Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from William Perkins on Pastoral Theology, published by Resource in 2023, used with permission from the author.
Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” He conveys that Timothy and, by inference, all pastors, are to rightly handle the Word of God. The word “rightly handling” is the Greek participle in the present tense: orthotomeō. The word means to “guide along a straight path” or “teach accurately.” Paul wanted Timothy to “do his best” to teach accurately the Word of truth. This means Timothy was to be a man who spent much time in preparation for his preaching to the people of God in Christ. Perkins, taking his cues from Paul, had much to say about what it meant to “do your best” in sermon preparation and preaching. He writes about sermon preparation, “Preparation has two parts: interpretation, and right division.” [1]
Perkins expounds on the study of Scripture in sermon preparation for the preacher in his book The Art of Prophesying. He writes:
“Hitherto has been spoken of the object of preaching. The parts thereof are two: (1) the preparation of the sermon; and (2) the promulgation (or uttering) of it… In preparation, private study is with diligence to be used….Concerning the study of divinity, take this advice. First, diligently imprint both in your mind and memory the substance of divinity described with definitions, divisions, and explications of the properties. Second, proceed to the reading of the Scriptures in this order: Using a grammatical, rhetorical, and logical analysis, and the help of the rest of the arts, read first the epistle of Paul to the Romans, after that, the Gospel of John. And then the other books of the New Testament will be easier when they are read. When all this is done, learn first the dogmatical books of the Old Testament, especially the Psalms; then the prophetical, especially Isaiah; lastly the historical, but chiefly Genesis. For it is likely the apostles and evangelists read Isaiah and the Psalms very much…Third, we must get aid out of orthodox writings, not only from the latter but also from the more ancient church…Fourth, those things, which in studying you meet with, that are necessary and worthy to be observed, you must put in your tables or common-place books, that you may always have in a readiness both old and new. Fifth, before all these things God must earnestly be sued unto by prayer, that He would bless these means, and that He would open the meaning of the Scriptures to us who are blind.” [2]
Perkins wanted the pastors he was training to study the Scriptures rightly and receive the aid of the orthodox men before them. He emphasizes the need for pastors to be men dependent on God in prayer for His grace to grant them an understanding of these things for His glory. Notice the detail in the above quotation of what the pastor was to do in the examination of certain books and their divisions. Perkins highlighted three things to employ in the study of the Word of God:
“First, we must observe the true sense and meaning of that which we hear or read. Second, we must mark what experience we had of the truth of the Word in our own persons, as in the exercises of repentance and invocation of God’s name, and in all our temptations. Third, we must consider how far forth we have been answerable to God’s Word in obedience, and wherein we have been defective by transgressions.”[3]
He called the student of the Word not only to rightly understand the passage but also to apply it personally. It was never enough proper study to understand the truth intellectually. The truth, according to Perkins, had to touch every aspect of human existence and being.
Having prepared and studied, the pastor was to deliver the message in the grace and strength of the Holy Spirit. Perkins was not in favor of using a manuscript for the sermon itself once the study was finished and the time had come for the delivery of the sermon. He writes:
“Their study has many discommodities, who do con their written sermons word for word. (1) It asks great labor. (2) He who through fear does stumble at one word, does both trouble the congregation and confound his memory. (3) Pronunciation, action, and the holy motions of affections are hindered, because the mind is wholly bent on this, to wit, that the memory fainting now under her burden may not fail.” [4]
What had been studied and examined was to be attended to by the people of God.
The responsibility of the people to listen
In his work Three Books on Case of Conscience, Perkins outlined in Book 2, chapter 7, the necessity of the church to listen actively to biblical preaching. He writes in the opening of the chapter a question and answer to put forth his thesis:
“How may any man profitably, to his own comfort and salvation, hear the Word of God? The necessity of this question appears by that special caveat, given by our Savior Christ: ‘Take heed how ye hear’ (Luke 8:18). Answer. To the profitable hearing of God’s Word, three things are required: (1) preparation before we hear; (2) a right disposition in hearing; and (3) duties to be practiced afterward.” [5]
The people of God were also responsible for hearing the prepared and prayed-for sermon from the minister. They were to make sure they were in a posture to receive and heed the fruit of the labor of the pastor’s study. They were to prepare to hear God’s Word, ensure they had the right heart posture to hear God’s Word, and were to be diligent in practicing what they learned.
He describes several conditions of those who attend the sermon. He writes, “Unbelievers who are both ignorant and unteachable…Some are teachable but ignorant… Some have knowledge, but are not yet humbled….Some are humbled…Some do believe…Some are fallen…There is a mingled people.”[6] Perkins desired to address each one. For the hardened, that they would hear the Law; for the afflicted, that the Gospel balm would be applied to them.[7] He was concerned for the England of his time and its lack of diligent adherence to the preached Word. He writes in An Exhortation to Repentance:
“First, the gospel has been preached these thirty-five years, and is daily more and more, so that the light thereof never shone more gloriously since the primitive church. Yet, for all this, there is a general ignorance, general of all people, general of all points, yea, as though there were no preaching at all. Yea, when popery was newly banished, there was more knowledge in many than is now in the body of our nation. And the more it is preached, the more ignorant are many, the more blind, and the more hardened. So they, the more they hear the gospel, the less they esteem it and the more they condemn it. And the more God calls, the deafer they are. And the more they are commanded, the more they disobey. We preachers may cry till our lungs fly out or be spent within us, and men are moved no more than stones. Oh alas, what is this, or what can this be, but a fearful sign of destruction? Will any man endure always to be mocked? Then how long has God been mocked? Will any man endure to stand knocking continually? If then God has stood knocking at our hearts thirty-five years, is it not now time to be gone unless we openly presently?” [8]
Perkins decried much of the response of his time and the ignorance that still existed, in his time, of the Scriptures and doctrinal truth. He decried the hardness and rejection of the truth by many. Perkins had a high view of the Word of God and its place in all people’s lives. He writes:
“And so every child of God (high or low) ought daily and continually to meditate in the Word of God. But, alas, this duty is little known and less practiced. Men are so far from meditating in God’s Word that they are ignorant of it. Among many families you shall scarcely find the book of God, and such as have it (for the most part) do little use it. The statutes of the land are by very many searched out diligently, but in the meantime the statutes of the Lord are little regarded.” [9]
His pastoral heart bleeds through these statements, which also inform his view of how a pastor would be treated if he faithfully preached the Word of God.
Perkins writes about what pastors can expect as they preach the Word: “Ministers of the Word must learn hence not to be troubled if they be hated and persecuted of men. For this befell the holy prophets of God, and that in the city of Jerusalem.”[10] He understood well that faithful preaching would lead to slander and opposition from many quarters of the world. His statement flows from the reality of our Lord Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:11-12: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Perkins understood that the preacher had an opportunity to live out this admonition of Christ and be slandered and persecuted as the prophets of old were for preaching the Word of God. We see Perkins’ thought further expressed by later Puritans like John Bunyan, who, in his catechism, writes:
“‘When do I sin against preaching the Word?’ ‘When you refuse to hear God’s ministers, or hearing them, refuse to follow their wholesome doctrine.’ ‘When else do I sin against preaching of the Word?’ ‘When you mock, or despise, or reproach the ministers; also when you raise lies and scandals of them, or receive such lies or scandals raised; you then also sin against the preaching of the Word, when you persecute them that preach it, or are secretly glad to see them so used.’” [11]
Bunyan saw refusing to hear preaching, and mocking the minister as a grievous sin against God, yet acknowledged its reality, as did Perkins. Yet as the pastor endured in preaching the Word of God, it was, once again, a blessed calling to be used as an instrument of God for the salvation of sinners in Christ. He believed that preaching brought men to Christ, subject to the Word of God. He knew the Christian life under the Word preached would be a life of growth in knowledge and sanctification. He writes in his work A Grain of Mustard Seed, “He who has begun to subject himself to Christ and His Word, though as yet he is ignorant in most parts of religion, yet if he has a care to increase in knowledge and to practice that which he knows, he is accepted of God as a true believer.”[12] The pastor was to preach to cultivate such an increase in knowledge and obedience. For Perkins, there was no more sacred duty or higher calling than the preaching of the Word of God to God’s people each Lord’s Day for the glory of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17). This faith that God brings forth is the result of His blessing of the faithful exposition of the Word of God: To present Christ to the consciences of sinners in need of forgiveness and grace. To convey the Law to hearts hardened in sin. To teach the people of God the implications of faith in the Gospel for their putting off of sin (Ephesians 4:20-24).
Perkins rightly saw the pastoral preaching of the Word of God to a congregation as a sacred calling and a glorious task. Therefore, we must ask ourselves a few questions: Do we share in his high view of preaching as being the means God uses to draw His people, grow His people, and drive out the wolf? Are we willing to labor to such an end and to be poured out to see the people of God come forth, grow, and the false teacher driven away? Do we hold preaching with such a view, and can our actions substantiate our claims? By God’s grace, may we answer and live out a “yes” to all the questions posed.
[1]Perkins, William. The Art of Prophesying. Vol. 10 of The Works of William Perkins. Edited by Joseph A. Pipa and J. Stephen Yuille. General Editors Joel R. Beeke and Derek W.H. Thomas. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformation Heritage Books. 2020, 303.
[2]Perkins, William. The Art of Prophesying. Vol. 10 of The Works of William Perkins. Edited by Joseph A. Pipa and J. Stephen Yuille. General Editors Joel R. Beeke and Derek W.H. Thomas. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformation Heritage Books. 2020, 301-302.
[3]Perkins, William. Man’s Imagination. Vol. 9 of The Works of William Perkins. Edited by J. Stephen Yuille. General Editors Joel R. Beeke and Derek W.H. Thomas. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformation Heritage Books. 2020, 245.
[4]Perkins, William. The Art of Prophesying. Vol. 10 of The Works of William Perkins. Edited by Joseph A. Pipa and J. Stephen Yuille. General Editors Joel R. Beeke and Derek W.H. Thomas. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformation Heritage Books. 2020, 348.
[5]Perkins, William. Three Books on Conscience. Vol. 8 of The Works of William Perkins. Edited by J. Stephen Yuille. General Editors Joel R. Beeke and Derek W.H. Thomas. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformation Heritage Books. 2019, 271.
[6]Perkins, William. The Art of Prophesying. Vol. 10 of The Works of William Perkins. Edited by Joseph A. Pipa and J. Stephen Yuille. General Editors Joel R. Beeke and Derek W.H. Thomas. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformation Heritage Books. 2020, 335-342.
[7]Summarized from Perkins’ teaching on application of truth in sermon found in: Perkins, William. The Art of Prophesying. Vol. 10 of The Works of William Perkins. Edited by Joseph A. Pipa and J. Stephen Yuille. General Editors Joel R. Beeke and Derek W.H. Thomas. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformation Heritage Books. 2020, 343.
[8]Perkins, William. An Exhortation to Repentance. Vol. 9 of The Works of William Perkins. Edited by J. Stephen Yuille. General Editors Joel R. Beeke and Derek W.H. Thomas. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformation Heritage Books. 2020, 114-115.
[9]Perkins, William. Man’s Imagination. Vol. 9 of The Works of William Perkins. Edited by J. Stephen Yuille. General Editors Joel R. Beeke and Derek W.H. Thomas. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformation Heritage Books. 2020, 245.
[10]Perkins, William. A Treatise on God’s Free Grace and Man’s Free Will. Vol. 6 of The Works of William Perkins. Edited by Joel R. Beeke and Greg A. Salazar. General Editors Joel R. Beeke and Derek W.H. Thomas. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformation Heritage Books. 2018, 156.
[11]Bunyan, John. Instruction for the Ignorant. The Works of John Bunyan. Volume 2. Banner of Truth. Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 2021, 679.
[12]Perkins, William. A Grain of Mustard Seed. Vol. 8 of The Works of William Perkins. Edited by J. Stephen Yuille. General Editors Joel R. Beeke and Derek W.H. Thomas. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformation Heritage Books. 2019, 653.
Justin is a husband, father, pastor, and, most importantly, a follower of the Lord Jesus. He holds a doctor of ministry from Whitefield Theological Seminary in Lakeland, FL, a master of theology from Union School of Theology in Bridgend, Wales (The Open University), a master of divinity from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, and a master of accounting from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He is Principal of Expositors Institute and is privileged to serve on the board of directors of Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. Justin is passionate about seeing men trained and equipped in the local church for ministry unto the glory of the Triune God. He is Director of Savoring the Savior Books and is the author of several books, including: The Not So Loving Side of Gentle Parenting (2025), William Perkins on Pastoral Theology (2023), What is Faith? (2022), Unity with Rome? (2022), John Owen on Pastoral Preaching (2021), and Stop Worrying He Reigns (2018).
