It’s sometimes said of a minister of a congregation (and not necessarily with unkind intent) that, although they struggle somewhat as a preacher, they are brilliant pastors. Sometimes the comment runs in the other direction: “[Insert name] is a fine preacher, but he lacks pastoral ability”. It’s not hard to grasp what people mean by this. Some people are fine communicators in the pulpit, but are quite poor at interpersonal relationship. They’re like the minister who is regularly seen working at his desk, but who has trained his secretary so well that it is almost impossible to speak to him without an appointment (which could be anything up to two weeks away!). Other ministers have attractive personalities and good social skills, and are loved by all, but somehow they fail to speak to a congregation with clarity and conviction.
But how far should we go in separating the two activities? Are they really fundamentally different things? In this article, we look at the similarities and differences between public preaching and private pastoring, we ask what distinguishes them and we explore how we would be helped by reviving the marriage between the two.
Should preaching and pastoring be distinguished?
This common sense distinction between the public preaching of God’s word (what we might call ‘pulpiteering’) and private pastoring (which also encompasses therapeutic overtones and associations with psychological counselling) is reflected in the New Testament. A particularly important example is Acts 20:20 where Paul summarizes what he did in his ministry at Ephesus by reminding them that “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house”. A similar distinction can be seen in Jesus’ ministry as well: he both declares the kingdom publicly to all who will listen and teaches his disciples privately (e.g. Mark 4:34). Along similar lines, the Bible teaches that different people have different gifts (1 Cor 12): some people have been gifted by God to excel at the public declaration of the gospel, while others will gravitate more naturally towards personal ministry to individuals. So in one sense, the reason for distinguishing between public preaching and private pastoring seems obvious.
But we must be careful at this point for, as well as noting these different types of teaching activity, the Bible also links them together. In Ephesians 4, the risen Jesus gives the church “the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers” (Eph 4:11), and he gives them for one reason: to build unity in the body of Christ by bringing all members to spiritual maturity. In this verse, there is a particularly close link between pastoring and teaching. Indeed, the Greek for “shepherds and teachers” could also be translated as ‘pastor-teachers’, so closely does Paul’s grammar and the flow of his thinking link the two activities. The clear implication is that ‘pastoring’ should take place alongside the other speaking ministries Paul mentions. Certainly there is an element of counselling or personal care involved in pastoring, but this pastoring is inseparable from teaching the word of God. In New Testament terms, people are pastored as they are taught God’s word and as they learn to listen to the voice of their chief pastor or shepherd, Jesus (John 10:16, 27). In this way, they are brought “to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”, as Paul says in Ephesians 4:13. So even though there is public and private ministry in the New Testament, there is nothing to suggest that ‘preaching’ can only ever be public, whereas pastoring is essentially private.1
Preaching and pastoring do the same thing: they bring the challenge and comfort of the word of God to a person. So the goal of both preaching and pastoring (and, indeed, all the New Testament Word ministries) is Christian maturity.
Now, in the New Testament, we observe that God uses four basic means to bring Christians to maturity:
- his indwelling Spirit, working through
- his word of Scripture, by the means of
- the ministry of his servants who prayerfully expound and teach that word, and through
- the everyday circumstances of life in which we hear and apply this teaching.
Let’s consider preaching and pastoring in the light of these four elements.
Public preaching
Outlining a complete definition of preaching is beyond the scope of this article. However, for the sake of our current discussion, let us limit ‘preaching’ to the public declaration of gospel truth (what we might more accurately label ‘pulpiteering’ but without the possible negative connotations) while noting that the New Testament places no such limits on the idea of ‘preaching’.2 The four Gospels, the Book of Acts and the New Testament letters give many examples and descriptions of what public preaching looked like in the life and ministry of Jesus and the apostles.
Public preaching in the New Testament is declaring God’s truth boldly and openly. The preacher takes the word of God and explains it,3 and the preaching of this Word is made effective in the hearer through the work of the Holy Spirit (1 Thess 1:5). The Holy Spirit is also the one who gives the gift of speaking God’s word to the speaker (1 Cor 12:7-11). So public preaching encompasses three of the four means by which God brings his people to maturity.
But what of the everyday circumstances in which public preaching occurs? In the 19th century, Phillips Brooks, a Boston Anglican, described preaching as “truth through personality”.4 But to this we could add that the public context of this declaration carries weight: it involves declaring God’s truth to a group of people who have gathered specifically in order to hear God’s word taught. It is important to note this public context of preaching—not least because this in itself highlights the authority of what the preacher is saying. Physically, he stands above the hearers; at the very least, he is at the centre of the gathering. When he speaks, the crowd of those listening remain silent. The structure of the meeting communicates the importance of the event. The act of standing to declare a message to a crowd requires courage; the act of hearing inspires. So sitting as part of a congregation in church or as part of a crowd of several thousand at a Katoomba convention, Keswick convention or a ‘Together for the Gospel’ conference, and submitting to the words of the speaker even in the very act of attending, powerfully enacts the vision of what it means to hear and obey the word of God.
The importance of the public preaching event is never divorced from the content of what is spoken. The public preacher, in the words of 1 Peter 4:11, is charged with the job of speaking “as one who speaks oracles of God”. His tone of voice and the set-up of the event should show due respect to this activity. It should also communicate profoundly and urgently that what is going on matters a great deal, for the very act of gathering together to hear God’s word taught carries greater intrinsic authority than reading a Christian book (that is, a Christian book other than the Bible), listening to the sermon on tape, watching it on video or reading a transcript of it.5 1 Peter 4:11 makes it very plain that preaching is not an activity to be entered into lightly or frivolously, for the preacher is uniquely placed to say to his hearers, “Thus says the Lord”. In contrast with small group discussion or one-to-one meetings, in this context, the preacher teaches the words of Scripture with prophetic authority.6
Private pastoring
Now that we’ve considered how God works through public preaching, let us compare and contrast it with the ministry of God’s word in a more focused, personal context. Once again, we should emphasize that ‘pastoring’ in the biblical sense can and does have a far broader scope than one-to-one or small group personal ministry. But for the sake of this discussion, we are taking ‘pastoring’ to mean when the word of God is brought to bear on the few rather than the many.
Often we associate such one-to-one ministry with a therapeutic model, whereby the individual is counselled and then given specific help and encouragement for some problem that s/he might have. Certainly it is true that there are many opportunities for Christians to offer specific encouragement to other Christians who feel burdened by their own struggles (whether they be with the world, the flesh or the devil). However, the job of the Christian pastor is not simply to deal with these problems on the basis of a secular psychological model (where, in practice and frequently in theory, the authority and power for changes lies with the authority and power of the counsellors); the job of a Christian pastor is to bring the word of God into contact with the life of the individual, and to demonstrate its implications.
An individual may have specific obstacles to understanding the gospel and its implications (e.g. s/he may have an abusive father who is the cause of many deep-rooted problems and misunderstandings of the Fatherhood of God). However, true Christian pastoring will bring the teaching of Scripture to bear upon such obstacles. In addition, the pastor working one-to-one with someone may be able to bring God’s word to bear in such a way that the person they are speaking to receives sudden and powerful insights into the grace of God, thereby enabling them to move forward significantly and rapidly in their understanding of God.
Notice that the aim of such personal ministry is identical to the aim of public preaching: the Christian pastor seeks to move people towards a greater level of Christian maturity. To achieve this aim, he uses the word of God in the power of the Spirit, and trusts that God will work through him and through the circumstances of life to bring about growth in the person he is ministering to.
So, to return to the four means by which God brings us to maturity which we stated earlier, private pastoring relies on God’s indwelling Spirit working through his word by the means of particular gifted individuals in the same way that public preaching does. Of course, in private pastoring, the fourth means (the everyday circumstances of life in which we hear and apply this teaching) will differ from public preaching. But the goal of private pastoring is still the same: Christian maturity.
‘Re-marrying’ public preaching and private pastoring
Let us now draw some of our observations together. At the heart of both effective preaching and pastoring lies the conviction that God’s word will not return to him void. In Isaiah 55:10-11, God says,
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
God’s Spirit gives us Christians his powerful word. We take this Word into a world where people have turned away from God. Part of our job in public preaching is to turn their ears towards God, and as we preach, the ‘pastoral balm’ of the gospel is applied to our hearers. In addition, as the word of God is preached, it resonates with our experience, and shapes our way of looking at the world and at each other. Therefore, one part of the solution to breaching the divide between ‘preaching’ and ‘pastoring’ is to recognize that both activities rely on God’s word for their effectiveness.
So why are we often tempted to think that true public preaching of God’s word is not pastoral (in the sense of taking and applying God’s word to an individual)? This is due partly to the rise of individualism in our society: it’s hard for us to understand how the preaching of Scripture to a large group at the same time can involve profound application to each hearer. But good preaching is pastoral because God’s word is pastoral: he applies it to individuals by his Spirit. It’s easy for us to underestimate the work of the Spirit, and think that he can only work in the individual heart and not in large groups. But shouldn’t preachers preach expecting the Holy Spirit to work through their preaching? This is what Peter’s exhortation to speak as “one who speaks oracles of God” should lead us to anticipate (1 Pet 4:11). So why turn instead to the insights of the church growth movement or to our own intuitive understanding of how community works to bring about change in people’s lives? On this mistaken perspective, effective ministry becomes focused on developing a sense of community and warm personal relationships. As a result, we may lose confidence in the preaching of Scripture to do God’s work. In addition, we may begin to see the job of pastoring as one that involves not teaching, but the building and fostering of warm, nurturing community relationships.
Broughton Knox, former principal of Moore Theological College, used to remind his students that “It is fine for a sermon to be exhortatory. But was the exhortation empowered by knowing God better?” This is an excellent summary of what it means to preach as a Christian who believes in the power of Scripture and of what it means to truly pastor someone. Our exhortation of others—whether public or private—must spring from a deep knowledge of God, not from the clever manipulation of psychological or sociological insights.
People often come to our meetings thinking that what they really need to hear is the practical application of what is being taught. They ask, “So what have I got to do now to put this teaching into practice?” As a result, most of the sermon is lost because the attitude of the congregation (and sometimes the preacher) is to want to get to the ‘important’ bit—the application. But if we really believe that the power to change comes from God’s Spirit working through his powerful word, we will want to prepare, pray, preach and pastor in such a way that the ‘doctrinal’ parts of our sermons are as riveting and essential as the ‘practical’ application that follows.
The real issues that people face in their lives and consistently get wrong are not the obvious ones, but things that the Bible focuses on: where to find forgiveness for sin, how to be saved, and who is sovereign and Lord over us. As the word of God is preached, it addresses basic questions like these and, as a result, changes lives. So true preaching and pastoring go together, gathering their power from God working through his word.
Endnotes
1. So, for example, in the New Testament, the Greek word for ‘pastor’ is also translated ‘shepherd’ (e.g. John 10:14; cf Luke 15:4-7). However, this in no way implies that the shepherding that occurs is one-to-one; the shepherd may know his sheep by name and show them personal concern, but the shepherd-sheep ratio is one to many, not one-to-one. This observation is borne out by common sense and passages like Luke 15:4-7.↩
2. The Greek word which is normally translated as ‘preach’ means ‘to announce or tell some news publicly’, but it need not carry the implication that this is done by one person speaking to a crowd (e.g. Mark 5:20).↩
3. This is normally done to a congregation, but see footnote 2.↩
4. Phillips Brooks, ‘The two elements in preaching’, Lectures on Preaching, HR Allenson, London, c. 1877, p. 5↩
5. This is because the preacher’s life is part of what is being communicated to his listeners (see 1 Tim 4:15-16).↩
6. Because we are comparing preaching and pastoring, it is worth observing that we must never think that we preach just to a congregation; we preach to individuals who happen to be gathered. However, as we preach the Word to this group, gathered by the Spirit of God to hear God speak, God uses the blessing of one another as a visible testimony to what he is doing.↩
