PASTOR AS PUBLIC THEOLOGIAN PB

Many pastors today see themselves primarily as counselors, leaders, and motivators. Yet this often comes at the expense of the fundamental reality of the pastorate as a theological office. The most important role is to be a theologian mediating God to the people. The church needs pastors who can contextualize biblical wisdom in Christian living to help their congregations think theologically about all aspects of their lives, such as work, end-of-life decisions, political involvement, and entertainment choices.

Drawing on the Bible, key figures from church history, and Christian theology, this book offers a clarion call for pastors to serve as public theologians in their congregations and communities. It is designed to be engaging reading for busy pastors and includes pastoral reflections on the theological task from twelve working pastors, including Kevin DeYoung and Cornelius Plantinga.

As reviewed by Dr. Stephen McQuoid in March 2020- 'This is a valuable book that slightly annoyed me at the same time. The irritation came from that fact that the majority of contributors are used to the setting of a large North American church that employs a senior pastor who can devote most of his time to sermon preparation because that hour on a Sunday for preaching is their main responsibility. Most of us don’t have the luxury of such focus or of being able to devote 20 plus hours to prepare for every sermon. In that sense it feels like a book written from inside an American evangelical bubble. A secondary annoyance was the theological exposition of the Pastor’s role in chapter 1 which I felt was a little stretched and assumes every church should really be pastor driven (note my personal bias).

Complaints aside, there is a lot in this book to be appreciated. Those of us who are concerned at the lack of good biblical teaching in church life would benefit from the very helpful emphasis that it gives to biblical preaching. There are also some excellent short chapters that deal with specific aspects of the pastor’s job. Vanhoozers introduction is very helpful as he sets the scene for the pastor’s role and then in chapter 3 he gives some excellent reflections of contemporary evangelical pastors and their situation. He makes the point that historically key thinkers within the church have actually moved into the academy rather than focussing their ministry within the church and this needs correcting, as does the kind of training pastors need. Strachan has an interesting chapter (p.69-93) on the history of the role of the pastor. The overall thrust of the book is to encourage those involved in leadership and particularly preaching, to up their game and realise just how significant and influential their roles can be. It is an important reminder that often, pastoral work is dumbed down and we get away with sermons that are not particularly informed by theology, church history or contemporary culture. The final chapter contains 55 summary theses for pastors. Some of these can be bypasses, but many are a useful checklist that could be referred to again and again in the course of your ministry. For those reasons it would be a valuable resource for seasoned preachers, budding preachers, pastors and church leaders. It stimulates us to up our game – not a bad thing at all!'

Product details:
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Baker Academic; Reprint edition (January 21, 2020)
ISBN-13: 9781540961891
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches