In response to the quotation of William Still, my dear friend Aaron Hoak asked the following series of questions: "Is the pulpit the only place a pastor should be feeding sheep the truth? (Please note the question is not about the primacy of the pulpit ministry.) Can the Word be fed to the sheep in a conversation after church; in a visit to their home; in a counseling meeting? Or are these things worldly claptrap and goat entertaining?" As I began to reply, my response got a little too long. So I decided to post it here. Hope this helps.
The three questions you are asking are all different from one another. As to the last one, in the context of the quote, I don't find Still arguing that visitation or conversation with the sheep are "worldly claptrap." The comparison is at a very different level, viz., ministers who occupy their time with something other than their most basic and all-consuming task, the public ministry of the whole Word of God. Still does not address the question you have raised until later.
Your first two questions, however, present something of a conundrum. Should the pulpit be the only place the sheep are fed is a question of precept; but can the sheep be fed in personal conversation or pastoral visitation is a question of possibility. The two are quite different. Pardon the play on words, but we can't possibly answer the second question because, in itself, it is flawed. As ministers of the Word, and as Christians, we don't deal in the realm of possibilities (your second question), but rather we live and move and have our being in the realm of precept (your first question). The correct question to ask, then, is not "is it possible that some Christians might be fed by private ministrations of the Word," but rather, "What means of nourishment has God ordained, commanded, and promised to bless?" Neither you nor I can know the secret counsel of God; we must be content with what he has revealed (Deut 29:29). Ours is a theology (and pastoral theology) of revelation, not speculation. The question, then, is what has God said -- and more specifically for us, what has God said for us to do. And as we search the Scriptures we find that God has ordained, commanded, and promised to bless the reading, but especially the preaching of His Word unto the salvation (i.e., the feeding) of his sheep. There are a lot of things we don't know, but this much we do know: the sheep are and must be fed by the ministry of God's Word. Anything less is not the ministry.
Now, unless you conclude that I am dodging the intent of your question, let me assure you I am not. The perspective briefly laid out above has far reaching implications, and I can only address them briefly here. I (and Still) would argue that personal conversation and pastoral visitation are only complementary and supplemental to the divinely sanctioned public ministry of the Word, and only insofar as that kind of private word is actually necessary. Don't misunderstand. After church you are standing around and someone asks a question about the sermon. Are you going to ignore them? No, but your answer is going to confirm or amplify the preached Word. Will God bless that private Word? Yes, but as a by-product of the preached Word. Nevertheless, I think the question being asked here is less about that kind of conversation and more about a kind of regular, sustained "private" ministry of the Word [Not your question necessarily, Aaron, but the question as it is generally asked today]. Still (and I think he is quite right) contends that where the Word is properly ministered and faithfully preached the attention the sheep demand outside of the pulpit should naturally decrease. Seemingly needy sheep become faithful (fed or fat?) sheep as they heed the ministry of God's Word, so that the need for any other spiritual food (i.e., counseling) is greatly reduced. He writes, "My pastoral work of personal dealing, considerable though it is, has been greatly reduced through the years because the building up of people's faith, by the ministry of the Word of God, solves so much in their lives" (pp. 20-21). As I read him, he draws that conclusion for several reasons.
First, and most obvious, is the sufficiency of the Word (and the Word preached). The Word itself is living and active (Heb 4:12), and if the minister makes it his all-consuming duty to preach the whole counsel of God (not just tidbits or preferences), then the sheep should have a full diet that meets all their needs. The public ministry of the Word thus demands very little supplement -- and where it does, it is in the context of crisis or great need (e.g., death). Still is writing from a perspective that sadly not many share any longer -- one of a long tenure in the church, for both pastor and parishioner alike. If we are in it for the "long haul," the Lord will sanctify us by his Word over the "long haul." We have been trained to seek the immediate fix or the mountain top experience. And sadly many pastors either think they have the power or want desperately to provide that fix or experience for sheep who are struggling or suffering. But is that right? Is that biblical? No. None are freed from suffering and difficulty in this life -- it is an inescapable reality on account of the overlap of the ages. None are freed from sin entirely in this life -- it, too, is an inescapable reality in the life of the saint. But should that cause despair? Has the meager sheep no recourse or help? No, for our gracious Lord and Savior has ordained the public means of grace to be our steady diet, a diet that if faithfully administered and faithfully received Lord's Day after Lord's Day, is appointed to the end of our full nourishment. God will meet our real needs for solid spiritual food as his Spirit works through his preached Word. Hart and Muether make the same point in With Reverence and Awe concerning the slow but steady diet of the God-ordained public means of grace.
As I've already alluded to, the second reason Still (and I) would give for his conclusion is the sovereingty of the Spirit. The Spirit of Christ knows the sheep (their troubles, trials, etc.) with a perfect knowledge, unlike the minister. Thus, the minister ought to have confidence that the Spirit will apply his own living and active Word to Christ's sheep perfectly and sufficiently (far better, indeed, than you or I ever could) -- and the means appointed to that end is the preaching of the whole Word of God, both the law and the gospel. In this way faith and patience go hand in hand. Do we believe that God's Word is sufficient and God's Spirit is sovereign to save? If so, then we will not busily or frantically try to do the work of either (which, I fear is what we are doing by counseling, et al). Instead, we will fulfill our calling. We will preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all longsuffering (i.e, patience) and teaching (2 Tim 4:2). We will minister God's Word when and where and how we are commanded and trust that the Spirit will accomplish his sovereign purposes of conversion and sanctification when and where and how God has promised, namely, as the Shorter Catechism states by the reading, but especially, the preaching of the Word of God.
The final reason, which I had never considered at great length, is the application of the preached Word in the communion of the saints. Above I quoted Still saying that the ministry of the Word solves so much in peoples lives. He continues, "It enables those who receive it and seek to live by it to understand and solve so much in other lives, that instead of becoming a liability on my time and energy, they become pastors themselves. Indeed, one of the features of such a radical and total ministry of the Word is that it thrusts so many into spiritual and social work that I can hardly keep a congregation together on account of their scattering throughout the land, and indeed, the earth" (p. 21). Now, I do not agree that the sheep become pastors -- there is a distinction to be made. But Still has a point. He suggests here that the ministry of the Word bears fruit nationally and globally. My point, and he makes it elsewhere in the book, is that the ministry of the Word ought to bear fruit ecclesiastically, i.e., in the church and for the sake of the church. While too much has been made of this in recent years by creating a whole theology of "one-anothering," there is a point to be made concerning Christ's people loving and caring for each another. As some sheep grow and mature through the means of grace, they are able to help other sheep at a more personal level. One sheep loves another, confronts another, prays for another, and the like. Now, we will miss the point entirely if we try to formalize this, or create a program for it. No, this is an informal reality in the church, which arises as a Spirit-born by-product of the full-orbed ministry of God's sufficient Word. So that just as the minister confirms privately and personally what he has declared in the ministry of the Word, so also Christ's sheep confirm the Word with and for each other.
While I have probably raised more questions than provided answers, my basic answer turns us again to what belongs not only at the center of the pastoral ministry, but what is the sum and substance of the pastoral ministry, viz., the public ministry of God's Word. Anything else we do as ministers only serves to confirm (or grow out of, or revolve around) that, and it must be our prayer that Christ by his Spirit does what only he can do in and for our churches, viz., powerfully and effectually apply the Word to each and every one of His beloved sheep.
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