Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III recently traveled to Sovereign Grace to teach on covenant theology at the Pastors College. Dr. Duncan currently serves as senior minister of First Presbyterian Church (Jackson, MS) and as an adjunct professor at Reformed Theological Seminary (Jackson, MS). In late March, Dr. Duncan generously opened his schedule for me to ask a handful of questions on the value of the early church fathers, especially for busy pastors. Patrology, or the study of the early church fathers, was the topic of Dr. Duncan’s PhD thesis from the University of Edinburgh.

The interview answers questions like Why should a busy pastor invest time in reading the patristic authors? How will a pastor benefit? Where should he start? What cautions should he be alerted to?

Download the full interview MP3 (14.4 MB).

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Outline of interview questions [with time markers]

[00:00] – Intro

[01:30] – Define for us patristics or patrology.

[04:28] – Why should busy pastors read patristic literature in the first place?

[09:29] – What hurdles do pastors face in reading and benefiting from patristic writings?

[14:13] – For the busy pastor, recommend a few specific patristic titles covering history, biography, and primary sources.

[26:52] – What contemporary debates reflect controversies addressed by the patristic authors?

[32:00] – Our culture appears to be growing increasingly secular. If it's true that secularism is on the rise, what can we learn from the church fathers on engaging a “pagan” culture?

[36:06] – In patristic literature, a reader will be faced with thoughts or practices of the early church fathers that were incorrect. What concerns do you have for a pastor getting his feet wet in the patristic writings?

[41:46] – Would you agree that in patristic writings we see a stress on ethics over and above the gospel?

[45:08] – Dr. Duncan, you are a gifted patristic scholar and have been pastoring at First Presbyterian in Jackson for over twelve years now, preaching on a regular basis. How do your preaching and pastoral ministry reflect the impact of patristic authors?

 

(A continuation of C.J.’s interview with pastor and author Dr. Sinclair Ferguson)

C.J. Mahaney: Sinclair, I am going to ask you to elaborate on four quotes. I have chosen four quotes among so many that I have benefited from personally in my study and used consistently in messages and books. I want to read them and then simply want you to comment on them, noting anything about their origin, or anything from them that you want to elaborate on. I would be most grateful.

The first quote states as follows:

The evangelical orientation is inward and subjective. We are far better at looking inward than we are looking outward. We need to expend our energies admiring, exploring, expositing, and extolling Jesus Christ.

What’s the origin of this statement? You obviously were observing this evangelical orientation as being inward and subjective and then drew attention to that orientation, exhorting us to expend our energies admiring, exploring, expositing, and extolling Jesus Christ. Why?

Sinclair Ferguson: This comes from a course on the doctrine of the church and the sacraments, and therefore since I am not saying anything here about the church or the sacraments, it is probably an off the top of my head comment in passing and I am not able to contextualize it.

CJM: By the way, I find that a little discouraging. This is off the top of your head?

SF: Well, come on, now. C.J., you say things off the top of your head.

CJM: Oh, yes, but they never make their way into print.

SF: I think it has arisen from a variety of things I have noticed over the years in the evangelical world. If I were to explain in a technical sense, I would say that I think one of the places where the impact of the Enlightenment has come home to roost is in the way in which I see the impact of a man called Friedrich Schleiermacher on the church. He was reacting to the intelligentsia of his day who were demeaning the gospel. And he really, in a way, turned the gospel on its head by saying it’s what happens internally that’s important.

And I think over my Christian life I have seen more and more how that has become true of evangelicalism. I mean, evangelical Christianity has a very broad subculture that now, probably since the 1960s, has been the kind of “born again” generation, where the really important thing was that you had been “born again” and you had an “experience.”

I began to notice that often being “born again” in the teaching of John 3 was dislocated from the rest of John 3, which had to do with believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and, through him, having salvation. And so sometimes when you had people interviewed who had been “born again,” there was no connectedness to the person of Christ at all.

And so I think I saw the pervasiveness of that and also in my own subculture—the Reformed subculture (if that is the best way to put it). I have been in that subculture all my life. I am a Presbyterian. I have never been anything but a Presbyterian, and that’s been my world.

I noticed in the revival of Reformed theology a glorious worldwide phenomenon. The revival of Calvinism brought much of the interest in terms of literature. The books that people read and were encouraged to read (and rightly encouraged to read) tended to be the ones that dealt with subjective experience.

And so in my subculture we were somewhat critical of the rest of the subculture of evangelicalism, and maybe particularly critical of the charismatic subculture that was all taken up with experience. We didn’t notice that actually, in some ways, we were just using a different mathematics for our experience. One of the books to which many people referred was John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, a hammer on the top of an Arminian’s head. And I observed that people, as I would put it, changed their mathematics about the atonement. But perhaps hadn’t really grasped what this was saying about the Lord Jesus himself and his glory.

And I guess, too, many people became Calvinists through their understanding of the application of redemption (sometimes called the ordo salutis). I began to see and hear people speaking about this almost without reference to the Lord Jesus, saying things like, “Regeneration causes faith, faith brings repentance, faith leads to sanctification.”

You remember those Find Waldo books? In the midst of all this I was saying, “But where is Jesus here?”

CJM: Excellent!

SF: I remember on one occasion listening to a series of sermons through one of the Gospels. Here was the basic motif of the sermons: Where are you in this Gospel story?

Now, there is an authenticity about that, but the real question is: Who is Jesus in this Gospel story?

And so, watching all this, I realized by looking at the literature that was being produced (including the literature I was producing), that it had more about how to live the Christian life....And so I think that is what lies behind this quote.

Curiously, I think it was C.S. Lewis that gave me the clue to this. When an undergraduate, I remember reading his book A Preface to Paradise Lost (on Milton’s book). And that wee book is not a well-known book of Lewis’s, but it is a great wee book with some stunning quotes.

In that book Lewis discusses what I had noticed in the kind of discussions as a student: Why is it that in Paradise Lost, if you ask who the hero is, just in terms of the literary power, Satan turns out to be the hero? And the literary critics had discussed this a good deal. But Lewis said it very simply. He said it’s far easier to portray evil than it is to portray perfect good.

And the more I thought about that, the more I realized: For preachers it’s much easier to seek to bring about conviction of sin and expose sin than to magnify and glory in the Lord Jesus.

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Photo © 2008, Lukas VanDyke 

In February, about 100 Sovereign Grace pastors gathered in Gaithersburg for our Pastors College Preaching Conference. They heard from Jeff Purswell (dean of the Pastors College), Mike Bullmore (longtime homiletics professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and now senior pastor of CrossWay Community Church in Bristol, Wisconsin) and myself. As expected, the pastors left the conference with a list of recommended books on this most important topic.

But pastors can be easily overwhelmed when they hear someone recommend numerous books on a topic. It can be hard to know where to begin.

Over the last few years, rather than just recommending books, I’ve begun recommending specific chapters of books. I do this for a number of reasons. Obviously, it’s easier for a pastor to read a chapter than an entire book. Reading one excellent chapter can create an appetite for the entire book. And some books contain helpful chapters but are not worth reading in their entirety.

Rather than recommending a small library of books on preaching, today we are featuring the five favorite chapters from each of the three speakers at the conference. I think this list will serve pastors and create realistic and achievable reading assignments on the important topic of preaching. Consider creating a reading plan for the next month developed around these chapters.

So here are the top five recommended chapters on preaching from Jeff Purswell, Mike Bullmore, and myself.

Jeff Purswell’s recommended chapters

1. “Why Preach?” by J.I. Packer. The Introduction to The Preacher and Preaching (P&R, 1986).

2. “Theological Foundations for Preaching” by John Stott. Chapter 3 in Between Two Worlds (Eerdmans, 1982).

3. “Preaching Christ from the Old Testament” by Ligon Duncan. Chapter 2 in Preaching the Cross (Crossway, 2007).

4. “The Gravity and Gladness of Preaching” by John Piper. Chapter 4 in The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Baker, 1990).

5. “Paul’s Theology of Preaching” by Dennis E. Johnson. Chapter 3 of Him We Proclaim (P&R, 2007).

Mike Bullmore’s recommended chapters

1. “A Redemptive Approach to Preaching” by Bryan Chapell. Chapter 10 in Christ-Centered Preaching (Baker, 2005).

2. “The Preacher” by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Chapter 6 in Preaching and Preachers (Zondervan, 1971).

3. “The Goal of Preaching” by John Piper. Chapter 1 in The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Baker, 1990).

4. “The Blind Eye and Deaf Ear” by C.H. Spurgeon. Various chapters in editions of Lectures to my Students.

5. “The Minister’s Fainting Fits” by C.H. Spurgeon. Various chapters in editions of Lectures to my Students.

C.J. Mahaney’s recommended chapters

1. “Expository Preaching: Charles Simeon and Ourselves” by J.I. Packer. Chapter 9 in Preach the Word (Crossway: 2007)

2. “The Whole Man” by R.C. Sproul. Chapter 4 in The Preacher and Preaching (P&R, 1986).

3. “The Pattern of Illustrations” by Bryan Chapell. Chapter 7 in Christ-Centered Preaching (Baker, 2005).

4. “The Preparation of the Preacher” by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Chapter 9 in Preaching and Preachers (Zondervan, 1971).

5. “Unction” by Tony Sargent. Chapter 3 in The Sacred Anointing: The Preaching of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Crossway, 1994).

In Sovereign Grace we are committed to the primacy of preaching in building the local church. And within this conviction is an awareness of the gravity of the preaching event.

At a recent conference on preaching, held at our Pastors College, Jeff Purswell (dean of the Pastors College) eloquently and passionately made this point. This excerpt (transcribed and posted below) will challenge all men called to preach and make a difference in our souls as we stand behind the sacred desk this Sunday and speak on behalf of God.

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Preaching is incarnational, meaning it calls for the presence of human personality. This sets preaching apart from other modes of communication. This sets preaching apart from personal Bible reading. That is why we don’t just hand out Bibles and read from Scripture on a Sunday morning. Why not? Because there is more going on in the preaching moment than just a delivery of information.

One of the things that enters here is biblical anthropology. We are people created in the image of God. We were created to know God, created to reflect God, and endowed with certain characteristics from God. And so we are created to know him.

Just as in the ancient Near East a king, in vast provinces he cannot travel to, would set up huge statues of himself which represented his presence and authority, in the same way God has set up an image of himself to represent and reflect himself. And that is man. And this impacts the way God communicates, as he speaks through divinely appointed messengers. After man was ejected from the Garden, God has communicated to his people by mediating his word through someone. Even the Scriptures were mediated from God through someone.

God didn’t just deliver the Israelites. God could have just wiped out the Egyptians and delivered Israel. No. He sent a messenger to reveal God to him. “Tell him I AM has sent you.” And then after delivering them he appointed this messenger to not only give them his law, but then to interpret that law. So Deuteronomy is basically comprised of three sermons of Moses explicating this law. And then, of course, throughout the rest of the Old Testament we read the prophets. The most accurate definition of a prophet is one who speaks God’s words. “I will put my words in his mouth” (Deuteronomy 18:18). That is the definition of a prophet.

And then, of course, the ultimate revelation is through the person of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. He is a particular kind of revelation, a different kind of revelation, not just one prophet through a line of other prophets, but a qualitatively different revelation (Hebrews 1:1–2). And then the apostles stand in that same succession. Now preachers stand in that same succession.

Listen to this quote from a classic essay on preaching by J.I. Packer in The Preacher and Preaching. Packer writes,

God’s standard way of securing and maintaining His person-to-person communication with us His human creatures is through the agency of persons whom He sends to us as His messengers.…Such were the prophets and apostles, and such supremely was Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son.…That is the succession in which preachers today are called to stand.

It’s sobering that this is “the succession in which preachers today are called to stand.” The moment of preaching is not simply one in which you—by virtue of your job or by virtue of the nameplate on your office door—get to stand up and share some thoughts. No. You are not sharing thoughts. You are not Jay Leno. You are not a talking head. You are standing in the very stead of God.

Oh, that is a frightening thing.

It’s not only a divine message you are bringing, but you are meant to be a suitable vessel for that message, embodying its truth, exemplifying an appropriate response to its claims, impassioned by the weight of the message and the urgency of the moment.

-Jeff Purswell, address from February 14, 2008

This week Sovereign Grace Ministries is hosting about 100 pastors for the Pastors College preaching conference. Sessions have been presented by C.J., Jeff Purswell (dean of the Pastors College), and Mike Bullmore (pastor and former professor of homiletics at Trinity Evangelical School of Theology).

A highlight has been the informal question-and-answer sessions, with the speakers covering a range of questions on preaching (and a few sports-related inquiries for C.J.). It was during one of these sessions, one brave pastor stood and asked for counsel in his struggle with the discouragement he experiences when listening to prominent and more-educated preachers.

All three panelists, C.J., Jeff Purswell and Mike Bullmore, responded in the following answers.

C.J. Mahaney:

The book A God-Entranced Vision of All Things contains a chapter by Donald Whitney on Jonathan Edwards and his practice of the spiritual disciplines. It’s worth reading and re-reading. At the end of that chapter he talks about how we cannot emulate Edwards’s example in gifting, capacity, and intelligence. What we can emulate is his disciplined use of time.

Whitney argues that given Edwards’s gifting and intelligence, it’s no less than amazing that he was so disciplined in his use of time. Edwards had every excuse to avoid being disciplined in his use of time. I’m familiar with interacting with other preachers clearly smarter than myself.

Here’s what I know. I must do my best. My best will not be as effective as their best. But that would be a false comparison and the fruit of pride in my life. I need to isolate myself from comparing myself to them, and apply 2 Timothy 2:15 to my life and go through a given week saying, “By the grace of God I want to do my best.” My best involves devoting time to preparation, and by the grace of God my best involves serving the Lord with gladness in the preparation process.

On Sunday, at the conclusion of my preparation—and by God’s grace—I want to say I did my best. And where I didn’t, ask forgiveness for my laziness or procrastination.

But this preaching isn’t solely dependent upon my limitations of gifting and intelligence. The text of Scripture and the Spirit of God and the work of the Spirit in and through this text can transcend all of my limitations and find its way into the heart of my hearers. I can proceed with confidence because I am called to preach here.

Calling makes all the difference. Mike Bullmore isn’t called to preach here consistently. Jeff isn’t called to be the senior pastor at the Knoxville church. Mark Dever isn’t called to be the senior pastor at your church. As a preacher in a local church, you are uniquely called. In the mystery of God’s mercy I am called to my church. Therefore God will not disappoint. He’s going to fulfill his promises and has a fixed purpose.

My calling will ultimately serve my church. Therefore I could argue that you are the most important individual to be addressing your church. Yes, you might not be able to deliver the message with the technical skill of Mark Dever or the illustrative skill of Josh Harris. That’s not the point. You shouldn’t be evaluating yourself or comparing yourself to those individuals. Learn all you can and be provoked by them. But the point is that God has called you to be the senior pastor of that church, and the people in your church are built into you and they will hear you in a way they will not hear any of those speakers. Sure, those guys come in and they may preach an effective message, but that’s very different from what you are doing over the course of weeks and months and years to build and serve and lead that church.

Mike Bullmore:

I’m a little reluctant to add to that. I would want to say a few things. Nobody is exempt from what’s been asked. Nobody.

It’s awkward because I don’t consider myself in this elevated way. Obviously, we all have different experiences and opportunities (these are realities). But there are guys I think about in the same way you’ve mentioned. I hear certain preachers and I have this mixed reaction when I listen to them preach. There’s a part of me that says, “I can never preach again. I’m done.” And there’s another part of me that says, “I cannot wait until Sunday.” Because there’s a fire in the preacher’s bones that God has given you and it reaches down to your calling.

And we must take larger biblical realities and apply them here. Psalm 103:14 applies to all of us the same: “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (ESV). That applies to every one of us. So the difference between (you name the guy) and you is minutia on the larger scale. It is God who is at work.

And so your theological conviction about who’s really getting the work done, I think, really sustains you and pulls you up during those times. This is not about my gifts or skills.

Also, I was just thinking about a reference from J.I. Packer’s chapter in Preach the Word. Listen as a past Archbishop of Canterbury expresses his estimation of Charles Simeon (1759–1836).

The quality of his preaching was but a reflection of the quality of the man himself. And there can be little doubt that the man himself was largely made in the early morning hours which he devoted to private prayer and devotional study of the Scriptures. … Such costly self-discipline made the preacher. That was primary. The making of the sermon was secondary and derivative. (p. 152)

What’s being described there is available to every one of us in this same degree.

Jeff Purswell:

We should all be encouraged. That is the most important thing in preaching, is it not? It’s not detailed, exhaustive, knowledge of the original language.

The most important is your engagement with God, which finds expression in his call upon you to care for these people, you delivering God’s Word out of a heart that cares—a heart that loves these people and seeks to serve them out of a responsibility to be their shepherd. All this rests on the only One who can change them, the only One who can illuminate them, the only One who can transform them, the One who promises to do this by his Word. Those are the most important realities in preaching, and they are accomplished by God and not by us.

In the second half of my interview with Mark Dever, he describes a defining moment early in his preaching when he received the caring and insightful critique of a church elder named Bill Behrens. After Mark delivered this particular sermon, the elder kindly noted one absence: the gospel.

But Mark is not alone.

I’m reminded of the correction given to a young preacher named Martyn Lloyd-Jones (then in his 20s). After Lloyd-Jones preached as a visitor in a certain church, one of the town’s local pastors approached him to correct him on his neglect of the cross. Later in life, Lloyd-Jones reflected on this correction and wrote,

I was like Whitefield in my early preaching. First I preached regeneration, that all man’s own efforts in morality and education are useless, and that we need power from outside ourselves. I assumed the atonement but did not distinctly preach it or justification by faith. This man set me thinking and I began to read more fully in theology.

If a preacher like Lloyd-Jones needed this correction, if Mark Dever needed this correction, how much more do all pastors need this correction!

Here’s my personal experience.

Years ago in England I was preaching a series on the life of David, commending his example and comparing him to Solomon. Throughout the series I compared and contrasted David and Solomon and drew from their lives relevant lessons for pastors.

At the end of the seminar, I was approached by a godly older man named Henry Tyler (who himself served under Lloyd-Jones). Although Henry is now with the Lord, my memory of him remains fresh.

Henry approached me after the second of the seminar’s two sessions and—with characteristic care—he provided me with specific encouragement. Of course I was encouraged that this older, more knowledgeable, more experienced pastor would take the time to encourage me.

After having encouraged me, Henry wisely and appropriately transitioned to a concern and critique. With a warm smile on his face, he raised his right hand and pointed heavenward and said to me, “C.J., remember—one greater than Solomon has come!”

In that moment I heard more than Henry Tyler’s voice. I was immediately arrested and affected by this statement. To this day I can remember the very place where I stood momentarily frozen by the correction.

Everything I taught in those sermons was clearly rooted in Scripture. Yet I failed to draw attention to the story line of Scripture. I had not drawn attention to the One greater than David. I failed to preach the gospel.

This brief and insightful critique altered my preaching from that day forward.

Never assume the gospel

We must never assume the gospel. We must always assume that those we serve need to hear the gospel yet again. Any sermon we preach is incomplete and insufficient until we explicitly reference Christ and him crucified.

In the book A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life, J.I Packer writes,

The preachers’ commission is to declare the whole counsel of God; but the cross is the centre of that counsel, and the Puritans knew that the traveller through the Bible landscape misses his way as soon as he loses sight of the hill called Calvary.

Every sermon must have a sighting of the hill called Calvary, because each passage of Scripture points us to the cross. In Christ-Centered Preaching, Bryan Chapell writes,

In its context, every passage possesses one or more of four redemptive foci. Every text is predictive of the work of Christ, preparatory for the work of Christ, reflective of the work of Christ, and/or resultant of the work of Christ.

And because every text of Scripture points us to the cross, every topic should likewise point us to the cross. Thomas Jones says, “No doctrine of Scripture may faithfully be set before men unless it is displayed in its relationship to the cross.”

The message of the cross is central to the commission of the preacher, is to be on display in every sermon, is cultivated from every text of Scripture, and is embedded within every topic and doctrine intended to nourish the church.

Cross-eyed

Whether it’s a pastor’s personal reading of Scripture or the weekly preaching of Scripture, we must never lose sight of Calvary. In every sermon there must be some sighting of Calvary.

My prayer for Sovereign Grace pastors is that they build churches who gather together in anticipation of a Calvary sighting. I pray that even as Scripture is read before the sermon, our churches would await with anticipation that point in the sermon where Calvary will be made visible. And the more apparently obscure the passage, the more excited they would be that from this passage, at some point during the sermon, their spiritual sight will be pointed toward the hill called Calvary.

So never lose sight of Calvary, and never let those you serve lose sight of Calvary. In each sermon let there be a sighting of the hill of Calvary and what was accomplished there by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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Notes:

• Martyn Lloyd-Jones quote is from Iain H. Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd Jones: The First Forty Years (1899–1939) (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1982), p. 191.
• J.I. Packer quote is from A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1990), p. 286.
• Bryan Chapell quote is from Christ Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004), p. 275.
• Thomas Jones quote is also from Christ Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon, p. 271.

Over the years Mark Dever has interviewed a “Who’s Who” list of evangelical leaders. These interviews have served pastors in a unique way. But Mark himself is a wealth of wisdom, and someone needed to ask him the questions. I presented my idea to Mark and volunteered to ask the questions. Initially he was reluctant (as expected), but I involved others and we eventually wore Mark down and he agreed.

These two interviews were a pure joy to record. I think this is evident in the interviews.

Mark and I have been very good friends for more than 10 years. Because of the geographical proximity, we’ve met on a regular basis. What takes place in the interview (both the insightful answers and the humorous moments) are for me what it’s like to have lunch with my friend Mark Dever.

I really tried to ask questions and obtain answers that aren’t present in his writings. I tried to represent pastors who I think want to know specifics about Mark’s personal life, pastoral ministry, preparation for preaching, etc. I sought to give everyone an opportunity to observe him up close and personal. Studying Mark in this way will make all the difference for a pastor in his daily role and responsibility as a pastor.

As expected, there is a wealth of wisdom present in Mark’s answers. I’ve asked him some of these questions before, yet Mark always provides fresh answers drawn from vivid imagery. I find him fascinating to sit across from and interview. Mark seems to be an inexhaustible supply of insight and wit.

And there are numerous humorous moments throughout. I think the laughter and humor are an expression of his humility, and I think they will allow the listener to get to know the man more specifically and personally.

Listening to the CDs of the interviews, I’m freshly reminded how frequently single sentences by Mark are pregnant with wisdom. I think that’s going to be a pastor’s experience in listening to this. At numerous points pastors will want to jot down Mark’s answers and remember them, because I believe his answers are going to make a difference in their lives.

You can listen to the interviews online here:

Part 1: Life and Ministry with Mark Dever (9/1/2007)

Part 2: Building Healthy Churches (2/1/2008)

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