The preacher and the “abiding wonder”

Tony Reinke Preaching

For most of us, Friday marks the beginning of the weekend. Time to relax, hang with friends, hit the pool, take the family somewhere fun. But the weekend is not so relaxing for the men who are preparing to preach God’s Word in their churches. By Saturday night–as we are in the middle of relaxation–the preacher is beginning to feel the heavy weight of his responsibility. Aware of this, I have tried used Fridays to encourage preaching pastors who read this blog. And I want to do that today.

The following quote originates from a long out of print book on preaching, The Preacher: His Life and Work by J. H. Jowett (1912). Tom Bombadil—this blog’s most insightful reader—recently recommended this book to me. Last night I started Jowett’s book and read about half of it, unable to put it down until sleep overtook me.

There are several poignant quotes on the importance of gospel-centered preaching, the importance of the pastor’s soul health, and the greatness of the pastoral calling. At one point Jowett speaks about grandeur of the calling to preach divine mystery. Listen to how Jowett puts it:

…a man who enters through the door of divine vocation into the ministry will surely apprehend “the glory” of his calling. He will be constantly wondering, and his wonder will be a moral antiseptic, that he has been appointed a servant in the treasuries of grace, to make known “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

You cannot get away from that wonder in the life of the Apostle Paul. Next to the infinite love of his Saviour, and the amazing glory of his own salvation, his wonder is arrested and nourished by the surpassing glory of his own vocation. His “calling” is never lost in the medley of professions. The light of privilege is always shining on the way of duty. His work never loses its halo, and his road never becomes entirely commonplace and grey. He seems to catch his breath every time he thinks of his mission, and in the midst of abounding adversity glory still more abounds. And, therefore, this is the sort of music and song that we find unceasing, from the hour of his conversion and calling to the hour of his death:

“Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

“For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward!”

“Whereunto I am ordained a preacher, and an apostle, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity!”

Do you not feel a sacred, burning wonder in these exclamations, a holy, exulting pride in his vocation, leagued with a marveling humility that the mystic hand of ordination had rested upon him? That abiding wonder was part of his apostolic equipment, and his sense of the glory of his calling enriched his proclamation of the glories of redeeming grace. If we lose the sense of the wonder of our commission we shall become like common traders in a common market, babbling about common wares.

I think you will find that all great preachers have preserved this wondering sense of the greatness of their vocation.

—J. H. Jowett, The Preacher: His Life and Work (Harper and Brothers, 1912), pp. 20-21.

Pastoral Ministry and Literature

Tony Reinke David Powlison

This week Dr. David Powlison (Harvard, Westminster Seminary, U. of Penn) is in town teaching biblical counseling at the Pastors College. As many of you already know, Powlison is a gifted biblical counselor who through his speaking, teaching, and writing has really shaped biblical counseling into its present form (ie CCEF). He would be in my list of top 5 most unique, gifted, and valuable teachers in the church today.

As time allows, I have poked my head in on the classes to learn from his 30+ years of biblical counseling wisdom. If you follow me on Twitter, you know the classes have been rich. I’ll be back in class today.

Last night C.J. and I enjoyed dinner with Dr. Powlison. And for about 20 minutes I had an opportunity to ask him more about something he mentioned in class today, the value of literature for pastors as they seek to discover and better understand the chaos and messiness of the human experience. Theology, Powlison says, is the compass that points to true north as the storm of life swirls around us. Studying theology is essential, but we cannot neglect studying the realities of human experience of this world. You can tell Powlison has a burden for pastors to become familiar with the storm of everyday life for the purpose of informing pastoral labors and helping connect biblical promises to the contours of life. Scripture makes sense of the chaos.

To this end, he recommends pastors become familiar with the arts. Over coffee and crème brûlée, Powlison recommended a number of books, drawn from required reading he assigned in his class on ministry and literature. Powlison recommended psychological novels like Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, a book that details many sides of human experience—anger, shame, fear, passion, guilt, shamelessness, suffering, child abuse, adultery, reconciliation, etc. He also recommended two titles that illuminate life reality but also feature simple pastors as their heroes—Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.

In his class, to encourage pastors better understand the messiness of life, Powlison also assigned readings from a number of dark and despairing, but thoughtful, books. He categorizes them as “dark realism”—Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Anton Chekhov’s Short Stories, The Stranger by Albert Camus, The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O’Neill, and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Conrad, he said, can see straight into the pit of human darkness, and writes with an unalleviated cynicism. Checkov is equally pessimistic but with a degree of common grace and palpable love and respect in the way he presents the characters. Each of these authors value honesty, an honesty pastors can learn from.

I hope to elaborate on our conversation and these recommendations soon. But I am aware that this week is the time to record and document. I can elaborate later.

See you later today on Twitter for more updates from the classroom.

stream o consciousness

Tony Reinke spurgeon

What’s on my brain at the moment.

Anticipating: Returning to some favorite places this spring—Harper’s Ferry National Park, downtown D.C., Great Falls, etc. Beautiful weather of late has me thinking about hiking.

Writing: I wish I had Malcolm Gladwell’s hair. I could write better.

Jazzed: To see Dr. David Powlison next week.

Thankful: For a great book that cost a small fortune—Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams (2009). Best book on writing I know of. So good it’s worth getting ripped off.

Death: No, not my death, death in general. Is death natural or unnatural? The world thinks death is natural. Scripture teaches that death is not natural. Life and immortality are natural but death is a foreign thing brought into God’s creation. Death is unnatural. What exactly does this mean? That’s why I’m thinking about it, silly.

So what are you thinking about right this minute (besides lamenting that you paused your day to read this post)?

Redneck Portrait

Tony Reinke spurgeon

Once the roar from my little iPhone speaker echoes throughout the house the children descend. I don’t call for them, because there is no need to fill them in on what I’m doing or where I’m at. They know and they will find me. The first to sprint into the room is my oldest son who jumps in tight for the best view. My daughter follows on his heels to grab the second best seat in the house. My little son follows a moment later, clutching the toys he didn’t think of releasing before running. He jumps on the dog pile and usually accepts the least favorable view in the house. And there, laid out on the bed, all four of us focus on the small video screen, and watch a successive stream of YouTube clips featuring the boisterous tricks of monster trucks.

brood-of-rednecks

The Greatness and Misery of Man

Tony Reinke Herman Bavinck

From Herman Bavinck:

…The conclusion, therefore, is that of Augustine, who said that the heart of man was created for God and that it cannot find rest until it rests in his Father’s heart. Hence all men are really seeking after God, as Augustine also declared, but they do not all seek Him in the right way, nor at the right place. They seek Him down below, and He is up above. They seek Him on the earth, and He is in heaven. They seek Him afar, and He is nearby. They seek Him in money, in property, in fame, in power, and in passion; and He is to be found in the high and the holy places, and with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit (Isa. 57:15). But they do seek Him, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him (Acts 17:27). They seek Him and at the same time they flee Him. They have no interest in a knowledge of His ways, and yet they cannot do without Him. They feel themselves attracted to God and at the same time repelled by Him.

In this, as Pascal so profoundly pointed out, consists the greatness and the miserableness of man. He longs for truth and is false by nature. He yearns for rest and throws himself from one diversion upon another. He pants for a permanent and eternal bliss and seizes on the pleasures of a moment. He seeks for God and loses himself in the creature. He is a born son of the house and he feeds on the husks of the swine in a strange land. He forsakes the fountain of living waters and hews out broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jer. 2:13). He is as a hungry man who dreams that he is eating, and when he awakes finds that his soul is empty; and he is like a thirsty man who dreams that he is drinking, and when he awakes finds that he is faint and that his soul has appetite (Isa. 29:8).

Science cannot explain this contradiction in man. It reckons only with his greatness and not with his misery, or only with his misery and not with his greatness. It exalts him too high, or it depresses him too far, for science does not know of his Divine origin, nor of his profound fall. But the Scriptures know of both, and they shed their light over man and over mankind; and the contradictions are reconciled, the mists are cleared, and the hidden things are revealed. Man is an enigma whose solution can be found only in God. (Our Reasonable Faith, pp. 22-23)

MP3 Sermons vs. Your Pastor’s Sermons

Tony Reinke Preaching, spurgeon

The repository of MP3 sermon audio on the Internet is vast and varied and easy to tap. Take your choice between living preachers, dead preachers, close preachers, and preachers on the opposite side of the globe. It doesn’t matter. With a click of the mouse a file rushes into your computer where it can be flushed through a cord into your iPod where it streams into your head through earbuds. Enjoy the thrill of a computer filled with hundreds of hours of audio sermons!

Now think of your pastor. He’s not unaware of this availability; he knows you have been downloading sermons all week as he has invested 20+ hours into preparing his sermon for Sunday. And stack his Sunday message against the Sunday sermons of preaching celebrities X, Y, and Z and there is no comparison.

Or is there?

According to the late Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a man who knew a bit about the art and craft of preaching, MP3 sermons are no match for your pastor’s pulpit. He said:

There is a unity between preacher and hearers and there is a transaction backwards and forwards. That, to me, is true preaching. And that is where you see the essential difference between listening to preaching in a church and listening to a sermon on the television or on the radio. You cannot listen to true preaching in detachment and you must never be in a position where you can turn it off. (Banner of Truth Magazine, Feb 1990)

Good thoughts to consider as we prepp for Sunday worship.