Declining respect for clergy is no longer news. What’s newsworthy is how broadly shared and deep that skepticism runs. According to a recent Gallup poll, fewer than a third of Americans (32 percent) view pastors as highly honest and ethical. At Christianity Today, Kate Shellnutt writes, “People are more likely to believe in the moral standards held by nurses, police officers, and chiropractors than their religious leaders.” It’s a small consolation that we clergy still garner more trust than “politicians, lawyers, and journalists.”
As a pastor, you may greet this news with a shrug, recognizing it as only one more reason why many of our kind are looking for the exit. For pastors, times are tough; few can recall a more difficult season than the one we’re now in.
But the challenges, criticisms, and discouragements that accompany pastoral ministry aren’t the whole story. When Paul writes to encourage young Timothy, he declares, “The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task” (1 Tim. 3:1). In contrast to today’s gloomy outlook on vocational ministry, Paul is positively sunny. He highly esteems service in pastoral ministry; he’s convinced serving as a pastor is a noble aspiration. You should be, too.
Highly Honored
Three truths stand out from Paul’s comment. First, Paul acknowledges that to aspire to ministry is a matter of one’s desire. The word he uses refers to a strong, intense desire—a longing that Paul clearly dignifies.
Second, Paul notes vocational ministry is a task, literally a “work.” Though pastoral ministry is desirable for the aspiring, it’ll always remain a duty to the Lord, and one that often requires great sacrifice on the part of us who are called.
The last word Paul uses here to describe the ministry task is “noble.” The word could also be translated “good,” “worthy,” or “beautiful”. That’s high praise for the pastoral calling, praise we do well to remember, especially in this season of low regard for ministry leaders.
For pastors, times are tough; few can recall a more difficult season than the one we’re now in.
Why does Paul esteem pastoral ministry so highly? In what sense is it a noble calling? Let me suggest three privileges every pastor ought to take great delight in and receive from the Lord with thanksgiving.
1. Pastors have a front-row seat to how God works in his church.
As a pastor, I’ve never enjoyed a lot of expendable cash to spend on front-row seats at my favorite sporting event or at concerts by my favorite artists. Pastors, though, don’t even need a credit card to see what God is doing in his church. God’s Spirit changes his people in the profoundest of ways, bringing them to saving faith, renewing them in gospel hope, leading them through great tragedy, and fostering greater obedience to God’s Word.
Throughout my ministry, I’ve counted it among my highest privileges that I’m often the first to see the amazing ways God is at work in his people’s lives, how he brings them into deeper communion with the Lord Jesus. As Francis Schaeffer wisely put it, “There are no little people in God’s sight, so there are no little places.”
If we’d but believe what we confess about God’s divine providence and the faithful administration of the ordinary means of grace, we’d better recognize how beautiful are the people we pastor, how remarkable are the places to which we’ve been called, and how amazing are the works our God is doing among us.
2. Pastors have the extraordinary privilege of serving on behalf of Jesus Christ.
All Christians have been summoned to be Jesus’s hands and feet, but ministry leaders are particularly called to the holy service of equipping Christ’s body for ministry. Paul writes to the church at Ephesus,
[Jesus] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. (Eph. 4:11–13)
As ministry leaders, then, we are uniquely positioned and empowered by the Spirit to continue Christ’s ministry in the lives of God’s people.
3. Christ has uniquely appointed pastors to speak on his behalf in the world.
Though all Christians are called to share the good news of Christ, pastors are by calling, character, and training uniquely set apart to serve as Christ’s spokespeople in the world. In Ephesians, Paul asks for prayer that he might “boldly proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which [he is] an ambassador in chains, that [he] may declare it boldly, as [he] ought to speak” (6:19–20). Similarly, in 2 Corinthians 5:20, Paul declares he and his ministry companions are “ambassadors for Christ” through whom God makes his appeal for sinners to be reconciled to God.
Depending on the moment, a pastor’s responsibility as Christ’s ambassador can feel overwhelming or like a tremendous honor. More than 20 years ago when I began as a young church planter in San Antonio, Texas, I felt both. How do you begin when you’re surrounded by strangers and tasked with casting the vision for a new church? By building relationships forged with the words and disposition of Christ. None of us does this perfectly, but amazingly we’re invited into this work by the Savior.
I’ve learned that whether we’re pastoring anxious teenagers, secular professionals, or the disillusioned and dechurched, what our listeners need most aren’t our words but those of Jesus. He invites his people to turn away from the vanity fair of this world and to rest in his bountiful grace.
Highly Esteemed
Because ministers of the gospel labor diligently in the Word (1 Tim. 5:17) and seek to rightly handle its truth (2 Tim. 2:15) for the benefit of God’s people (2 Tim. 3:16–17), the tasks of preaching, teaching, and speaking can become fatiguing at times. I served for 19 years as pastor of a growing congregation, and I know firsthand how exhausting Sundays can be. But throughout my ministry, Sunday remained my favorite day of the week. This is on account of how much I cherish serving as Christ’s ambassador.
No minister serves in the pastoral role perfectly, though some excel by virtue of their gifting and the Spirit’s blessing. But that any of us gets to serve at all is an incredible grace. Being called as a minister of the gospel is one of the highest honors God affords.
Depending on the moment, a pastor’s responsibility as Christ’s ambassador can feel overwhelming or like a tremendous honor.
Early in my ministry, an older, wiser leader advised me to keep a file of all the notes, cards, and letters of encouragement I’d receive from parishioners. “There’ll be days when you’ll need to remember those,” he said. “Why?” I asked. I don’t remember his exact response, but his answer had this effect: “Because encouragement isn’t all you’ll receive.” He was right.
Like every pastor, I’ve received both encouragement and critique over the years. But I now have those encouragement letters, cards, and notes collected from three decades of ministry. And what do they recount? Undoubtedly, they’re encouraging. But more importantly, they tell how the Lord Jesus allowed me to be a small part of the story of grace he wrote in his people’s lives. What a privilege.
Friends, as ministers of the gospel who serve and speak on behalf of Christ, you’re given a front-row seat to one of the greatest of life’s adventures. Pastoral ministry is a noble calling indeed.