Required reading
Discussions (Vol 2) by Robert L. Dabney (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read 'Ministerial support'.
My summary
Today Dabney encourages the Presbyterian Church in Virginia to pay their pastors.
Dabney gives:
(i) reasons for financially supporting pastors;
(ii) causes of the difficulty of supporting pastors;
(iii) the remedy for supporting pastors;
(iv) how the remedy should be carried out;
(v) answers to objections.
What grabbed me
Interesting chapter.
I appreciated this point: 'Recognizing our dependence for success on sovereign grace, and the supreme importauce of more zeal and holiness in ministers and people, we account for our disappointment of fuller results partly by the fact that our whole ministerial force is not actively and continuously employed. The one hundred and eighty-four ministers and licentiates on our roll probably do not perform the work of ninety-two men continuously employed. And this disastrous loss of efficiency proceeds greatly from deficient support. Where half a minister's days is consumed by worldly toils, the loss of true efficiency is even greater, because a heart harassed and untuned by secular anxieties and habitudes of feeling is less energetically given in the remaining fragments of time to the care of souls.'
I'm so grateful for my church's support so that I can be in fulltime ministry.
Next week's reading
Read 'Pastoral letter on ministerial support'.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
No comments:
Post a Comment