A Godly Man's Reading Plan (2/15/12)

Introduction: God's Shepherding and the Call to Fruitful Ministry

0:02 Now, I trust you have God's Word before you, and I would encourage you to follow as I read in your hearing the psalm we have just been privileged to sing in God's presence, Psalm 23. Psalm 23. I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

1:00 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

1:27 Let us pray together.

1:32 Holy Father, we are astounded when we think of the privileges that are ours, as those who have been loved from eternity, given to your beloved Son. We thank you that as the shepherd who loved the sheep and laid down his life, for the sheep, he does not merely forgive us and bring us into your family, but ever lives to make intercession with us, takes up his residence in us by the Spirit. We thank you this morning for all of the privileges that are ours. And as I seek to minister to these men in a very practical area today, we pray for the help. We ask you, Lord, in the name of your Holy Spirit, that the things shared will indeed prove profitable in the days to come, as by your guidance, some of these things are implemented in their lives. So we look to you for your blessing with thankfulness that everything we have read in this psalm true of David is true of us, because with David we are united to his greater Son. Hear us then as we make our approach to you, in his worthy name.

3:00 Amen.

3:04 In the letter from Dr. Van Doodyward inviting me to chapel today, he stated, and I quote him, that chapel messages may be sermons or topical addresses for the practical and spiritual benefit of the seminary community. End quote. And as I reflected on how, best to invest my time with you today, I have chosen to bring a topical address on the subject, and here's the title to my topical address, done with the permission of the one who invited me to chapel, The Place of a Disciplined Reading Program in the Life of a Fruitful Man of God. The Place of a Disciplined Reading Program in the Life of a Fruitful Man of God. I trust that you men sitting here have as your great passion next to pleasing your God and Father and your Savior, that God would eventually lead you into a fruitful pastoral ministry, or if it's an

4:20 other form of ministry, that it would be fruitful, not famous, not necessarily astounding, not necessarily leaving a record that someone would want to embalm in printer's ink and write your biography, but you long that you would be a fruitful man of God. For Jesus said, herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much. Fruit. And the reason for choosing Psalm 23 as a platform of introduction is because this time of the year, and this particular year, has special significance for this old man, almost 78 in April, I'll turn 78, God willing. It was about this time, 60 years ago, when the Lord Jesus determined that his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, his prophecy, and promise concerning me would be fulfilled. You'll remember his words in John 10, 16. Other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring. And I stand before you

5:39 today on the 60th birthday of the Lord Jesus bringing me to himself. And as I look back over I can read this 23rd Psalm and say he has been my shepherd who has led me, who has fed me, who has comforted me, who has protected me through all these six decades of my pilgrimage. And no little part of that work of leading me besides waters of quietness, restoring my soul, setting a table before me in the midst of the enemies, has been that he led me very early in my Christian experience to make a commitment to a disciplined reading program that would, with the blessing of God,

6:37 be his means to restore my soul, to lead me in paths of righteousness, to spread the table before me in the midst of my enemies and continually set before me that sure and steadfast hope that having begun a good work in me, he would complete it at the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so my purpose in this half hour this morning, should I be done accordingly? A quarter after, I was told, that's it, okay, well aim then, I have the watch in front of me and I will make an internal covenant to respect what it says to me. And then I got a clock on the wall as a double check as well.

Priority One: Regular, Disciplined Reading of the Whole Bible

7:21 What I want to do is to share some perspectives on this subject, perspectives that I trust you will prayerfully seek to implement as you are convinced that such implementation would be pleasing. To God, in seeking to address the subject with you, my first heading is simply this, above all other things, be a regular, disciplined reader of your whole Bible.

7:56 Now you might say, well surely, Pastor Martin, you're talking to seminary students. Why in the world are you daring to stand and say, read your Bible? Well, because my brethren, for decades it's been my privilege to preach at pastor's conferences in many countries and in many settings, to men representing many theological disciplines and frameworks of reference, and I have found again and again, one of the crowning sins of ministers is they don't read their whole Bibles regularly. I don't say that off the cuff as a 25 year old young buck who's just graduated from Bible college or seminary. I say that based on first hand interaction and observation with men of God over decades. And so if you would be one who can say, I know what it is to have my soul refreshed, to be led in paths of righteousness, to be fed in the presence of the Father. I don't say that off the cuff as a 25 year old young buck who's just graduated from Bible college or seminary.

9:07 presence of my enemies, above all other things, be determined from the outset of your ministry, even while here in the seminary, with all the reading load that is upon you, all of the pressures upon you, be determined to be a regular, disciplined reader of your whole Bible. And why do I put such emphasis upon this? Well, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is three or four texts of Scripture that have held me in their grip over the decades. The first, very familiar to us, 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 16 and 17. Having underscored for Timothy how Scripture was instrumental in bringing him to faith in Christ, he says, but all Scripture is literally God-breathed and is also profitable for teaching, for correction, for reproof, for training in righteousness to one end. Not that the people of God generically, but that the man of God particularly might be complete, thoroughly

10:20 furnished unto every good work. Timothy, if you are to be furnished unto every good work, you need the whole of God-breathed Scripture to make you such a man. And then, those well-known words of Deuteronomy 8, in verse 3, quoted by our Lord himself, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word, or all the words that proceed from the mouth of God. God has deposited in the whole corpus of Scripture, from Genesis 1-1 to the last verse of Revelation, those spiritual minerals and those spiritual nourishments, that we might be whole men made fit to every good work by a whole exposure to the word of God. And then, of course, there's Psalm 1, the blessed man, that fruitful man is not only the one who resolutely determines that he will not walk in the way of sinners, stand in the way, and sit with scoffers, but his meditation. sin is upon the law of God, and he meditates upon it. His delight is upon that law, and he meditates

11:42 in it day and night. And then that wonderful statement concerning Apollos in Acts 18.24. He was mighty, dunitas, in the scriptures. How did he get that way? By the constant acquisition of heart acquaintance with the scriptures. And so I urge upon you men, if you do not have right now a commitment to a regular disciplined reading of the whole of your Bible, following your own program or McShane's, I have used one for years in which reading two chapters of the old every day, a chapter in the new, barring Lord's days, gets me through my Bible, the whole of my Bible, once every two years. It gets me the Old Testament, gets me through my New Testament once a year. And for the most part, over the decades,

12:43 I've had the practice of reading a psalm every morning, and this gets me through the psalms in a course of seven, eight months, sometimes a little longer. But there is no substitute for that constant exposure. Your primary focus, your primary focus, your primary focus, your primary focus in coming to your Bible is not to gather food for others, but to have your own soul fed by the Word of God. To be able to say, as is written of our blessed Lord in Isaiah 54, the Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. And where did our Lord get that? He wakens morning by morning. He wakens mine ear to hear as the learned. So my first word of

13:42 exhortation in following through on this matter of trying to set before you the place of a disciplined reading program is, above all other things, be determined to be a regular, disciplined reader of your whole Bible. But secondly, my second word of counsel is this. Acquaint yourself with those authors who will warm your heart, search out your sin, and set Christ before you in his beauty and his glory. Acquaint yourself personally, not taking someone else's word about it, with those authors who will warm your heart, search out your sin, and set Christ before you. In his beauty and in his glory. There's a wonderful little statement in Alexander's Thoughts on Preaching, a marvelous little book. I urge it upon all of you. And here he writes,

Priority Two: Acquaint Yourself with Heart-Warming Authors

14:46 these are just miscellaneous paragraphs to ministerial students, on page 93. I hope you will let no kind of reading keep you from looking daily, if only, for five minutes, into a class of writers who are not attractive in regard to letters, but who unite great talents, great Bible knowledge, and great unction. At the head of these stands Owen. My father used to say one should read Owen's spiritual mindedness once a year. I have found it to be tremendously profitable. I've never read it once a year, but I believe I've gone through six or seven times over the course of decades. I add to his father's words, forgiveness of sin, and indwelling sin, and mortification, that's volume six. Here we have philosophical analysis applied to the phenomena of experience, yet more platonic and seraphic are housed, delight in God, and the blessedness of the righteous, fables keeping the heart is less deep, but more clear, pearling, and delicious. That's what I want you men to know.

16:09 Pick up Flavel and read that marvelous treatise based on the text Proverbs 4.23. Above all that you guard, guard your heart, for out of it are the issues of life, and you will find it, if you have real spiritual life, you'll find it delicious. And each one of us is put together in such a way that we can live a life of life. And if you have real spiritual life, you'll find it delicious.

16:30 In such a way, and our lives are ordered in such a way by divine providence, that we will not have the same favorite authors who have that capacity to warm the heart, to search out our sin, and to set Christ before us in his beauty and glory. As I was a very young man at the time and began to acquire some of the sets of the Puritan's works, I looked at them sitting on my shelves and say, no way, no way I'm ever going to get through all that. But I said, yes, there is a way. And I came up with the concept, some of you don't even remember what you had to do to the old way of getting water when you had a pump, and you had to prime it, you had to pour some water in and pump, pump, pump, and then it took hold, and then the water would begin to come out the spout. I call them my pump primers. And in that way, over the course of years, there are whole sets, almost everything of Flavel, Brooks, some of the other Puritan works that got reprinted by the Banner of Truth, taking 10, 15 minutes in the morning to prime the pump of my affections, and to get my mind focused upon heart issues. It's this kind of reading that I'm suggesting

17:52 would, perhaps with God's blessing, be a means of grace to put you in a praying frame, you in a frame where the other elements of your reading of the scriptures and seeking the face of God will be more warm, more passionate, more earnest as you seek to meet with God. I have to say this was my experience. In fact, I'm a little bit sad this morning because when I complete my reading years ago, Ian Murray saw some of my books and I had underlined them with ballpoint pens, and he almost went to my fellow, well, was suggesting I be excommunicated. With Ian's love of books, the thought that anyone who would get my books 20 years after I'm gone would see the ink of a ballpoint pen bleeding through, poor Ian, he just almost had a hairy fit. And so he solemnly charged me from here on to use a mechanical pencil, and I do that. And whenever I've read a chapter or a section of it, I put the date. And just yesterday, I finished for the

19:02 fifth or sixth time, oh, in volume one, and I felt a sadness. He has set Christ before me in ways I've never seen him before. I've wondered that I could have read that stuff four and five times, some of it's underlined. For example, he said, you know, the main reason God's giving us real eyes in the resurrection body, you know what his primary reason is?

19:31 So we can act. Actually see Christ. I almost fell off my chair and had what the old Pentecostals called a glory fit when I read that. To think, these two eyes that need this help to see clearly, God will give me glorified eyes, actually to see my Savior in his glorified body.

Priority Three: Judicious Use of Pastorally Sensitive Commentaries

19:54 Well, I urge you, my brothers, find those authors, read them wisely, judiciously, that they might be an aid to your communion with the Lord Jesus, with the Father, and with the Holy Spirit. My third heading is this. Learn to appreciate the judicious use of good, pastorally sensitive commentaries in conjunction with your personal Bible reading. Learn to appreciate the judicious use of good, pastorally sensitive commentaries in conjunction with your personal Bible reading. And the text that has riveted my conscience to this discipline is Ephesians 4, 11, where the apostle says the ascended Christ has given gifts to his church, and among those gifts are pastors slash teachers for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of service. And although the promise in the new covenant is they shall all be taught

21:12 of God, that very God has in Christ given gifts to his church, that the church might grow up into the fullness of the stature of Christ. And not all of those teachers are such that we can sit beneath them, Lord's day by Lord's day. Many of them are dead. But the fruit of their God-given insight into the scriptures and into the ways of God and the works of God and the Christian life and Christian responsibility, God led them. On a given day, those men got up and pleaded that their day might be blessed by God, that what they do would be under the superintendence of the guidance of God. And they spent hours at their desks writing. They are the ones who are going to be blessed by God. They are the ones who are going to be blessed by God. And they spent hours at their desks writing. They are the ones who are going to be blessed

22:04 by God. And they spent hours at their desks writing. They are the ones who are going to be blessed by God's gift to us for our maturation and our perfection in Christian growth. Another text that has been a great help to me in trying to see this thing in the right perspective is 1 Corinthians 3, 21 and 22. All things are yours, and among the things that are yours are Paul and Apollos and Cephas. They are all yours, and you are Christ, and Christ is God's. And so if God has given them to his church, and I am part of his church, and they are there to profit me, woe be to me if I have the opportunity and do not avail myself of that profit. So a number of years ago, I came to the conviction based primarily on those two passages that I was not dishonoring the Lord when studying, say, the book of Deuteronomy, as my regular Old Testament reading. I would find a good, and when I say good,

23:10 one that's based on sound exposition, sound principles of opening up the word, but pastorally sensitive, where the applicatory note is woven through and constantly attendant upon the explanatory elements of those commentaries, the ones that I have found particularly helpful over the years. I would find that good, and when I say good, if you've never read through your Gospels with old Bishop Ryle at your elbow, his expository thoughts on the Gospels. This will enrich your soul. Ryle had the ability to go into a text, extract the major principles, articulate them in a very clean, unmistakably structured, homiletical way, and make very practical, often searching applications to the heart. And to read through the Gospels with Ryle at your elbow. I have found the Bible Speaks Today series by the Banner of Truth. Some of them I've gone through three, four times, using them both in family worship and in my own devotional exercises. Though they are spotty, some of the Bible Speaks

24:27 Today, the IVP series, are excellent. Some of them are not so. I can't give the same, almost, unqualified endorsement that I can with the Banner of Truth series. And then Jeffrey Wilson's very helpful commentary on the Paul, the corpus of Paul's epistles, now embodied in two paperback volumes. Very helpful to take us deeper into our understanding of the Word of God.

24:58 The Holy Spirit is given to me. I'm a member of the New Covenant community. I can plead with God that I shall be taught of Him. But that God has given to His church, pastors and teachers. And He's given the Pauls and the Apollos' and the Cephas' for my good and for my progress in grace. But then, standing head and shoulders above all of these, I must mention John Calvin. One of my dearest friends, a few years ago, said an interesting thing to me. The most interesting subject for the next Pastors' Conference, Pastor Martin, would be if you spoke on what I would do if I could do it over again. Well, as I reflected on

25:46 that, there's one thing I would do that I didn't do if I could do it all over again. As a young man, I would set it as part of my structured reading program in conjunction with my own devotional reading of the Bible, to read the entirety of the Bible. And so, of Calvin's commentaries. If you have any question about the worth of those commentaries, read Steve Lawson's article in that lovely book that Mr. Parsons edited on Calvin. And he has ten things that are the dominant characteristics of Calvin's expositions as found in those written commentaries. And it's masterful stuff. The one area that I don't encourage people to follow Calvin's homiletical method, if you've got Calvin's mind and Calvin's grace and Calvin's stature, you may hold a people with sermons that are not patently structured. They are always well-structured, and there is tight connection in the unfolding of thought. But the average person

26:59 sitting in the pew, with no text in front of them, needs to know when you're moving from head one to head two, and when you're moving to head three, where you came by head one and head two. And though I know it is not popular, if you want to have people who relish your preaching because it's retainable and patently clear as you preach, but apart from that, I cannot say enough about the use of Calvin in this area, and also, though they're not This will bring sneers in many circles of contemporary academia, is old Matthew Henry. Let me read a tribute I got in my inbox this morning. There's a dear friend, one of my Timothys, that I've been privileged to be close to for a number of years. He just turned 50, and I thought he had told me that three years ago, or several years ago, he set out a three-year program to do what Whitefield did. Whitefield read through Matthew Henry on his knees, I forgot how many times, and says it's there that he learned his theology as well as his Bible.

28:15 And so I wanted to make sure if I were going to quote my friend, so I called him, left the message. He sent an email back early this morning. And this is what he said to me in his email.

28:29 I just turned on my cell phone at 11.39 p.m. This was last night. He ought to have been in bed.

28:37 I'm sorry I didn't receive your message sooner, but hopefully you'll receive this in time for your message tomorrow. That's a real friend who's staying up till midnight to answer my query. Yes, you are right in your recollection. In January 2011, I began.

28:55 I began reading Matthew Henry's unabridged commentary according to a three-year schedule, and I have kept up with it, if sometimes lagging by a couple days now and then. So I'm about one-third of the way through it, two of six volumes. It takes me at least 45 minutes daily, longer if I'm distracted or less focused mentally. Currently, I'm finishing Job and on the threshold of the Psalms.

29:23 My testimony. Is that this commentary is singularly unappreciated by many pastors, even among those who are reformed. It is exceptionally excellent in many respects. I understand Mr. Whitfield used to recommend a read-through to young ministers.

29:44 I'm now 50 and in the pastorate 22 years, and it is proving an immense help to me. And then he goes on to speak of Calvary. And then he goes on to speak of Calvin, and the place that he now has in his affection and his appreciation. He said, since your topic is reading habits, I would mention that last year I finished Calvin's Institutes also according to a systematic reading schedule.

30:14 I was already familiar with much of the contents, but only certain I had read completely through book one. So from January to December, I read through books two to three. I read through books two to three. Two through four, and this too was a truly profitable investment of my time.

30:30 In 2009, I read about 20 books, either by or about Calvin, and wrote a short piece as an appreciation of him, as you know. I cannot overestimate how indebted I am in my doctrine and practice to John Calvin, and I did not fully appreciate this until I read so much of him. And he's a modern techie. He's got this stuff all on his Kindle and everything else, and he uses all the various technologies to have it at hand.

31:05 If he's somewhere where he's got to sit in an office, picks up his iPod or whatever other technological device is at his fingertips. So, I urge you, my brothers, not only, above all things, to be a reader of your whole Bible. Acquaint yourself with the Bible. Acquaint yourself with the authors who will warm your heart, search out your sin, and set Christ before you.

Priority Four: Establish a Comprehensive, Balanced General Reading Program

31:33 But learn to appreciate the judicious use of good, pastorally sensitive commentaries in conjunction with your regular Bible reading. And then, point number four this morning is this. Once you are settled, and I've chosen these words carefully. Once you are settled into the basic rhythms of your responsibilities and labors as a pastor, as soon as possible, establish a comprehensive, realistic, and balanced general reading program.

32:11 It would be unrealistic to urge you to do that here. Your reading is dictated by your professors, and rightly so. But once you settle in to the rhythms of your responsibilities as a pastor, as soon as possible, establish a comprehensive, realistic, balanced general reading program. The reason I underscore this is because there are many principles in the Word of God that point to the fact that if we are to be fruitful servants of Christ, we must not only grow in our knowledge of the Scriptures themselves, but we must be growing theologically, we must be stretching our minds intellectually in the whole range of the theological disciplines to which you are now subjected by the structure of the curriculum in the seminary. But that's going to drop off. There's not going to be a schedule of the classes you are required to attend. The books you are required to read.

33:23 The papers you are required to prepare. And if you do not discipline yourself to continue to have a comprehensive, realistic reading program, there are going to be holes in various aspects of your ministry. I can remember with jealousy those early days in my ministry when I didn't have a course to put together, in pastoral theology, and I was preaching just twice a week on the Lord's Day, and had two to three days a week where my mornings were blocked out for general reading. I only had a four-year Bible college theological education, which left much to be desired. And when I came home and my understanding of the basic contours of the Reformed faith in the late fifties and early sixties, I said, Albert, you've got a lot of catch-up to do, and there's no way to catch up but to catch up. And I look back upon those days with great gratitude to God that the Lord gave me the sense. I didn't have a mentor at my shoulder to help.

34:37 For some reason, God was gracious. Psalm 23. He wanted to lead me by waters of quietness. And He wanted to restore my soul as well as teach me how better to love Him with all my mind.

34:50 And it was in those years that God helped me to do much catch-up, and I've sought even when in the midst of many pressures, the kind some of your professors have, preaching at this conference and that conference, preparing class lectures. There was a period where I could only husband one morning a week, but I cherish that morning that I might continue to have some kind of a structured, realistic, comprehensive reading program. Now, by those words, comprehensive, I mean reading in the areas of theology, systematics, biblical theology, practical and pastoral issues, biography, historical, polemical issues. I outline those things in much greater detail in my pastoral theology lectures. But in the course of doing that, conscious again of the pressures of time, I do want to make this very simple point. Seek to select your readings so that in the course of your more serious theological reading, for a period of weeks, if not months, you draw close to one great mind until something of the way they approach the scriptures, approach truth, is absorbed into the texture of your own soul,

36:17 and of your own mind. And I used to say to my wife, she'd seen me going around with a volume of Warfield's selected shorter, greater writings, longer writings, or some of his other works, and she'd say, you're on your Warfield kick. And I would. And I found that to be a tremendous benefit to get inside a theological writer and try to understand how he handles the word of God.

36:44 That's when I came to the conviction that Warfield was not just this Princetonian theologian floating by up here. When I read for the first time his essay on the emotional life of our Lord, it just blew me to pieces as exegetically he took me into the soul of my blessed Savior, and I saw him in the full range of his humanity in a way I had never seen him before. I've done that with Professor Murray. I've sought to do that with a number of others over the years.

37:22 It was somewhere, I think, in one of these rooms or at a restaurant nearby that Sinclair Ferguson said, before I die, I want to master my three Johns. You know who they are? John Calvin, John Owen, and John Murray. He said, I have less and less appetite for much.

Priority Five: Reading for Relaxation and General Enrichment

37:46 That is being cranked off the presses today. So brethren, in a kind of ragged way, let me bring this to a close to keep my commitment to the timeframe. Say one other thing. Try to have a time when you have some reading that relaxes your mind and yet enriches your understanding of humanity, of God's common grace, special grace.

38:15 That's what I personally have found very helpful at night to do my biographical reading when we were celebrating the 200th anniversary of Wilberforce's birth, I believe it was, several years ago. Someone gave me four biographies of Wilberforce. So for night after night, for several months, my wife would come by, see me propped up in bed reading, say, huh, you're with your boyfriend again. Well, Wilberforce became my boyfriend and I feel, I've been enriched by it.

38:48 I would say the same of that marvelous biography of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas. He takes an approach that only a man who had no evangelical background could take and I believe be much more objective about Bonhoeffer without whitewashing some of his deficiencies. And personally, I like, because I lived through the Second World War, I like World War II stories. I've just completed reading through them.

39:17 My stepson and my stepdaughter know my love for that. So for Christmas, I got two World War II books and I devoured them and I find them helpful to just relax the mind while at the same time having insight to men and things and the real world in which we're called to labor. Well, there's so much more could be said, but I hope these thoughts will prove fruitful in your lives in the days to come. Let's pray to that end.

Conclusion and Prayer

39:45 Shall we? Father, we are so thankful for the rich legacy that lies spread before us in the many, many books that are accessible to us. We think of those in other places that have virtually nothing. And we ask you to look in pity upon them and raise up people with the gifts and the heart to get these things translated into other tongues, into other languages, that the church of Christ worldwide might be enriched.

40:27 We thank you for this time together this morning and pray that whatever's had the mixture of the clay of mere human thought, blow upon it, bring it to naught. Whatever has been an expression of biblical principles and biblical wisdom, seal it and make it profitable to us, we pray. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.