Why Protestant Pastors Should Read a Catholic Pope on Pastoral Ministry

5 days ago 14

When I teach my pastoral ministry class, I assign Pastoral Care, by Gregory the Great. The first time I taught the class, one of the students said, “Dr. Van Neste, this guy sounds like a Catholic.” Yes, indeed. Not only was he a Catholic—he was a pope!

Why would I, a Protestant, have my students read a pope on pastoral ministry? I am not one to bemoan the Reformation, but I hope to be one who is willing to listen and learn wherever I can. And our forebears thought this little book a valuable source for wisdom.

The influence of Gregory’s Pastoral Care
The weightiness of pastoral ministry
The need to teach Scripture
The importance of a pastor’s character
The ministry to particular people
A book worth reading!

The influence of Gregory’s Pastoral Care

Gregory’s Pastoral Care, or more literally Book of Pastoral Rule (Liber Regulae Pastoralis), was the single most influential book on pastoral ministry for at least the first millennium and a half of church history. Gregory published it as an explanation of why he had avoided the call to serve as bishop of Rome, a position he assumed in AD 590. The book became popular in Gregory’s lifetime, being disseminated across Europe (including mission settings like Ireland) and into the Eastern area of the Roman Empire. In 813, study of this book was made obligatory for all bishops within the realm of Charlemagne, and King Alfred the Great (c. 849–899) called for every bishop in England to be provided a copy. Even when we come to the Reformation, John Calvin called Gregory the last good pope, and Gregory is the second most-cited patristic source in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Yes, there are point of doctrine were we’d differ with Gregory. Still, there is a reason this book was so influential for such a long period of time.

What does Gregory teach about pastoral ministry that makes it worth reading today?

1. The weightiness of pastoral ministry

Gregory stresses the gravity of the pastoral role. His stated reason for writing is to explain why he was so hesitant to take on this task: “Now, lest these burdens might appear light to some, I am explaining, by writing this book, how onerous I regard them.”

Why is the task of leading God’s church so onerous, and why would someone like Gregory shrink from taking this office? For one thing, Gregory recognized his own sinfulness and the potential for harm as a leader: “For no one does more harm in the Church than he who, having the title or rank of holiness, acts evilly.” Gregory also points out Jesus’s warning about leading God’s people astray:

Yet everyone who is unworthy would flee from the burden of such great guilt if with the attentive ear of the heart he pondered on that saying: He that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believes in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.

It seems the awesome responsibility of the pastoral role which gripped Gregory is missed by many today when people glibly take it on. A bit of trembling is valuable and pushes us to recognize our need for training, help, accountability, and our sheer inability apart from God’s grace. Gregory says it well:

No one ventured to teach any art unless he has learned it after deep thought. With what rashness, then, would the pastoral office be undertaken by the unfit, seeing that the government of souls is the art of arts! For who does not realize that the wounds of the mind are more hidden than the internal wounds of the body? Yet, although those who have no knowledge of the powers of drugs shrink from giving themselves out as physicians of the flesh, people who are utterly ignorant of spiritual precepts are often not afraid of professing themselves to be physicians of the heart, and though, by divine ordinance, those now in the highest positions are disposed to show a regard for religion, some there are who aspire to glory and esteem by an outward show of authority within the holy Church.

2. The need to teach Scripture

Gregory stresses the importance of teaching Scripture and powerfully exemplifies this in his own mastery of the text. Gregory says that since “the care of feeding is a testimony of love,” then one who fails to teach “the flock of God is convicted of having no love for the Supreme Shepherd.” He calls for deep investment in studying the Bible: “Now, all this is duly fulfilled by the ruler [pastor] if … he meditates diligently and every day on the precepts of the Sacred Word.”

Today it seems like many people assume knowledge of the Scripture but stress various other things like leadership skills, marketing, branding, optics, etc. Aspiring pastors need first to immerse themselves deeply in the Scriptures so they can begin to shape their thinking, feeling, hoping, and acting accordingly.

Gregory brings this out most powerfully by way of his own example. One student wrote, “This book should challenge pastors to learn Scripture well enough that it flows out in every conversation.” Gregory quotes and alludes to Scripture with ease (about 400 references on one count), including texts which we would consider obscure. And he had to have most of these memorized by heart since he had no search engines and far less access even to written helps than we do today. Reading Gregory humbles me in this area.

3. The importance of a pastor’s character

Gregory speaks powerfully in various ways to the importance of a pastor’s character:

The ruler should be exemplary in his conduct, that by his manner of life he may show the way of life to his subjects, and that the flock, following the teaching and conduct of its shepherd, may proceed the better through example rather than words.

A pastor’s life should support his teaching: “His voice penetrates the hearts of his hearers the more readily, if his way of life commends what he says.” What he teaches in words, he will help them to do by his example.

Pride is in many ways the central sin and too often today thrives among those in ministry leadership. Gregory is a helpful guide counseling us that “consideration of our own weakness should abase every work accomplished, lest proud conceit empty it of its worth in the eyes of the hidden Judge.” In fact, Gregory says one is not fit for leadership until he has learned humility at some level: “[A] man is quite incapable of learning humility in a position of superiority, if he did not refrain from acting proudly when he was in a position of subjection. He does not know how to flee from praise when it abounds, if he yearned for it when it was absent.” How readily that yearning for applause springs forth in our souls!

Part of preparing for ministry must be killing that yearning for the praise of man (John 5:44). When you have people regularly gathering to listen to you, you can easily succumb to arrogance—to your own ruin and the ruin of the congregation. Instead, Gregory warns, “Hence let them hear what Scripture says: If any man speak, let him speak as the word of God. Why, then, do men who utter words not their own, swell with pride, as if the words were their own?” Also, “They, therefore, who do not speak the words of God with humility, are certainly to be admonished, when applying remedies to the sick, to look to the poison of their own infection; otherwise, while seeking to heal others, they themselves will die.”

In fact, Gregory labels a pastor the enemy of God if he is more interested in securing the affections of the congregation for himself than pointing people to God: “For that man is an enemy to his Redeemer who on the strength of the good works he performs, desires to be loved by the Church, rather than by Him. Indeed, a servant is guilty of adulterous thought, if he craves to please the eyes of the bride when the bridegroom sends gifts to her by him.” Surely, Gregory is correct, and much trouble has been caused by unfaithful groomsmen who have seduced the Bride to themselves rather than to the heavenly Bridegroom (see 2 Cor 11:1–2).

Gregory also urges boldness laced with humility. He warns us that desire for the approval of man can cause us to “fear to speak freely of what is right” and thus fail to “exercise the zeal of shepherds caring for the flock,” causing us to become mercenaries rather than shepherds. While we love our people, we are to seek God’s approval, no one else’s: “it is also necessary that a ruler should be studiously vigilant that he be not actuated by the desire of pleasing men; that he does not seek to be loved by his subjects more than he seeks truth.”

4. The ministry to particular people

Lastly, and most significantly, Gregory makes it abundantly clear that pastoral ministry is about knowing people.

In the edition I have, Gregory’s text covers about 220 pages, and almost 150 of those pages are devoted to the importance of understanding people. He describes about forty different types of personalities and how to approach each one in the best way so as to apply the Scripture most beneficially to each one. Gregory displays significant insight into human personality: the result of prolonged care and attention to individuals.

In an age more attentive to programs and systems, to production and assimilation of crowds, this is an important message. Pastoral ministry requires attention to individual people. It is certainly easier to stay at fifty thousand feet when speaking biblical truths, and in this way you can become an accomplished speaker. But you cannot become a pastor without getting your hands dirty in the daily lives of individual people.

This sort of attention to individuals and their varied experiences fits well into Paul’s concern in Colossians 1:28 to warn “every person” and teach “every person” so that he might present “every person” complete in Christ on the final day. This sort of pastoral ministry—not simply skill in public speaking—is what we need today.

Pastoral ministry requires attention to individual people. You cannot become a pastor without getting your hands dirty in the daily lives of individual people.

Too often today, communication to the masses without attention to the individuals is considered sufficient in pastoral ministry. Gregory’s attentiveness to individuals can be a helpful corrective: “Wherefore, the discourse of a teacher should be adapted to the character of the hearers, so as to be suited to the individual in his respective needs, and yet never deviate from the art of general edification.”

Gregory’s careful and rich reflection on challenges and cures in each situation is a wonderful place to begin learning pastoral care. This care will then shape how pastors present themselves to their people. Pastors should communicate tenderness and openness so that their people “are unafraid to reveal their hidden secrets to them.” He does not mean the people will think their sins will be excused, but that they will be graciously healed, as a patient expects to be healed by a good doctor.

Pastors need to exercise their proper authority (Gregory often refers to them as “rulers”), but “they should find their joy not in ruling over men, but in helping them.” If we truly desire to help people, then we will realize as Gregory says, “Doctrine taught does not penetrate the minds of the needy, if a compassionate heart does not commend it to the hearts of hearers; but the seed of the word does germinate promptly, when the kindness of a preacher waters it in the hearer’s heart.”

A book worth reading!

This old book is well worth retrieving for today’s pastors. Gregory states as he closes, “I have tried to show what a pastor should look like,” and I think he succeeds.

Precisely because of his distance from our day, he is a helpful voice providing warning and encouragement. Reading this book is a bit different from reading a more recent book. As I tell my students, disregard whether it is harder or less fun to read. We are not here to toy with trivialities but to wrestle with the weightiness of the oversight of souls. Those seeking nourishment are not concerned about the thickness or toughness of the husk, but only with whether or not—once the husk is cracked—nourishment can be found. And nourishment is certainly available here.