Jots & Tittles 19: Five Book Recommendations for Young Pastors

 

Had a phone conversation last week with a young man who has just accepted a pastoral call to serve in his first church. He asked if I could recommend a few practical books related to the pastoral ministry.

I’ve created this brief list to share with him. Many more might be added but here are five with a brief annotation that I have found helpful (listed In a-b-c order by author):

Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry with An Inquiry into the Causes of its Inefficiency (Banner of Truth, 1830, 2006).

Bridges (1794-1869) was an evangelical leader in the Church of England. This book shares valuable practical pastoral wisdom in everything from preaching sermons to pastoral work with various kinds of people. It is also filled with pithy aphoristic statements that will lodge in the mind. Example: “Believe—wait—work—are the watchwords of the Ministry” (179).

John Keith Davies, The Local Church: A Living Body (Evangelical Press, 2001).

Davies (d. 1991) served for over thirty-seven years as a Baptist pastor and church planter in Wales. This is technically a book on ecclesiology or even a practical manual on church order, but it also has much, necessarily, to say about the work of pastoral ministry. Davies extols especially the advantages of ministry within the small church. For my full review of this book, look here.

Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, Complete and Unabridged (Zondervan, 1954 reprint).

These lectures were delivered by Spurgeon (1834-1892), the “Prince of Preachers,” to the students at the Preachers’ College in London. Though the content is sometimes uneven, it includes classic essays addressing topics like dealing with personal discouragement and despondency (“The Minister’s Fainting Fits”) and dealing with both praise and criticism (“The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear”).

William Still, Dying to Live (Christian Focus, 1991).

William Still (1911-1997 was the “bachelor minister” at the Gilcomston Church of Scotland in Aberdeen from 1945-1997. This autobiography addresses the lows (the week seven of his elders resigned and attendance plummeted) and highs (the joys of seeing fruit and spiritual growth driven through expository preaching, alongside work with students and children) of his unusually long and fruitful ministry in one congregation. Though I list only this work of autobiography (or biography) I commend this genre to aspiring pastors.

William Still, The Work of the Pastor (Christian Focus, 1984, 2001).

This book consists of five lectures presented by Still at an Intervarsity Christian Fellowship student conference in 1964. It is easy to digest and brimming with sagacious insights. Example: “We are so eager, we want a short training and a long ministry. Jesus has thirty years’ training and three years’ ministry” (143).

JTR

Gleanings from Charles Bridges' "The Christian Ministry"

Gleanings from Charles Bridges’ The Christian Ministry (original 1830; abridged edition, 1849; Banner of Truth reprint, 1967):

Our plain and cheering duty is therefore to go forward—to scatter seed—to believe and wait (p. 76).

Ours is the care of service—His is the care of success. “The Lord of the harvest must determine, when, and what, and where the harvest shall be” (p. 76).

Cowper’s line—‘If parsons fiddle, why may’nt laymen dance?’ –has at least as much truth as wit in it (p. 121).

…and who knoweth, but that we shall find that our most successful efforts for our people were the hours—not when we were speaking to them from God, but when we were speaking for them to God? (p. 149).

Believe—wait—work—are the watchwords of the Ministry (p. 179).

So true is it, that we must preach the Gospel, in order to reform the world (p. 242).

No souls, therefore, can be won to him, except by setting forth his name, work, and glory (p. 245).

Indeed, we are bound to explain to our people, according to the light afforded us, every part of the book, which was designed for general instruction, and of which we are the ordained interpreters (p. 249).

If some poison their people, others may be in danger of starving them (p. 254).

Let Christ be the diamond to shine in the bosom of all your sermons (p. 258).

Christian experience is the influence of doctrinal truth upon the affections (p. 259).

Our doctrine must be as a garment, fitted for the body it is made for; a garment that is fit for every body, is fit for nobody (p. 270).

The Minister, that does not manifestly put his heart into his sermon, will never put his sermon into the heart of his people…. A painted fire may glare, but will not warm (p. 320).

How gently we handle those sins, which will so cruelly handle our people’s souls (p. 323)!

The constant repetition,—not the weight—of the heavenly showers, makes impressions on the hardest substances (p. 326).

Favoritism in Scripture is the grand parent of both heresy and instability of profession (p. 378).

Experience shows us, that often the most difficult work remains when we have come down from the pulpit, needing special direction of prayer, study, and careful regard to our Master’s ministration for its effectual discharge. On one particular, however, we cannot mistake; that to all, of every class and at every stage, the attractions of the cross must be unfolded, and its heavenly glory made intelligible…. (p. 383).

The Vision (1.27.17): The patient in spirit

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday morning's sermon on Ecclesiastes 7:7-10.

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit (Ecclesiastes 7:8).

This verse addresses the dangers of impatience during difficulties. The teaching starts: “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof” (v. 8a). The main exhortation here is for the believer not to have a short-term view of any hardships he must face in this life.

We must remember the account of faithful Job.  He went through terrible distress, but Job 42:12 records, “So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning.”

Sometimes we give up too soon.  If we would just persevere we might see blessing even in this life. Nevertheless, the believer must remain faithful even if he does not see immediate blessing in this life.  He must look at his life from the perspective of eternity.  To alter the last stanza of “Amazing Grace”: “When we’ve been there ten thousand years …will we even remember the things that seem so large and upsetting to us here and now?”  Better is the end than the beginning!

In his Ecclesiastes commentary, Charles Bridges observes:

The ordinary trials of the Christian life are grievous in the beginning; but fruitful in the end. Therefore, whatever be the trial of faith, never despond (p. 142).

God, who in mercy and wisdom governs the world, would never have suffered so many sadnesses, and especially to the most virtuous and wisest men, but that he intends they should be the seminary of comfort, the nursery of virtue, the exercise of wisdom, the trial of patience, the venturing for a crown, and the gate of glory (p. 143).

The corresponding and completing part of v. 8: “and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit” (v. 8b). Well has it been said that patience is a virtue. Paul called it a fruit of the spirit (see “longsuffering” in Gal 5:22-23).

Notice that the opposite of patience is pride.  Pride is the father of impatience.  Pride says: If I were in charge things would be better. If God would just do things the way I want, all would work out well.

More gleaning from Bridges (pp. 144-145):

Patience is the child of faith.

Let the Lord take his own course, as certainly he will. But trust him for the end in his own time and way.

Beware of fretfulness in walking through the rough and thorny path.

Never forget that we are most incompetent judges of his purposes.

….hastily to give up good purposes because of difficulties—would prove us to be poor novices in the Christian life. Proud self-confidence expects to carry all before us, and after repeated failures sinks down in despondency. The patient in spirit is content—if it must be so—with feeble beginnings, poor success, and many repulses.

We can apply this to so many things.  We can apply it to our spiritual life. When we consider our own personal spiritual growth and maturity we might wonder why we are not making better progress.  We can apply it to how we think of others. If we expect the Lord to be patient with us, why can we not be patient with others?  We can apply it corporately to our church.  And we can apply it to the church’s influence in our culture.  We want more, but we must have a spirit of patience!

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle