There is no shortage of books purporting to provide ministerial guidance for pastors, too many for any one man to read and process. The discerning reader will dramatically narrow this field by sticking with those authors who order their counsel first according to God’s Word and avoiding those who immediately adopt the presuppositions and tactics of business marketing or secular psychology. God’s special revelation of Himself and His ways must rule our practice as well as our belief, and therefore the Bible is the ultimate and primary source of all practical ministerial guidance. If we depart from God’s Word at this point and seek the wisdom of Madison Avenue or the pop-psychology/self-esteem gurus, we play the part of the prodigal son. We leave the riches of our Father’s house to chase after the chimera wisdom of a fleeting age.
The objection which may be raised against this sort of insistence on a Bible-driven ministry is that the Bible actually contains little in relation to the minutia of pastoral ministry. It must be admitted that there is some truth in this charge. God’s Word compels us to preach (2 Timothy 4:1-2), yet it does not dictate the sermon’s length or topic. It compels us to evangelize, yet we are given only general guidelines (1 Peter 3:15) and circumstantial examples (Mark 5:20). It is not difficult to empathize with those who feel they must look to other sources than the Bible for practical guidance as they seek to shepherd the flock and evangelize the lost, especially as it relates to their specific cultural context.
It is this arena which D. A. Carson enters with his book The Cross and Christian Ministry. Here he shows that those who would depart from their Bibles, seeking a more practical and direct source of ministerial guidance, are actually walking away from the greatest source of this wisdom which can be found. This vital source of ministerial wisdom is not to be found outside the Scriptures, rather it is to be found in that central and penultimate theme of the Scriptures: the cross of Jesus Christ. In five chapters Carson shows how a radically cross-centered understanding of the pastorate, the church, and the world will take us into a deeper and more Christ-like ministry than any other scheme. Carson explains
"The cross not only establishes what we are to preach, but how we are to preach. It prescribes what Christian leaders must be and how Christians must view their leaders. It tells us how to serve and draws us onward in discipleship until we understand what it means to be world Christians” (p. 9).Carson’s five chapters are all built out of the Apostle Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians. Through careful exegesis and helpful examples built from his years of ministry, Carson assembles a set of cross-centered prescriptions which all ministers and ministerial aspirants would do well to emulate. I'd like to take two posts and work through this very helpful book, with the hope that others willbe encouraged to pick it up and be as blessed by it as I have been.
