agreed with James Stalker, who, when speaking of the efficacy of the minister, writes, unless he has spent the week with God and received divine communications, it would be better not to enter the pulpit or open his mouth on Sunday at all. A ministry of growing power must be one of growing experience. Power for work like ours is only to be acquired in secret. The hearers may not know why their minister, with all his gifts, does not make a religious impression on them, but it's because he is not himself a spiritual power. Redeem the time. Four, study. Three, reading. Three, one, read church history. Alistair McGrath in his biography of Packer highlights how much Packer ransacked Christian church history and how much that helped him to interpret the scriptures using the work of the spirit of the past Christian church to help him in the present. He says, the history of the church's labor to understand the Bible forms a commentary on the Bible, which we cannot despise or ignore without dishonoring the Holy Spirit. Read Church History. Three, two, read the Puritans. Quite a few quotes there, as you would expect. A number there from Ian Murray's biography of Martin Lloyd-Jones. He says this, Lloyd-Jones' address on Puritanism in March 1926, is chiefly important as an indication of what was going on in the speaker's own spirit at a time when he was in the midst of his struggle over the question of his faith. It's not hard to see an element of autobiography in the closing paragraphs of his address on Puritanism. The Puritans, he declared, are to sin both in their sorrows and in his joys. The knowledge of God prevents him from living as other men do. He has indeed not ceased from sin, yet he cannot sin as an unbeliever does. The known presence of God makes that impossible. And then he goes on to recommend Baxter, Bunyan, Forbes. He says, if you want to find out the Puritanism above all, read the letters of Paul. He calls the Puritans there in that second paragraph, the commanders-in-chief of God's garrison on earth. He says, God does not always appear to the Puritan as the hound of heaven. There's another mood, there are other occasions when God is love, when God is gentle father taking an occasional walk in his garden. during these days, nothing can equal the ecstasy of the Puritans. So he's saying that this broad variety of Christian experience that's evident in the Puritans. And he concludes really by saying, is it surprising that to the Puritan life is a serious matter, demanding the whole of his time and attention? If you've once seen the face of God, there's nothing else worth seeing as far as you're concerned. All these other things merely obscure the vision, therefore they must be swept away. If anything interferes with the worshipping of God, it must be destroyed. It's because of these feelings that the Puritan is always a crusader. To him, Christianity is a fight, a noble crusade, not merely a defence of action against the principalities and powers. Warfield, he fed himself on the great Puritan divines and formed not merely his thought but his life upon them. The Puritans, Packer's biographer says, conveyed to him a deep sense of spiritual realism, especially in regard to the power and seriousness of indwelling sin. Packer's views of pastoral ministry influenced by Baxter, Baxter's reformed pastor, emphasized strongly the Puritan understanding of the Christian life as a gymnasium and dressing room where we are prepared for heaven. Strong emphasis on the transitoriness of life. So Packer's really learning from the Puritans the need to inculcate this readiness to die that was so much part of Puritan spirituality. And lastly, as Packard said, the Puritans taught him that all theology is also spirituality. They knew how to put doctrine to use. 3-3, read widely. Iain Murray says of Edwards, towards the end of 1723, Edwards began a new notebook headed The Mind. The occasion of his origin has been pinpointed by Thomas Schaeffer, who noted that Edwards, having written an item on excellency in his miscellaneous, then crossed it out and made the same item a first entry in his new notebook, which was more philosophical than theological. So here, just a number of facts about how Edwards began to read in various foreign philosophers. Then Edward says, I'm determined as near as I can in my studies to observe this rule, to let half a day's or a day's study in other things be succeeded by half a day's or a day's study in divinity. It's doubtful if he succeeded while at Yale. This tension in Edward's interest should not be exaggerated. And that's really because he saw no distinction, says his biographer, between the spiritual and the secular. He saw no conflict between his Christian convictions and his interest in science and philosophy. All true knowledge leads to divinity. So he's basically saying, it's not as if, OK, I'm a theologian. I'm reading the Puritans now. Take these glasses off and put secular glasses on. OK, I'm going to read about philosophy and science now. No, he's saying, I read my theology, and that gives me glasses. with which I read all these other materials. So he's reading still, widely, but he's reading it with a Christian mind, with a Christian filter. Read widely. Three, four, always push your learning. John Murray's decision to add German to his learning in the early 30s was typical of the determination with which he devoted himself to study. Murray believed there was no short road to success. The systematic theologian had to be an exegete of the word of God and a biblical theologian, and that's why. Some of you know this. John Murray did not accept the title of professor until he was 39 because he felt his inadequacies. Always push your learning. Number four, organization. For one, index carefully. One of the best things Al Martin taught me through tapes 20 or so years ago was to preserve the fruits of your learning, to devise some system that's easier for us than ever before with scanning, Evernote, all these things, to really have a way of trying to Not let what we learn just pass through our minds and out again, but that it passes through our minds and helps us, sanctifies us, equips us, but also that we know where to find it again, retrieve it, use it in future ministry. And one of the ways to do that is to index, of course. There's a quote there about Jonathan Edwards. You can go through all of Jonathan Edwards' books, and you've got these remarks everywhere. But he had a careful index system so that he had a ready method for finding every entry in his books. And it goes on to detail some of the amazing complexity of his indexing system. And really, we have no excuse for reading things and just forgetting them. The old way, of course, was to read your book, underline or highlight, and then at the back of the book, I think this is what Dr. Beakey has done. You see it in his library books often. He would put at the back a list of subject matters and page numbers. And then he went further than that. Under each subject, he was able to pull from each book. That's the P-E-R-T, the PERT index. And also sermon text. When he was reading books, every time a sermon text was mentioned, he would index that where it was. So again, if ever he came to preaching that text again, he just went to his index system, found the text, and the books it referred to. Again, that's what we've got in PERT today, the fruit of Dr. Beaky's labors. For ourselves, all you need is a scanner. You need a page. Slap it on the scanner. 20 seconds later, you've got it in Word, editable format. You take your line or your paragraph and label it, page number on it. Just something like this. You don't need a full footnote, but book number and page number. And then you've got a searchable database. Or if you're using the web, you use Deagle or some bookmarking system. And over the years, I know it takes a bit of time, you just want to read and close the book on to the next book, but take the time and really build up a resource that will be a very fertile source of sermons, of sermon headings, of paragraphs, of illustrations, quotes. Really work at that early in your ministry. It might seem at first it's just nothing here, but you get to 10 years of doing that and you just have a tremendous resource to draw from that will save you a lot of time in the long run. So really work at getting a good way of preserving the fruits of your learning. I use also Evernote. I'm using three systems basically. Deagle for the web material, blogs, etc. Scanning. Picking out quotes, paragraphs that are useful. And Evernote, which is a free application. And again, great tagging system. You can email notes to it. Just tremendous versatility. Just watch the five minute video on it. Just a number of possibilities that opens up. I'm going to go through that another time and just show you the procedure I go through. Number four two, learn administration. Four one, index carefully. Four two, learn administration. This is all under organization. And this may seem a bit ripe coming from me after my blunder yesterday, but try to learn a way of administering your day, your calendar, your diary, your material. In MacArthur's book, He says most of these techniques are learned through practice, through the struggle of working with people's lives, and through being mentored by an older, experienced pastor. So ask pastors, how do you preserve the fruits of your learning? How do you administer your congregation? What system do you use for keeping on top of visitation or for recording details. Remember, you have to comply with certain laws as well. If you start holding people's names and addresses and personal information, make sure you end up on the right side of the law on that. MacArthur says, when I came to Grace Church, I was not very skilled in any of those administrative or practical processes. But through the years, experience has refined those skills. The world does not take a college graduate in business administration and make him the president of a corporation immediately. They bring him in on the lowest level and he learns, even though he has had courses in management. Number five, writing. So I'm just saying to you, These things are obviously vital in indexing, administration, but begin to learn them here while in seminary, while in training. Let that be part of your training. Number five, writing. Five one, writing produces accuracy. Writing produces accuracy. Ian Murray says of Jonathan Edwards, in particular, Edwards' father stressed the need for all work to be done with pen in hand. And he regarded accuracy in writing as essential. In a letter to Esther during his chaplaincy in 1711, he advised her concerning Jonathan and his sisters. I would have both him and them keep their writing, and therefore write much oftener than they did when I was at home. So again, it's not just reading books, but reading with your computer, whatever beside you, taking notes, maybe summarizing. Try and do that as accurately as possible, clearly as possible. Five one, write for gospel purposes. So why are we asking you to write papers all the time? Part of it is not just to pass exams, but it's training and writing accuracy. Some of you will have come from backgrounds where you really were not called upon to do this kind of thing. But this is very much part of the training for being able to prepare a sermon So writing, 5.2, write for gospel purposes. So Edwards is involved in writing in a number of subjects, but he always saw them as for the service of the gospel. So try and really harness that writing and use it for the service of the gospel. Practicing, number six, practicing. Six one, prioritize learning. And Taylor and Plummer. They're addressing here the problem that sometimes arises in seminaries of young men who say, hey, I just want to preach. So I'm just going to take on all this preaching. And well, they'll pass my exams good and well. And they say, well, such raw haste will be the half sister to delay. What you gain in the matter of practice will be more than lost in that of efficiency. Of course, I don't object to your fulfilling those appointments, which may come your way, providing your doing so does not abstract your attention from the work you've come here to perform. So he's saying, first place, seminary duties. He says, fill to the brim the ordinary channel of student work, and then let it overflow. If there be any, to go to other engagements. saying, you've got a short time here. You've got all these facilities. You've got libraries, lectures, advisors. You'll never have them again in your life. Use them. And then that last sentence or two, continually, he says, do I find myself in my work drawing upon the savings which I accumulated in my student life And few regrets are so bitter as those which I feel, when I reflect, if I'd only been wiser in my generation, then I might have been much more useful and efficient. So, again, trying to avoid two extremes. One extreme, preaching, preaching, preaching, no studying. But, you know, call to ministry. Studying is a means to an end. And there should be this desire to overflow. And that be a growing desire. 6.2, or 6.1, prioritize learning. 6.2, take every opportunity to practice what you learn. John Stott was spotted by, I think it was a chaplain, Basch, saw that he had a gift for speaking in public and encouraged him to develop this gift in local mission halls. So night after night, he's speaking to a few village women, some servicemen from a nearby military base. But he's increasing this experience in public speaking. OK, this is 6-2 here. For clarity's sake, 6.1 should be prioritise learning. 6.2 should be take opportunities to practice, the John Stott paragraph, and then a further paragraph about John G. Payton. Again, just explaining how much he took the opportunity to speak in little mission halls and visit in very poor areas of the town. Here he's got an evangelistic service on a Sabbath evening in a hayloft under which a cow feeder kept a large number of cows and which was reached by an outside rickety wooden stair. And he said, after nearly a year's hard work, I had only six or seven non-church goers who were attending regularly. And when people saw he'd so little through, they said, you move elsewhere? And he said, no. I plead for six more months to gain the confidence of the poor people. So take every opportunity to practice what you learn. 6-2. 6-3. Learn the difference between a lecture and a sermon. Learn the difference between a lecture and a sermon. Very tempting when you're in a lecture situation all the time, then go out with lecture genre to congregations. That's a battle I have as well, more now than I've ever had before because I never used to lecture that much. Now, do a lot more and I feel a fear that that's transferring over at times in my own preaching. I want to really fight it. And there's a paragraph there on John Murray, how he spoke on the Virgin birth. And a man comes up to him and says how much he appreciated the sermon. And Murray says, Lawrence, that was not a sermon. It was a lecture. And then I asked him what, in his view, was the difference. Well, he said, I don't remember having been taught in my homiletics classes, but I remembered it with profit to the present time. He said that a sermon has development and climax and is characterized by a passion, which is not to be found in a mere lecture. I think you can go much further than that in distinguishing them, but I'm just trying to highlight there is a distinction and make sure that it's obvious. Number seven, mentoring. Seven one, seek godly mentors. Of John Murray, a student said, Mr. Murray's teaching on Sabbath afternoons, his life, his presence, left an indelible mark on my life. Even some of his mannerisms and ways, I have unconsciously adopted. I was teased about this by his family in Scotland many years later when I visited there. The need for being meticulous, for being concerned about the minutest details, even the prepositions of scripture became a part of my whole way of life, a part of me, largely because of Mr. Murray's drilling me so carefully in my formative years. Mr. Murray really believed that the Bible was the word of God. No question about that. And you could sense it in his every breath. What an example. But it goes on to say, not a little instruction was given to students outside class hours. On many occasions, it was given while he walked arm in Or it might be meals or in conversation late at night in the kitchen of Machen Hall where he enjoyed weak tea or just simply hot water and milk before bed. Brief table talk from John Murray could make a lasting impression. At dinner one night, a student who was himself to be a professor of Old Testament once asked him why he had not written more earlier in his career. Several minutes, Murray continued with his meal and said quite abruptly, because I did not want to have to withdraw what I wrote. Alan Harmon, who gives the anecdote, writes, for many of his students, the time spent with him in personal conversation were perhaps the times they cherished most. And then there's a quote there about Packer's mentor, Letham. Okay? Seek godly mentors. Number eight. The local church. The local church. Eight one, be committed to a local church. Again, a section there on Joan Murray. and how ministers who preached with Murray and the congregation, how much they appreciated his presence. They said of him, he appropriated the worship as his own, as though there was no one else in the place. God was before his eyes. He was intent upon hearing the word read and preached. I never saw anyone enjoying the singing of praise as he did. His whole countenance, his whole being was taken. That's a professor, obviously, but a good example for students, isn't it? Be committed to a local church. You come to a new place, a new city, it's quite appropriate to go around some churches if you have no church connection and try and find your spiritual home. But it shouldn't really last more than six to eight weeks or a semester at the very most. before you really settle down, roots down, and just commit to serve in the local church. And that's a mentality shift as well. It shouldn't be, but often when you've just been, as it were, an ordinary church member, you're going to church to get. A seminary student should be switching. much, much more to the giving and the serving and that kind of mentality in a local church. Eight two, listen to and learn from good creatures. That's obvious. Eight three, cultivate Christian fellowship. Again, I've given you a quote there from Ian Murray's biography of Jonathan Edwards. Number nine, family. I'm going to touch on family from time to time in the course, but you know that David Lipsy has given the majority of the material on the minister and his family, but suffice to say here simply part of this training Seek a wife who will support you in pastoral ministry Sholta had this wife It says she was a faithful comrade on the way to the fatherland. I think he must have remarried. I can't remember the details of this, but it doesn't look like at least one of his wives was very sympathetic and actually caused a bit of trouble in terms of bridging a situation of conflict. That's obvious, we'll come back to that a little and I'm going to leave that really for David Lipsy's teaching. So, number 10, evangelism. 10.1, develop and deepen passion for souls. Develop and deepen passion for souls. Martin Lloyd-Jones went through a number of experiences which were told that more than mortify ambition, be added to the compassion which he now felt for those around him and for those whom he saw daily as he walked the crowded streets of London. That's something, you know, it's my passion for lost souls increasing as I walk the streets of Grand Rapids, as I drive around. Ten two. Consider the possibility and desirability of sowing on new and unpromising ground. Martin Lloyd-Jones was preoccupied with the need for evangelistic work among poorer working class people. He wanted to see the message which he believed had been given to him of God tested in a place where social habits did not support church going. He wished to be in some raw place where people were conscious of their need I think Lloyd-Jones, he's got to be prominent, prestigious pulpit, but no, what's in his mind is this unpromising ground, unglamorous situation. Consider that as part of your training, that God would give you a mind for whatever he will eventually call you. 11, self-examination. Part of training is knowing yourself, and we'll do that in counselling classes. One of the first things we'll do in counselling is self-counselling, knowing yourself, knowing your personality, your character, your strengths, your weaknesses. So try to understand your character and its weaknesses. in the Life and Diary of David Brainerd. His biographer speaks of how Brainerd's disease of melancholy really affected his ministry. It gave him that inclination to this sense of spiritual desertion that really stymied any kind of warm imagination. Try to understand your own tendencies, your own weaknesses. Think carefully, 11.2, about where your gifts will be best used. Says of Tom Carson, the brute fact is that Tom functioned better as a number two pastor rather than the senior man. Freed from these sorts of responsibilities, Tom began to flourish again, doing the things he did best. Personal work with young Christians, encouraging those who needed it, the gift of hospitality and prayer with folk, and steady workman-like preaching that always aimed to be faithful with the text. So this was a younger man that came in and became the senior pastor. And Tom Carson flourishes under this as the number two to a less mature person. Living three, know Christ for yourself. John Pollock says in the biography of Billy Graham, his goal, whether preaching or speaking with individuals, was not to promote an idea, but to bring them to know the living Christ. Dedication to a cause or an idea might have hardened or narrowed Graham. Dedication to a person sweetened him. And lastly, humility. Number 12, humility. Just a number of areas that I'm highlighting in this brief lecture as to how you can really use your time of training for the ministry best. Humility, aim to decrease. Aim to decrease, John 3.30. John Piper says, I was amazed once to hear a seminary graduate say how adequate he felt for the ministry after his years of schooling. This was supposed to be a compliment to the school. The reason this amazed me is that the greatest theologian and missionary and pastor who ever lived cried out, who is sufficient for these things? Not because he was a bungler. but because the awful calling of emitting the fragrance of eternal life for some and eternal death for others was a weight he could scarcely bear. A pastor who feels competent in himself to produce eternal fruit knows neither God nor himself. A pastor who does not know the rhythm of desperation and deliverance must have his sights only on what man can achieve. Taylor and Plummer say John Newton was right in saying, none but he who made the world can make a minister of the gospel.