John MacArthur
First Peter 5:1–3 expresses the foundational principles of pastoral leadership: Be humble and do the work of shepherding the flock. John the Baptist and Paul were good New Testament examples of humility. The keys to humility include confidence in God’s power, commitment to God’s truth, a commission by God’s will, a compulsion by God’s omniscience, and a consuming passion for God’s glory. The primary objective in shepherding God’s flock is to feed them. Besides this, a shepherd must exercise oversight of the flock and provide them with an exemplary life to look to. He cannot do his job with an unwilling spirit, neither can he do it for the sake of monetary gain. Furthermore, he must obey scriptural commands to be faithful to biblical truth, bold in exposing and refuting error, exemplary in godliness, diligent in ministry, and willing to suffer in his service.
A vast amount of material is available to advise pastors on how to conduct their ministries. Books, tapes, journals, and seminars abound. In fact, so much material is available that a pastor could easily spend all his time absorbing it, and have no time left for actual ministry! How can a pastor sift through this mountain of information to discern what is really important in ministry? Can what a pastor is to be and do be boiled down to a few basic principles?
The apostle Peter read no books or journal articles on pastoral leadership. He attended no seminars and heard no tapes. However, with the wisdom of long years of experience, Peter distilled the essence of pastoral leadership into two simple admonitions: be humble and do the work of shepherding the flock. He expressed these foundational principles in 1 Peter 5:1–3:
Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.
Peter modeled the humility he enjoined for pastors. Although the acknowledged leader of the twelve apostles, he humbly described himself as “your fellow elder.” He refused to lord his exalted position over the other elders. And in verse 2 he gave the pastor’s calling, to “shepherd the flock of God” entrusted to his care. Humble shepherds are what God requires to lead His flock.
A PASTOR SHOULD BE HUMBLE
We live in a world that neither values nor desires humility. Whether in politics, business, the arts, or sports, people work hard to achieve prominence, popularity, and fame. Sadly, that mind-set has spilled over into the church. Personality cults exist, because pastors and Christian leaders strive for celebrity status. The true man of God, however, seeks the approval of his Lord rather than the adulation of the crowd. Humility is thus the benchmark of any useful servant of God. Spurgeon reminded us that “if we magnify ourselves, we shall become contemptible; and we shall neither magnify our office nor our Lord. We are the servants of Christ, not lords over His heritage. Ministers are for churches, and not churches for ministers. . . . Take heed that you be not exalted above measure, lest you come to nothing.”1
Examples of Humility
John the Baptist was the greatest man who had lived (Matt. 11:11; Luke 7:28). He was the last of the Old Testament prophets, privileged to be no less than the immediate forerunner of the Messiah. Yet he was a humble man and expressed that humility when he said of Christ, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Except for Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul is the greatest spiritual leader the world has known, but he described himself as “the least of the apostles” (1 Cor. 15:9), “the very least of all saints” (Eph. 3:8), and the foremost of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15, 16).
Five marks of Paul’s humility are identified in 1 Corinthians 4. First, he was content to be a servant: “Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God” (v. 1). The word he used for “servants” is hupēretēs, which refers literally to an under rower, one who rowed in the lower tier of a war galley. Such rowers were unknown, unheralded, and unhonored. “When all is said and done,” Paul implied, “let it be said of me that I pulled my oar.”
A second mark of Paul’s humility was his willingness to be judged by God. In 1 Corinthians 4:4 he wrote, “The one who examines me is the Lord.” Paul did not seek the accolades of men, nor did he care what they thought of him. God was the audience before whom he executed his ministry; God was the one he sought to please, whatever the cost. Any human evaluation of his ministry, whether by others or himself, was meaningless.
Third, Paul was content to be equal with other servants of God. In 1 Corinthians 4:6 he cautioned the Corinthians not to compare him with Apollos. He did not want his readers to presume to elevate one over the other. Paul and Apollos were not in competition with each other, nor did Paul consider himself better than Apollos. The Puritan Walter Cradock’s description of a humble man fits Paul perfectly:
Fourth, Paul was willing to suffer (1 Cor. 4:12–13). He suffered for the cause of Christ as few men in history have suffered, thus fulfilling the Lord’s prediction at his conversion (Acts 9:16). Paul detailed some of that suffering in his letters to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 4:9–13; 2 Cor. 11:23–33). His exhortation to Timothy to “suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 2:3) is his challenge to every pastor, for all will face suffering. As Sanders noted, “No one need aspire to leadership in the work of God who is not prepared to pay a price greater than his contemporaries and colleagues are willing to pay. True leadership always exacts a heavy toll on the whole man, and the more effective the leadership is, the higher the price to be paid.”3 Spurgeon gave a reason pastors may expect suffering: “It is of need be that we are sometimes in heaviness. Good men are promised tribulation in this world, and ministers may expect a larger share than others, that they may learn sympathy with the Lord’s suffering people, and so may be fitting shepherds of an ailing flock.”4
Finally, Paul was content to sacrifice his reputation. A pastor’s goal is not to be popular with the world. Those who preach boldly against sin and live godly lives will sacrifice their public reputation and prestige. They will suffer rejection, face opposition, and endure slander. Paul described his own loss of reputation when he wrote, “For, I think, God has exhibited us apostles last of all, as men condemned to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men . . . . We have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now” (1 Cor. 4:9, 13).
Keys to Humility
True humility flows from a correct view of God. How a pastor lives his life and functions in the ministry relates directly to his view of God. A humble man, with a proper view of God, will be confident in God’s power, committed to God’s truth, commissioned by God’s will, compelled by God’s knowledge, and consumed with God’s glory.
A humble pastor will be confident in God’s power. In 1 Thessalonians 2:2, Paul reminded the Thessalonians that “after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi (see Acts 16:19–24), as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition.” Paul’s humble confidence in God’s power translated into boldness and courage in his ministry. He was confident that God was more powerful than any opposition he would face. That gave his ministry strength and tenacity. It enabled him to speak out no matter what the response and consequences were.
In the ministry, pressure to compromise, to mitigate the message, and to avoid offending sinners will always exist. However, the preacher’s job is to expose sin, to confront the lost with the hopelessness of their condition, and to offer the cure for their wretchedness in the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. Doing those things will lead to confrontation and opposition. The courage to stand firm derives from a humble dependence on God’s power. It comes from being “strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might” (Eph. 6:10).
A humble pastor will be committed to God’s truth. We live in a day when most are ignoring Paul’s exhortation to Timothy to “preach the word” of God. Instead of the Word of God, all too often from the pulpit come the uncertain sounds of political rhetoric, social commentary, and pop psychology. Such “persuasive words of [human] wisdom” (1 Cor. 2:4) are a prostitution of the preacher’s true calling.5 The pulpit is not a place for the pastor to express his opinion, demonstrate his erudition, or browbeat those who oppose him. Such prideful exaltation of self is the antithesis of humility. John Stott believes that
the less the preacher comes between the Word and its hearers, the better. What really feeds the household is the food which the householder supplies, not the steward who dispenses it. The Christian preacher is best satisfied when his person is eclipsed by the light which shines from the Scripture and when his voice is drowned by the Voice of God.6
A man committed to God’s truth is a man dedicated to “handling accurately the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). His greatest fear in preaching is that he might present that Word inaccurately to his flock and so mislead them. Paul stressed the importance in his own ministry of handling the Word accurately in 1 Thessalonians 2:3. In that passage, he gave a threefold response to the charge of teaching false doctrine.
First, he declared that “our exhortation does not come from error.” Planē (error) comes from a verb meaning “to wander or roam.” From it the English word planet is derived, since the planets appear to wander through space. To be in error is to wander from the truth, to roam from the divine standard and be out of control. Paul’s teaching was not in error. He was neither deceived nor a deceiver. He guarded the truth of the Word of God, even as he twice exhorted Timothy to do (1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 1:14). That concept of guarding the truth has largely been lost today. Yet pastors are guardians of the truth, responsible for keeping it pure and handing it on to the next generation. The measure of a pastor, then, is not how clever or interesting he is, but how well he guards the truth. Anyone who fails to do so “advocates a different doctrine, and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness” (1 Tim. 6:3). Such a man “is conceited and understands nothing” (v. 4). He has failed in the most important aspect of his ministry.
One of the most provocative verses in all the Pauline literature is 2 Corinthians 2:17, where the apostle declared, “We are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.” Peddling is from kapeleuō. It describes the activity of those spiritual hucksters and con men who peddle the Word of God insincerely for their own enrichment. Unfortunately, they are as common today as they were when Paul wrote. False prophets, spiritual phonies, and assorted cultists, crackpots, and swindlers abound, unceasingly laboring “to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord” (Acts 13:10). To combat this onslaught of false teaching, the church needs pastors humbly committed to proclaiming the truth of God’s Word.
Merely proclaiming the Word is not enough, however; the pastor must live out its truths in his life. Paul declared that his teaching was free of akatharsia (impurity, 1 Thess. 2:3). While that word can refer to uncleanness in general, it often refers to sexual uncleanness. That sexual uncleanness and false doctrine go hand in hand is evident from the many scandals that have rocked the church in recent years.
In his classic work The Reformed Pastor, Richard Baxter addressed pastors with some of the most pointed words ever penned regarding living the truths they preach:
Take heed to yourselves, lest your example contradict your doctrine, and lest you lay such stumbling-blocks before the blind, as may be the occasion of their ruin; lest you unsay with your lives, what you say with your tongues; and be the greatest hinderers of the success of your own labours. It much hindereth our work, when other men are all the week long contradicting to poor people in private, that which we have been speaking to them from the Word of God in public, because we cannot be at hand to expose their folly; but it will much more hinder your work, if you contradict yourselves, and if your actions give your tongue the lie, and if you build up an hour or two with your mouths, and all the week after pull down with your hands! This is the way to make men think that the Word of God is but an idle tale, and to make preaching seem no better than prating. He that means as he speaks, will surely do as he speaks. One proud, surly, lordly word, one needless contention, one covetous action, may cut the throat of many a sermon, and blast the fruit of all that you have been doing. . . .
It is a palpable error of some ministers, who make such a disproportion between their preaching and their living; who study hard to preach exactly, and study little or not at all to live exactly. All the week long is little enough, to study how to speak two hours, and yet one hour seems too much to study how to live all the week. . . . Oh how curiously have I heard some men preach; and how carelessly have I seen them live! . . . .
Certainly, brethren, we have very great cause to take heed what we do, as well as what we say: if we will be the servants of Christ indeed, we must not be tongue servants only, but must serve him with our deeds, and be “doers of the work, that we may be blessed in our deed.” As our people must be “doers of the word, and not hearers only”; so we must be doers and not speakers only, lest we “deceive our own selves.” . . .
Maintain your innocency, and walk without offence. Let your lives condemn sin, and persuade men to duty. Would you have your people more careful of their souls, than you are of yours? . . . .
Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. Will you make it your work to magnify God, and, when you have done, dishonor him as much as others? Will you proclaim Christ’s governing power, and yet contemn it, and rebel yourselves? Will you preach his laws, and wilfully break them? If sin be evil, why do you live in it? if it be not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it be dangerous, how dare you venture on it? if it be not, why do you tell men so? If God’s threatenings be true, why do you not fear them? if they be false, why do you needlessly trouble men with them, and put them into such frights without a cause? Do you “know the judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death”; and yet will you do them? “Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery,” or be drunk, or covetous, art thou such thyself? “Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God?” What! shall the same tongue speak evil that speakest against evil? Shall those lips censure, and slander, and backbite your neighbour, that cry down these and the like things in others? Take heed to yourselves, lest you cry down sin, and yet do not overcome it; lest, while you seek to bring it down in others, you bow to it, and become its slaves yourselves: “For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage.” “To whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.” O brethren! it is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it.7
The preacher who wants his words taken to heart by his congregation must first take them to heart himself.
Finally, according to 1 Thessalonians 2:3, Paul’s preaching was free of deceit. He moved from preaching to living to motive, and then asserted that his motives were not deceitful. Paul had no hidden agendas and did not seek to trick or ensnare anyone. He was not like the false teachers, who had lust or profit as their motive (2 Pet. 2:15–18; Jude 11). He was like David, who “shepherded [Israel] according to the integrity of his heart” (Ps. 78:72).
It is humble men, men of integrity, whom God desires to shepherd His flock.
A humble pastor is commissioned by God’s will. All believers have the right and the duty to share the gospel wherever and whenever they can. However, no one should hold the office of pastor who has not received a call to that ministry from God (see ch. 6, “The Call to Pastoral Ministry”). Those who pridefully exalt themselves to that position will not have God’s blessing. God will say of them what He said of the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day: “I did not send these prophets, but they ran. I did not speak to them, but they prophesied” (Jer. 23:21).
Paul certainly did not exalt himself to the ministry. Indeed, becoming a minister of the gospel was the last thing he expected to do with his life. But on the Damascus Road, God redeemed him and called him to the ministry. No doubt that incident was in his mind when he wrote to the Corinthians, “If I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me” (1 Cor. 9:16–17). Unlike the false teachers who dogged his steps and unlike their present-day counterparts, he did not appoint himself to the ministry. Instead, Paul was “approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel” (1 Thess. 2:4).
The knowledge that we did not earn the right to preach through our own efforts or abilities should humble us. God called us to the ministry, God trusted us to proclaim His Word, and God chose us to lead His flock. To forget that is to take the first step toward disqualification from the ministry.
A humble pastor is compelled by God’s knowledge. God’s omniscience is a further key to and motive for humility. While it is possible to fool others by an outward facade of piety, God knows the secrets of the heart. “What [a] minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty,” wrote John Owen, “that he is and no more.”8 God’s omniscience means accountability in the ministry. It keeps a man focused on pleasing God, not men. God scrutinizes the desires, motives, and intentions of the heart, and He knows what is done to please others and what is done to please Him.
Paul was quite aware of the implications of God’s knowledge about his life. To the Thessalonians he wrote, “Just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men but God, who examines our hearts. For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness” (1 Thess. 2:4–5). He knew he was commissioned by God to preach the gospel of God, not by men to preach a man-pleasing gospel. In Galatians 1:10 he added, “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.” Remembering God’s omniscience kept Paul from seeking to be a man-pleaser.
A humble pastor is consumed with God’s glory. This key achieves the epitome of humility, for it is impossible to seek self-glory and God’s glory at the same time. It is the New Covenant that is glorious (2 Cor. 3:7–11), not its ministers (2 Cor. 4:7). If all that rank-and-file believers do is to be for God’s glory (1 Cor. 10:31), how much more the work of the ministry?
In 1 Thessalonians 2:6 Paul wrote, “nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority.” Paul was no Diotrephes (3 John 9), seeking preeminence; he did not seek esteem, honor, or praise. His preoccupation was the glory of God (2 Cor. 4:5).
What marks a man effective in the ministry?
Only such a man is humble enough to shepherd God’s flock.
A PASTOR HAS TO SHEPHERD THE FLOCK OF GOD
Of all the titles and metaphors used to describe spiritual leadership, the most fitting is that of shepherd. As shepherds, pastors are to guard their flocks from going astray, lead them to the green pastures of God’s Word, and defend them against the savage wolves (Acts 20:29) that would ravage them. The shepherd metaphor is the one chosen by Peter in 1 Peter 5:1–3. There he discussed the primary objective of shepherding, and gave wise counsel on how to shepherd and how not to shepherd.
The Primary Objective of Shepherding
A shepherd who fails to feed his flock will not have a flock for long. His sheep will wander off to other fields or die of starvation. Above all, God requires of His spiritual shepherds that they feed their flocks. In fact, the one ability that distinguishes an elder from a deacon is that an elder must be “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:9). Charles Jefferson wrote,
That the feeding of the sheep is an essential duty of the shepherd-calling is known even to those who are least familiar with shepherds and their work. Sheep cannot feed themselves, nor water themselves. They must be conducted to the water and the pasture. . . . Everything depends on the proper feeding of the sheep. Unless wisely fed they become emaciated and sick, and the wealth invested in them is squandered. . . . When the minister goes into the pulpit, he is the shepherd in the act of feeding, and if every minister had borne this in mind, many a sermon would have been other than it has been. The curse of the pulpit is the superstition that a sermon is a work of art and not a piece of bread or meat.9
Jesus forcefully drove home the importance of feeding the sheep to Peter in His encounter with him described in John 21. Twice in His command to Peter, Jesus used the term boskō, which means “I feed” (vv. 15, 17). The shepherd’s goal is not to please the sheep but to feed them, not to tickle their ears but to nourish their souls. He is not to offer light snacks of milk, but substantial meals of solid biblical truth. Those who fail to feed the flock are unfit to be shepherds (see Jer. 23:1–4; Ezek. 34:2–10).
How to Shepherd
Besides feeding them, the shepherd has two primary duties to his flock. He must exercise oversight of them and must lead them by the example of his life. Peter challenged his fellow elders to “shepherd the flock of God among you” by “exercising oversight” (1 Pet. 5:2). God entrusted them with the authority and responsibility of leading the flock. Shepherds are accountable for how they lead, and the flock for how they follow (Heb. 13:17).
However, being a shepherd does not mean merely getting the overall picture from a distance; it requires getting right in among the flock and leading by example. It is not leadership from on high so much as leadership from within. An effective shepherd does not herd his sheep from the rear but leads them from the front. They see him before them and imitate his actions. The most important asset of spiritual leadership is the power of an exemplary life.10
How Not to Shepherd
In his exhortation to his fellow shepherds, Peter warned them of two pitfalls. First, they must avoid doing what they do unwillingly. A good shepherd does his work “not under compulsion, but voluntarily” (1 Pet. 5:2). Sheep can be disagreeable, dirty, stubborn, exasperating animals. Former sheep rancher W. Phillip Keller observed that “No other class of livestock requires more careful handling, more detailed direction, than do sheep.”11 A lazy shepherd is an ineffective shepherd. The temptation that Peter cautioned against is merely going through the motions, that is, merely doing the work of the ministry only when under compulsion. Shepherding God’s flock must be done spontaneously, voluntarily, with eagerness, and with a knowledge of its vital importance.
Another more sinister pitfall to avoid is doing the work of the ministry for sordid gain. “I have coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothes,” Paul said to the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:33). “No one can serve two masters,” Jesus declared, “for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6:24). That is doubly true of pastors, whom God requires to be “free from the love of money” (1 Tim. 3:3). It is the false prophets who engage in the furious pursuit of monetary gain (see Is. 56:11; Jer. 6:13; 8:10; Mic. 3:11; 2 Pet. 2:3).
It is not wrong for a pastor to be paid; in fact, Scripture commands it. “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor,” Paul wrote to Timothy, “especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching” (1 Tim. 5:17).12 What is wrong is allowing financial gain to be one’s motivation in the ministry. That not only produces insincere, ineffective leaders but also degrades the ministry in the eyes of the world. I will never forget the time when, as a young pastor, a woman (not realizing I was a pastor) advised me to go into the ministry. “You don’t have to work hard,” she informed me, “and you can make lots of money at it.” One can only wonder what sort of pastors she had encountered that made her develop that view of the ministry.
A humble man, dedicated to shepherding the souls God has entrusted to his care, “will receive the unfading crown of glory” in that day “when the Chief Shepherd appears” (1 Pet. 5:4).
THE OBEDIENT SHEPHERD
If Peter were still alive, I would like to ask him, “Could you be more specific as to what the humble shepherd should do?” Though we do not have Peter’s specific response, we do have God’s thorough answer to the question through the pen of Paul in the two epistles to Timothy in the New Testament. Paul had personally mentored the young pastor, but Timothy encountered severe trials when assigned the task of leading the church at Ephesus out of sin and error. He struggled with fear and human weakness. He apparently experienced the temptation to soften his preaching in the face of persecution. At times he seemed ashamed of the gospel.
Paul had to remind him to stand up for the faith with boldness, even if it meant suffering: “Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering for the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:8). The two rich epistles from Paul to Timothy outline a ministry philosophy of being and doing that challenges the prevailing practice of today.13 Paul instructed Timothy in the first letter that he must:
In his second epistle, Paul reminded Timothy to:
To sum it all up in five categories, Paul commanded Timothy (1) to be faithful in his preaching of biblical truth, (2) to be bold in exposing and refuting error, (3) to be an example of godliness to the flock, (4) to be diligent and work hard in the ministry, and (5) to be willing to suffer hardship and persecution in his service for the Lord.