Shepherding with Spurgeon

Weekly Newsletter for Pastors from SpurgeonBooks

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PASTORS (BY SPURGEON)

Brethren, if you resolve whenever speaking from pulpit to deal with important truths, you must not always hover around the mere angles of truth. Those doctrines which are not vital to the soul’s salvation, nor even essential to practical Christianity, are not to be considered upon every occasion of worship. Bring in all the features of truth in due proportion, for every part of Scripture is profitable, and you are not only to preach the truth, but the whole truth. Do not insist perpetually upon one truth alone.

A nose is an important feature in the human countenance, but to paint a man’s nose alone is not a satisfactory method of taking his likeness. A doctrine may be very important, but an exaggerated estimate of it may be fatal to an harmonious and complete ministry. Do not make minor doctrines main points. Do not paint the details of the background of the gospel picture with the same heavy brush as the great objects in the foreground of it. For instance, the great problems of infrlapsarianism and supralapsarianism, the trenchant debates concerning eternal filiation, the earnest dispute concerning the double procession, and the pre or post millennial schemes, however important some may deem them, are practically of very little concern to that godly widow woman with seven children to support by her needle who wants far more to hear of the loving-kindness of the God of providence than of these mysteries profound; if you preach to her on the faithfulness of God to his people, she will be cheered and helped in the battle of life; but difficult questions will perplex her or send her to sleep. She is, however, the type of hundreds of those who most require your care. Our great master theme is the good news from heaven; the tidings of mercy through the atoning death of Jesus, mercy to the chief of sinners upon their believing in Jesus.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION FROM SPURGEON

Spurgeon was a master illustrator. You can use this illustration in your own preaching to describe bearing fruit.

I have generally found that a man is not much better than he looks. If a man’s outward life is not right, I will not feel bound to believe that his inward life is acceptable to God. One person said in Rowland Hill’s time, “He is not exactly what I should like, but he has a good heart at bottom.” The shrewd old preacher replied, “When you go to market and buy fruit, and there are none but rotten apples on the top of the basket, you say to the market woman, ‘These are a very bad lot.’ Now, if the woman replied, ‘Yes, they are rather gone at top, but they are better as you go down,’ you would not be so silly as to believe her, but would say, ‘No, no, the lower we go, the worse they will be, for the best are always put on the top.’ ”

And so it is with men’s characters. If they cannot be decent, sober, and truthful in their daily life, their inner parts are more abominable still. The deeper you pry into their secrets the worse will be the report.

SHEPHERD YOUR HOME

“He must manage his own household competently and have his children under control with all dignity. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God’s church?)” (1 Timothy 3:4–5)

Pastor, your kids and wife are not distractions from ministry. If you aren’t regularly pointing your kids to Jesus, you can’t be trusted to point the church to Jesus.

If you don’t pray with your family at home, you cannot be trusted to pray with your flock at church. Praying with your kids (not just praying for them) is one of the most useful things you can do as a parent. Read this article to find three surprising benefits of praying with your kids.

ONE MORE REMINDER: PREACH JESUS THIS WEEKEND

“I wish that our ministry might be tied and tethered to the cross. I have no other subject to set before you but Jesus only.” — Charles Spurgeon