HeadTheology

I’ve picked up The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter again partially because I finished another Puritan Paperback (if you don’t know what I am talking about check them out here) and because I am going to start leading a Community Group at my church this fall. I am about a third through it and all I can say is Baxter provides such a warmth and warning to those who would dare lead in the church at all. The warmth comes from a God centeredness, in statements like,

“As you may render him more service, so you may do him more disservice than others. The nearer men stand to God, the greater dishonor hath he by their miscarriages; and more will they be imputed by foolish men to God himself.” (78)

and the warning to live holy lives because people are watching all the more,

“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.” (63)

I hope in the future to post my favorite quotes from The Reformed Pastor as I did from the The Mortification of Sin.