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Field Notes of an Ordinary Pastor

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TAKEAWAYS FROM THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL

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Here are 5 things I noted down from the April 1866 edition of The Sword and the Trowel, the monthly magazine edited by Spurgeon.

1. This edition of The Sword and the Trowel was incredibly brief, comprising of a short reflection on ‘The Massacre of St Bartholomew in 1572’ and a brief evangelistic tract.

2. “When men’s hearts are melted under the preaching of the Word, or by sickness, or the loss of friends, believers should be very eager to stamp the truth upon the prepared mind. Such opportunities are to be seized with holy eagerness.”

3. “Today – there is hope. Tomorrow – You may be in hell.” Spurgeon couldn’t be clearer than this!

4. “The divine hand can even now set the seal of sacred love upon your heart.”

5. “No acts of pardon are ever passed on the other side of the grave, but pardons are plentiful on earth. Jesus suffered for the sins of all who trust him; so suffered that they can never be condemned, since Jesus was punished in their stead.”

DOCTRINE WITH DAGG – 2.2.11

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Some notes as I work through J. L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology (1857) one chapter at a time.  

Book 2, Chapter 2: Attributes of God (Part 11 – Holiness)

1. Wisdom = God is infinitely wise.

2. What is the difference between wisdom and knowledge? “Wisdom always has respect to action.” Knowledge is the store which when it is used, “wisdom is exhibited.”

3. “Our knowledge and moral principles have much influence in directing our conduct, and that man is considered wise, whose knowledge and moral principles direct his conduct well. Wisdom is therefore regarded as consisting in the selection of the best end of action, and the adoption of the best means for the accomplishment of this end.”

4. When we say that God is wise, it is because He both “selects the best possible end of actions” and “adopts the best possible means for the accomplishment of the end which he has in view.”

5. God’s wisdom is unfathomably deep, so that even the wisest of men cannot comprehend it fully.

6. One question that baffles the wisdom of the wise is why God has permitted the entrance of sin into the world. God hates sin and has infinite power to exclude it from His dominions – why then did He permit its entrance?

Dagg in response makes a number of useful points:

“Sin is in the world; and God is infinitely good and wise… Though we may be unable to reconcile these propositions, they are both worthy to be received with unwavering faith.  No man, in his right mind, can doubt either of them.”

“The existence of sin is not to be ascribed to weakness in God.”  He could have filled the world with creatures incapable of sinning, or confirmed in holiness so they could not fall.  He could even, “on the very first appearance of sin in any one of his creatures… at once annihilated the transgressor, and have prevented the evil from spreading, to the ruin of his subjects.”

“The existence of sin is not inconsistent with the justice of God… Justice does not prevent the entrance of sin, but finds in it an occasion for its highest exercise.  This attribute is displayed awfully and gloriously in the punishment of offenders.”

“The existence of sins is not inconsistent with the goodness of God… Do not conclude that God’s goodness must necessarily exclude moral evil from the world.”  We can suppose “that he will overrule the evil so as ultimately to produce a larger amount of happiness in the universe, than would have existed had moral evil never entered.”

“Although to do evil that good may come is reprobated in God’s word, yet to permit evil, which he overrules for good, accords with his method of procedure… The crucifixion of Christ, a deed perpetrated by wicked hands, was permitted by God.  He was even delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.  This event has been overruled to good inconceivably great.”

7. “It should fill us with joy, that infinite wisdom guides the affairs of the world. Many of its events are shrouded in darkness and mystery, and inextricable confusion sometimes seems to reign. Often wickedness prevails, and God seems to have forgotten the creatures that he has made. Our own path through life is dark and devious, and beset with difficulties and dangers. How full of order out of confusion, and light out of darkness, and, to those who love God, causes all things, whatever be their present aspect and apparent tendency, to work together for good.”

(Photo: Ben White)

TAKEAWAYS FROM THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL

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Here are 16 things I noted down from the March 1866 edition of The Sword and the Trowel, the monthly magazine edited by Spurgeon.

1. “Cheerfulness occupies a very high position, and without it the Christian labourer is destitute of a very considerable element of strength.” Spurgeon comments that the joy of the Lord is and must be our strength and that discontent is fatal to usefulness. Therefore, we must “’rejoice in the Lord always,’ not only for your own sakes, but for the sake of the work which is so dear to you.”

2. Why should Christian workers be cheerful of countenance, happy in manner, and merry in heart? First, because they serve a happy God. Second, is not the gospel calculated to make men happy when it is really understood, believed, and enjoyed?  Third, as a worker, cheerfulness will be one of the very best assistants you can have.  The main reason is that it always recommends the truth to those whom you wish to impress with it.

3. “Who will credit our credentials as coming from heaven if we look like souls fore-doomed to hell?”

4. “Cheerfulness points to the risen Saviour, and the stone already moved.”

5. “Despondency gives up the work at the very first discouragement; but cheerfulness sings of success yet to come.”

6. “If you stand up and say, with a miserable face and a whining voice, it is a most blessed thing to be in Christ Jesus, observers will form their judgment rather by your face than by your words… Better to go forth with a sweet smile upon your face and with gentleness written across your countenance than to be morose, stern, and uncivil; for if you are the latter, you belie with your face what you say with your tongue.”

7. How can we cultivate cheerfulness in our lives? What can encourage us to serve the Lord with joy? “Think of the goodness of God in the past, and of the promises of God as to the future.  Remember that you are still a child in the divine family; that the mercy-seat is open still; that Christ’s precious blood is still able to cleanse; that the Holy Spirit still worketh in us, to will and to do of the Master’s good pleasure; that there is, beyond this little life, a world to come, brimming with happiness and blessedness.  Surely these bells will ring in your ears with a holy melody.”

8. The apostle Peter as he began to sink cried out “Lord, save me.” Short prayers are long enough. The petition had three words “but they were sufficient for his purpose” – they reached the ear of Jesus and his heart too.

9. “It is hard for flesh and blood to trust in an unseen God; so hard, that it is impossible, until God the Holy Spirit works true faith in us. But where the soul in simplicity believes in God, as he has revealed himself in the Word, joy, peace, safety, and eternal happiness, are the sure results.”

10. The object of the Pastor’s College was not to make scholars, but preachers of the gospel. Literary attainments are not undervalued, nor discouraged, yet they are pursued as means to an infinitely higher end. We need “faithful preachers of the gospel, irrespective of literary titles and qualifications.”

11. How were candidates for the Pastor’s College selected? It is “principally determined by evidences of eminent piety, of adaptation for public teaching, of great zeal for the salvation of souls, and of instances of actual usefulness, so far as upon the best accredited testimony can be ascertained.”

12. The length of study at the Pastor’s College was 2 years. The manner of tuition was not formal and dictatorial but familiar and fraternal. Students were directed to those books which best supply the information they require.

13. “We do not want sermons to be books, nor books to be sermons.”

14. Students who have left the Pastor’s College are kept in touch with. This is a good reminder to me to keep in better touch with the ex-Trainee Pastors of Banstead Community Church.

15. One of the great benefits of the Pastor’s College was the mixing of students with the members of the Met Tab. This contributed to their social and spiritual welfare. “The officers of the Church cheer them by their kindness and aid them by their counsel.  A familiarity with church discipline is acquired, and with all the appliances by which a flourishing church is sustained and enlarged, which is treasured up for future use, [supplying what is] a deficiency in a college education for the pastoral office.”

16. Spurgeonism is a thing! Opposition to Spurgeon claimed he was forming a new sect. To which the response was “there is no word in the world so hateful to our heart as that word Spurgeonism.”  That being said, there is no doubt he had a great influence through “his immense church, his college, and the churches throughout the UK that have taken his pupils for pastors.”

DOCTRINE WITH DAGG – 2.2.10

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Some notes as I work through J. L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology (1857) one chapter at a time.  

Book 2, Chapter 2: Attributes of God (Part 10 – Holiness)

1. Holiness = God is immaculately holy.

2. Holiness is a name that includes all the moral attributes of God such as goodness, truth and justice.

3. Holiness implies perfection.

4. When you compare human beings to God, “even the purest of men have their spots.”

5. Where does reflection on God’s holiness lead.  It leads to an increase in our admiration and love for God, “adds fervour to our devotion”, and should lead to us both worshipping God and imitating Him “in our character and lives.”

(Photo: Ben White)

DOCTRINE WITH DAGG – 2.2.9

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Some notes as I work through J. L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology (1857) one chapter at a time.  

Book 2, Chapter 2: Attributes of God (Part 9 – Justice)

1. Justice = God is perfectly just.

2. What is justice? It “consists in giving to every one his due.”

3. Justice can be distinguished into ‘commutative’ and ‘distributive’. “Commutative Justice is fair dealing in the exchange of commodities, and belongs to commerce” whereas “Distributive Justice rewards or punishes men according to their actions, and appertains to government.”

4. When we are speaking of God’s justice, we are referring to distributive justice.

5. By nature “men claim enjoyments as a natural right, irrespective of their moral character and conduct. They reject the moral government of God, and seek happiness in their own way. This is rebellion, and in this justice of God opposes them.”

6. Though it is apparent now that there is a God of justice who judges the earth, with “conscience now, in God’s stead, often pronounces sentence, though its voice is unheeded” but “the grand exhibition is reserved for the judgment of the great day.”

7. A good grasp of God’s justice should “inspire the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom” and should encourage piety knowing “that a just God sits on the throne of the universe.”

(Photo: Ben White)

DOCTRINE WITH DAGG – 2.2.8

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Some notes as I work through J. L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology (1857) one chapter at a time.  

Book 2, Chapter 2: Attributes of God (Part 8 – Truth)

1. Truth = God is a being of inviolable truth.

2. Two aspect of God’s truthfulness is His veracity and faithfulness. “Veracity in his declaration of things as they are, and faithfulness in the exact fulfilment of his promises and threatenings.”

3. Humans make errors. “In their testimony from mistakes of facts” and “fall through inability to fulfil promises which they have made with honest intentions.”

4. God does not make mistakes because He is omniscient. God does not fail to fulfil His intentions because He is omnipotent and unchangeable.

5. The truth of God denotes “the agreement of all the revelations or manifestations which he has made of himself, with his mind and character.”

6. “We can have no knowledge of God, except by the manifestations he has made of himself. When we receive these, however made, as expressing to us the mind and character of God, we exercise faith in God. But when we close our understandings and hearts against these manifestations, or, through disrelish of them, misinterpret them in any manner, we are guilty of the great sin of unbelief, which rejects the testimony of God, and makes him a liar.”

(Photo: Ben White)

LEADERSHIP LESSONS (6)

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Ray Evans has written two excellent books – Ready Steady Grow and Church Leadership – he also has posted on the FIEC website over the last couple of years, some excellent articles on Growing as a Leader.

Here are some takeaways from 3 of them: Evangelistic Energy; Attendance, Migration, Community; and Church Membership.

1. It is tiring keeping evangelism at the top of the church’s agenda. Why? Ultimately, because of unseen forces of evil seeking to destroy God’s good purposes. But there are other factors to be aware of.
– Running a church takes a lot of time and effort, whatever stage and size you are. It is very easy for church leaders to spend all their time with Christians.
– You put on courses, and people who says they are keen to come, drop out.
– People show interest in the gospel, appear to understand it clearly, then say “It’s not for me”.

2. “Leaders of growing churches put themselves near the people coming towards faith. They get to know them and they make sure they invest their time and best efforts to win these people as converts before establishing them in their new faith, as the Lord works in them.”

3. A popular idea is for leaders to spend time investing in the most promising disciples to turn them into disciples who make other disciples. But often they can take up a huge amount of the leader’s resources and energy without becoming effective evangelists of outsiders.

4. Common today for there to be weak attendance at Sunday evening meetings. Around 1 in 4 FIEC churches don’t have an evening service at all.

5. “More people coming but less often.” As a church grows the regularity of attendance slips.  When 25% or more may be away on any one Sunday, church is challenging.  Why is this happening?  Consumerism.  Spiritual superficiality.  It is probably more complex than that.

6. The challenge of students going off to university never to return.

7. One Christian leader estimated that half of all Christians in Britain aged under 30 live in London.

8. Personal connection can be as significant to attendance as something that’s nearby.

9. An organisational pathway starts with ATTRACTION, moves on to RECOGNITION/IDENTIFICATION and leads to INTEGRATION.

10. Attraction is everything from your website and media presence, good signage, publicity, to the greeting from the welcome team.

11. Recognition is about spotting new people and warmly relating to those returning for a second, third, or fourth time. Vital at this stage are invites to hospitality, information, and introduction to others who can identify with them.

12. Integration is to help new people really feel part of the church. How does that happen? Suggestions include a ‘meet the pastors’ lunch and ‘induction shaped’ course that covers Family Values (why the church looks like it does today – history, mission, vision and values); Family Life (how the church is structured and run, and what individual’s responsibilities are commitments are); Your Role in the Family (contribution you can make). After these, the process of bringing someone into membership can begin for those who want to proceed.

(Photo: Brad Neathery)

DOCTRINE WITH DAGG – 2.2.7

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Some notes as I work through J. L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology (1857) one chapter at a time.  

Book 2, Chapter 2: Attributes of God (Part 7 – Goodness)

1. Goodness = God is infinitely benevolent.

2. When Scripture speaks of God’s goodness towards His creatures, it often uses the term ‘love’.

3. “Love is distinguished as benevolence, beneficence, or complacence. Benevolence is love in intention or disposition; beneficence is love in action, or conferring its benefits; and complacence is the approbation of good actions or dispositions.”

4. Goodness when it is exercised toward the unworthy is grace and toward the suffering is mercy or pity.

5. The pleasure which God’s creatures enjoy is a demonstration of His goodness. Humans are able to experience pleasure greater than that of animals because they can get it from “the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge”, “in the proper exercise of our moral powers” and because of our capability of “loving and enjoying God”.

6. “Pain is often experienced, but it never appears to result from an arrangement specially made for receiving it.” No organ of our body was specially designed to give us pain.

7. How do we reconcile the goodness of God with the presence of animals which have organs designed to inflict pain (fangs of serpents, stings of insects, talons and tusks and beaks of carnivorous animals) and the innumerable miseries which human society is filled? This question should not be overlooked.

8. How should we respond to the presence of pain and suffering which threaten God’s goodness?
a) Acknowledge the presence of pain and suffering.
b) Acknowledge that happiness and misery are “entwined with each other, and form parts of the same system.”
c) Acknowledge that our experience is of blessings “poured upon us incessantly; and when suffering comes, we are often conscious that is arises from our abuse of God’s goodness, and is, therefore no argument against it.”
d) Acknowledge that present suffering dos not compare to future good.
e) Acknowledge that the sufferings we experience “become an occasion for the trial of our faith.”
We should “believe in the wisdom and goodness of our heavenly Father, and believe that his ways are full of goodness, even when they are inscrutable.”

9. “It is perfectly conceivable that pain itself may, in some cases, enhance our pleasure, as relief from suffering renders subsequent enjoyment more exquisite; and, in other ways, which we are unable to comprehend, pain may produce a beneficial result.”

10. Sin is the clearly the cause of much of the suffering present in the world. Dagg speculates at this point that the pain which animals experience isn’t only caused by man’s sin. “Unless the order of things was greatly changed at the fall of man, hawks had their claws and beaks from the day they were created, and used them before man sinned, in taking and devouring other birds for food; and therefore, pain and death, in brute animals, did not enter the world by the sin of man.” I’m yet to be convinced by this view.

11. Is happiness the chief good? “When pleasure and duty conflict with each other, we are required to choose the latter… if a whole life of duty and a whole life of enjoyment were set before us, that we might choose between them, we should be required to prefer holiness to happiness.”

12. The miseries of sin are means “used by the great Father of all, in the discipline of his great family, to deter from the greatest of all evils.” Judgments and threatenings are means of sanctification and are a manifestation of God’s goodness.

13. “The goodness of God is the attribute of his nature, which, above all others, draws forth the affection of our hearts. We are filled with awe at his eternity, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence; but we can imagine all these attributes connected with moral qualities which would render them repulsive. But the goodness of God, while it is awful and grand, is at the same time powerfully attractive.”

(Photo: Ben White)

TAKEAWAYS FROM THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL

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Here are 10 things I noted down from the February 1866 edition of The Sword and the Trowel, the monthly magazine edited by Spurgeon.

1. “It is the desire of every right-minded believer in the Lord Jesus, not only to be useful, but to be more useful than ever.” Could there be spare moments for little extra efforts?

2. “A breakdown in a cab, or a railway accident, may bring you into contact with somebody you never saw or dreamed of before, and so afford you an unusual opportunity which may never occur again either to you or the person thrown in your way.”

3. “No Christian work should be too menial for the follower of the Lamb.”

4. Giving away gospel tracts. “Have you ever thought how many you might give away in the course of the year? Supposing you left only one each time you went to and fro your labour, that would be two a day, which would make over seven hundred during the year!”

5. How can you start a gospel conversation. “Our minister said a very odd thing the other day.” Begin with the next person you see.

6. “Do not fall into a spiritual Don Quixotism, and neglect usefulness within your reach in order to dream, over imaginary wonders of heroism.”

7. “We would unite with you [parents] in importunate prayer that all our little ones may be the Lord’s.”  A key part of church life must be prayer for the salvation of the children of church members.

8. “We have need of renewed intercessions. It is by mighty prayer that the cause of God has been maintained in its rigour among us so long, and only by the same vehement pleading will the Divine blessing be retained.”

9. A list of meetings taking place at the Met Tab is given, which was published as a request for the prayers of believers everywhere.

A couple of things stood out:

Lord’s Day, February 4th
“The Pastor will endeavour to preach upon some subject, having a direct tendency, ‘by God’s grace, to arouse the slumbering, whether saints or sinners. Come up to worship with much prayer for a blessing.’”

Monday, February 5th
“At seven, we shall hold a prayer-meeting, at which we trust you will make a point of being present yourself, and it will greatly cheer us if you will bring a party of friends with you… As perhaps your friends will be more willing to come if assured of getting in, we shall issue tickets, which you can obtain on application at the close of the usual services.”

I long for the day when the prayer meeting is so popular that tickets need to be issued!

10. This issue contains a notice for a new publication from Spurgeon: “Morning by Morning or Daily Readings for the Family or the Closet.” This would eventually become, after Evening Reading was produced, the classic devotional “Morning and Evening”.

DOCTRINE WITH DAGG – 2.2.6

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Some notes as I work through J. L. Dagg’s Manual of Theology (1857) one chapter at a time.  

Book 2, Chapter 2: Attributes of God (Part 6 – Omnipotence)

1. Omnipotence = God is able to do whatever He pleases.

2. Our power is limited. “Many things which we attempt we fail to accomplish.”

3. “It derogates nothing from the omnipotence of God, that He does not accomplish what He has no desire or will to accomplish.”

For example:
– It is impossible for God to lie.
– It is impossible for God to deny Himself.

4. “God cannot do things which imply contradictions in themselves.”

For example:
– To make a thing to be, and not to be, at the same time.
– To make a circle to be at the same time a square.

5. To contemplate the omnipotence of God should fill us with awe and it should cause us to fear. “Let us look back to the power which brought creation into being, and forward to that display of power which we are to witness on the last day.”

(Photo: Ben White)