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.
Reading Perkins’ description of the office of pastor and its high calling, one can easily ask, “Who is capable of such a thing?” Perkins believed men entering ministry must be prepared for such a high calling. Part of Perkins’ answer to such a query would have been that a pastor must be set apart and trained. Perkins believed in a thoroughly educated clergy. In his commentary on Galatians, he outlined in detail the importance of a properly taught clergy, which was a problem that he noted for those who proceeded generations after the apostles. He writes, “For teachers themselves must first learn, and then teach.”[1] He noted that teachers of the Word must first have been taught the Word themselves. He emphasized that there were no shortcuts to proper ministry. Diligent preparation was required and vital to the faithfulness of a pastor. The language of feeling called and sent immediately to preach would have been abominable to Perkins and all the Puritans. Perkins writes:
“If every true minister must be God’s interpreter to the people, and the people’s to God, then hence we learn that everyone, who either is or intends to be a minister, must have that tongue of the learned which is spoken of in Isaiah 50:4. Here the prophet says (first, in the name of Christ, as He is the great Prophet and Teacher of His church, and, second, in the name of himself and all true prophets while the world endures), ‘The Lord God hath given me a tongue of the learned, that I should know to speak a word in season to him that is weary.’”[2]
For Perkins, an uneducated clergy would be a great harm to the Church, as she would be unable to discern the deceitful teachings and false ideologies of man (Ephesians 4:14). He understood the importance of pastors knowing their Bibles, their faith, their historical theology, and the heresies that had threatened the Church for ages. The pastor was no less than an ambassador of Christ to the people of Christ. He advocated for a model of ministry that trained pastors in a rigorous academic setting combined with accountability that promoted true piety and holiness of heart and life among the clergymen. He would have been disheartened by much of modern pastors’ lack of training in the faith and Church history as well as the antinomianism of our time.
Perkins’ thought on the minister as an ambassador of God was embraced and perpetuated in later generations, even up to the time of Lloyd-Jones in the twentieth century. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in his book Preaching and Preachers, states this about true pastoral preaching rooted in the truth of 2 Timothy 2:15:
“Any true definition of preaching must say that man is there to deliver the message of God, a message from God to those people. If you prefer the language of Paul, he is ‘an ambassador for Christ’. That is what he is. He has been sent, he is a commissioned person, and he is standing there as the mouthpieces of God and of Christ to address these people…Preaching, in other words, is a transaction between the preacher and the listener. It does something for the soul of man, for the whole of the person, the entire man; it deals with him in a vital and radical manner.” [3]
Lloyd Jones here captures what Perkins describes in his writings as the pastor being the “angel,” the “messenger” of Christ to His people. He is not a messenger as one who receives direct revelation. He is expounding the once-and-for-all delivered message to Christ’s people and applying it to their consciences. The pastor’s preaching is to call forth from the people of God obedience to Christ in their wills and a delighting of Christ from their affections.
Pastors must know the flock they are charged to care for
Perkins believed pastors had to know their people’s life situations and needs. He must minister to those people where they are in their life, family, work, and daily trials. A pastor, according to Perkins, must know his people. He writes:
“First, to teach that it is the minister’s duty to confess, not only his own sins, but the sins of his people, and to complain of them to God. For as he is the people’s interpreter to God, he must not think it enough to put up their petitions, to unfold their wants, and to crave relief for them at God’s hand, but he must further take knowledge of the sins of his people, and make both public and private confession of them to God…And if the minister ought to know his people’s sins, then it follows, first, that it is best for a minister to be present with his people, so that he may better know them and their state.” [4]
Perkins would have rejected any model of ministry where the pastor was more of a CEO or manager of a force of volunteers to accomplish given tasks and goals. He would not have understood this idea of a pastor not knowing his people’s names and life scenarios and would have resisted large settings as entertainment centers at the worst and preaching points at the best. He, like most Puritans, believed that pastors must know their people. John Owen, influenced by Perkins’ thought here, would later write in his book True Nature of a Gospel Church:
“A prudent and diligent consideration of the state of the flock over which any man is set, as unto their strength or weaknesses, their growth or defect in knowledge (the measure of their attainments requiring either milk or strong meat), their temptations and duties, their spiritual decays or thrivings; and that not only in general, but, as near as may be, with respect unto all the individual members of the church. Without a due regard unto these things, men preach at random, uncertainly fighting, like those that beat the air. Preaching sermons not designed for the advantage of them to whom they are preached; insisting on general doctrines not levelled to the condition of the auditory; speaking what men can, without consideration of what they ought, – are things that will make men weary of preaching, when their minds are not influenced with outward advantages, as much as make others weary in hearing them.” [5]
Owen understood that the undershepherding oversight of the flock had significant ramifications for the flock’s well-being and growth, which is why the pastor must know his people. Owen lived what he wrote, as he spent his later years caring for a smaller flock. After his university career, Owen focused his time and passion on pastoring Leadenhall Chapel in London, which he pastored faithfully until he died in 1683, a few years before the Act of Toleration of 1689 went into effect. We see Owen’s heart for his own people in a letter that he wrote to them in 1680. He addressed them as “Beloved in the Lord” and then penned the following second part to his opening:
“But although I am absent from you in body, I am in mind, affection and spirit present with you, and in your assemblies; for I hope you will be found my crown and rejoicing in the day of the Lord: and my prayer for you night and day is, that you may stand fast in the whole will of God, and maintain the beginning of your confidence without wavering, firm unto the end. I know it is needless for me at this distance to write to you about what concerns you in point of duty at this season, that work being well supplied by my brother in the ministry; yet give me leave, out of my abundant affections towards you, to bring some few things to your remembrance as my weakness will permit.”[6]
He ended the letter and signed it in the following way: “Your unworthy pastor and your servant for Jesus’ sake. J. Owen.”[7] John Owen, on this issue of pastors knowing their flocks assigned by the Lord Jesus, the Chief Shepherd to whom they belong, was clear in practice and admonition. He writes:
“Let the ministers engage themselves in a special manner to watch over his flock, everyone according to his abilities, both in teaching, exhorting, and ruling, so often as occasion shall be administered, for things that contain ecclesiastical rule and church order; acting jointly and as in a classical combination, and putting forth all authority that such cases are intrusted with.” [8]
Owen saw the pastors as those who must watch over a particular flock of Christ under Christ’s rule. Perkins had stressed such an idea years before. This was revolutionary in contrast to the Roman view of clergy, who were disconnected from the people. Perkins understood that a pastor must know his flock and take the once-and-for-all delivered canon of Scripture to their consciences and present it to the eyes of their hearts. He believed that a pastors’ highest desire for the local flock of God should be to see the members of that local church be a people who strive diligently for godliness. He saw it worth the sacrifice. He writes:
“And here such ministers as have poor livings but good people, let them not faint nor be discouraged. They have more cause to bless God than to be grieved, for doubtless they are far better than those who have great livings and an evil people.” [9]
According to Perkins, a pastor must consider it a blessing to be among “good” people and not be discouraged, for that was far better than being among an ungodly group and well-paid. A flock, though small, that was godly was a crown on the head of a faithful pastor, according to Perkins. Perkins’ statements here echo the focus of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:14-15 when he writes:
“Here for the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?”
A faithful pastor was to desire to see the flock of the Lord Jesus flourish in godliness and holiness. According to Perkins, the pastor himself was to model such behavior. Perkins writes: “Furthermore, inasmuch as ministers are interpreters, they must labor for sanctity and holiness of life.”[10] It was not okay for a pastor to preach something and then habitually live in contradiction. Such a life would harm the pastor’s ministry and undermine the message’s validity. Holiness of life was non-negotiable for Perkins. He would have urged pastors to kill heart lusts. Lewis Allen, in his helpful book for pastors written in the time of this dissertation entitled The Preacher’s Catechism, stated, concerning the heart-lusts of the pastor which drives the pastors’ fears:
“But there is a clean-hands and pure-bodies adultery that no one sees and is seldom confessed or even recognized. And that is the preacher’s heart-lust for Something Else. Something Else? It’s that congregation, that situation, that success, that appreciation (and maybe that wage) which we don’t currently have. Whether Something Else is a real person or place, or just an imagined one, a preacher’s temptation is to take his heart’s love from what God has given him and to set it on what he believes he is entitled to. We never meant to do it. But it’s happened to us, and we feel helpless. Maybe we’re willing captives of our feelings. We nurture them, and we reason that, because we have them, they must be right – and that we really must be that good at preaching to know we’re entitled to Something Else. Adultery isn’t the main sin, though: doubting God’s goodness is.” [11]
Allen captures much of what tempts pastors today. Ambition, success, etc. Allen trumpets here what Perkins did hundreds of years earlier. For Perkins, the pastor’s ambition should be holiness and faithfulness to Christ. His exhortation, by inference, to us today would be a call for pastors to be holy as the Lord is holy. To pursue holiness as an example. To kill heart-lusts. To desire Christ above all. According to his writings, this is what was behind Perkins’ life and ministry.
[1]Perkins, William. Commentary on Galatians. Vol. 2 of The Works of William Perkins. Edited by Paul M. Smalley. General Editors Joel R. Beeke and Derek W.H. Thomas. Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformation Heritage Books. 2015, 45.
[2]Perkins, William. Calling of the Ministry. 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, 208.
[3]Lloyd-Jones, Martyn. Preaching and Preachers. (London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1971), 53.
[4]Perkins, William. Calling of the Ministry. 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, 244-245.
[5]Owen, John. True Nature of a Gospel Church. Vol. 16. of The Works of John Owen. (ed. William H. Goold. London: The Banner of Truth Trust. 1981), 76-77.
[6] Barrett, Matthew. Michael A. G. Haykin. Owen on the Christian Life: Living for the Glory of God in Christ. Wheaton, IL: Crossway. 2015, 267.
[7] Ibid., 267.
[8]Owen, John. A Country Essay: For the Practice of Church Government. Vol. 8. of The Works of John Owen. (ed. William H. Goold. London: The Banner of Truth Trust. 1982), 51.
[9]Perkins, William. Calling of the Ministry. 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, 248.
[10]Ibid, 209.
[11]Allen, Lewis. The Preacher’s Catechism. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway. 2018, 146.
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).
