The Pastor–Scholar

The following article appeared in the January 2012 issue of the Banner of Truth Magazine (Issue 580).

Most men engaged in pastoral ministry will be asked, at some time, ‘What exactly does your work involve?’. Often, sadly, they will struggle to provide a clear and comprehensible answer. The ignorance in the popular mind about the work of the pastor is becoming increasingly prevalent in a culture which is growing ever more unchurched. So what is a pastor, and just what does a minister do? Even such terms as pastor and minister are more likely to draw blank looks today than at any time in the past.

But perhaps a problem exists which is even closer to hand and which is related to the first. Are there not times when the minister himself struggles to pin down his job description? Surrounded as he is by so great a range of expectations and assumptions, both from the church and the world; subject as he is to so many urgent and varied demands from his own congregation and beyond, the pastor’s identity crisis is really no surprise. He may feel himself to be, at different times, a glorified social worker, a marketing man, a local politician, and a marriage guidance counsellor. So it is surely worth asking whether there is a single, memorable, pithy description which will helpfully and biblically sum up the work of the Christian minister.

The apt title ‘pastor-scholar’ was first brought to my attention towards the end of my first year in the ministry. A wise and experienced visiting minister first encouraged me to think in such a way about the work to which God had called me, and it is to this description of the minister that I would like to draw attention. The two designations ‘pastor’ and ‘scholar’ are worthy of individual as well as combined consideration.

The minister of the gospel is called to be a pastor. The prevailing biblical motif of the shepherd, so rich and tender, is fulfilled in the Chief Shepherd himself, the Lord Jesus Christ, who calls undershepherds to serve him after his own pattern. It was a threefold charge which the risen Saviour delivered to Simon Peter: ‘Feed my lambs’, ‘Tend my sheep’, ‘Feed my sheep’ (John 21:15-17). The Chief Shepherd’s words would ever ring loud in Peter’s ears, for even in his old age the apostle summed up the work of an elder thus: ‘Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory’ (1 Pet. 5:2-4).

But how is the pastor to feed the sheep? He must be a man who is himself deeply and wholeheartedly acquainted with the Word of God, who drinks deeply from its wells of salvation; he must be a scholar of the Word. Paul’s words to Timothy (2 Tim. 2:15) can be taken as a kind of template for the work to which the pastor is called to be engaged: ‘Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth’. It is quite striking to note that Paul’s admonition is flanked by two warnings, the first of which addresses the danger of quarrelling ‘about words’ (verse 14), the second which deals with ‘irreverent babble’ (verse 16). The type of scholarship which Paul urges must avoid these two dangers: one is a species of scholasticism, which devotes a great deal of attention to abstruse questions that may be quite fascinating, but which have little or no practical, pastoral usefulness; and the other plays fast and loose with the Scriptures, resulting in the shipwreck of faith and consequent ungodliness. In both of these contrasting cases scholarship has not been in held in check by pastoral considerations. Hence it is fitting to speak of the ‘pastor-scholar’ rather than the ‘scholar-pastor’.

Archibald Alexander (1772-1851), forty years a professor at Princeton Seminary, NJ, exemplifies the pastor-scholar model as well as anyone. He believed that ‘the time and attention of the minister of the gospel should be principally devoted to the acquisition of useful knowledge; and especially, to that knowledge which is most intimately connected with the sacred office’.¹Alexander, ‘Classical & Mathematical Education’, 12:13, from his unpublished Lectures in Pastoral Theology, cited in James M. Garretson, Princeton and Preaching (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2005), p. 67. Underlying all of Alexander’s thought and work is the deep piety—here, surely, is a word whose meaning we so need to recapture! ‘Every man who is called to the ministry of the Word is a recipient of grace and must be a pious man.’²Garretson, Princeton and Preaching, p.39. This piety was the life-blood not only of his own life and ministry, but the subsequent history of Princeton, well into the twentieth century. Consequently, at a time when the new learning, the Higher Criticism, was steadily gaining its menacing ground in the learning establishments of Europe, Princeton continued as a beacon of Faith and Learning, a true school of the prophets holding forth The Majestic Testimony.³The words in italics here refer to the titles of David B. Calhoun’s magisterial two-volume history of Princeton Seminary, which is published by the Trust (see p. 20 above).

But Alexander was not only a scholar of the Scriptures; he possessed a profound understanding of the human heart, especially in its bearing on the work of preaching and pastoring. His great skill here can be witnessed in his Thoughts on Religious Experience, perhaps the most lasting monument to his gifts, and an essential handbook of the soul for every minister of the gospel. Like Calvin before him, he knew that the true knowledge of God must be conjoined to an accurate understanding of our own human condition. The pastor must take heed to himself before he takes heed to all the flock.

Perhaps the designation ‘pastor-scholar’ might seem rather daunting to some men who feel unworthy of the description ‘scholar’. This may in a large measure be due to their perceived lack of academic qualifications. The corrective here is to see that the Lord’s call to the ministry bestows upon men a high honour and engages the man in a permanent duty, the consequences of which far exceed enrolment in the best centres of academic excellence. The pastor is called to be a lifelong student of the Scriptures and of every branch of learning that will enable him to be an able minister of the new covenant.

At the other end of the spectrum is the minister who knows himself— or believes himself!—to be an erudite scholar. For him, the challenge is more serious; he needs to know that he is called to be a pastor of wandering, needy, hungry sheep. He has not been called into the ministry to satisfy his own intellectual curiosity, or to pursue paths of enquiry which hold a personal appeal but do not equip or edify him for the work to which he has been set apart. For all such, and indeed for all of us, Alexander’s words are most necessary: ‘Genius, learning, eloquence, zeal, public exertion, and great sacrifices, even if it should be of all our goods, and of our lives themselves, will be accounted of no value, in the eyes of the Lord, if love to Christ be wanting.’⁴Alexander, The Pastoral Office, pp. 8-9.

Paul Yeulett is minister at Grove Chapel.