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Editors’ note: 

For an introduction to our Commending the Classics series in Gilead, read Philip Ryken’s first installment, “A Novel View of Pastoral Ministry.” This week, Ryken suggests reading pages 86 to 149 of Gilead. See also:

One of Marilynne Robinson’s extraordinary accomplishments in Gilead is to establish, as a woman, a plausible narrative voice for a man. Further, as a layperson, she manages to capture with remarkable authenticity the interior life of a man who serves in pastoral ministry.

The Reverend Ames is honest about the challenges of ministry, familiar to any pastor. He complains about church meetings (“just a few people came, and absolutely nothing was accomplished”). He confesses how hard it is to love his sheep (“After a while I did begin to wonder if I liked the church better with no people in it”).

At the same time, Ames knows that his parishioners treat him differently, giving him more respect than he deserves—a “kindly imagining” that is hard for him to disillusion. He also laments the relentless approach of next week’s sermon (“it seems to be Sunday all the time, or Saturday night. You just finish preparing for one week and it’s already the next week”).

The Difference a Minister Makes

With these inevitable challenges come many opportunities for personal ministry. The same people who suddenly change the subject when they see the minister coming, Ames says, will “come into your study and tell you the most remarkable things”—the dread, the guilt, and the loneliness that lie under the surface of life.

In each pastoral encounter, Ames has sought to discern what the Lord is asking of him “in this moment, in this situation.” Even if he has to deal with someone who is difficult, that person is “an emissary sent from the Lord,” who affords him “the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me.”

Over the course of a lifetime in ministry, addressing a wide range of spiritual needs, the Reverend Ames has learned that trying to prove the existence of God is an ineffective strategy for dealing with spiritual doubt. “Nothing true can be said about God from a posture of defense,” he believes. In fact, “the attempt to defend belief can unsettle it” because “there is always an inadequacy in argument about ultimate things.”

He has also learned how to answer the questions that people have thought about the torment of hell, which he believes the Bible characterizes primarily as separation from God: “If you want to inform yourselves as to the nature of hell, don’t hold your hand in a candle flame, just ponder the meanest, most desolate place in your soul.”

Ames has also learned the value of friendship for ministry. He is blessed to have Robert Boughton as his oldest, dearest friend and closest colleague in ministry. Having grown up together in Gilead, the two men now serve as pastors of the town’s leading churches. They do not work in isolation, but share ideas, discuss their sermons, and pray for one another’s families.

For reflection or discussion: What are the hardest challenges you face as you serve God in the church? What are the most important lessons that you have learned about ministry—the first lessons you would pass along to someone who is just starting out? What are the most common questions that people ask about God? How have you learned to answer them, or not to answer them? What patterns of relationship and accountability support your ministry? What relationships do you still need to put into place?

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.
To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.

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