Richard Baxter and the Reformed Pastor as Leader of a Band of Soldiers
What is there to say about Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor that has not already been said? It is, perhaps, one of the greatest books ever written by a pastor for pastors. It challenges, encourages, and equips the man of God with the wisdom and skill needed to pastor the flock of God entrusted to his care.
Of course, you may say what you wish of Baxter and his occasionally aberrant theology. Many already have said much of this, and many more will. Yet, I suppose that I may as well say something too and get this out of the way before we consider The Reformed Pastor, so that I need not digress at any other point after this with endless qualifications and explanations of why one needs to be careful when reading Baxter.
I’ve heard several men specifically say, “Read Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor, but don’t bother with anything else the guy wrote.” That seems to me to be a slightly unfair analysis, if not a faulty generalization. We want to make sure that when we throw out the bathwater, we don’t accidently toss out the baby, too.
While it is distinctly true that Baxter held to a “Neonomian” view regarding justification, wherein he insisted that final salvation depended on some sort of continuing faithfulness and obedience, it is also true that Baxter was attempting to fight against what he perceived as a dangerous antinomian tendency within the Reformed world. Ultimately, Baxter was wrong and spent nearly his entire ministry in a public debate against John Owen (which is not the debate partner that most men would want to find on the other side of the table). But one thing that even his detractors are forced to admit is this: He had the heart of the pastor.
How could someone who misunderstood justification by faith alone have the heart of a pastor? I think there is encouragement here for the modern pastor. Baxter reminds us that we are all imperfect, at times quite foolish in our teaching, and yet God may still use us, so long as we are saved. And, as far as Baxter is concerned, though the finer points of his theology were quite wrong indeed, he nonetheless appears to have been genuinely saved by Christ and genuinely called to pastor. He truly did possess the heart of a shepherd.
And, not only did he have the heart of a pastor; he had the heart of his sheep. What I mean by this is that his congregation appears to have loved and trusted him with the true care of their souls.
From 1641-42, he ministered in Kidderminster, before the English Civil War interrupted his service. He would soon enter the Parliamentary army as a chaplain, which time seems to have prepared and oriented him for ministerial service back in Kidderminster. When he returned in 1647, he would serve for fourteen years until 1661, during which time he carried out one of the most remarkably transformative ministries that the Puritans knew. In fact, The Reformed Pastor not only highlights some of the amazing works of reformation that transformed the community, but actually explains how a minister may practically carry out these transformative practices in his own church.
If there was a way to boil down all of Baxter’s teaching in the book, it would be this: Love the Lord, love the people, and do all you can to disciple them through public preaching and private lecturing. Or, to put it differently: If you are a shepherd of sheep, then you ought to smell like the sheep. Be with them. Live with them. Eat with them. Pray with them. Love them. This is the pastor’s task.
While I cannot recommend the work enough (it may be one of my favorites), there is one quote that I often return to:
The nature of our office requireth us to ‘take heed to the flock.’… To be a bishop, or pastor, is not to be set up as an idol for the people to bow to, or as idle ‘slow bellies,’ to live to our fleshly delight and ease; but it is to be the guide of sinners to heaven. It is a sad case that men should be of a calling of which they know not the nature, and undertake they know not what. Do these men consider what they have undertaken, that live in ease and pleasure, and have time to take their superfluous recreations and to spend an hour and more at once, in loitering, or in vain discourse, when so much work doth lie upon their hands? Brethren, do you consider what you have taken upon you? Why, you have undertaken the conduct, under Christ, of a band of his soldiers ‘against principalities and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places.’ You must lead them on to the sharpest conflicts; you must acquaint them with the enemies’ stratagems and assaults; you must watch yourselves, and keep them watching. If you miscarry, they and you may perish.
You have a subtle enemy, and therefore you must be wise. You have a vigilant enemy, and therefore you must be vigilant. You have a malicious and violent and unwearied enemy, and therefore you must be resolute, courageous and indefatigable. You are in a crowd of enemies, encompassed by them on every side, and if you heed one and not all, you will quickly fall.
And oh, what a world of work have you to do! Had you but one ignorant old man or woman to teach, what a hard task would it be, even though they should be willing to learn! But if they be as unwilling as they are ignorant, how much more difficult will it prove! But to have such a multitude of ignorant persons, as most of us have, what work will it find us! What a pitiful life is it to have to reason with men that have almost lost the use of reason, and to argue with them that neither understand themselves nor you! O brethren, what a world of wickedness have we to contend against in one soul; and what a number of these worlds! And when you think you have done something, you leave the seed among the fowls of the air; wicked men are at their elbows to rise up and contradict all you have said. You speak but once to a sinner, for ten or twenty times that the emissaries of Satan speak to them.[1]
The job of the pastor—as Baxter beautifully puts it—is to be “the guide of sinners to heaven.” A pastor is to point his people to Christ and not to himself. After all, can the pastor save the sinner? Of course not. Salvation begins with Christ, continues with Christ, and is completed with Christ. But, along the way, the pastor keeps guiding the sheep back to Christ, as a shepherd may have guided the sheep to food or water. This is because the pastor recognizes that all spiritual nourishment and growth is impossible apart from Christ and a steady diet of His Word.
Of course, this can be challenging work for the pastor, because while he preaches for maybe a few hours out of the week to instruct the saints, they are later being bombarded throughout the rest of the week with the fiery darts of the world, their own flesh, and devils.
For Baxter, this also means that the pastor is doing more than training philosophers for lecture halls; the pastor is really training soldiers for battle. Like a drill instructor, he recognizes that he is going to ultimately have far less time in training his people than they will have being attacked by their enemies, for what is a few hours each week when compared with the rest of the week spent dodging, blocking, and defending against the fiery darts of a multitude of enemies?
Looking to the forces of darkness at war against the children of light, Baxter rightly concluded, “You have a malicious and violent and unwearied enemy, and therefore you must be resolute, courageous and indefatigable.” Resolute describes someone who does not waiver but is steadfast and certain in all his ways; courageous means that, in the face of fear, he sets his eyes on Christ and bravely pushes ahead despite the terrors of the battle; and indefatigable means that he does not grow weary or tired, refusing to give up or surrender in battle. The reformed pastor recognizes that there can be no quarter afforded to the enemy at his throat and at his heels, and his church must likewise be taught not only to defend against the enemy, but to go on the offensive.
Likewise, the pastor recognizes that antichrists surround him and his sheep in the world. So, he not only instructs in sound doctrine (Titus 2:1), he also warns against the false doctrines and the false teachers, giving special attention on how to spot them, for as Paul wrote in Galatians 1:8-9, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”
Because man or devil will try to contradict his speech all throughout the week, the reformed pastor realizes that he needs to keep preaching, teaching, instructing, and training throughout the week. Soldiers need their general; sheep need their shepherd; a congregation needs their pastor. And, so, he disciples them not distantly, not from afar, but hands on.
The reformed pastor studies to show himself approved (2 Tim. 3:16-17) and, likewise, to be able to ward off the wolves. Like the Apostle Paul in his departure speech from Ephesus, the reformed pastor is a leader of a band of warriors repeating to the army under his care:
But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again.Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:24-32).
If the flock doesn’t know where to look for hope—namely to Christ—or how to wield their weapons (the Word of God and prayer), then they will be without hope. So, the reformed pastor recognizes he is drill sergeant and general, teaching his people to become effective with their weapons, and then leading them into battle.
But, most importantly, the reformed pastor recognizes that he is being led himself by Christ. As such, he does not merely tell his people to look to Christ; he looks to Christ continually himself, for strength, vigor, encouragement, wisdom, and blessings.
Apart from the grace of Christ, he would fall in battle and the sheep would be lost. But rather than despairing, the reformed pastor remembers:
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.I and the Father are one (Jn. 10:27-30).
Such wonderful knowledge provides him with the joy, patience, and strength needed to keep leading the band of soldiers entrusted to his care, as they all follow Christ to possess the gates of their enemies (Gen. 22:17). By the grace of God in Christ, the reformed pastor can lead them in a triumphal march to Zion, living before the flock entrusted to his care as a “guide for sinners to heaven.”
[1] Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library), 64-5.
