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Spurgeon’s Concern for Pastors
Charles Spurgeon saw a great danger in “ministerialism.”
John Piper warned us years ago, “Brothers, we are not professionals.”
The leadership-guru-ization of pastoral ministry is a corrosive danger. Piper’s warning isn’t a call to abandon excellence and diligence. It’s a siren, a lighthouse, a bulletin to not approach ministry as though we are businessmen, 9-to-5ers, or trusting tactics for “success.” The devil loves it when pastors drift into viewing themselves primarily as leaders of a registered non-profit. The professionalization relies on vibes and branding over personal evangelism. It saws the teeth off of biblical texts and opts for more vapid inspiration than biblical exposition. Planters, we are not professionals.
Spurgeon’s Similar Warning
Like Piper, Spurgeon warned of a similar disconnect in Lectures to My Students. But not professionalism. He saw a great danger in “ministerialism.”
Ministerialism—the tendency to read our Bibles as ministers, to pray as ministers, to get into doing the whole of our religion as not ourselves personally, but only relatively, concerned in it.
Do you see what Spurgeon is warning us against? It’s an identity crisis that creates an activity crisis. It’s a crisis of spirituality, “the whole of our religion.” Ministerialism is when you serve from a title more than discipleship and life with Christ. Or, it’s when the personal spiritual disciplines morph into the impersonal spiritual disciplines. You are doing them, but it bypasses your walk with Christ.
6 Questions
Here are a few diagnostic questions to see if you are caught in a case of ministerialism. Answer initially and honestly. Don’t give your flesh time to justify and reframe.
- When I read the Bible, is it only to prep for something?
- When I read the Bible to meet with God, am I pulled toward how to apply it to others, skipping my own soul?
- When I pray, is it only in public or for other people?
- When I pray, do I only seem to ask God to help me grow as a planter/preacher and never as a disciple/husband/father/friend?
- When in the Sunday service, am I mainly evaluating? Am I exalting God?
- When I fast, is it only for church matters?
The danger of ministerialism is doing Christian ministry as though your Christian life doesn’t exist. If professionalism is the disconnect from the supernatural, ministerialism is the disconnect from the spiritual—of your spiritual life with Jesus. This doesn’t mean we ever neglect serving others. It’s the message we hear on every airplane—put your oxygen mask on first, then help others. Breathe, brothers. Breathe deep with God in His Word.
3 Remedies
I find that ministerialism often begins with how planters and pastors approach the Word of God. The Bible becomes a toolbox and not a breadbox. It’s seen primarily as machinery for ministry and less as a mountaintop for meeting with God. Brothers, recover your reading of God’s Word, it is “sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb” (Psalm 19:10). The Scriptures aren’t just a sword and a toolbox for ministry—they are a honeycomb for our delight. Here are three ways pastors can recover the personal enjoyment of reading the Bible for themselves.
1. Reading for Nothing
Planters often ask if their sermon prep can serve as their devotional reading. If you can, I think you should keep them separate. If you wed the two and you preach through books of the Bible, you will be neglecting much of God’s Word. If I imagine myself preaching through Matthew, Ephesians, Exodus, and then Philippians—that’s too many months of not reading the Psalms, Romans, Proverbs, and 2 Peter. We need to be immersed in the Scriptures—deep (sermon prep) and wide (regular reading).
So, read God’s word for “no reason.” Meaning, don’t read it for a ministry reason. Don’t read with tweets and blog posts in mind. Read with enjoying God in mind. Read with your spiritual formation in mind. Let the reason for this particular time of reading be to personally eat from the honeycomb.
2. Unhurried Reading
When’s the last time you sat and read the Bible without a rush to outline the passage or even read quickly before the kids wake up? Find times of unhurried reading of God’s Word. Enjoy God and His Word without looking at your watch.
Maybe you want to read through Ephesians in one sitting, even without a pencil or pen in your hand. Enjoy! And don’t sit at your desk like you are prepping a sermon. Why not get the fireplace going, grab a cup of cocoa, and curl up on the couch with the Good Book. Relax into God’s Word without the dings and notifications of your phone and the day demanding you to get back on your feet. Leave your phone at home, take your Bible to the coffee shop, and just read. Be still and hear your God.
3. Meditative Reading
How is this different from unhurried reading? Unhurried reading is typically running through larger fields of the Scriptures. Meditative reading is burrowing in one square foot. It’s pausing. Unhurried reading swims through chapters. Meditative reading sinks in a sentence, phrase, or even a single word.
If you want to sit and soak in one verse, do it. Think about why Paul chose one word over another. Sit with the significance of seed being singular and not plural in Galatians 3:16. From the Psalms, ruminate and rumble on the phrase “steadfast love.” How many synonyms can you come up with for “steadfast”? Take a verse and meditate on every word, emphasizing each word as you read it, and slowly squeezing spiritual sweetness from each word. “For God so loved…”; “For God so loved…”; “For God so loved…”
The honeycomb is calling. Flip open that leather cover, pop open that app, and taste and see—for yourself—that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8). You can’t feed the sheep if you are starving.
