Lord willing, i will be attending the 2007 Banner of Truth Ministers’ Conference May 29-31 (click here for a pdf brochure; conference details below). each year Banner of Truth sponsors a conference for pastors and seminary students to come fellowship and sit under some great teaching. this serves as a sort of refresher from the daily grind of pastoral ministry and study. i’m really looking forward to this for many reasons, not the least of which is the rumored AMAZING DEALS on Banner books!

for more information on the conference you can contact Steve Burlew (conference information copied from his blog), who is the manager of Banner’s US office in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

WHAT: 2007 Banner of Truth Minister’s Conference

WHEN: May 29-31, 2007

WHERE: On the beautiful Messiah College campus, Grantham, PA (just 20 minutes from Harrisburg International Airport)

IT’S A PREACHING CONFERENCE: Where Banner of Truth places some of the finest spiritual nourishment before God’s dry and thirsty shepherds who have been feeding their flocks for the past 51 weeks. This year, hear from Sinclair Ferguson, Derek Thomas, Mark Johnston, Patrick Harrison, Ben Short, Jonathan Watson.

IT’S A FELLOWSHIPPING CONFERENCE: Unlike any other, because we don’t disperse to restaurants by day and hotels by night. We live and eat together on campus; late night talks abound, as do late night ice cream runs; with a real multi-generational mix, both young and well-seasoned guys, all involved in ministry.

IT’S A WORSHIPPING CONFERENCE: No band? No worship team? Sometimes no instruments? Surround yourself with hundreds of male voices singing some of the great hymns of the faith! Incredible!

WHAT’S THE COST: Just $220/person (only $100/student) before April 30, 2007 … And look at what this includes! (1) All sessions; (2) Two nights lodging; (3) Six meals Tuesday-Thursday; (4) Entrance to the highly discounted Banner of Truth Conference Bookroom; (5) A $30 gift certificate to the Conference Bookroom; (6) Three free new books from Banner; (7) 1-year electronic subscription to the Banner of Truth magazine; (8) A 2007 Ministers’ Conference polo shirt; (9) I’ll even give you a free, personal tour of Banner of Truth, USA

HOW TO REGISTER: www.banneroftruth.org/reg/us.php

this year at Aggie Muster we not only remember and honor our fallen Aggies, but also those lost at Virginia Tech, a school much like Texas A&M in history, tradition, academics, and military training.

Richard Baxter’s work, The Reformed Pastor, is a lengthy exposition of Acts 20:28, wherein Paul instructs the Ephesian elders, “Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (51). Following the pattern of this verse, Baxter structures his exposition in three parts.

In the first part, Baxter explores what it means to “take heed, therefore, unto yourselves,” and breaks this into two sections: the nature of this oversight and the motives of this oversight. On the nature of the oversight, Baxter exhorts pastors and overseers in the church to seek assurance of their own state of grace before they begin to work towards the goal of seeing others come into or grow in a state of grace. He stresses the need for ministers to know, and study, and be affected by the truths and beauty of the gospel of Christ as a prerequisite to the work of the ministry. Concerning the motives of ministers taking heed unto themselves, Baxter notes the ministers are much more susceptible to, and often much more plagued by, temptations of Satan than are regular Christians. Knowing this alone ought to be motivation enough for pastors to watch closely how they walk in the Lord.

In the second part of the book, Baxter examines another phrase of Acts 20:28, looking at what it means to take heed to the flock. Again this chapter is broken down into the nature and motives of this oversight, and a third section, the manner of the oversight is added. Under the nature of the oversight, Baxter stresses the vital importance for the minister to care for each individual member of his flock, being mindful of their state and needs and the methods to go about either growing them in grace or winning them to Christ. Also of importance was the great emphasis that Baxter puts on shepherding families and heads of families so that they may assist the minister in keeping watch over the flock. Concerning the manner of the oversight, Baxter’s instructions are best summed up in saying that ministry is only to be done for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. The last section of this part of the book concerns motives for the oversight of the flock, and Baxter notes the great privilege it is for a minister to be made overseer of a parish by the Holy Spirit. Again, this ought to be motive enough for the minister to give his all to God and to the ministry in order that those souls under his care might be won for Christ.

In the third and final part of The Reformed Pastor, Baxter gives a guide to applying all that he has discussed in the first two parts of his book. He first discusses the use of humiliation in the pastor’s life, lamenting over many common sins that pastors often fall to. He does this in order for pastors to be humbled for their past negligence in their duties, and to encourage them to be spurned on to greater obedience in their calling. The rest of this section is spent in outlining a program for carrying out the work of special instruction among the flock including personal catechizing and personal instruction on the things of religion.

Overall this book was a helpful treatise on the vital importance of the calling to gospel ministry and was very blunt about the care that must be taken upon entering and living under this calling. However, there are several issues with Baxter’s method that bear mentioning. In the third part of the book, on applying what he had previously discussed, Baxter’s language tends to be quite militant and strict in the steps he outlines to carry out the oversight of the flock, and he often strays into broad-brushed condemnation of certain activities. It is implied that any pastor that does not devote two entire days of each week to making house calls for the purpose of catechizing and instructing his flock is being deficient in his duty, or at the very least is devoted too much to his preaching and study, and not enough to caring for and catechizing his flock. It also seems that he is too harsh on what he calls “unnecessary recreation,” be it socializing or otherwise, stating that the only recreation a minister needs is “an hour, or half an hour’s walk before meat” (216). But perhaps the greatest hindrance of the book is its dogmatic “do” mentality. One might read the book and think that no room has been made for the Holy Spirit to work, and that the success or failure of the ministry is solely based on the performance of the minister.

Though these faults may take away from the overall value of the book, the book is still quite useful to ministers today. Baxter’s insistence on the necessity of true, biblical church discipline is something that every minister needs to take to heart. Discipline, far more in the present day than in Baxter’s, is the one mark of the church that is virtually non-existent. The modern church has lost a sense of what it means to faithfully carry out disciplinary acts of love in the hopes that those disciplined might repent and return to their Lord and their God. In reading the striking words of Baxter on the issue, pastors will hopefully be restored to a correct understanding of the need for discipline and then be motivated to enact discipline in their own churches when the need arises.

The book’s biggest value is in the first part which gives instruction on the minister watching over himself. Baxter’s words are so vital and so relevant to ministers throughout the ages that they would be doing themselves harm not to heed the warnings and encouragements that Baxter gives, particularly in the need for ministers to “preach to yourselves the sermons which you study, before you preach them to others” (61). As Baxter notes, too many ministers neglect their own souls and carry out their ministry as they would any other vocation, with no sense of urgency of the things of the gospel. However, not only is this doing violence to the calling of God in the pastor’s life, but this does little to assist the flock in taking the gospel seriously. Thus it is vital for the pastor to be gripped and affected by that which he preaches and teaches his people, so much so that he is outwardly and publicly affected. Only then will those in the flock begin to have a sense of wonder towards the gospel and take seriously the calls of the pastor to faith and repentance.