Watch Your Walk! - Richard Baxter
Years ago many seminarians were introduced to Richard Baxter when one of their professors required them to read his famous work, The Reformed Pastor. Sadly, Baxter and his work have all but disappeared in most seminary programs for ministerial training. Thankfully, there are some who still call attention to his life and written works. For example, several issues ago, Dr. Mark Minnick provided a fresh and helpful review of Baxter’s life and ministry in his column where he reminded the reader of Baxter’s ongoing value as an example and encouragement for contemporary ministers. Another recent reminder comes in the form of a recent edited version of Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor re-titled Watch Your Walk: Ministering From a Heart of Integrity. This work was edited by Richard C. Halverson and James M. Houston and published by Victor Books in 2005. Here is the goal of their effort in their own words: The goal for the reader of these books is not to seek information. Instead, these volumes teach one about living wisely. That takes obedience; submission of will; change of heart; and a tender, docile Spirit. When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he reacted, “He must increase, and I must decrease.” Likewise, spiritual reading decreases our natural instincts, to allow His love to increase in us (p. 11).
J. I. Packer in his introduction to the most recent reprint of The Reformed Pastor by Banner of Truth in 1974 called Baxter “the most outstanding pastor, evangelist and writer on practical and devotional themes that Puritanism produced.” Richard Baxter was born in 1615 and died in 1691. For many of these years Baxter suffered ill health, persecution, and ministerial rejection as a dissenting non-conformist minister in the Church of England. Many have rightly observed that his theology at times is inconsistent and his skills at leading his ministerial peers were almost non-existent. However, all agree on one aspect of Baxter’s life and ministry – his extraordinary capacity as a pastor. For fourteen years Baxter was the pastor of the congregation at Kidderminster, England. These years of pastoral ministry are almost without parallel in the history of the Protestant church. Packer described it in the following paragraph:
His achievement at Kidderminster was amazing. England had not before seen a ministry like it. The town contained about 800 homes and 2000 people. They were ‘an ignorant, rude and reveling people’ when Baxter arrived, but this changed dramatically.
The secret to Baxter’s pastoral success at Kidderminster lay in his passionate commitment to teach sound doctrine to the adults in congregation and to passionately set about to call the unconverted to respond to the gospel message. Packer commended The Reformed Pastor to modern ministers for three important qualities it possessed. First, it possessed an unusual energy in that Baxter’s words served as goals to spiritual activity. Second, the book was marked by an unusual reality. In other words, it was penetratingly honest and compelling. Finally, Baxter’s writing was marked by rationality. Perhaps Packer’s own words best explain this quality.
Like Whitefield and Spurgeon, he knew that men are blind, deaf, and dead in sin, and only God can convert them; but, again like Whitefield and Spurgeon, he knew too that God works through means, and that rational men must be approached in a rational fashion, and that grace enters by the understanding, and that unless all the evangelist does makes for credibility his message is not likely to be used much to convince. So Baxter insisted that ministers much preach of eternal issues as men who feel what they say, and are as earnest as matters of life and death require; that they must practise church discipline, to show they are serious in saying that God will not accept sin; and that they must do ‘personal work’, and deal with individuals one by one, because preaching alone often fails to bring things home to ordinary people.
In addition to these three reasons offered by Packer, the editors of this revision of The Reformed Pastor offer another six! Briefly stated, they suggest that Baxter’s writing reveals the true heart and nature of Puritan ministry which is so often misunderstood by the modern church. Second, Baxter’s words have an unusual ability to encourage those who are discouraged about ministry in the contemporary church. Third, Baxter calls the contemporary church to define and measure the growth of the church against a biblical standard rather than a numeric one. Fourth, Baxter reminds the pastor of his duty to instruct families in his congregation individually so they grow strong in the understanding and obedience of the Apostolic faith. Fifth, his instruction both warns and corrects many of the ills that plague modern congregations because of the poor living of their pastors. Right teaching must be presented out of right living and Baxter hammers this home inescapably in the following paragraph.
Instead of living with one another as one heart, one soul, and one mouthpiece (to promote each other’s faith and holiness and to admonish and help each other against sin), we have lived on the contrary in mutual jealousies and drowned holy love in bitter contentions. We have studied how to disgrace and undermine one another to promote our party’s cause. We have also drawn our people into these struggles, dividing and slandering one another. The public takes notice of all this and not only derides us but also becomes hardened against all religion. When we try to persuade them, they see so many factions that they do not know which to join—and think it is better not to join any of them. Thus thousands grow in contempt of all religion by our divisions. If you are offended by my harsh language, I can tell you I have learned it of God. You should be much more offended by such satanic practices.
The final two reasons Baxter should be read again by ministers is the alarming biblical illiteracy of many congregations and the need to disciple such congregations to grow in grace, knowledge, and truth. For those who are already familiar with Baxter, this revision will perhaps serve as a useful tool to present his material in readable form to those in their pews. For those who have yet to learn of Baxter, this book is a good, brief introduction.
