The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor by John Piper

Author:John Piper [John Piper, D. A. Carson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4335-2650-3
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2011-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Summing Up

One way to make sense of this chapter is to say that its two parts reflect the two things that were happening to me in the first thirty-four years of my life—on the way to the pastorate. That story is the story of the emergence of a pastor with a desperate desire for joy in God and a rational bent that makes him less useful in many settings, and more useful in a few. Then the second half of the chapter is the fleshing out of those two traits—joy and thinking.

It seems to me, from my very biased and finite perspective, that what God was doing in my whole life was preparing me to see, and think about, and savor, and proclaim the truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. The first half of the chapter describes the emergence of a sinful soul who thinks and feels deeply and loves to speak and write about it. The second half of the chapter describes how the thinking serves the feeling in the ministry of the Word.

If I am scholarly, it is not in any sense because I try to stay on the cutting edge in the discipline of biblical and theological studies. I am far too limited for that. What “scholarly” would mean for me is that the greatest object of knowledge is God and that he has revealed himself authoritatively in a book; and that I should work with all my might and all my heart and all my soul and all my mind to know and enjoy him and to make him known for the joy of others.

Surely this is the goal of every pastor.

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