Prof. Hanko is professor of Church History and New Testament in the Protestant Reformed Seminary. *Keynote address given at the Officebearers’ Conference of Classis West in South Holland, IL on March 2, 1993.

Introduction

When the committee which plans these conferences approached me to speak on the topic, “A Pastor’s Heart,” I mildly demurred. My reasons were two. Pastors who are actively and almost continually involved in pastoral work, it seemed to me, hardly need anyone to tell them about their work. One does not go to a skilled neural surgeon to explain to him how to go about operating on a tumor of the brain. The other objection was that, if someone were indeed going to tell pastors how to go about their work, it ought to be one who is as actively involved in the work as they are. You are pastors, engaged in the work of busy pastorates. I have long ago laid that work aside.

Richard Baxter offered me some grounds for overcoming the first objection. In-his book, The Reformed Pastor (London: S. Couchman, 1808), Baxter begins by reminding the people of God in general that they are called to “exhort one another daily.” He then goes on to say:

So ought ministers all the more to do this among themselves because we have the same sins to mortify, and the same graces to be quickened and corroborated, as they have. We have greater works than they have to do, greater difficulties to overcome, and no less necessity is laid upon us. We have therefore need to be warned and awakened, if not instructed, as well as they (p. 1).

I overcame the second objection, at least in my own mind, by thinking that it is good for each one of us, from time to time, to step back from his work, ponder it, compare what he is doing with Scripture, and evaluate his labors in Scripture’s light. But the opportunity for a busy pastor to do this seldom comes, for the pastoral problems which engage him press upon him with unrelenting force, so that for him to step back from them to evaluate his work seems perilously close to dereliction of duty. There is then some advantage to hearing one who, by the pressing circumstances of God’s call, has been forced to step back. He just may have the eye to see what one embroiled in the trials of the pastorate is unable to see.

And so I venture on the task with some trepidation.

Rooted in His Office

To begin by expressing the obvious, one with a pastor’s heart is, obviously, a pastor. A pastor holds an office. This office is created in the church by Christ; and one who holds this office is called by Christ. Our Church Order defines those distinct elements which are the necessary parts of the lawful calling. I need not enter into that here.

While in a certain sense a distinction may be made between the work of the ministry of the Word and pastoral labors, this distinction must not be so pressed as to divorce the one from the other. On the pulpit, a minister is a pastor. And in his pastoral labors, a pastor remains a minister.

I shall assume that you are all aware of this, but this stark truth is the basis for everything I have to say.

When one takes the time to examine the Scriptures, one is quite amazed at how many different names are given to those who hold this office of pastor/ minister. And each name, in its own right, has something to say about what a pastor’s heart really is.

I shall very briefly mention these names. The list is quite imposing and, I may add, frightening. The order is arbitrary.

A pastor/minister is an evangelist. “Do the work of an evangelist,” Paul admonishes Timothy in II Timothy 4:5.

A pastor/minister is a teacher. Christ gave to the church upon His ascension pastor/teachers, as Paul reminds us in Ephesians 4:11.

A pastor/minister is a shepherd, as Peter expresses it in I Peter 5:2. He must feed the flock of God. And all that is implied in the earthly figure of a diligent shepherd tending his sheep is carried over with force to the relation between a pastor and his congregation.

A pastor/minister is an elder. Patrick Fairbairn is correct when he says that the chief idea of an elder is the idea of authority to rule (A Treatise on the Office and Duties of the Christian Pastor [Audubon, NJ: Old Paths Publications, 1992] p. 40). He comes with the Word of God and the authority of his office, not to give advice or to discuss alternatives of action, but with the stentorian word, “Thus saith the Lord.”

A pastor/minister is an episcopos. He is one who oversees the life of those entrusted to his care. He does this, not as a busybody, meddling in other people’s affairs, but as one appointed by Christ to this work.

A pastor/minister is a steward. Paul, in I Corinthians 4:1, speaks of himself and his co-workers as “ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” This same idea, though not specifically mentioned by name, is expressed in Hebrews 13:17, where elders are said to be those who watch over the souls of God’s people as those who must give account. Stewards are entrusted with things and people who belong to another.

A pastor/minister is an angel, as John calls the pastors of the seven churches of Asia Minor. The meaning is not that pastors are as sinless as angels, but that pastors hold divine credentials as sent by Christ. A pastor/minister is a co-laborer of God. Two ideas come to the fore. Pastor/ministers work in a small corner of Christ’s domain along with others, and are, therefore, to put aside all jealousy, competition, struggles to maintain their own turf, labors which are at odds with their fellow laborers. But the genitive in II Corinthians 6:1, “of God,” means also to emphasize that we all together belong to God whose work we do.

A pastor/minister is a soldier of Jesus Christ. He must, as a soldier, endure hardship (II Tim. 2:3). It is an apt description of the work which you are called to do under orders from the Captain of your salvation.

A pastor/minister is a deacon. The term is specifically applied to ministers in I Corinthians 3:5 and carries with it the connotation of one who ministers to the needs of others.

A pastor/minister is a leader. The epistle to the Hebrews uses this term in Hebrews 13:7 where the congregation is admonished to “obey those who have the rule over you.”

The list is a daunting one. One with a pastor’s heart must be all these things, and all at the same time.

In summing up these names with what they imply, James M. Hoppin quotes from a letter written by F.W. Robertson, which the latter addressed to a friend newly ordained (The Office and Work of the Christian Ministry, by James M. Hoppin, New York: Sheldon & Company, 1870):

Most sincerely I congratulate you on your prospect of a curacy, but much more on the approach of the highest earthly honor, the privilege of working for Christ, and welcome you to a participation of its joys and sorrows. Perhaps the latter predominate here, but they are not worthy to be compared to the joys which shall be revealed in us, if we suffer with him. I think the strictness of self-examination for ministerial fitness is contained in that solemn, searching question of our Lord, thrice repeated, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?” And if we can answer from our inmost souls, as Peter did, “Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee,” I believe the injunction which follows, and the warning of martyrdom, would be received with equal joy as our Master’s will. I am sensible that it is a test that makes me humble.

Requiring Specific Gifts

What kind of gifts does it take to be a pastor/minister – that is, one with a pastor’s heart?

It is not my intention to set before you those qualifications for office which the apostle Paul lays out in I Timothy 3. You know them, and it would be repetitious to go over them.

There are other points made by Scripture which, while presupposing these and building upon them, give some insight into what is involved in being a pastor/minister with a pastor’s heart.

These can be roughly divided into three groups: 1) those required of a pastor/minister in his relation to God: 2) those required of a pastor/minister in his relation to himself; and 3) those required of a pastor/minister in his relation to his sheep.

In speaking of a pastor/minister’s relation to God, I take my starting point in Galatians 1:10: “For do I know persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.”

The apostle sets up a contrast here between being a slave of Christ and pleasing men. He presents them as mutually exclusive. If one pleases men, one is not a slave of Christ. And if one is a slave of Christ, one does not please men. It is as bad as that.

Obviously, the apostle does not mean to say that God’s people may not be pleased with the work of a faithful pastor. He looks at the matter from the viewpoint of the pastor/ minister’s motives. He is not to labor out of the motive of pleasing men. He is a slave of Christ, owned by Him. He has only one to please, Christ to whom he belongs.

Putting it in a slightly different way, Calvin writes in his commentary on John 7:18:

We are also reminded by it that no man can faithfully discharge the office of teacher in the Church, unless he be void of ambition, and resolve to make it his sole object to promote, to the utmost of his Power, the glory of God.

Such faithfulness implies two things: 1) A pastor/minister must know the will of Christ, which is contained in the Scriptures. He must be wholly and completely given to it with his entire being and in all his work. 2) A pastor/minister must do all his work in complete dependence upon Christ, looking to Christ for strength for himself and for effectiveness in his work.

How easy it is to forget this. How easy it is to have our finger in the wind to judge the prevailing gusts of popular approval; to labor for the applause of the balcony; to keep our eyes fixed on the people who can harm us unless we cultivate and curry their favor. Such conduct is abhorrent to Christ.

. . . to be continued