George Herbert (1593-1633)
I picked up my copy of The Country Parson by George Herbert a few years back from a used bookstore in South Bend, Indiana. It has silently been in my queue waiting to be read. All I knew was that the book cover told me it was part of a book series called The Classics of Western Spirituality. Since you are not supposed to judge a book by the cover (especially in that series), I purchased it because I had heard Doug Wilson mention it in a podcast and the title resonated with me as I serve as an elder in a small country church. The title struck such a chord that I named this site after it. The next course of action? Blog my way through the book!
Herbert begins with a note to the reader. The note is chock-full of fodder to light the devotional fires of the pastor’s heart, for it addresses where the desire to pastor comes from and to what end that desire is directed.
The Apostle Paul wrote Timothy that “if anyone aspires to the office of an overseer, he desires a noble task” (1 Timothy 3:1). The task of pastoring is a holy desire given by the One who the angels praise as thrice holy (Isaiah 6:3). God alone gives to men “life and breath and all things” (Acts 17:25). This good desire and the strength for the task are gifts of God’s mercy. It is not an inherited position or vocation. One does not just get into the family business, like Hophni and Phinehas running a sham ministry. The desire to pastor and the abilities one has to serve as a pastor are gifts from the Almighty. These gifts should be viewed as such and received with glad hearts that are happily engaged in God’s good design.
To what end has He given these desires and abilities? He has given them for His glory and the good of His people. Having received this holy desire, how does a pastor, in turn, act on these desires and please his Master? Simply, a pastor feeds the flock and does so diligently and faithfully per the Lord Christ’s direction to Peter in John 21:15-17, in which the Chief Shepherd instructs the downtrodden fisherman in triplicate, “Do you love me?… Feed my sheep.”
Having received such good gifts from the Lord and knowing we will give an account for our service, Paul exhorts us to “make it our aim to please Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9-10). It is a lofty aim. Indeed, it is hard to wrap our minds around it. If we consider that conflicts will abound and doubts will march in double time, the hymn lyrics“fightings within and fears without” ring true for the pastor. Still, the undershepherd presses on seeking to please our Chief Shepherd. All sorts of difficulties will occur, to which Herbert offers the excellent description, “a good strife.” Every pastor should keep that phrase handy the next time the week’s responsibilities have been overly laborious.
And with that, we are off on our journey through The Country Parson, a book for those who tend and care for the souls of the sheep of God’s pasture.