A woman casually mentions she’s considering an abortion. A man confesses to sexual sin that is both immoral and illegal. A church member is seen smoking marijuana. A wife announces her intention to divorce her husband. A squabble breaks out in the church over whether or not the church should be recycling. A couple mentions they’re considering IVF. A young church member confesses to a pornography addiction. A mother asks if she needs to feel guilty for buying the cheap chicken instead of free-range chicken. A Christian accountant asks if he should be providing financial advice for an ‘adult entertainment’ business. An eager Christian asks what the church is doing to help the homeless. A concerned family member asks about the ethics of switching off life support for their grandparent.
Pastors feel overwhelmed with both the spiritual and the practical responsibilities of local church ministry. Preparing to preach weekly, sometimes teaching multiple times a week. Managing church finances. Functioning as a caretaker for an ageing building. Serving on various committees. Being available for emergencies and crises, or just being someone to ring at any hour of the day or night. All while caring for a wife and children and trying not to lose one’s own soul in the process. ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ And that’s just the normal list of ministry responsibilities.
Then come issues like Covid. Black Lives Matter. Pride month. The so-called assisted dying bill. The constant barrage of issues related to the domestic political cycle. Political, economic, or environmental crises around the world. We’ve felt we were just barely keeping our heads above water on a normal day, then comes something completely new and unexpected. Maybe sinking beneath the waves wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Is there a way to get ahead of the ordinary responsibilities of pastoral ministry without sacrificing preparedness for the unexpected bombshells that come up either from within the congregation or from outside in the wider culture? Dear friends take heart: there is. Enter the category of biblical ethics.
The Problem
On a recent Pastors Academy reading group, I came across this quote from Protestant ethicist Paul Ramsey regarding Protestant ethics:
No one can deny the truth of Dr. Henry K. Beecher’s observation: ‘It will be evident that Roman Catholic leaders have examined [ethical] questions with great care and have arrived at firm conclusions. It is interesting to observe that their attitudes on most such questions are remarkably similar to the Jewish. Modern Protestant theological considerations are not very helpful in the present quest.’1Paul Ramsey, (1994[1997] On (Only) Caring for the Dying, in,,, 196, emphasis mine. Quoting from Henry K. Beecher, Research and the Individual: Human Studies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970),187.
Among contemporary theologians or pastoral leaders, it’s common to hear the lamentation that modern Protestant and Reformed ethics is lightyears behind Roman Catholic considerations on such weighty matters as abortion, gender and sexuality, and end of life care. If we received pastoral ethics as a course in theological school at all, it was likely a relatively short (and often rather unhelpful) course, and we were glad to get to back to the real meat of ministry: preaching and theological study. As pastors, most of us are simply not prepared for the myriad issues presented to us today. To put it simply, most pastors haven’t been trained in ethics, and we are chronically unprepared to deal with either the regular or the extraordinary crises that pastors so frequently must deal with.
On the one hand, this is not surprising. Ethics often deals with medical science. Very few pastors are physicians or scientists, and this is certainly not a fault we can find with pastors. Add in the way medicine and science has advanced so quickly in the last century, and it’s understandable why pastors have struggled to keep up. Also, in a previous age pastors generally held certain social respectability, but in the last century western culture has pushed pastoral ministry to the sidelines of society. We’re scared to get too deep into issues we’re obviously untrained for. There’s also a theological concern. Most of us have been trained to think that preaching is the pastor’s primary job, so where on earth are we to find the time for all this extra and frankly overwhelming study?
But on the other hand, most of us have a sense that theology is meant to lead to ethics. Right doctrine should ordinarily shape right living. Right action usually flows from right thinking (and right feeling and right choosing). This is the message of Paul’s letter to Titus, as well as Galatians and Ephesians, and every other book that deals with both the indicative and the imperative. And preaching isn’t our only task as pastors. 1 Peter 5 and Acts 20 call us first and foremost to be shepherds, not only to teach publicly but to minister house to house, night and day with tears, in other words, to care well for the souls of those entrusted to us.
If these feelings of inadequacy and frustration resonate with you, let me recommend two courses of action to aid us in the recovery of pastoral ethics in the local church. The first is a re-evaluation of the moral law, and the second is a re-discovery of the historic pastoral practice of catechesis.
Re-evaluating the Moral Law
The Moral Law – the Ten Commandments – is commonly divided in Protestant theology into two groups or tables. Commandments 1-4 deal with worship or our relationship to God. Commandments 5-10 deal with human behaviour towards other humans. Protestant authors since the beginning of the Reformation have insisted these commands are evident even from natural theology. They’re embedded in the fabric of the world God has made. Since God has given all men his law, we can thus infer that that the two-table division of the law is also self-evident. Now why does this matter?
The first table we could call ‘theology’, because it deals with how man considers and acts towards God. We need to know who God is and what he expects of us before we can rightly worship him. But the second table deals with creature-to-creature relationships, and this table we could call ‘ethics.’ If the law is self-evident from nature (again, a standard Christian position), this means that the necessity of both theology and ethics is self-evidently required for Christian maturity. We need both theology and ethics.
But even if one isn’t persuaded that the moral law is embedded in the creation order, the commands of the moral law are explicitly presented in both the Old and New Testaments as normative for Christian belief and behaviour. Whether or not unbelievers have this foundational understanding of God’s law, Christians – that includes pastors – certainly do. We have been given explicit instruction into how we are to relate both to God and to our fellow man.
We have this directly from our Saviour as well. Jesus takes the Ten Commandments and summarises them even further. The ultimate summary to the whole Old Testament legal system is this: love God and love your neighbour. Theology and ethics. Right doctrine and right living. We have to have both for either to be complete. Theology without ethics is esoteric. Ethics without theology is pragmatism.
There was lengthy debate throughout the Reformed Scholastic movement of the 17th century over whether theology was a theoretical discipline or whether it was a practical discipline. By theoretical, they meant that theology was intended to lead to our consideration of God apart from any thought of human action. The focus was to be on God himself. It’s not that they wanted an impractical theology, but they wanted to emphasise that the primary aim of theology was the sight of God. By practical, they didn’t mean a study of human action that was disconnected from the consideration of who God is, but they did want to keep theology continually pointed at certain ends and goals. Though there was great fervour on both sides of the debate, the general consensus was that theology was a mixed discipline. It’s both. Theology is theoretical, and theology is practical. Francis Turretin’s summary represents well the view of those who called for seeing theology as a mixed discipline.
Theology is so far theoretical-practical in that it cannot be called merely practical, but also theoretical, as the knowledge of mysteries is an essential part of it…. Nevertheless, that theology is more practical than speculative is evident from the ultimate end, which is practice. For although all mysteries are not regulative of operation, they are impulsive to operation. For there is none so theoretical (theōrēton) and removed from practice that it does not incite to the love and worship of God. Nor is any theory saving which does not lead to practice.2Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger, (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1997), 1.7.14-15.
Why does this seemingly obscure classification of theology matter? Richard Muller shows the cash value of this debate: ‘The basic definition of theology as both theoretical and practical led to a balance of doctrine and “use” or application in seventeenth-century sermons. Indeed scholastic attention to form almost invariably assured the presence of exegetical study, exposition, doctrinal statement, and application in the Reformed orthodox sermon.’3Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 1.218. Muller lists John Owen as one of the prime examples of the ‘early orthodox homiletical pattern’ that had this dual emphasis on both the theoretical and practical aspects of theology. In other words, our conception of theology has immense application to our preaching, to our own personal study, and inevitably to our pastoral counselling. Bavinck’s summary of the differences between theology (which he calls dogmatics) and ethics is helpful:
The distinction between dogmatics and ethics…does not lie in the fact that the former deals with the understanding and knowledge, while the latter is concerned with the will and conduct. This would boil down to a division of human beings into two parts, of which one half is purely intellectual and the other purely ethical. No. In dogmatics we are concerned with what God does for us and in us. In dogmatics God is everything. Dogmatics is a word from God to us, coming from outside us and above us; we are passive, listening, and opening ourselves to being directed by God. In ethics, we are interested in the question of what it is that God now expects of us when he does his work in us. What do we do for him? Here we are active, precisely because of and on the grounds of God’s deeds in us; we sing psalms in thanks and praise to God. In dogmatics, God descends to us; in ethics, we ascend to God. In dogmatics, he is ours; in ethics, we are his. In dogmatics, we know we shall see his face; in ethics, his name will be written on our foreheads (Rev. 22:4). Dogmatics proceeds from God; ethics returns to God. In dogmatics, God loves us; in ethics, therefore, we love him.4Herman Bavinck, Reformed Ethics, ed by John Bolt, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019), 1.22.
A full theology requires both theoretical (theological) and practical (ethical) components. Neglecting either of these categories leads to a deficient presentation of who God is and what he expects of us.
Maybe we feel so chronically ill-equipped with the very subject of ethics, and maybe our pastoral application in our sermons is often so weak, and maybe our theological study is so disconnected from a meaningful understanding of daily life because we have never been shown how to use the moral law in biblical ethics. Maybe we’ve forgotten it and maybe we’ve neglected it, but the moral law serves as the basis for the whole of human life. To state it plainly, ethics isn’t an optional add-on for pastors once we’ve spent enough time on our sermons. A biblical understanding of sanctification and the care of Christ’s sheep absolutely requires ethics. Understanding the law this way opens new vistas many of us never could have dreamed existed.
Re-discovering catechesis
Are there Protestant Christians who have understood the connection between theology and ethics? Are there pastors who have been able to capably teach their congregations how to apply high-level theology to daily life in a complicated and rapidly changing world? Are there Christians who have been trained both in right thinking and in right living? Enter a nearly lost tool: catechisms.
Now, catechisms have a rich history in Protestant pastoral theology. Luther’s catechisms were produced after he realised the importance of giving his sheep instruction in God’s moral commands, and they are a marked departure from his fiery rhetoric against the law early in the Reformation. In Luther’s catechisms we see a deep desire for ordinary men and women and even children to understand and apply God’s word:
The deplorable, miserable conditions which I recently observed when visiting the parishes have constrained and pressed me to put this catechism of Christian doctrine into this brief, plain, and simple form. How pitiable, so help me God, were the things I saw: the common man, especially in the villages, knows practically nothing of Christian doctrine, and many of the pastors are almost entirely incompetent and unable to teach. Yet all the people are supposed to be Christians, have been baptized, and receive the Holy Sacrament even though they do not know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, or the Ten Commandments and live like poor animals of the barnyard and pigpen. What these people have mastered, however, is the fine art of tearing all Christian liberty to shreds.5From Luther’s Preface to his Shorter Catechism; https://catechism.cph.org/en/index.html.
In Puritan times it was common for pastors to write catechisms for their own congregations upon taking up a particular ministerial charge. Numerous catechisms were produced during the 17th century, and they do vary greatly in levels of quality. No one I know has ever seriously suggested using John Owen’s catechisms for pastoral instruction. Yet by the end of the 1640s a catechism was produced which has come to define Reformed theology, the Westminster Shorter Catechism. If anyone knows any catechism question and answer, it’s likely to be question 1 from this classic catechism. What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.6The first Lord’s Day from the Heidelberg Catechism would be a close second.
What were these catechisms? Simply put, they’re questions and answers on the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer. They’re a summary of Christian belief and Christian action, that is to say, they’re a manual of Christian theology and Christian ethics. Luther again:
You should diligently learn the Word of God and by no means imagine that you know it. Let him who is able to read take a psalm in the morning, or some other chapter of Scripture, and study it for a while. This is what I do. When I get up in the morning, I pray and recite the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer with the children, adding any one of the psalms. I do this only to keep myself well acquainted with these matters, and I do not want to let the mildew of the notion grow that I know them well enough.7This quotation is found in various forms in a number of different books. The closest citation I can find directly from Luther is in vol 32 of the Weimar Edition of Luther’s Works (pp64ff). In all likelihood the quotation is a combination of things Luther said in a number of different places.
Richard Baxter credited his success in Kidderminster to the regular and consistent practice of catechising his flock. Years of pastoral visits combined with expecting his people to learn theology and ethics produced an abundant gospel harvest in a time of societal chaos. But are these practices only limited to the past? If those so well versed in Scripture and theology needed these instructions, maybe many of us could profit from catechesis as well.
Allow me to indulge in a case study: a London congregation and its Sunday evening service. A number of years ago the elders of a church I served agreed to make the Westminster Shorter Catechism the doctrinal or topical focus of our evening services.8You can listen to those sermons here: https://www.sgcm.co.uk/downloads/?q=&series=bite-sized-theology&biblebook=&speaker=&perpage=50 We’d ask the catechism questions in the morning service, the congregation reading the answers off the screen in the front. Then whomever of the elders was leading the service would give a very brief explanation or application of the catechism question. The evening service consisted largely of prayer together, but after the prayer time we’d offer a relatively short sermon focusing on either one of the prooftexts for the catechism question or the overall theology of the question.
It took just over two years to work through the whole of the catechism, and these explorations together were absolutely delightful. What preacher wouldn’t want to spend nearly a month on the three-fold office of Christ? Granted, I did hear from one of my fellow elders that a whole month ‘might have been a bit much’, but still, the opportunity to teach on a whole variety of topics in Reformed theology was unlike anything I’ve experienced in ministry before. It was like having a complete curriculum laid out before us. All we had to do was prepare the individual lessons. And the congregation? The congregation loved it. Soon we received word that they were inviting their friends to listen to the particular sermons we were preaching on the catechism.
We would adjust the language a bit; we wanted to translate it to modern English. It wasn’t easy. The men who wrote the catechism packed a lot into short sentences. But giving clarity in contemporary English was more important than keeping the Shakespearean quality of the original text. We wanted our sheep to understand these questions and answers. More than just understand them, we wanted them to see how their daily lives required an understanding of these timeless truths. And looking at the catechism it’s not hard to see why it was popular. It’s been seen as foundational doctrine instruction or Reformed Christians since it was written in the mid 1600s; it shouldn’t have been a surprise to us that our congregation found it helpful.
If you look at the catechism, it follows the traditional division of basic Christian doctrine (though in this case not based on the Apostles’ Creed), the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer. The opportunity to preach on the essential theological pieces of our Christian doctrine in bite-size pieces was tremendously helpful. As one looks through the catechism, when exactly would one preach on the decrees of God, creation and providence, the threefold office of Christ (all four weeks of it!), the humiliation and exaltation of our Saviour, and the theology of adoption all in the same year? And that was just the first portion of the catechism.
My particular favourite was preaching through the Ten Commandments. Following the pattern the catechism laid out for us, we’d look at the commands themselves, what the commands required, and what the commands forbid. This offered us an extraordinary chance to slowly – meditatively – consider God’s moral law. We spent around a year looking at the Ten Commandments in our evening service. And the opportunity to deal with a whole variety of ethical issues, many of them lightning-rod cultural issues and many of them issues few in our congregation had considered before, was such a benefit to ordinary pastoral care. Again and again, the elders would receive very practical questions from the congregation members as a result of the applications made in the catechism sermons. Where else would pastors have unforced opportunities to address why there is no God like our God (the 1st commandment), why we can have statues of Churchill but not Jesus (the 2nd commandment) how our speech about God and the quality of our theology matters (the 3rd commandment), why we gather each Lord’s Day (the 4th commandment), the need to honour our governments (the 5th commandment), abortion and assisted suicide (the 6th commandment), the sinfulness of our desires (the 7th commandment), how to think about sexting (the 7th commandment), honesty regarding benefits and taxes (the 8th commandment), transgenderism and preferred pronouns (the 9th commandment), and our lusts and desires (the 10th commandment)…all in the same sermon series? And those are only a small fraction of what the catechism allowed us to address, again, all in Sunday services with our congregation. Granted, these may not be the topics most pastors want to really dig into or talk about with others, but they’re certainly the sort of topics that are on the hearts and mind of our sheep.
Now a church wouldn’t have to devote an entire sermon series in a service to explorations of a particular catechism, though I’d certainly recommend it. The pastors could give just a brief section in the ordinary morning service. Maybe the elders could send out a weekly email or social media meditation through the whole of the catechism. A pastor could do a podcast for his church. There are multiple ways to accomplish the same goal: instructing our sheep in good theology and solid ethics. Catechisms are a scripturally soaked, and, as it happens, readily available and historically tested tool. But our people won’t be instructed in these important areas if we’ve not digested these truths ourselves. Once we’ve wrestled with God’s word and its application to our lives, then we can offer water for the sheep out of the same well from which we’ve slaked our own thirst.
One final application. If a pastor is looking for a single volume from which to examine Protestant ethics, it might seem a bit obscure, but I’d highly recommend Richard Baxter’s Christian Directory. It’s lengthy, as was everything Baxter wrote, but it’s a pastorally-focused stroll through a remarkably comprehensive catalogue of Christian ethics. Reading for half an hour to an hour a week, it took me two years to work through this book, so it’s not impossible to read. Read it with another pastor as I did. It could be mentally and pastorally stimulating for both of you. But one of the key benefits to reading this work is Baxter’s exploration of faculty psychology, how Reformed Christians understood the relationship of the mind, the will, the affections, and the body to Christian life and growth. More on this another time, but suffice it to say faculty psychology is an area of consideration that was foundational for Reformed Scholastic pastoral practice but has almost completely disappeared from the pastoral consciousness in the last century.
Conclusion
Finding time for the study necessary for a re-evaluation of the moral law and a rediscovery of catechesis is likely easier said than done for most pastors. Then again, do we really have time not to pursue these areas of pastoral theology? The world is changing quickly. New issues are already on the horizon. Many of us have barely caught our breath from the last craze, only to see new ones swiftly on our heels. But the time saved when a member of the congregation comes and says, ‘Pastor, please help,’ and we know where to go for answers, is absolutely invaluable. The sense of stability for the congregation, even the hope in our own souls, can’t be measured days or weeks. Can we not snatch an hour or two every week for precious study that will nourish our own souls and help us better care for those God has untrusted to us as his sheep? The tools are available. For a starter list of recommended resources, see:
- William Ames, The Marrow of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 1968).
- Harold Senkbeil, The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019).
- Richard Baxter, The Christian Directory (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2000).
- Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, 4 vols (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books,1994.
- Scott Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
- Oliver O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order (2nd edition; Leicester: Apollos, 1994).
- Oliver O’Donovan, Begotten or Made (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).
- John Webster, God Without Measure; vol 2: Virtue and Intellect (Bloomsbury: T&T Clark, 2015).
- Matt LaPine, The Logic of the Body (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2020).
- Edmund Letters, ed, Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
They are there, and they are proven.
