PASTORS AFTER GODS OWN HEART

An Introduction to the Pastors School

Orange Hill Baptist Church
by Pastor Haygood

In the days of King Josiah,

1
God said to the prophet Jeremiah: Have you seen what she did, that faithless
one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore?
2
Israel had forsaken God.
3
And Judah had learned precisely nothing from Israels actions and the terrible
consequences that came from God through the hands of the Assyrians.
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The Southern Kingdom
5
just fell
right into the wayward footsteps of the Northern Kingdom
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and walked straight into spiritual whoredom,
too.
7
And, in fact, she incurred greater culpability, greater guilt and blameworthiness, because she had the
advantage of seeing how God disciplined Israel for her sin and yet she ignored the warning and
committed the same sin, anyway.
8

Now, what I want to point out here is Gods remedy for this terrible situation. It involves an urgent
call, a genuine turn, and a generous gift.
1. An urgent call. Return, faithless Israel Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled
against the LORD your God and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green
tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice Return, O faithless children
9
Its a
simple, straightforward, and urgent call for repentance! Come back confess come
back! And the response needed is
2. A genuine turn. There must be a true heart-response to the urgent call. Remember, by this time
King Josiah had already instituted some reforms in the land of Judah,
10
but they had
produced only a supercial return to the Lord: her treacherous sister Judah did not
return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the LORD.
11
There was no
heart-changing conviction and revival. Without a genuine turn in response to the urgent call
1. Josiah reigned in Judah from 640609 BC. God called Jeremiah for his prophetic work in the thirteenth year of King Josiahs
rule, 626 BC. Josiah was killed by Pharaoh Neco at Megiddo in 609 BC (see 2 Kings 23.29), but Jeremiahs prophetic ministry
went on to spann four decades, until the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC.
2. Jeremiah 3.6. The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer. Of course, hed seen and knew too well. Its a graphic
metaphor for Israels worship. She gave herself to the worship of other gods like a prostitute gives herself to her lovers.
3. See 2 Kings 17 for a terrible summary of Israels apostasy.
4. Though there was a rather long process to this, the end of the ten northern tribes came in 722-721 BC, under Shalmaneser V
and his successor, Sargon II.
5. Comprised of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
6. Consisting of the tribes of Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh), Dan, Naphtali, Gad,
and Asher.
7. This theme of spiritual adultery (using the metaphor of God as the husband of a people who violate the covenant bond of
marriage) runs through Scripture and bears serious study and understanding.
8. See Jeremiah 3.11. Hebrew: Wayward Israel has proven herself to be more righteous than unfaithful Judah. Note the
descriptors (1) wayward Israel and (2) unfaithful Judah. Israel was guilty of apostasy (hDbwvVm), but Judah was guilty of
treachery (dgb).
9. Jeremiah 3.12-14.
10. Though the systematic reformation arising from the discovery in the Temple of the book of law still lay ahead, in 622-621
BC, about ve years into Jeremiahs ministry.
11. Jeremiah 3.10.
Copyright 2011 B. Spencer Haygood. All rights reserved. 1
to repent, there is no blessing, only judgment to come. And Judah learns this before long, at
the hands of the Babylonians.
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But, for those who do hear and heed, who respond in true
repentance, God promises to provide them with
3. A generous gift. Return confess come back and I will take you, one from a city and
two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. And I will give you shepherds after my own
heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.
13
God promises to gather his
scattered children, bring them into his kingdom, and then care for them in his church in a
very specic wayby providing them with pastors after his own heart, who will feed Gods people with
knowledge and understanding.
Of course, this promise is fullled ultimately and perfectly in Christ himselfthe Good
Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd, the Great Shepherd.
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But the way in which the Lord Christ
himself brings it to fruition now is to give to his church the good gifts of pastors (elders,
overseers) to shepherd the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.
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And now, you men have been called of God and are being given by God to his church as pastors,
and you are rst and foremost to feed Gods people with knowledge and understanding. This is the
principal way in which you shepherd the ock. You are not simply functionaries in the church
organization. You are not employees of the ecclesiastical corporation. You are called and appointed by
the Lord Christ himself, and through your faithful and dedicated ministry, you are a sign of the Lords
love and care for his church. So, in that regard, you must be men who are characterized above all as
After Gods Own Heart
Everything well do in The Pastors School is geared toward helping develop, by the grace of God,
this character, this heart and mind, in each of you. Scripture has a lot to say about the graces that you
should desire and pursue and attain. You must be faithful, steadfast, wise, self-denying, patient, willing to
suffer for the Kingdom, gospel-centered, gospel-saturated, gospel-driven etc., in ways that set the example
for believers. But the grace that encapsulates and characterizes it all is this: you must be pastors after Gods own
heart. That means you burn with Gods purposes. You are desperate for what God desires. You pursue
what he is intent on. What he loves, you love; and what he is passionate for is all your zealso much so
that God counts above all. Its to be able to profess, with a full heart, with Paul, I do not account my life
of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may nish my course and the ministry that I received from
the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
16
12. In 587 BC.
13. Jeremiah 3.14-15. The New English Translation (NET) renders the Hebrew for shepherds after my own heart (ESV) as leaders
who will be faithful to me. While more dynamic than literal, that translation captures the core idea. Faithfulness to God lies
at the heart of being after Gods own heart!
14. John 10.11, 14; 1 Peter 5.4; Hebrews 13.20.
15. In Acts 20.28, Paul charges the elders in just this manner: Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the ock, in which
the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. And in
Ephesians 4.8-16, he says that when Christ ascended he gave gifts to men, among whom are some as pastors and
teachers, whose calling is to equip the saints for the work of ministry, and the end of that is the spiritual growth and
health of the body of believers.
16. Acts 20.24. Literally, he says something like I do not consider my life worth a single word (oorvo iovo roiooi
:nv v,nv :iiov), something like worth a mention. Pauls message to the Ephesian elders is this: faithfulness is better than
life (as Piper puts it). Faithfulness to the calling of Christ is better than the comforts of life, and its better than staying alive!
The Pastors School, OHBC Pastors After Gods Own Heart
Copyright 2011 B. Spencer Haygood. All rights reserved. 2
So let me say at the beginning, my brothers, that if you do not sense the gravity of this calling, you
should get out while you can.
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From this point on, I can tell you, the devil will do everything he can to
stop you, and hell employ the world and your esh besides as his allies.
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He may try to intimidate, or
to corrupt, or to distract you.
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Fear, fraud, foolishness are his favorite weapons. You may nd not only
the cultural but the religious world lined up against you. You may nd a Judas ready to sell you out, or
a Demas who breaks your heart. Some will hear, and some wont; some will understand, and others
wont, and wont try; some will believe, and some will think you mad. But you you just keep to your
workbeing pastors after Gods own heart, feeding Gods people with knowledge and understanding.
Dont blink because the lion roars, and dont run off chasing the devils rabbits. Just do your work. Let
liars lie; let the cantankerous quarrel; let people talk; let the devil do his worst. But you see to it that
nothing hinders you from fullling the work God has given you to do.
Keep your eyes xed on Christ, keep your hand steady on the plow, keep your feet straight ahead
on the narrow way, and keep your heart always alive and conscious to the fact that the time is coming
when you and I, in a vastly more solemn and imposing assembly than that of popular opinionbefore
God and Christ himselfmust appear and face examination as to whether weve been pastors after Gods
own heart or not. On that day, what anyone else thinks wont matter at all. May the Lord grant you and
me both mercy and grace to be faithful, to be pastors after Gods own heart; so that, when the Good/
Great/Chief Shepherd appears, we may receive a crown of glory which does not fade away.
I really look forward, and I know the other Elders do as well, to walking this good and glorious
path with each of you. Now, to get rolling, lets think a bit about
The Necessity of Pastoral Training
And when I talk about pastoral training, dont think rst of all in terms of the practice of
ministrye.g., how to baptize, lead in the Lords Supper, do hospital visits, counseling, etc. Well get to
all of that in time, and youll all have opportunity to be the Lead Pastor in these things and more. But by
pastoral training here, I mean training in the biblical, doctrinal, theological, historical, analytical
foundations and framework that enable you to pastor, to feed Gods people with knowledge and
understandingthe fundamentals that prepare and supply you with all you need to to equip the saints
for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ
20
17. Henry Scougal, in a sermon on 2 Corinthians 2.16 (where, in discussing the weightiness of preaching the gospel, Paul asks
Who is sufcient for such things?), says, And shall we undervalue the price of His blood, or think it a small matter to have
the charge of those for whom it was shed? It is the Church of God we must oversee and feed; that Church for which the
world is upheld, which is sanctied by the Holy Ghost, on which the angels themselves attend. What a weighty charge is this
we have undertaken! And who is sufcient for these things? See The Works of the Rev. H. Scougal (Boston: Peirce and
Williams, 1831), 234.
18. Sometimes informally referred to as the unholy trinitythe world, the esh, and the devil.
19. All tactics he employed against the early church according to the inspired account in Acts 26. He tried a frontal assault
against the church through intimidation and opposition from the authorities (Acts 24); then he tried corruption through the
hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5); and nally tried division and distraction through perceived mistreatment and
grumbling (Acts 6). These are standard schemes of the devil, and we do well to know them when we see them.
20. Ephesians 4.12. Pastoral ministry is inherently theological. Mohler is not putting it too strongly when he writes: The idea of
the pastorate as a non-theological ofce is inconceivable in light of the New Testament. See R. Albert Mohler, The Pastor as
Theologian (Louisville: The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2006), 4. Tom Ascol is getting at the same point when he
writes: Recovering the pastor-theologian model is not optional for a ministry which is committed to being biblical. God's
Word requires pastors to see themselves in this light. Though this approach to ministry will require going against the stream
of modern thinking, the benets are far reaching. Tom Ascol, The Pastor as Theologian in Founders Journal, Winter 2001.
The Pastors School, OHBC Pastors After Gods Own Heart
Copyright 2011 B. Spencer Haygood. All rights reserved. 3
Now, I know this sort of thing, often summed up as doing theology, has fallen on some hard
times. Its something of a bugaboo these days, and that among Bible-believing Christians.
21
Just introduce
the topic into a Bible study, or a sermon, or even some conversation over coffee, and the whole mood of
the situation changes. Some folks start shufing around uneasily and may mutter something about being
just a simple person. Others just shut down intellectually and offer some thought about simple faith.
Lots of folks try to change the subject to something more familiar and comfortable. And some simply
object to the topic, at times vehemently. But you can be sure that the mention of theology will often
affect good Christian people in some rather adverse ways. Principal among the reasons for this sad state of
affairs, I think, are at least the following misconceptions about theology and the theological endeavor:
1. That theology is mysterious. You know, it asks and wrestles with all sorts of mind-bending
questions about ultimacy and meaning and signicance. It tries to comprehend what,
admittedly, is incomprehensible in its fullness and tries to express what, nally, exceeds the
capacities of human language to convey.
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And so, folks think, its bafing. Why bother?
2. That theology is difcult. I mean, for one thing, it deals with ancient texts written in Hebrew,
Aramaic and Koine Greek. It engages with philosophy and logic and linguistics. It has a
monstrous technical vocabulary in English, German, French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, etc. and
an encyclopedia of interrelated disciplines that a lifetime is insufcient to explore, much less
master. And so, folks think, its convoluted and far too complicated. Why bother?
3. That theology, then, is divisive. Because of its mystery and complexity and difculty, there seems
to be so little agreement between professional theologians. They debate and argue, they
question and answer, they probe and press, and never seem to resolve much. They just divide
more and more into opposing camps, it seems. Why bother?
4. And so, they think, theology is deadening. Anything so puzzling and thorny and conict-ridden can
hardly be the bearer of much vitality. Right? What kind of life can we nd in all these
bewildering, dense, differing proposals and theories about ultimate reality, about the nature of
the external world, about human nature and death and knowledge and ethics and history?
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Why bother?
5. Thus, folks conclude, theology is impractical. Anything thats so elaborate and impenetrable, so
disruptive and desolate, cant have much to say to everyday real life. Its often caricatured as
consumed with questions like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
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It may all be
ne fodder for dialogue and debate in some academic, isolated, ivory-tower setting, but what
does it have to do with my drive to work, with job-related issues, with raising children, and
paying bills, and all the business of living in the tough postmodern world? It all seems so
irrelevant. Why bother?
21. By bugaboo I have in mind something like the boogeyman or the older hobgoblinsome thing that arouses,
however needlessly, all sorts of fear and fretting at the mere mention of the name. Michael Horton notes, One subject that
brings even fundamentalists and liberals together is the criticism of systematic theology.
22. Of course, this is not to say that we cannot know anything, but only that we cannot know everything. Theres a very good (but, be
warned, a very sophisticated) discussion of Gods knowability and incomprehensibilityand the discontinuities and
continuities involvedin John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1987), 1840.
23. These are the seven basic categories of worldview questions introduced in James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door: A Basic
Worldview Catalog (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 1718, and more recently expounded on in his Naming the
Elephant: Worldview as a Concept (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004).
24. Whether any such medieval, scholastic debate actually occurred is itself debatable, though one must admit that theologians
have often spent far too much time speculating about nonsense.
The Pastors School, OHBC Pastors After Gods Own Heart
Copyright 2011 B. Spencer Haygood. All rights reserved. 4
See? Because of this sense of irrelevancy (however misconceived), theology is often dismissed
out of hand. Its not explored and examined, but simply expunged both from the individual Christians
life and experience as hostile to genuine spirituality, and from the communal life of the church as contrary
to real ministry. And a principal proof of this is the rise of whats called the pragmatic evangelicals with
all this emphasis on modern models for ministry (therapeutic and managerial), on seeker-sensitive
outreach, on technology, leadership, and success.
25
Theology, biblically searched out and thought through
and built on, is hardly in the picture.
26
One disclaimer. Make no mistake. Theology can be done poorly, in ways that do not serve the church
or touch real life at all. The theological enterprise can be undertaken in a manner thats dead as a door
nail, needlessly divisive, hopelessly confusing, and impossibly unrealistic. No ones arguing that the
practice of theology, per se, is good and helpful. But that does not mean that theology, as a discipline, is
automatically bad either. The issue concerns the nature of good theology (both content and method) and its
place in the life of faith.
In the early 1970s, Francis Schaeffer published a little pamphlet entitled 2 Contents, 2 Realities and
its overall argument was that [b]eing a Christian in the world today means a balanced grasp of doctrine
and theology, world view and lifestyle, faith and practice.
27
What he was correctly trying to do, in the
face of the great evangelical disaster that he saw developing (and within which we now nd ourselves
engulfed), was to hold together doctrine and practice, truth and life, theology and spirituality. On one
hand, we must avoid sheer existentialism; and on the other, raw rationalism. Somewhere in between (or
perhaps we should say far beyond) is true spiritualitycomprised of truth and affection, doctrinal
content and spiritual life, objective proposition and personal experience, word and worship. These are all
things well work hard at holding together in your pastoral training.
So, Why Bother?
Well, lets think some about it. What is theology? Thats a word derived from the combination
of two Greek terms: 0ro (theos) meaning God and iovo (logos) meaning word. Theology
28
is
basically a word about God.
29
In that sense, see, the necessity of pastoral training, and bothering with
theology, arises from the simple fact of its inevitability.
30
The plain truth is that everyone is a theologian. And theology is everywhere. For example, how
about the whole Charlie Brown cartoon series? Author/artist Charles Schulz often used Lucy as a
caricature and spoof of modern efforts at self-salvation through psychiatric help (remember she sets up her
little curbside ofce and dispenses counsel that often sounds suspiciously existentialist
31
in its philosophical
25. See Robert E. Webber, The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002).
26. So David Wells notes: [M]any of those whose task it is to broker the truth of God to the people of God in the churches have
now redened the pastoral task such that theology has become an embarrassing encumbrance or a matter of which they
have little knowledge . See No Place for Truth or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? (Grand Rapids: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993), 67.
27. From the blurb on the back cover, Francis A. Schaeffer, 2 Contents, 2 Realities (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1975).
28. Latin theologia; Greek 0roiovio.
29. Or, as Aquinas has said: Theologia a Theo docetur, Deum docet, ad Deum ducit. Theology is taught by God, teaches of God, and
leads to God. God is its Author, its Subject, and its End.
30. Trevor Hart, e.g., notes: Theology is not undesirable, it is unavoidable. What matters is that it should be good theology.
Everyone does theology. The only question is whether we do it well.
31. Existentialists dene what it means to be human in terms of existence rather than in terms of essence. They elevate
personal freedom and emphasize the need to make life meaningful rather than seeking to nd the meaning of life.
The Pastors School, OHBC Pastors After Gods Own Heart
Copyright 2011 B. Spencer Haygood. All rights reserved. 5
ramblings). And religious heresy is pictured in Linuss sincere but unfounded belief in the Great
Pumpkin, which is symbolic of all the popular religious sentiment that has more faith in faith or more
faith in sincerity than in anything remotely biblical and true to the way things are. Peanuts often offers
some good theological critique of both church and culture.
32
Then, theres someone like Jean Luc Picard
33
poetically and dramatically delivering some
Shakespearean monologue on the inherent goodness and inevitable evolutionary moral progress of
humanity. The whole show is a platform for theological proclamation on the doctrine of humanity in
particular and the nature of the universe in general. They even have a guy on there named Q, whos
probably the science ction equivalent of the ancient Greco-Roman godshes powerful but moody,
brilliant but using his brilliance for perverse and self-seeking ends, and so on. Cant miss it!
Then theres Woody Allen in a lm like Crimes and Misdemeanors, wrestling with the same ancient
question the Psalmist did: Why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer?
34
Or how about the
angels on a show like Touched by an Angel, or Joan on Joan of Arcadia? These shows very denitely delved
into theology proper, making all sorts of pronouncements on the nature and character of God himself?
35

A while back, I caught the end of X2: X-men United. As the camera pans over oodwaters at the
end, in a shot very suggestive of lifes supposed origins in some primordial sea, the narrator reminds us
that the process of evolution is normally slow, happening over many millennia in tiny steps as rare
benecial mutations are passed on to offspring. But sometimes, the voice continues, evolution leaps
forwardproducing mutants like the movies Storm, Xavier, Mystique and Magneto. Its a bold
statement about, and a tip of the hat to, the more recent evolutionary theory of punctuated
equilibrium,
36
and the whole movie is presenting a particular worldview on the nature of reality.
37
See, thats just a sample from popular culture, but it make the point that theres no avoiding
theology and theological endeavor. Its everywhere and everyones a theologian, because in the most
fundamental aspect, theology is any reection on the ultimate questions of life. In that regard, even an atheist is a
theologian! He or she has some very denite beliefs about God, humanity, life, death, the nature of things,
and the end of things. So dont get stalled by these wordstheology and doctrine. Theology is
particularly a word about God, the study of God, the thought of God. And in a broader Christian sense,
its the study and thought of all that God has told us (not just about himself, but about us, and the world,
and sin, and angels and demons, and the beginning, and the end, and the nature of reality, and so on).
And doctrine is just another word for teaching.
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So, the study of theology, and the study of doctrine,
32. Charles Schulz (19222000) was reared a Lutheran, was active a while in the Church of God, and later taught Sunday
school at a United Methodist Church. Humor which does not say anything is worthless humor, he once told Decision
magazine. So I contend that a cartoonist must be given a chance to do his own preaching. And he did.
33. Si Patrick Stewart as the ctional Captain of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
34. Psalm 73, e.g. See also Jeremiah 12 where the prophet is struggling with the same matter.
35. Though they were rarely, if ever, biblical in their conceptions. The general idea was of a generic sort of Supreme Being
who was benign and grandfatherly, indulgent and easy-going.
36. As opposed to whats called gradualism, which says that over great periods of time very small variations change a
population to better suit its environment. Punctuated equilibrium says that occasionally sudden and rapid changes take
place in a species for the better.
37. A worldview generally called philosophical naturalisma position that assumes there is nothing more than matter, energy, time
and chance. There is no supernatural being anywhere.
38. The NT mentions doctrine, in this sense of teaching or a body of knowledge (and often contrasting sound doctrine
with different, contrary, false doctrine) at least ten times (ESV)Romans 16.17; Ephesians 4.14; 1 Timothy 1.3, 10; 4.6;
6.3; Titus 1.9; 2.1, 10; Hebrews 6.1.
The Pastors School, OHBC Pastors After Gods Own Heart
Copyright 2011 B. Spencer Haygood. All rights reserved. 6
is fundamentally learning about what God has said, what hes taught us in his Word, and learning to think
Gods thoughts after him.
39
So here are reasons why we bother!
1. We cant help doing this. The important thing, then, is do it right and well. Right? If you cant
help theologizing, if you cant help answering the great ultimate questions of life, then its
crucial, it seems to me, to do it well and to answer the questions truthfully, to answer them the
way God answers them, to think Gods thoughts after him. Because, after all, if we get the
answers wrong, we really do get everything else wrong, with disastrous results. If we dont
know what God has said about who he is, who we are, what he wants, we wont get worship
right (and we can tinker with styles until the end of days comes); and we wont get witnessing
right (ever how many programs we try); and we wont get discipleship right (even if we go to
all the best conferences); and we wont get our relationships right, we wont get our work
right, etc. At every point, see, right living begins with right thinking! Like I told our graduates
recently, life proceeds kardioptically, that is, it issues out of the vision of the heart, it ows from
our worldview. That truth lies at the core of Jesus own words: If you abide in my word, you
are truly my disciples (crucial if-then conditional that precedes necessarily what follows),
and you will know the truth (theres right thinking, that comes from abiding in the word), and
the truth will set you free (for right living) (John 8:32). Free to do what? Whatever you like?
Well, no! That gives rise to all kinds of problems in our lives and relationships! The freedom
of the truth is the liberty and the desire to do whats right, to do what we should doto live
rightly because we think rightly.
Look at how the apostles, faced with all sorts of practical problems in the church, always
sought rst to clarify the theological issues (the truth issues) underlying the problem. Only then
did they work out and apply the practical remedy. In this profound sense, doctrine is the key to life;
the Holy Spirit uses Gods truth in his work in us and through us.
40
Of course, just getting our
doctrinal ducks in a row isnt enough if that truth doesnt come to bear in practical obedience.
But thats no reason for neglecting serious Bible study and doctrine (i.e., just because some
people dont do it well, and dont apply it practically).
2. Of course, another reason for pastoral training like this is because such serious study and
preparation is a genuine expression of loving the Lord with our minds (Matt. 22:37). Your
mind matters, and not just in some abstract way.
41
True thinking and understanding are as
valid an expression of response to God and worship of God as are true actions or true speech,
and just as signicant in bringing glory to the God of truth.
42
3. Again, were doing thisbothering with theology and doctrinebecause pastoral training
and preparation is bound up with fullling the Great Commission.
43
Go therefore and make
disciples of all nations. Theres our mission. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
39. Which is the way to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind (Romans 12.2).
40. Jefrey Breshears rightly asks: Does anyone seriously believe that we can honor God while living mindlessly, or practice
wholistic discipleship without thinking deeply about our faith and relating it to every area of life? The Problem of Christian
Anti-Intellectualism (Areopagus Publishing, 2010), 4.
41. See John Stotts excellent little booklet entitled, Your Mind Matters: The Place of the Mind in the Christian Life (IVP Books, 2006).
42. Worth working through carefully and closely is John Pipers Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (Crossway Books,
2011).
43. Matthew 28.18-20; see also Mark 16.15-16 and Luke 24.46-49.
The Pastors School, OHBC Pastors After Gods Own Heart
Copyright 2011 B. Spencer Haygood. All rights reserved. 7
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.
Theres the methodan initial rite of confession and identication as the new believer enters
the community of faith (baptizing them) and then an ongoing education in doctrine (teaching
them) applied to life (to obey) all the Lord has commanded. What I want you to see is that
fullling the Great Commission involves this business of communicating truth-content and
bringing it to bear in changed thinking and transformation. Jesus told us to teach believers to
obey
44
all that he commanded. Now, in the most narrow sense, that would simply be the red-
letter stuff in your NT, the specic oral teaching of Jesus in the Gospels. But in a broader
sense, it includes the Spirit-inspired interpretation and application of his life and teachings
that we nd in the NT as a whole. And then when we read the NT we nd that Jesus not only
had absolute condence in the authority and reliability of the OT as Gods word, but he said
that the OT was all about himMoses, the prophets, and the writingsall of the OT.
45
So,
our task of fullling the Great Commission includes not only evangelism (which itself must have
biblical content, i.e., it must be built on and communicate the doctrinal truth) but the task
also includes teaching, in the broad sense of teaching what the whole Bible says to us. Training
like this is to prepare you to train others to be disciple-making disciples.
4. We do this, too, because it helps us think through our own faith, it grounds and stabilizes us,
claries some fuzzy thinking here and there, and enables us to set out our beliefs in a
coherent way to anyone who asks us the reason for the hope thats in us.
46
And it further
prepares us to help the church do the same.
5. We do this because it also helps us distinguish what we believe from other systems of belief
helps us distinguish between truth and error, right and wrong, light and dark. In this sense its
good that doctrine divides. Statistically, Baptists have been shown to be the easiest group to
convert to cults. Why? The main reason is most dont know what they believe or how to
distinguish it from other-than-biblical systems. And the reason for that sad state of affairs is
that many pastors themselves have abandoned the teaching ministry and the theological/
doctrinal foundations of the faith.
6. And, nally, we do this, we bother, because, in the end, the Truth validates or invalidates
experience. A whole lot of folks get this backwards. Experience does not tell us whats true.
Whats true, rather, is the measure of the rightness or wrongness of our experiences. Do you
know what I mean? Its not how we feel at any moment thats decisive, but what the truth is.
You may sincerely believe, and feel very deeply about it way down in your heart, that you can
step in front of a car out here without any consequences. And for a moment or so, that will be
your experience until a car gets to you, and thats when the way things really are, the truth,
catches up with your experience and invalidates it. Do you see?
Preparation for Study
So, as we begin this rst Pastors School, let me urge you to apply yourself to this training with all
your heart and soul and mind and strength, with everything you have. And keep yourself prepared and
44. Grk., :norc, to hold on to, so as not to give it up or lose it; and then keep it in the sense of persisting in obedience to it. Its a very full
task to teach people to know and love and protect and do the truth.
45. Luke 24.44; John 5.39; e.g.
46. Something that we are to be prepared/ready (r:oio) to do; see 1 Peter 3.15.
The Pastors School, OHBC Pastors After Gods Own Heart
Copyright 2011 B. Spencer Haygood. All rights reserved. 8
primed in at least these primary ways:
1. With prayer. This is fundamental. By nature, we have a veil over the heart, we have a veil of
ignorance over the mind, we have a veil of prejudice over our affections, and a veil of pride
which prevents us from seeing ourselves as we really are. So we have to have a mind and
heart enlightened by the Holy Spirit to see the truth and prot by it. So, pray with the
psalmist: Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law; Teach me, O
LORD, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end; Give me understanding, that
I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart.
47
You know, Pauls whole
argument in the last verses of 1 Corinthians 2 is that man in the highest development of his
nature (Hodge), man of the noblest character and attainments in the estimation of the
world (Wilson), the unregenerate nature at its best (Findlay), can neither discover nor
understand the things of the Spirit. They are spiritually discerned. The fault is not with Gods
revelation, but with us. We dont need more data, or more revelation. What we need is
clearer insight into the data we already have, into whats already revealed. So resolve to pray
always for the Spirits illumination in our studies.
2. With impartiality. This is critical, as far as we are capable. There are none so blind as they who
will not see. Ill tell you from the rst here that youll make exactly no advance in spiritual
apprehension of the truth until youre ready to submit all of your ideas and all of your
sentiments and all of your experience and all of your tradition, everything, to what the Word of
God plainly says and teaches. So, determine to diligently study and fairly seek and then
humbly submit to the Truth of Gods Word.
3. With humility. Peter tell us: Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another,
for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
48
Its a formidable expression he
uses. God draws up against the proud; he prepares himself, as it were, with his whole
force to oppose the progress of the proud. If God simply leaves us alone, were all ignorance
and darkness. So what must be the terrible case of anyone against whom he appears in arms?
He gives grace to the humble. Youll be learning many things that arent known, or at least
arent known well, by many other Christians, or by relatives and friends who are older in the
Lord than you. You may even nd that you come to understand things about Scripture that
some pastors dont know. It would be easy (and its the tendency of the fallen heart) to adopt
an attitude of pride or superiority when that happens. But how ugly it would be for us to use
what we learn just to win arguments or put down fellow believers in conversation, or to make
a brother or sister in the Lord feel insignicant in the Lords work. So be on your guard here.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, because he of whom we will learn much in these studies
is, after all, not a lab experiment or a math equation. He is the King eternal, immortal,
invisible, the only God, to whom alone is due honor and glory forever and ever.
49

4. With a holy design. Our motivation here is not just to gain Bible knowledge, but to grow in the
love of the truth. Were not studying just to inform the intellect so much as also to reform and
transform the whole life. Your study must be to know God better, to know his will better, to
serve him better, to glorify him more and more, so that you can be pastors after his own
47. Psalm 119:18, 33, 34.
48. 1 Peter 5:5; James 4:6.
49. 1 Timothy 1.17.
The Pastors School, OHBC Pastors After Gods Own Heart
Copyright 2011 B. Spencer Haygood. All rights reserved. 9
heart. Nothing else and nothing less will do.
5. With reason. Jesus and the NT authors often quote from OT Scripture and then they draw
logical conclusions from it. They reason from Scripture, and by that give us an example. Its
not wrong to use human understanding, to use logic and reason to draw deductions and
conclusions from Scripture, as long as we remember that Scripture itself is the ultimate
standard of truth. Were free to use our reasoning abilities to draw deductions from any
passage of Scripture so long as those deductions dont contradict the clear teaching of some
other passage of Scripture.
6. With rejoicing and praise. In the end, all of this is not a theoretical exercise for the intellect. Its
learning of our God, the living and true God, and the wonders of his works in creation and
redemption. I dont see how we can possibly approach it without passion. We ought to respond
as the psalmist: How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! (Psa. 139:17); The
precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; In the way of your testimonies I delight
as much as in all riches; How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my
mouth; Your testimonies are my heritage forever; yea, they are the joy of my heart; I
rejoice at your word like one who nds great spoil;
50
or perhaps say with Paul, at the end of
his grand theological reection in Romans: Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and
knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For
who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a
gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory forever. Amen.
51
Conclusion
In one of the Charlie Brown cartoon strips, Lucy and Linus are staring out the picture window
watching rain just pouring from the sky. And with a worried look on her face, Lucy remarks, Boy, look at
it rain. What if it oods the whole world?
And Linus replies condently, It will never do that. In the ninth chapter of Genesis, God
promised Noah that would never happen again, and the sign of the promise is the rainbow.
Lucy looks relieved and says, Youve taken a great load off my mind.
And Linus responds matter-of-factly, Sound theology has a way of doing that!
Indeed, it does. And I hope what we do here is just the beginning of a lifelong adventure for you
in thinking Gods thoughts after him and serving as a pastor after Gods own heart!
50. Psalm 139.17; 19.8; 119.14, 103, 111, 162.
51. Romans 11.33-36.
The Pastors School, OHBC Pastors After Gods Own Heart
Copyright 2011 B. Spencer Haygood. All rights reserved. 10