"What is a pastor’s primary responsibility?" That is a very common question. Is a pastor the president of a company? Is he to be a wonderful motivational speaker, able to instill in people a high level of emotional excitement? Or, is his primary responsibility to be devoted to the teaching of Scripture?

According to Acts 6, a problem arose in the early church where the apostles realized they could no longer effectively do their job their primary job of teaching and praying. To correct the problem others were raised up to take on the work for which the apostles did not have time.

In verse 2, the apostles called the church together and said, "It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables," adding in verse 4, "But we will devote ourselves to prayer, and to the ministry of the word." These are very critical words, for they specifically describe a portion of the apostle’s main job: teach the Word. This job has been passed down to every successive group of leaders since the beginning of the church.

The necessity and value of this high calling is due to the fact that pastors have as their primary objective the development of Christians in their thinking, in order that they may be built up to know and satisfy the will of God (Romans 12:2). To do this, I am convinced that pastors must be theologians. If a pastor’s primary objective is to tend to the ministry of the Word, then he ought himself to be a student of it, and a student who is willing to work to the point of exhaustion in order to do his job well (1 Timothy 4:16; 5:17). He must devote himself to the hard work of study, and then explanation.

J. P. Moreland describes an interesting trend which has actually frustrated this goal. In Love Your God With All Your Mind, he writes, "Since the 1960s, we have experienced an evolution in what we expect a local church pastor to be. Forty years ago he was expected to be a resident authority on theology and biblical teaching. Slowly this gave way to a model of the pastor as CEO of the church, the administrative and organizational leader. Today the ministers we want are Christianized pop therapists who are entertaining to listen to" (pp., 188-89).

In sharp contrast to this, are all those leaders whose writings and teachings have stood the test of time (Calvin, Luther, Edwards, Spurgeon, Lloyd-Jones, etc.). Such men believed that diligent, rigorous study was one of the greatest ways to glorify God, which in turn adequately equipped them to disciple the church. If God is glorified by minds that are being challenged to learn about Him, then could it be said that to refuse to grow intellectually in the teachings of the Bible is a sin? I would say so.

The tradition of American Christianity, which began with the Puritans--a people who were thoroughly committed to holiness, in thought as well as in action--is one of intellectual growth, which first began with Puritan pastors. In fact, some of the greatest minds in American Christianity were these men. They had a high standard not only for themselves, but also for their listeners, expecting them to grapple with, and understand, the doctrines they themselves had learned.

Because of the nature of their work, pastors should be intellectuals, scholars, theologians; they should, because of their ultimate responsibility, which is to explain God’s Word accurately, with great care and precision. They should know Hebrew, Greek, theology, church history, as well as having at least a general knowledge of the major heresies of the past.

As churches have become more concerned about form over substance with entertainment over deep thoughtful understanding and reflection, pastors/preachers have lost their historical distinctiveness in the church: they are no longer seen as the explainers of God’s written revelation, as those who should challenge us, but as those who ought to make us feel good.

But as the great Puritan, Richard Baxter, wrote in his classic The Reformed Pastor, "no [pastor] that hath not the vitals of theology, is capable of going beyond a fool in philosophy. Theology must lay the foundation, and lead the way of all our studies" (p., 58). And it is these studies, that are to lay the foundation for what we teach.

Every single time a pastor stands behind the "sacred desk" (pulpit), his job is not to be a comedian, a story-teller, an entertainer, a mass-psychologist; he is to be the vehicle through which God’s truth is dispensed. This can only occur if he understands what he is supposed to explain, and that understanding can only come through long hard hours in the privateness of his study. Such time and devotion will produce a scholar, a scholar who has gained deep insight into the mind of God. A pastor’s time should be spent plumbing the depths, and scaling the heights, of all the great riches in God’s Word. And then, having done that, he must be prepared to deliver up his labor to the body of Christ for the glory of God.