Are You Fit To Be A Minister of Christ?

“Nor is a man fitted to be a minister of Christ who does not have
the proper public spirit towards the Church. He needs to delight in
its beauty, long for its happiness, seek for its good, and rejoice in
its welfare. He must be willing to spend and to be spent for the
sake of the Church.”

-Richard Baxter

Quotes worth Quoting from "The Reformed Pastor"

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

"Theology must lay the foundation, and lead the way of all our studies. If God must be searched after, in our search of the creature, (and we must affect no separated knowledge of them) then tutors must read God to their pupils in all; and divinity must be the beginning, the middle, the end, the life, the all, of their studies. Our physics and metaphysics must be reduced to theology; and nature must be read as one of God's books, which is purposely written for the revelation of himself."

"O what sadder case can there be in the world, than for a man, who made it his very trade and calling to proclaim salvation, and to help others to heaven, yet after all to be himself shut out! Alas! that we should have so many books in our libraries which tell us the way to heaven; that we should spend so many years in reading these books, and studying the doctrine of eternal life, and after all this to miss it! - that we should study so many sermons of salvation, and yet fall short of it! - that we should preach so many sermons of damnation, and yet fall into it?"

"Take heed to yourselves, for you have a depraved nature, and sinful inclinations, as well as others. If innocent Adam had need of heed, and lost himself and us for want of it, how much more need have such as we? Sin dwelleth in us, when we have have preached ever so much against it; and one degree prepareth the heart for another, and one sin inclineth the mind to more. If one thief be in the house, he will let in the rest; because they have the same disposition and design. A spark is the beginning of a flame; and a small disease may cause a greater...Alas! in our hearts, as well as in our hearers, there is an adverseness to God, a strangeness to him, unreasonable and almost unruly passions! In us there are, at the best, the remnants of pride, unbelief, self-seeking, hypocrisy, and all the most hateful, deadly sins. And doth it not then concern us to take heed to ourselves?"

"When we have led them to the living waters, if we muddy it by our filthy lives, we may lose our labour, and they be never the better."

Smell like sheep!

The shepherd should smell of sheep should he not? This is a good point made by Michael Haykin over at www.historiaecclesiastica.com. He says, "In other words, the shepherd must smell of sheep! I am sure shepherds when they come home from their labours smell “sheepy.” So must true pastors. Here, Richard Baxter is the guide, is he not? For all of his oddities regarding certain soteriological issues, he laid out a true guidebook to pastoral work in his The Reformed Pastor. It is a very convicting book—but so necessary in our day for Reformed brothers whom God has called to pastoral ministry....The task of the true pastor is a multi-faceted work: prayer and preaching, mentoring and discipleship, caring and loving. Please brothers who are called to this ministry, give your selves to this task: 1 Peter 5:2, shepherd the flock of God in all of its dimensions." Read the entire article here.

We have no need of nor desire for "armchair shepherds." In other words, we need more Shepherds who are in the fold caring for and nurturing unto those sheep who are sick and needy. We need more shepherds who will feedus, lead us, and love us wholeheartedly and compassionately.