John Piper writes, "Hebrews 11 is a divine mandate to read Christian biography. The unmistakable implication of the chapter is that, if we hear about the faith of our forefathers (and mothers), we will "lay aside every weight and sin" and "run with perseverance the race that is set before us" (12:1). If we asked the author, "How shall we stir one another up to love and good works?" (10:24), his answer would be: "Through encouragement from the living (10:25) and the dead" (chap. 11). Christian biography is the means by which "body life" cuts across the generations.
This fellowship of the living and the dead is especially crucial for pastors. As leaders in the church we are supposed to have vision for the future. We are supposed to declare prophetically where our church should be going. We are supposed to inspire people with great possibilities.
Not that God can't give vision and direction and inspiration. But he also uses human agents to stir up his people.So the question for us pastors is: Through what human agents does God give us vision and direction and inspiration? For me,one of the most important answers has been great men and women of faith who, though dead, are yet speaking.
Christian biography, well chosen, combines all sorts of things pastors need but have so little time to pursue. Good biography is history and guards us against chronological snobbery (as C. S. Lewis calls it). It is also theology—the most powerful kind—because it burst forth from the lives of people like us. It is also adventure and suspense, for which we have a natural hunger. It is psychology and personal experience, which deepen our understanding of human nature (especially ourselves). Good biographies of great Christians make for remarkably efficient reading.
Since biography is its own best witness, let me tell a little of my own biographical encounter with biographies. Biographies have served as much as any other human force in my life to overcome the inertia of mediocrity. Without them I tend to forget what joy there is in relentless labor and aspiration. I have devoted more time to the life of Jonathan Edwards (good biography of O. Winslow) than to any other non-biblical person. Before he was 20 years old Edwards wrote 70 resolutions which for years have fired my work. Number 6 was: "To live with all my might, while I do live." Number 11: "When I think of any theorem in divinity to be solved, immediately to do what I can towards solving it, if circumstances do not hinder." Number 28: "To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same."
When I came to be pastor of Bethlehem I began to hunger for biographies to charge my pastoral batteries and give me guidance and encouragement. Since I believe very much in the pastor-theologian, I recalled not only Edwards but, of course, John Calvin (T. H. L. Parker has a small Portrait and a major biography).
How Calvin could work! After 1549 his special charge in Geneva was to preach twice on Sunday and once every day of alternate weeks. On Sunday, August 25, 1549, Calvin began to preach on Acts and continued weekly in that book until March 1554. On weekdays during this time, he preached through eight of the minor prophets as well as Daniel, Lamentations, and Ezekiel. But what amazes me is that between 1550 and 1559 he took 270 weddings.That's one every other week! He also baptized (about once a month), visited the sick, carried on extensive correspondence and sustained heavy organizational responsibilities.
When I look at Calvin and Edwards and their output, it is hard for me to feel self-pity at my few burdens. They inspire me to break out of mediocre plodding.
T. H. L. Parker (who, by the way, has spent most of his 40 years' ministry in country parishes) published a short study of Karl Barth in 1970 which I devoured in my middler year in seminary. It had a tremendous impact on me because of two simple sentences. One was:"That evening Barth began [writing] a pamphlet which he finished the next day, a Sunday [13,000 words in a day!]." I responded, "If neo-orthodoxy merits such phenomenal labor, how much more orthodoxy!"
The other sentence was, "Barth retired from his chair in Basel in March 1962 and so lost the stimulus provided by the need to give lectures." I wrote in the flap of the book, "Has greatness emerged from anything but pressure? If greatness is to be the servant of all, must we not be under authority, under demand, pushed, pressed?"
Recently I have been greatly encouraged in my own pastoral work by Warren Wiersbe's Walking with the Giants and Listening to the Giants. The main reason these mini-biographies have been helpful is seeing the sheer diversity of pastoral styles God has chosen to bless. There have been great and fruitful pastors whose preaching patterns, visitation habits, and personalities were so different that all of us may take courage."
For full article click here http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByDate/1995/1562_Brothers_Read_Christian_Biography/
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