Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon

In is his book Lectures to my Students, Charles Haddon Spurgeon details various practical and biblical advice to encourage or discourage men seeking to enter pastoral ministry. The book is a classic, and is arguably Spurgeon's best work. In particular, this book critique will summarize, evaluate, and contemporarily apply chapters 1,3,4,5,6,7,12,15, and 21.

Summary

Spurgeon begins his book in chapter 1 arguing that men seeking to enter the ministry must first be Christians. He encourages men to examine themselves, making sure they belong to Christ. He also argues that pastors must be mature Christians that practice what they preach.

In chapter 3 Spurgeon argues that a pastor must be a man of prayer. He must pray more than other Christians or be guilty of being a hypocrite. He further argues that a devoted prayer life will empower the pastor's sermons as well as their delivery. The pastor that does not pray over his work shows his arrogance, for he elevates his thoughts without seeing the need to appeal to God.

Continuing his thoughts on prayer, Spurgeon in chapter 4 examines how pastors and churches should pray in public. He argues that Christians should pray from the heart together, instead of simply reading a liturgy. God alone must be the object, and Scripture must be quoted accurately. Spurgeon finishes this chapter offering practical advice for the length, current, etc. of public prayers.

In chapter 5 Spurgeon details the substance of sermons. He purports that they should be made up of solid doctrine, saturated throughout. The doctrine should flow forth from the text itself, while always arriving at and reinforcing the gospel. Furthermore, pastors must seek to grow in their spiritual insight, better understanding the truth, so they can grow and encourage their hearers with this growth.

Continuing to handle the subject of sermonizing, Spurgeon in chapter 6 offers biblical and practical advice for choosing a text to preach. Texts must not be chosen at random, or plucked out of context; but, the pastor must pray to the Lord to show him the text he should preach. God the Holy Spirit will show the pastor what text to preach, and he should also consider the sins and trials of his people. Furthermore, pastors should consider their previous topics, their own study of the Word, suggestive books, etc. Finally, pastors should look for texts and sermons in their everyday lives, while also seeking to plan ahead for future texts and sermons.

In chapter 7 Spurgeon encourages pastors to spiritualize biblical texts. He gives various examples of too much spiritualizing and too little spiritualizing while giving some boundaries in which spiritualizing can take place. He furthermore lists various dangers in spiritualizing, and concludes the chapter offering some acceptable examples.

In chapter 12 Spurgeon details how ministers are to live as they socialize with the church and the lost in their everyday lives. He warns his hearers of being too proper, instead of merely being a common man when among the people. He must be sociable, cheerful, not dominating conversations, but seeking to accomplish some good through these social interactions. Spurgeon concludes this section encouraging pastors to never seek the rich man's table or various entertainments, nor to be argumentative, but to be sure to stick by his principles regardless his company.

In chapter 15 Spurgeon encourages his readers to continue in Christ, in holiness, in growth, and in grace. Throughout their ministries, pastors must gain biblical knowledge, increase their homiletic abilities, moral qualities, spiritual qualifications, work ethic, and missionary endeavors. He concludes this section simply encouraging pastors to move forward in the name of God.

Finally, in chapter 21 Spurgeon details the most important quality that ministers must possess to win souls: earnestness. Pastors must be alert, always earnest and excellent in their pulpit work. Furthermore, they must show their zeal when they actually preach their sermons, but this zeal must be real. He then examines various things that can diminish zeal, encouraging his hearers to continue being zealous because of the love of Christ alone. He concludes this section offering pastors advice to keep the flame going.

Evaluation

In this book, Charles Spurgeon offers great depth and breadth of biblical and practical advice for pastors to begin, continue, and finish their ministries unto the glory of God. He succeeds in both encouraging men to pastoral ministry and discouraging men from pastoral ministry. Though he is not unkind, Spurgeon is straight to the point, for he considers it his duty to tell the truth of the Scriptures to his hearers; as well as, to give them practical advice to help them flourish in ministry.

With such a large emphasis on the Protestant Bible, and a devout submission to it as the Word of God, Spurgeon's high view of the Scriptures as authoritative is clearly visible. Those who are like-minded with him will receive the most benefit from this book. However, due to Spurgeon offering much practical advice as well, even those who do not value the Protestant Bible will benefit from this book; for, Spurgeon is clearly "the prince of preachers."

Unfortunately, there are a few concerns of Spurgeon that seem very arbitrary. In chapter 6, Spurgeon tells pastors how to select a text to preach. He argues that God will tell pastors a text to preach; as well as, that a pastor needs to be observant of his congregation in order to discern the texts they need to hear. Believing to possess a Bible that is authoritative, it is interesting that Spurgeon would suggest an extra-biblical leading of God the Holy Spirit for the pastor to know what to preach. After all, if the entire Bible carries authority, and the hearers are all sinners, does not this mean that they need all the Word of God they can get? Furthermore, is there any moment of any day that a believer can say that he or she does not need certain pieces of the Bible? Is not the natural tendency of sinners to be prideful and arrogant, to think themselves strong in an area when they are really weak? So, as long as a pastor preaches from the Bible, can he really preach "the wrong text"? This writer believes that he cannot fail when he preaches the Word in context.

Spurgeon also argues that if a man is not given the text extra-biblically from God through some relative leading, then he is arrogantly using his own faculties to choose the text (86). This is an interesting argument considering Spurgeon believes a pastor is capable of discerning the textual needs of his congregants, but is incapable of picking the right text to preach using his faculties. In other areas of this book, Spurgeon encourages his readers to use their faculties to carry out their ministry unto God's glory. This writer understands Spurgeon's high view of the Scriptures, but Spurgeon fails to realize that the reader cannot escape his faculties in choosing a text. Spurgeon even suggests that "when your verse gives your mind a hearty grip, from which you cannot release yourself, you will need no further direction as to your proper theme (85)." This writer would like to ask Mr. Spurgeon how a man can know that his mind is gripped without using his own faculties. The answer is that a pastor's faculties are impossible to divorce from the process. Furthermore, there is no example in the Bible where God "gave a text" to someone to preach, relatively "gripping them with the text" as Spurgeon suggests. Also, even if this happens in a pastor's life, how does one know that God is the one gripping him since the Bible details no similar gripping or even encourages pastors to wait on such gripping? The answer is that a pastor cannot know; so Spurgeon's suggestions are merely his opinion.

Finally, Spurgeon neglects the way God the Holy Spirit ordered the text for His own glory. In picking a text, does not the text demand to be exposited, since it is organized expositionally? God wrote specific words, in specific sentences, in specific paragraphs, in specific genres, organized in a specific order to detail a specific message. To deny this order is to hear the text differently than the early church would have heard it. They would not have merely plucked a few sentences here and there; nor would they have waited for a specific leading to a specific sentence. Spurgeon should not ignore the order of the Word, for whether God divinely tells his hearers what to preach today, one still cannot deny that He ordered the Word to be understood the way He organized it. Since He already organized it the way it is written, a preacher has authority from God to preach it the way it is already organized instead of waiting for God to reorganize it through relatively "gripping" the pastor's mind.

Another arbitrary example is found in chapter 7, when Spurgeon encourages his hearers to spiritualize the Bible within certain limits and boundaries. He vehemently comes against those that are against spiritualizing, those that are against going beyond the plain meaning of the text. To prove his point, he simply details his own opinions. He calls the standard homileticians have set up a "golden calf," but then he proceeds to set up his own "golden calf" for spiritualizing. He quotes Paul's finding of metaphors in Hagar and Sarah as a basis for our ability to find allegories in other places besides the two mentioned. The problem with this purported proof is that the Apostle Paul was an apostle, one who came with divine authority. One must ask if the Apostle Paul saw Hagar and Sarah as a metaphor because he was a pastor or because he was an apostle? This writer believes he saw the metaphor because he was an apostle, for there is no way apart from God the Holy Spirit that someone could come up with this metaphor. Furthermore, the Apostle Paul was "carried along by God the Holy Spirit," Spurgeon was not, and neither are his readers.

Also, Spurgeon encourages ingenuity, imagination, etc. with the text, but without violating "common sense," "good judgment," etc. He even criticizes John Gill and others for violating his purported terms. Though this writer agrees with Spurgeon's criticism, this writer cannot understand how he can condemn the spiritualizing of others and then argue for his own relative spiritualizing. The problem this writer has is that Spurgeon gets to determine the definition of "common sense," "good judgment," and the boundaries for spiritualizing. He also neglects proper hermeneutics and does not even mention understanding the Holy Spirit's meaning when He divinely inspired the text. Spurgeon's emphasis in this chapter is on the pastor, the interpreter, instead of the Author of the text Himself. He neglects the fact that words mean something; and God the Holy Spirit meant something specific when He wrote the Word of God.

Finally, Spurgeon believes that spiritualizing the text will help keep the audience's attention, interesting them and keeping them awake (109). The pastor's concern however must be with preaching the truth instead of using his imagination to stretch the text beyond the words and context present simply because he has a lazy congregation. Also, by encouraging pastors to use spiritualizing to keep attention, Spurgeon suggests that the text alone is incapable of keeping attention. This writer understands Spurgeon's belief in the depravity of his hearers and their desire to be "kept awake," but none of the pastors in the Old and New Testaments "spiritualized" for this reason. The sermonizers in Scripture demanded to be heard, not because of their ability, ingenuity, or imagination, but because they came with a message from God. In this writer's opinion, this chapter seems inconsistent with the rest of the book. It calls into question the sufficiency of Scriptures and arguably the inerrancy of the Scriptures.

Application

This writer would gladly recommend this book to all men considering ministry. Even men that have been in ministry for years will benefit from this book, for this writer benefited greatly; and he has served in ministry for over ten years. It should be a requirement for all seminarians; as well as, all ministers. This writer plans to read it at least once every two to three years from this point forward.

On a continual basis this writer needs to examine his life to make sure he is a Christian; and Spurgeon reminded him of this. There are many warnings in Scripture; and this writer must continue with Christ alone. One discipline that Spurgeon emphasized that will drastically help this writer remain faithful is prayer. He helped this writer to see his weakness in prayer; and has encouraged him to pray more intentionally on a consistent basis. Though Spurgeon was a Calvinist, he understood the responsibility of Christians to pray. Pastors as well are held to a higher standard in this regard.

Furthermore, in a society and largely a church that will not tolerate doctrine, Spurgeon encouraged this pastor to continue on faithfully preaching the Word of God. Though he emphasizes keeping the audience's attention, he still emphasized preaching the Word in context unto the glory of God. This message is much needed even in this writer's life. Like many pastors, this pastor is constantly tempted to preach something else, to marginalize the gospel, and to seek the applause of men alone. The gospel is always relevant.

Concerning the common language of the pastor in his everyday life, this pastor is tempted to be fake. This writer knows pastors that have polished sermons, polished personalities, and polished conversation. Spurgeon encouraged pastors to accomplish something in their daily conversation, but to simply be common men among common men. This writer struggles with seeking to be liked, to be more like a politician than a pastor, to be a people-pleaser instead of a preacher of the Word of God. The temptation to be a hireling is overwhelming; though the text has won, is winning, and will hopefully continue to win in this writer's future.

Finally, Spurgeon encouraged this writer to be earnest for souls. He is exactly correct in his estimation of the foundation for the flame of earnestness. With many church members and lost people seeking to feel good, it is extremely refreshing to hear that the flame of Christianity is found in the original foundation that started Christianity. The love of Christ, understanding it and applying it, is the answer to apathy about the salvation of souls. This writer knows that if he is ever apathetic about the salvation of souls, he simply must believe and apply what he knows to be true. The love of Christ is an exciting reality for those who understand it; and those who are apathetic about it, whether pastors or lost people, are arrogant fools. Spurgeon has reminded this writer of his foolishness and has warned him of future folly. "God, make this writer earnest for the dead men, women, and children in the pews, for they are not earnest for themselves."