Let’s Read: Spurgeon the Pastor: Recovering a Biblical and Theological Vision for Ministry
Let’s Read: Spurgeon the Pastor: Recovering a Biblical and Theological Vision for Ministry
By Davy Ellison
I have long argued that since Christians are people of the book Christians should be people of books. We should love the written word. This is not to say that every Christian must be reading a mountain of books every year. Rather, Christians should be people who read steadily—whether quickly or slowly—and widely. We should continually renew our mind with both Scripture and written materials that will help us to better understand and apply Scripture (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23).
At the Irish Baptist College we recognise that not everyone is a reader. For this reason, we have established an initiative entitled Let’s Read with the aim of encouraging Christians to read trustworthy books in manageable chunks. Periodically we will invite you to read through a book over a period of months and during that time we will post a monthly reflection on the blog to encourage further contemplation on what is being read.
Our next book is Spurgeon the Pastor: Recovering a Biblical and Theological Vision for Ministry by Geoffrey Chang. In this book Chang attempts to aid his readers in becoming acquainted with Spurgeon the Pastor, as opposed to Spurgeon the Preacher, Spurgeon the Theologian or Spurgeon the Philanthropist. The hope is that in meeting Spurgeon the Pastor we might develop a more robustly biblical vision of ministry. On the final Monday of each month a reflection will be posted on this blog.
For ease of reference here is the proposed schedule:
January: Read the Introduction and Chapters 1–2, pp. 1–72 (reflection posted on Monday 30th January)
February: Read Chapters 3–5, pp. 73–144 (reflection posted on Monday 27th February)
March: Read Chapters 6–7, pp. 145–194 (reflection posted on Monday 27th March)
April: Read Chapters 8–10, pp. 195–251 (reflection posted on Monday 24th April)
Participants are also invited to share striking quotes or personal reflections from the book on social media using #LetsRead to connect with each other.
Happy Reading!
