Balance in Life: Lessons from the Puritan Pastorate (3)

Finally, allow me a concluding word of application to you drawn from the Puritan ideal of balance in life. For Puritanism, balance in doctrine and balance in living rides tandem. To understand Puritanism at all, it is axiomatic to comprehend its intense vision for Biblical, God-glorifying, balanced living. Recent scholarship has dispelled a number of cherished myths on Puritanism, and proved from primary sources that Puritan preachers were preeminently family men who conscientiously exercised their domestic vocation by being teaching prophets, interceding priests, and governing kings. They applied their congregational and domestic instructions to their own lives, for they placed a great accent on personal, holy living. The principles of living Christianity were written in capitals across the rubric of their daily lives. History has rightly delegated them as men of the inner closet; hence, the Puritans both prayed in their prayers and lived in their lives. But the grand secret of their lives was simply this: Spirit-worked balance.

Puritanism believed balance in life was essential in order to live most fully to Cod’s glory in every area of life. By grace, Puritan preachers walked godly family lives, godly personal lives, godly pastoral lives. They were men who were too great in vision to allow the pulpit to swallow up all that they were. They knew that they needed personal input as pastors in order to fulfil God’s mandate of continual exporting of truth that the pastoral ministry demands. Even more importantly, however, they did not seek this input for the sake of their ministry so much as they did for their own personal lives. In other words, they retained a personal identity in relationship to God, self, and family apart from their sacred occupation. Thus, we are not surprised to find that Isaac Ambrose, for purposes of balance, spent one full month every year in total solitude to meditate on the great truths of Christianity for himself, his family, and his congregation. Balance was also the goal Puritan William Guthrie had in mind when he counselled his fellow pastors to engage in some form of healthy relaxation for the sake of balance in their lives, and regularly took to the woods himself to pursue his love for hunting. Balance was the goal of hundreds of Puritan pastors who pursued their personal education through educational, advanced degrees and extensive reading/writing, amassing large amounts of personal wisdom and knowledge which they put to sanctified use in personal, domestic, congregational, and even political spheres of life. In one word, they were men who were living on the growing edge of life in balanced fashion.

The parallels for Christian education are obvious: be larger than your occupation. Refuse to allow your position as principal and/or teacher to become your foundational identity. Refuse to be content with your present level of knowledge. Seek grace to live on the growing edge as husbands, fathers, principals, teachers, and above all, as personal believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Scripture constantly warns pastors via the apostle Paul to first take heed to themselves and then to the flock of God (e.g., Acts 20:28). The identical truism may be applied to you: first, take heed to yourselves, and then to your principalship and/or teaching. When your private life is not right with God, your educational position cannot be truly successful, notwithstanding all human declarations to the contrary.

The Puritans both prayed in their prayers and lived in their lives. But the grand secret of their lives was simply this: Spirit-worked balance.

No doubt part of your difficulty in following balance in life stems from the bulk of things to do and from the lack of spiritual mentors in your lives. Concerning the former problem, I can only say that both principals/teachers and ministers must curry substitute workers for every feasible task, and must learn the art of delegating tasks to others much more freely than we are prone to do to date. The latter problem of obtaining mentors is more difficult, for your knowledge and educational levels are often above all for whom and with whom you both work and associate. For the most part, these people think you are educated enough. They will tempt you to remain educationally stagnant, to “nobly” deny yourself the necessity of living on the growing edge, and to abandon the Puritan balance of importing/exporting in your personal lives. Personally, I have wrestled much with this problem, and wish to pass three suggestions along for you to adapt to your personal situation:

First, when you are unable to find spiritual mentors as personal friends (and by mentors I mean those you can both emulate and learn from, so as to retain the cutting edge of growth in your personal lives), I would strongly suggest that you substitute the next best thing: make free use of our forefathers by reading about their lives, and especially, by reading their theology. Here I particularly recommend the Puritans; compared to these divines, we are but spiritual pygmies at best. By constantly immersing ourselves in these rich forefathers and their theology, we may find a group of mentors to assist us in resisting many temptations. The English Puritans (and this includes equally the “Nadere Reformatie” divines for those who can read Dutch) were theologians that had a rich, dual balance in their lives: first, they were highly educated men both spiritually and naturally, and secondly, this education was sanctified richly in their lives. Thus, if tempted to think something of yourself in spiritual or educational terms, or others tempt you in that direction, there is an amazingly simple cure: open a volume of Puritan theology and read one page. The Puritans are a twofold blessing for us: first, they serve to keep us self-dwarfed to some degree due to their educated balance in doctrine and their practical balance in life; second, they serve to keep us living on the growing edge, as we realize that our spiritual and educational level is no further than an introductory level compared to theirs. Thus, my advice to you is simply this: make the Puritans your mentors — buy and prayerfully read (to mention only a few that are in print) the works of Thomas Brooks, Jonathan Edwards, John Flavel, John Owen, and Richard Sibbes.

Seek your ultimate mentor in Jesus Christ, whose example, teaching, and walk is perfect.

Secondly, the problem of the lack of living mentors around you may be somewhat dissipated if you are always involved (to a balanced degree with other responsibilities) in some personal study project by which you seek to be educated in sacred truth. This need not be enrollment in a theology course via correspondence, although such is a real option. Rather, if you nurture the type of self-discipline the Puritans gained, you will be enabled to set aside blocks of time on a regular basis for private growth in doctrine. Suggestions here may be as diverse as the entire field of theology, but a few examples might be: (1) study one particular book of the Bible with the commentaries of Calvin, Gill, Henry, etc., at your side; (2) study through correspondence the Greek or Hebrew languages so as to have a deeper appreciation for the rich connotations inherent in Scripture’s original autographs; (3) study basic Reformed dogmatics by comparing Kersten with Berkhof, Calvin, Bavinck, Shedd, Dabney, Thornwell and the two Hodges; (4) study the history of the Christian church —particularly Reformation and Post-Reformation history —by acquainting yourself with the primary works of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc., as well as secondary works of great value, frequently found in the form of printed dissertations such as Ernest Kevan, The Grace of Law, or James Tanis, Dutch Calvinistic Pietism in the Middle Colonies. Whatever you choose — read, study, and pray for application.

Thirdly, seek your ultimate mentor in Jesus Christ, whose example, teaching, and walk is perfect. Balanced as they were, no Puritan can claim the balance of Christ. Read the gospels frequently; set Christ before you as mentor par excellence; seek constant grace to walk in His footsteps. Focus on solid writings that expound Christ’s sayings, such as John Brown’s Discourses and Sayings of Our Lord, and Thomas Watson’s Beatitudes. After all, Christ is what education is all about, is it not? Of all the Reformers, perhaps Ulrich Zwingli defined the general goal of education most clearly when he wrote that proper education must “serve to the advancement of virtue and piety,” seeking to “fix the student’s whole attention upon the fullest possible absorbing of Christ Himself.”

In sum, may God assist you to teach doctrinal balance in the classroom and personal balance in living. In these twin necessities be hard on yourself. Refuse to walk carelessly. Live uprightly. Take to heart David’s desire, “I will walk perfectly in my own house,” as well as Paul’s admonition: “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to [or taught] others, I myself should be a castaway.”

Dear friends, let us seek the twin graces of self-mortification and humility. In The Christian Ministry, Charles Bridges writes as follows:

The missionary Eliot is said to have “become so nailed to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, that the grandeurs of this world were unto him just what they would be to a dying man. He persecuted the lust of the flesh with a continual antipathy; and when he has thought that [one] had made much of himself, he has gone to him with that speech, ‘Study mortification, brother; study mortification.’”

Seek humility above all —as individuals, spouses, parents, principals, and teachers. May God nail you to the cross of Christ and overwhelm you at times with His balanced grace in His Son, enabling you to confess: “I am nothing; God in Christ is everything!”

STRICKEN, SMITTEN

Stricken, smitten and afflicted,
See Him dying on the tree!
‘Tis the Christ by man rejected;
Yes, my soul, ‘tis He, ‘tis He!
‘Tis the long-expected Prophet,
David’s Son, yet David’s Lord;
By His Son, God now has spoken:
This the true and faithful Word.

Tell me, ye who hear Him groaning,
Was there ever grief like His?

Friends thro’ fear His cause disowning,
Foes insulting His distress;
Many hands were raised to wound Him,
None would interpose to save;
But the deepest stroke that pierced Him,
Was the stroke that lustice gave.

Ye who think of sin but lightly.
Nor suppose the evil great,
Here may view its nature rightly,
Here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the Sacrifice appointed,
See who bears the awful load;
This the Word, the Lord’s Annointed,
Son of Man and Son of God.

Here we have a firm foundation,
Here the refuge of the lost;
Christ’s the Rock of our salvation,
His the name of which we boast.
Lamb of God, for sinners wounded,
Sacrifice to cancel guilt;
None shall ever be confounded,
Who on Him their hope have built.

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