September 30, 2025 • 44 mins
Sinclair Ferguson joins us to share wisdom that he wishes he’d been given when he started in pastoral ministry in Glasgow 54 years ago.
Sinclair has served for decades as a pastor, preacher, theologian and author in Scotland and the United States. He’s the author of 50 books.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:08):
It is the Pastors Hart and Dominic Steele, and
Sinclair Ferguson is with usfrom Scotland and also the
United States.
He's served for decades as apastor, teacher, preacher,
theologian, and author for manyyears at St.
George's Tron and then FirstPresbyterian Church in Columbia,
South Carolina, and long stintsin theological lecturing.
(00:28):
He's written more than 50 books.
Sinclair was speaking at asold-out event in Sydney last
night and a series of eventsacross Eastern Australia this
month with Liganham Ministries.
Sinclair, thanks for coming in.
And could we start with thepastor's heart?
And uh, I mean, you have spokenin the past about those early
years at St.
George's Tron.
And I'm just wondering, uh,what's the wisdom from the heart
(00:52):
that 77-year-old Sinclair mightwant to share with 23-year-old
Assistant Minister Sinclair?
SPEAKER_00 (00:58):
Well, I think um I think I would have asked my boss
more questions.
Um I think I think the chiefquestion I would have asked him,
because I was I I grew up kindof paralytically shy.
Um and my my boss actually uhspoke at the Keswick Convention
(01:19):
more than anyone else has everdone in the whole history of the
convention.
So he was a pretty major figurein that world.
Um, I think he was also slightlyshy.
So I was with him for threeyears, and he he never once said
to me, Sinclair, let me help youdo better what I think you do.
(01:40):
We were very different from eachother.
And I was, I think I was too shyand naive to say to him, Mr.
Duncan, how do you do that?
So I knew he could go into ahome and come out of it 15
minutes later, and stardustwould be sprinkled in the home.
I could be in the home half anhour still trying to work out
how do I turn this conversationto spiritual things.
(02:03):
And one thing I would say tomyself now would be as this is
experiential, old people reallylike talking about their lives.
Um, and nobody, interestingly,nobody had ever said that to me.
Um, my theological education wasum, I would say predominantly
(02:25):
liberal.
Um, the pastoral training wasnon-existent.
I don't remember any lectures onpreaching.
Um I guess in those days, thisis this is the late 60s, um,
when I was a student, it wasassumed that you picked up how
to do things by a kind ofosmosis.
Uh, it was assumed, you know,you would have a church
(02:47):
background and so on.
And it it really, you know, Ijust knew nothing about pastoral
visitation.
And I didn't know that all Ineeded to do was to set somebody
off, and I would learn enoughabout them that would enable me
to visit them during the nextthree years and have what I
(03:08):
sometimes think about as loosethreads on people's sweaters
that you can pull and connect tothe Bible, the Christian faith,
the gospel, their difficultiesand challenges.
And I suspect he might have saidto me, Sinclair, there's no way
you can go into a house for 15minutes and sprinkle stardust.
You're 23 years old.
(03:29):
Um, it will come.
But this is this is somethingthat would give you a good
start.
And I actually now I sometimessay this to younger people in
the church, you know, at theend, especially of the evening
service, go and sit down besideone of the older people and just
say, How did you get here?
You will be absolutely amazed atthe at the lines of the stories
(03:51):
that have brought you here.
So I think that would be thatwould be one thing.
Um another thing that I I thinkI realized even in in pretty
early on in those three years Iwas there, uh, it wasn't that
anybody said it to me.
Um my m my minister as a studenthad said to me, Sinclair, you
(04:13):
need to watch yourrelentlessness.
And I I th I don't think hemeant um that in terms of voice
um or personality.
I think he meant it in terms ofintellect.
Um that I had to learn to umtrans transpose my intellectual
(04:39):
thinking into pastoral feedingof the flock.
And I realized somewhere in themiddle of those three years, I I
feel I'm coming down on people.
Um and that was partly theintellectual relentlessness,
want to get this into your mind.
Instead of get my instead of mypreaching getting underneath
(05:02):
people and lifting them toChrist, lifting them to the
Father, lifting them to theSpirit.
Um and that that was actually abig moment in my life, I think.
Um, and I hoped began totransform my whole my whole
attitude to what preaching was,that it was much more than an
(05:25):
intellect seeking to communicateto intellects, but to use
Philips Brooks' famous words, umit was it was the preaching of
the gospel, the truth of God, inwhich Christ by the Spirit was
preaching to the people, but hewas doing that through my
(05:46):
preaching, through the words Iused.
And therefore, my fundamentalchallenge was to be as
Christ-like in my preaching as Iwanted to be in my living.
So those were those were bigmoments.
And then I spent a few yearsafter that in the most northerly
island in the United Kingdom.
(06:07):
And one of the first things Idid when I got there was sell
Bibles.
Really?
So because they didn't havethem.
Yeah, they somewhere they mighthave had a very small print
King, King James version.
Those were the days when thewhen the the modern version was
the revised standard version,and the Bible Society would do
you a good deal on Bibles if youwere going to use them.
(06:28):
And so you're trying to getpeople to read the Bible.
That's right.
Selling them.
That's right.
So I I I I realized very quicklywhen I so I was working my way
through passages in the Bible,nobody had a Bible open.
Um, and so that was really thatwas that was pretty much bargain
basement ministry, um, and verydifferent from where I'd been,
(06:50):
uh the assistant minister, andand basically where you know my
future pastoral ministries wouldlie.
SPEAKER_01 (06:57):
Um you talked about your first boss being a regular
speaker at Keswick.
What was the I've I've justforgotten the journey from
Keswick being caught in sinlessperfectionism to orthodox
evangelical theology.
SPEAKER_00 (07:11):
Tell us the dates and the journey there.
Well, I'm too young to rememberthe actual events.
Uh I remember when I was a uhyoung student, John Stott's
book, Men Made New.
Romans 5 to 8.
It was Romans 5 to 8.
Um, he changed his views lateron, as it happens.
(07:32):
Um, but I think people saw thatas a line in the sand.
Um I think the stinking beforethen, but that would have been
that was probably in the 1960s,Darmanic.
It may have been about 1965.
So not that long before youworked for Mr.
Duncan.
(07:52):
Yeah.
And he um there was no there wasno sign in his preaching of the
higher life movement.
So I think it had begun to fade.
Um and I would say Mr.
Duncan, that generation, by andlarge, had pretty slim resources
(08:13):
to help them.
You know, if you go back to the1950s, the literature that was
available to help peopletheologically was really very
slim picking.
Compared to the library that youwould have now.
Now, you know, and so that fact,knowing that, just because of
the age I am, has really helpedme more to view these men with
(08:35):
affection and gratitude for umthe way they preached the
gospel, the fruitfulness oftheir ministries, and and their
commitment to biblicalorthodoxy.
Mr.
Duncan actually wrote a littlepamphlet on Ephesians 5.18 on
being filled with the Spirit,before, I think it was before
John Stott's little book,Baptism Fullness of the Holy
(08:58):
Spirit, which was reallyexcellent.
You know, there was there was notinge of higher life in it.
He probably did tend to focus onconversion and consecration,
which would still have continuedin the Keswick Convention.
But the first time I spoke therewas 1979.
Um, and they were still thenusing the old formulation of was
(09:23):
it the holiness of God,sinfulness?
You know, it was structured inthe old way, but I didn't hear
any of the what I knew to be theold Keswick message.
SPEAKER_01 (09:35):
Talk to us about the legacies of um John MacArthur
and R.
C.
Because I mean you spoke at thefunerals of them just yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:43):
Yeah.
So um R.
C.
I knew, I I I know exactly whereI was standing when somebody
mentioned his name to me, firstof all.
There was a fellow who hadstudied in the United States.
We were speaking at aconference, we were actually
standing at the podium, and hesaid to me, Have you heard of R.
C.
Sproul?
And I hadn't heard of him.
This would have been, this mighthave been 1979.
(10:06):
And he said, uh, J.I.
Packer says he's the bestcommunicator of reformed
theology in the United States.
And I remember thinking, well,this I must see and hear.
Yeah.
Um, and I was I felt I was aslikely to go to the moon as I
was to go to the United States.
But in the school year 82-83, Istarted teaching at Westminster
(10:27):
Seminary in Philadelphia.
And we happened the next year, Ithink, to speak at a conference
together.
And that was how I came to knowhim.
And he he you know, hebefriended me, um, brought me
into what in those days was inmany ways a quite a modest
ministry, began in uh it was itwas really a a kind of it was a
(10:52):
bit like Schaefer's labri inPennsylvania in a modest way,
and over the years mushroomedinto really an amazing ministry.
The materials in 20 languagesthey're reaching the world in
all kinds of ways.
Very able people.
So he was a long-standingfriend.
SPEAKER_01 (11:15):
One of my favorite stories of him was um, I think
they had a sale once a year, anduh he would go and help in the
warehouse in the picking of thestuff.
SPEAKER_00 (11:25):
He was he was really terrific.
He was very, very ableintellectually, but he had he
and ordinarily you'd havethought he would he did teach in
seminary, but you'd have thoughthe'll end up in university or a
seminary.
But he had really committedhimself to bringing the whole of
biblical theology and thehistory of the church to the
(11:46):
whole church.
And I resonated with thatbecause just trying to
understand who I was and whatgifts I might have, I I I really
wanted to be able to communicateChrist and the gospel to every
stage and layer.
(12:07):
So, and and in a way that youknow the books I've written
express that, you know, I I I'vewritten for seminary and
college, I've written for theordinary Christian and for
children.
And that's really an expressionof I think an echo uh that he
saw in my life of of the thingsthat he wanted to do.
(12:31):
Um MacArthur's contribution.
And and he well, the interestingthing is um the John MacArthur
was very good friends with RCE,but in some areas they were a
dispensation apart.
It's in beta.
And that was really veryinteresting in the United
States, because um in Scotland,I can only ever remember one
(12:55):
person asking me what my viewsof the millennium were.
And it was when I was anassistant minister, and Mr.
Duncan had just given a Biblemidweek Bible study on the
millennium.
Um, when I went to the States, Ifelt everybody wants to know
what my views on the millenniumare.
And I really don't talk about ithere in Australia.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I realized this was a thiswas a kingdom demarcation line.
(13:21):
So there were churches where youwould never be minister unless
you uh signed on the dottedline.
So it was a very striking thingin maybe the 19, it was maybe
the 1980s, I can't quiteremember when, that John kind of
reached beyond the borders ofthat world in which he had been
(13:43):
reared and lived.
And he he was reaching out topeople like Jim Boyce and R.
C.
And and he reached out to me,kind of out of the blue.
Um, and so we became we becamefriends as well.
I didn't know him as well as Iknew R.
C.
I think John's contribution wasthat in the world in which he
(14:07):
lived, which was by and largekind of independent Baptist with
a kind of fundamentalisticbackground to it, he really
introduced a more rigorous focuson actually preaching what was
in the text.
And that influenced a wholegeneration of younger men, you
(14:31):
know, vast numbers of them Ibump into, who have all been
influenced by him.
And people who would not havebeen influenced by him in the
sense that they would ever bethought of as MacArthurites, but
realized he was somebody in thegeneration above them who had
modelled faithfulness to thegospel and and was was willing,
(14:55):
as he often appeared on LarryKing Live, which was the big um
evening talk talk show.
And I'm sure it was becauseLarry King, six times married or
whatever he was, knew that withthis man the he will not dodge
the issues.
So he was good television fromthat point of view, but he had a
(15:16):
very good mind.
Um and he was able to, you know,and he had a whole library of
information in his head.
So he was able to answer clearlyand strongly.
And I think I thought a lot ofAmericans probably hated that,
but many Christians admired it.
And I found it's interestingbecause I I I preached at the
(15:38):
memorial service of both ofthem, very different
personalities.
You know, R.
C.
was Pittsburgh, you know, he wasa Pittsburgh stealer.
Um, and and John, John wasalways beautifully dressed.
R RC R.
C.
dressed well, but R.
C.
you would never say R.
C.
was beautifully dressed, kind ofthing.
(16:00):
But I think the thing that thatstruck me about both of them was
that there was kindness in bothof them.
And actually, that was what mademe kind of look again at the
fruit of the spirit and see thatkindness is embedded there right
in the middle.
And I think I've noticed thatwith with with ministers who
(16:20):
have been in the generationabove me, um, that whatever
personality God has gifted themwith, some of them seem to be
more like Ezekiel than theApostle John.
And their preaching can be asdifferent.
Um, there is always that elementof personal kindness in them and
a Christ-like gentleness.
(16:42):
And um, that's, you know, I Ijust have loved them for that.
It's reminded me of Augustine,you know, when he says in in the
confessions about Ambrose, youknow, when I came to Milan, I
didn't really expect to find anygreat teaching because I didn't
believe there was great teachingin the Catholic Church.
But what touched me was that youwere kind to me.
(17:02):
And I've often thought if I wereif I were comp if I were
creating the individual whowould reach an intellect like
Augustine, the only thing I'd beinterested in would be
intellect.
Um and it just it's just been agreat lesson to me in both of
these men and in Augustine, whomI didn't know, um, that the
(17:24):
gospel does not exist in a kindof bubble of the intellect.
It's a whole person reality, andand many of us, maybe even most
of us, are drawn to Christbecause we've seen reflections
of him and others.
SPEAKER_01 (17:41):
Still reflecting on the gospel in the United States,
um, and uh I have beenscratching my head as I've I've
looked at um uh what's beengoing on there the last few
weeks, and uh I mean, and evensome uh Christian leaders in the
states saying things like ifyour pastor hasn't aligned
(18:03):
themselves with Charlie Kirk,find a different church and and
and things like that.
What do you make of all of that?
SPEAKER_00 (18:11):
In a way, I think Dominic, it's kind of analogous
to what one sometimes saw inNorthern Ireland in the days of
the Troubles with figures likeIan Paisley, um, where there was
a closer alignment to how youvoted with what you believed.
(18:33):
Um and and in a sense, I thinkunderneath all of that is a kind
of struggle either for identity,because people feel they need
they're lost in this world.
I mean, Christians feel this,you know, where am I with whom
am I going to align?
Because they they're perhaps notwell enough taught to know that
(18:58):
as long as you align withChrist, the gospel, the Trinity,
his word, and the people of God,you are secure.
And these big figures, in a, Ithink in a pretty unusual way in
the United States, gather tothemselves people who are
identified by the kingdom towhich they belong.
(19:20):
And I think that has happened inthis case.
And um, I've often reflected onthe fact that you know how in
the early church, if someone wasmartyred, martyred, then a kind
of sanctity blanket came overthe whole family, and the whole
family was special and kind ofuntouchable.
Um, and I think that's one ofthe things that has been
(19:42):
happening in the last few days,a kind of untouchability about
the profession of faith thatCharlie Kirk made.
Um, and perhaps not the kind ofanalysis that would recognize
the reality of what hashappened, but also would
(20:03):
question well, is this um isthis enthusiasm going to be
turned into faithful Christianliving?
Or is it all it going to do makepeople align with power
structures?
Um and very definitely, youknow, there are there are very
(20:23):
strong power structures in theUnited States in a way that I
don't think you would find inAustralia or in or in the United
Kingdom.
SPEAKER_01 (20:33):
Um I mean, I'm just trying to think about and and
seeking your advice on as apastor, what should my posture
be towards politics?
And so, I mean, I've I have beensomebody, our our congregation
members wouldn't know which wayI I vote.
Um, and I want people to come toour church who are highly
(20:56):
left-wing and highly right wing,and I stay in my lane of
preaching Christ and don't getin the lane of expressing
political views.
SPEAKER_00 (21:06):
Well, I am I'm very much with you, I think, Dominic.
Uh that's kind of church-stateseparation in its in its own
way.
That what I'm wanting to do inministry is really to give
people what I call the lensesthrough which they can see the
world fairly clearly, that willenable them to assess situations
(21:28):
in a fallen world.
And if it's a vote, then to voteaccordingly.
I think American friends havefound themselves in recent years
in pretty considerabledifficulty because they found
themselves uh faced withcandidates, neither of whom
actually appeals to them as aperson.
(21:51):
But at least in my world, youknow, they have they have they
have at least understood thisprinciple that the person of the
individual is not the mostimportant thing.
That what will happen as aresult of the individual may be
very different from thequestion, do you like him or her
or not?
Um and so I, you know, I'vealways done some really, really
(22:15):
interesting story.
I don't know if we've time forthis, but uh year a few years
ago, on the 50th anniversary ofMartin Lloyd Jones' lectures on
preaching and preachers, whichwere given at Westminster
Seminary, I was asked to givethe lecture in London, the uh
Lloyd Jones Memorial Lecture, onpreaching and preachers.
And at the end, I'm trying toland the plane, and there is a
photograph of him in IanMurray's biographies of him, in
(22:38):
which he's being introduced tothe Queen by Dr.
Marjorie Blackie, who was amember of his congregation, and
this was her retirement due, andthe Queen had turned up to it.
And so I thought Dr.
Lloyd John's face here expresseshow I think he thought about
preaching.
So I thought there is a sense ofprivilege in meeting the monarch
(23:01):
and a sense of modesty, humilityin meeting the monarch.
And so that was how I landed theplane, I thought, quite well.
And I I didn't realize I'd causesome turbulence because uh his
daughter, who who died recently,Anne, whom I knew, came up to
me.
I didn't know her well.
She said, that was very fine.
She said, I don't like thatphotograph.
(23:23):
So I think it's a very nicephotograph.
So as the conversation went on,she said, No, we don't like that
photograph.
And then she told me why, and itblew me out of the water.
She said, Because my father wasa Republican.
And I thought, I should havethought about that.
Welshman, lover of the Puritans.
(23:44):
It never crossed my mind.
And I wondered, did anyone inWestminster Chapel when he was
minister there know that he wasa Republican and not a royalist?
And my guess was probably not.
Because he stayed in his lane.
He stayed in his lane, you know.
Um So I think I think that is agreat I think we do our
(24:07):
congregation a kind ofdisservice if we tell them what
to think and what to do but areunable to show, like the
Westminster Confession is thisexpression that I think is very
helpful, that this conclusion isdrawn from Scripture by good and
(24:28):
necessary consequence.
And I I think sometimes peoplethink, well, this is good
consequence, so there is noother way you can do it.
But you've got to show also bynecessary consequence to be able
to bind something on people'sconsciences.
Give me an example of that.
Umone might say, in inconnection with the with the
(24:53):
teaching of the WestminsterConfession, just to use it as an
example of what is true ofScripture, um, my view is
consistent with what theconfession says.
But there may be other viewsthat are consistent with what
the confession says.
So if you think of the way Paulcomported himself, in one
(25:17):
context, comporting himself as aJew, in another context
comporting himself as a Gentilebeliever, somebody might say you
are being inconsistent.
Um you have to be one or theother.
And I think Paul would say fromthe gospel you cannot show by
(25:39):
good and necessary consequencethat that's the case.
And I think it's a very it's nota principle that answers all the
questions, but I think it is aprinciple that dissolves some of
the unnecessary tensions thatthere are.
So, like for example, what whathe does in Romans 14 and 15, it
(26:01):
is a really good consequence ofthe gospel that you eat meat,
right?
That uh you don't mind havingbacon and eggs for your
breakfast.
But it's not a necessaryconsequence of the gospel that
you eat bacon and eggs for yourbreakfast.
And unless you can show thatit's a necessary consequence as
(26:21):
well as a good consequence, thenyou cannot impose that as a
dogma on the life of the church.
And you know, in Romans 14, 15he does this really beautiful
job of seeking to dissolve thetensions that presumably have
arisen in a church where the theJewish believers have been
(26:45):
thrown out because of Claudius'sdecree and have come back and
discovered we're in a gentilechurch now.
What are we going to do?
And and we're upsetting ourgentile friends and they're
upsetting us.
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
Tell us about, as a minister in Scotland, your
interactions with the Queen.
How did you know about this?
SPEAKER_00 (27:05):
Well, um, so uh the Queen uh would would vacation in
the summer in Scotland, in atBalmoral Castle.
And um I think Victoria actuallybuilt the church, not
individually, um, but built thechurch that is just outside the
(27:26):
gates of Balmoral Castle, whichis where the Queen would
worship.
And there would be invitationsgiven to people to go and
preach.
And I I got an invitation to go,which I I actually declined, um,
and will not go into the reasonsfor declining it.
(27:46):
But then one of the royalchaplains called me and said,
You would really be helping usif you came.
And I think he was probablyevangelically sympathetic, but I
also kind of had picked up thatthere were grumblings and
murmurings that the Queen rarelyheard evangelical preachers or
(28:07):
preachers who weren't known ashe is an evangelical.
And I thought, well, maybe thisis the tactic that when people
say that again, oh sure, we hadthat man Ferguson two years ago.
We of course we haveevangelicals.
So so I then I accepted theinvitation.
And accepting the invitationmeant that you spent the weekend
(28:28):
with them and and lived withthem.
It was in a way In the castle.
In the castle.
Um for me it was a bit like andhad breakfast and yeah, so it
was a bit like entering a soapopera you had watched all your
life.
Like watching the crown.
She was the only queen I couldremember.
SPEAKER_01 (28:48):
Well, I mean, just when you were talking about
Lloyd Jones and The Queen.
I mean, you think she was themonarch back then?
SPEAKER_00 (28:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it was a it was a reallyinteresting experience.
Uh a very interestingexperience, illuminating
experience.
Um and in in in many ways it wasum it was a it was a it was a it
was an opportunity to serve theLord.
(29:16):
There are I didn't sign theofficial Secrets Act, but there
are there are some things thathappened over the weekend I
might tell somebody personally,but I wouldn't I wouldn't share
on the podcast.
It's just us.
It's just us.
The one thing I would say wasthe um the queen, the other
members of the royal family camedown for breakfast.
(29:37):
The queen does not come down forbreakfast.
But uh on the Sunday night whenthe whole weekend was over, that
w it really struck me that shecame right across the room to
speak to me, uh, to thank me forthe message in church.
And I I thought afterwards sheshe didn't need to do that.
(29:59):
Um It was uh it was it wasreally a signal of grace.
Um I uh I n I know a funeraldirector who knows the funeral
director, and he told me thatthat the funeral director uh who
had gone to Balmoral, the onething he he kind of regretted
(30:20):
was that he didn't make a noteof the passage in the Bible that
was open beside her.
Now, an open Bible could meananything, but you know, my
impression of her was that shewas a genuine woman.
A duteous, she was a verydutious woman.
(30:42):
Um and you know, to be honest, Ialways felt she's surrounded by
actually intellectually quiteable men, but they preach for
ten minutes, and that's a worldin which you're not really being
fed the mana from heaven, andgrow growing is is difficult,
and so I kind of assumed sheread her Bible and prayed.
SPEAKER_01 (31:07):
How do you preach to power?
SPEAKER_00 (31:10):
To power, yeah.
Um by ignoring its power, Ithink.
Um there were lots of otherpeople in the in the church, and
in in my uh so the the thepreacher is invited, his wife is
not invited, and one member ofthe royal family explained to me
(31:33):
that this is because Victoriadid not invite the wives.
So there are obviously still menin grey suits who tell you um
this is the way it's always beendone.
But my memory of the service,it's a while ago now, was it
really was a it was a greatservice.
And my wife and daughteractually came to the service,
(31:55):
and um somebody said on the wayout, uh a visitor who was
presumably there, um said tothem, assuming that they were
members of the church, the localchurch, said, Is it always like
this?
Um So there I think there reallywas a touch of the spirit in the
(32:15):
service.
And I I I preached the way Iwould have preached to any
congregation.
SPEAKER_01 (32:21):
Um warning against legalism and antinomianism has
been one of the themes of yourwork over the years.
Um what are your concerns in thecontemporary church at the
moment?
Probably both.
SPEAKER_00 (32:35):
Um I've I've kind of long held, well, let just go
back in my personal life.
I was, I think, I was probablyabout 15 or 16, a very young
Christian.
My family didn't go to churchtill after I was converted.
And some of the books that werefed to me, one of the first was
(32:57):
Watchmen Knees, The NormalChristian Life.
And I could, I could just neverget it.
But it caused me to wrestle withthe question, what does it
actually mean to be united toChrist?
Um, it it took me a year or twoactually to actually to kind of
pay attention to the fact thatChristians are in Christ.
(33:22):
I remember maybe I was 15reading 2 Corinthians 12, Paul
says, I knew a man in Christ,and thinking, who was this man
in Christ?
He knew.
And it just didn't dawn on me hewas talking about himself.
And rather than saying, I am aChristian, actually, that was
how he would have describedhimself as a man in Christ.
(33:43):
Um, but then by the time I was17, I was a first-year
university student, and I wasreally, I was just still
struggling to understandpassages like Romans 6,
Colossians 3, other passages,Galatians 2.20, which was like a
big verse that you had tomemorize, but nobody ever
actually explained what it meantto be crucified with Christ.
(34:05):
And um I heard a message in myvery first term at university
that really helped me.
And so I suppose union withChrist was a theme embedded in
scripture that had become aspecial help to me.
(34:26):
And it wasn't, it didn't takelong to realize that whether
Paul was dealing with legalismin the church or antinomianism
in the church, he was alwaysbringing both of these
diversions back to the principlewe're united to Christ.
(34:47):
And if we're united to Christ,these implications follow.
Um and and so that that's justbeen something that I guess
that's lingered in my mind andprobably come out in in my
writings over the years.
SPEAKER_01 (35:04):
Now we've had a number of uh questions submitted
on Facebook for us.
Uh I'm just gonna bowl them upand then get you to hit them
quickly.
This is the lightning round.
Yeah, this is the lightningraping with short answers, you
know, Dominic.
How could Jodie Jessup asks, howcan we disciple believers in
such a way that Christ becomesnot just central to their
doctrine, but central to theiraffections?
SPEAKER_00 (35:23):
Well, I think being conscious of that, that
individuals are not just brains.
Um, and I think that thenaffects the way we quotes
disciple them.
Um I'm I've become kind of ubersensitive to different forms of
(35:46):
discipleship in which therelationship is more one of um
teacher and student, and lessone of older friend and younger
friend.
So in my years at seminary, no,it not every seminary student
bonds to the same facultymember, which is good, but
(36:09):
different students bond todifferent faculty members or are
attracted to their style orwhatever.
And so over the over the years Itaught in seminary, students
would come and say, Would youmentor me?
And I always said, No, I won't,but I will be your friend if you
want.
Because I think I sensed um thatthat was what Jesus mentored his
(36:33):
disciples into friendship.
Um, you're my friends.
SPEAKER_01 (36:38):
I mean, that's very interesting.
We're having a thing here ofincreasing pressure to be
involved in professionalsupervision.
And and yet I think actually, ifwe had better, deeper
friendships, that would bebetter.
SPEAKER_00 (36:51):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, the man who was myminister when I was a student,
William Still, who's a legendaryfigure, um, great and eccentric
man who had no formal educationbetween about 14 and 26.
And so he didn't preach instraight lines with easy to
follow divisions.
He was more like a deep seadiver, I sometimes say, who
(37:15):
where are you, Mr.
Still?
And then he would come up with aperil in his hand.
And um he he invested himself inme without me ever feeling there
is a kind of authority structurehere.
And I think that that's that'sactually what I fear.
Um I actually fear it sometimesin counseling as well, that the
(37:40):
counselor is the expert and andthe Christian becomes a client.
Whereas in the life of thechurch, which the life of the
church in the ministry of theword, which is where we
centrally get our counseling,the relationship is pastor to
people, friend to friend,brother to brother, brother to
(38:03):
sister.
Um, and I would rather see thosekinds of relationships develop.
And so sometimes, you know, I'vesaid to younger men, you know,
the best thing you can do is toget near enough someone who is
already a minister, near enoughto smell his breath.
And I I I think that's that'show it works.
SPEAKER_01 (38:25):
Uh, last question, Mark Allison.
In what ways do even faithfuland learned evangelicals in the
Anglo Sphere sometimes fail tograsp the whole Christ?
SPEAKER_00 (38:36):
Well, he is so whole, we're all struggling to
grasp him.
Um I I often go back to what Ithink is the wisdom of the early
fathers and their emphasis onthe reality of the two natures
united in the one person.
Um, because I I have thisfeeling that many evangelicals
(39:00):
think, for example, that Christdid what he did by infusing a
percent or two of deity into hislife.
The the kind of the the theproof text, as it were, that uh
I often use is so uh Luke 2tells us that Jesus uh went back
(39:23):
home, was obedient to hisparents, um, and he grew in
wisdom and stature and in favorwith God and man.
And you can grasp that he grewin stature, you know, obviously.
You can maybe grasp he grew inwisdom, although that might be a
little more challenging for you,because like in your mind you
(39:45):
kind of assume he was God and sohe knew everything.
Um you you understand that atleast with many men he grew in
favor.
But do you have a Jesus whocould have grown in favor with
God?
And if I if I quote that text, Ikind of usually pause and
(40:07):
actually, you know, look intothe faces of people in the
congregation, and I'm I'm alwaysstruck by this kind of um
because maybe it's because wehave sp we have inevitably had
to defend his deity, that we wecan easily lose touch with his
(40:31):
humanity.
And then if like if I fastforward from that to Hebrews 13
and the author of Hebrews sayingthat he is the same yesterday,
today, and forever, which have akind of theory many Christians
think is a rather long way ofsaying he's eternal, when what
it is actually saying is what hewas yesterday, what he was in
(40:54):
the authors yesterday, that isto say, what he was, at least in
the days, what he calls the daysof his flesh.
That is who he is and what he isfor you today.
Which interestingly for me haskind of come to mean that the
letter in the New Testament thatbrings the incarnate Christ
closest to us is actually theepistle to the Hebrews, which I
(41:18):
think some of us find one of themore difficult parts of
Scripture to preach.
So I think having uh having agood theological paradigm which
the Father sought to give ushelps us to take in, gives us,
as I sometimes say, velcrostrips, to take in what is
actually there in the text, butleft to ourselves without the
(41:42):
communion of the saints, we wemight never notice.
SPEAKER_01 (41:45):
I have a stack more questions, but we're out of
time.
So thank you for coming.
SPEAKER_00 (41:49):
Thank you for having me, Tom.
SPEAKER_01 (41:50):
My guest on The Pastor's Heart, Sinclair
Ferguson, and uh Sinclair inAustralia at the moment, uh,
speaking in Melbourne, Brisbane,and Sydney on a whirlwind trip.
And uh he's out here with LignerMinistries.
My name's Dominic Steele.
This has been The Pastor'sHeart.
We'll look forward to yourcompany next Tuesday afternoon.
It is the Pastors Hart and Dominic Steele, and
Sinclair Ferguson is with usfrom Scotland and also the
United States.
He's served for decades as apastor, teacher, preacher,
theologian, and author for manyyears at St.
George's Tron and then FirstPresbyterian Church in Columbia,
South Carolina, and long stintsin theological lecturing.
(00:28):
He's written more than 50 books.
Sinclair was speaking at asold-out event in Sydney last
night and a series of eventsacross Eastern Australia this
month with Liganham Ministries.
Sinclair, thanks for coming in.
And could we start with thepastor's heart?
And uh, I mean, you have spokenin the past about those early
years at St.
George's Tron.
And I'm just wondering, uh,what's the wisdom from the heart
(00:52):
that 77-year-old Sinclair mightwant to share with 23-year-old
Assistant Minister Sinclair?
SPEAKER_00 (00:58):
Well, I think um I think I would have asked my boss
more questions.
Um I think I think the chiefquestion I would have asked him,
because I was I I grew up kindof paralytically shy.
Um and my my boss actually uhspoke at the Keswick Convention
(01:19):
more than anyone else has everdone in the whole history of the
convention.
So he was a pretty major figurein that world.
Um, I think he was also slightlyshy.
So I was with him for threeyears, and he he never once said
to me, Sinclair, let me help youdo better what I think you do.
(01:40):
We were very different from eachother.
And I was, I think I was too shyand naive to say to him, Mr.
Duncan, how do you do that?
So I knew he could go into ahome and come out of it 15
minutes later, and stardustwould be sprinkled in the home.
I could be in the home half anhour still trying to work out
how do I turn this conversationto spiritual things.
(02:03):
And one thing I would say tomyself now would be as this is
experiential, old people reallylike talking about their lives.
Um, and nobody, interestingly,nobody had ever said that to me.
Um, my theological education wasum, I would say predominantly
(02:25):
liberal.
Um, the pastoral training wasnon-existent.
I don't remember any lectures onpreaching.
Um I guess in those days, thisis this is the late 60s, um,
when I was a student, it wasassumed that you picked up how
to do things by a kind ofosmosis.
Uh, it was assumed, you know,you would have a church
(02:47):
background and so on.
And it it really, you know, Ijust knew nothing about pastoral
visitation.
And I didn't know that all Ineeded to do was to set somebody
off, and I would learn enoughabout them that would enable me
to visit them during the nextthree years and have what I
(03:08):
sometimes think about as loosethreads on people's sweaters
that you can pull and connect tothe Bible, the Christian faith,
the gospel, their difficultiesand challenges.
And I suspect he might have saidto me, Sinclair, there's no way
you can go into a house for 15minutes and sprinkle stardust.
You're 23 years old.
(03:29):
Um, it will come.
But this is this is somethingthat would give you a good
start.
And I actually now I sometimessay this to younger people in
the church, you know, at theend, especially of the evening
service, go and sit down besideone of the older people and just
say, How did you get here?
You will be absolutely amazed atthe at the lines of the stories
(03:51):
that have brought you here.
So I think that would be thatwould be one thing.
Um another thing that I I thinkI realized even in in pretty
early on in those three years Iwas there, uh, it wasn't that
anybody said it to me.
Um my m my minister as a studenthad said to me, Sinclair, you
(04:13):
need to watch yourrelentlessness.
And I I th I don't think hemeant um that in terms of voice
um or personality.
I think he meant it in terms ofintellect.
Um that I had to learn to umtrans transpose my intellectual
(04:39):
thinking into pastoral feedingof the flock.
And I realized somewhere in themiddle of those three years, I I
feel I'm coming down on people.
Um and that was partly theintellectual relentlessness,
want to get this into your mind.
Instead of get my instead of mypreaching getting underneath
(05:02):
people and lifting them toChrist, lifting them to the
Father, lifting them to theSpirit.
Um and that that was actually abig moment in my life, I think.
Um, and I hoped began totransform my whole my whole
attitude to what preaching was,that it was much more than an
(05:25):
intellect seeking to communicateto intellects, but to use
Philips Brooks' famous words, umit was it was the preaching of
the gospel, the truth of God, inwhich Christ by the Spirit was
preaching to the people, but hewas doing that through my
(05:46):
preaching, through the words Iused.
And therefore, my fundamentalchallenge was to be as
Christ-like in my preaching as Iwanted to be in my living.
So those were those were bigmoments.
And then I spent a few yearsafter that in the most northerly
island in the United Kingdom.
(06:07):
And one of the first things Idid when I got there was sell
Bibles.
Really?
So because they didn't havethem.
Yeah, they somewhere they mighthave had a very small print
King, King James version.
Those were the days when thewhen the the modern version was
the revised standard version,and the Bible Society would do
you a good deal on Bibles if youwere going to use them.
(06:28):
And so you're trying to getpeople to read the Bible.
That's right.
Selling them.
That's right.
So I I I I realized very quicklywhen I so I was working my way
through passages in the Bible,nobody had a Bible open.
Um, and so that was really thatwas that was pretty much bargain
basement ministry, um, and verydifferent from where I'd been,
(06:50):
uh the assistant minister, andand basically where you know my
future pastoral ministries wouldlie.
SPEAKER_01 (06:57):
Um you talked about your first boss being a regular
speaker at Keswick.
What was the I've I've justforgotten the journey from
Keswick being caught in sinlessperfectionism to orthodox
evangelical theology.
SPEAKER_00 (07:11):
Tell us the dates and the journey there.
Well, I'm too young to rememberthe actual events.
Uh I remember when I was a uhyoung student, John Stott's
book, Men Made New.
Romans 5 to 8.
It was Romans 5 to 8.
Um, he changed his views lateron, as it happens.
(07:32):
Um, but I think people saw thatas a line in the sand.
Um I think the stinking beforethen, but that would have been
that was probably in the 1960s,Darmanic.
It may have been about 1965.
So not that long before youworked for Mr.
Duncan.
(07:52):
Yeah.
And he um there was no there wasno sign in his preaching of the
higher life movement.
So I think it had begun to fade.
Um and I would say Mr.
Duncan, that generation, by andlarge, had pretty slim resources
(08:13):
to help them.
You know, if you go back to the1950s, the literature that was
available to help peopletheologically was really very
slim picking.
Compared to the library that youwould have now.
Now, you know, and so that fact,knowing that, just because of
the age I am, has really helpedme more to view these men with
(08:35):
affection and gratitude for umthe way they preached the
gospel, the fruitfulness oftheir ministries, and and their
commitment to biblicalorthodoxy.
Mr.
Duncan actually wrote a littlepamphlet on Ephesians 5.18 on
being filled with the Spirit,before, I think it was before
John Stott's little book,Baptism Fullness of the Holy
(08:58):
Spirit, which was reallyexcellent.
You know, there was there was notinge of higher life in it.
He probably did tend to focus onconversion and consecration,
which would still have continuedin the Keswick Convention.
But the first time I spoke therewas 1979.
Um, and they were still thenusing the old formulation of was
(09:23):
it the holiness of God,sinfulness?
You know, it was structured inthe old way, but I didn't hear
any of the what I knew to be theold Keswick message.
SPEAKER_01 (09:35):
Talk to us about the legacies of um John MacArthur
and R.
C.
Because I mean you spoke at thefunerals of them just yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (09:43):
Yeah.
So um R.
C.
I knew, I I I know exactly whereI was standing when somebody
mentioned his name to me, firstof all.
There was a fellow who hadstudied in the United States.
We were speaking at aconference, we were actually
standing at the podium, and hesaid to me, Have you heard of R.
C.
Sproul?
And I hadn't heard of him.
This would have been, this mighthave been 1979.
(10:06):
And he said, uh, J.I.
Packer says he's the bestcommunicator of reformed
theology in the United States.
And I remember thinking, well,this I must see and hear.
Yeah.
Um, and I was I felt I was aslikely to go to the moon as I
was to go to the United States.
But in the school year 82-83, Istarted teaching at Westminster
(10:27):
Seminary in Philadelphia.
And we happened the next year, Ithink, to speak at a conference
together.
And that was how I came to knowhim.
And he he you know, hebefriended me, um, brought me
into what in those days was inmany ways a quite a modest
ministry, began in uh it was itwas really a a kind of it was a
(10:52):
bit like Schaefer's labri inPennsylvania in a modest way,
and over the years mushroomedinto really an amazing ministry.
The materials in 20 languagesthey're reaching the world in
all kinds of ways.
Very able people.
So he was a long-standingfriend.
SPEAKER_01 (11:15):
One of my favorite stories of him was um, I think
they had a sale once a year, anduh he would go and help in the
warehouse in the picking of thestuff.
SPEAKER_00 (11:25):
He was he was really terrific.
He was very, very ableintellectually, but he had he
and ordinarily you'd havethought he would he did teach in
seminary, but you'd have thoughthe'll end up in university or a
seminary.
But he had really committedhimself to bringing the whole of
biblical theology and thehistory of the church to the
(11:46):
whole church.
And I resonated with thatbecause just trying to
understand who I was and whatgifts I might have, I I I really
wanted to be able to communicateChrist and the gospel to every
stage and layer.
(12:07):
So, and and in a way that youknow the books I've written
express that, you know, I I I'vewritten for seminary and
college, I've written for theordinary Christian and for
children.
And that's really an expressionof I think an echo uh that he
saw in my life of of the thingsthat he wanted to do.
(12:31):
Um MacArthur's contribution.
And and he well, the interestingthing is um the John MacArthur
was very good friends with RCE,but in some areas they were a
dispensation apart.
It's in beta.
And that was really veryinteresting in the United
States, because um in Scotland,I can only ever remember one
(12:55):
person asking me what my viewsof the millennium were.
And it was when I was anassistant minister, and Mr.
Duncan had just given a Biblemidweek Bible study on the
millennium.
Um, when I went to the States, Ifelt everybody wants to know
what my views on the millenniumare.
And I really don't talk about ithere in Australia.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I realized this was a thiswas a kingdom demarcation line.
(13:21):
So there were churches where youwould never be minister unless
you uh signed on the dottedline.
So it was a very striking thingin maybe the 19, it was maybe
the 1980s, I can't quiteremember when, that John kind of
reached beyond the borders ofthat world in which he had been
(13:43):
reared and lived.
And he he was reaching out topeople like Jim Boyce and R.
C.
And and he reached out to me,kind of out of the blue.
Um, and so we became we becamefriends as well.
I didn't know him as well as Iknew R.
C.
I think John's contribution wasthat in the world in which he
(14:07):
lived, which was by and largekind of independent Baptist with
a kind of fundamentalisticbackground to it, he really
introduced a more rigorous focuson actually preaching what was
in the text.
And that influenced a wholegeneration of younger men, you
(14:31):
know, vast numbers of them Ibump into, who have all been
influenced by him.
And people who would not havebeen influenced by him in the
sense that they would ever bethought of as MacArthurites, but
realized he was somebody in thegeneration above them who had
modelled faithfulness to thegospel and and was was willing,
(14:55):
as he often appeared on LarryKing Live, which was the big um
evening talk talk show.
And I'm sure it was becauseLarry King, six times married or
whatever he was, knew that withthis man the he will not dodge
the issues.
So he was good television fromthat point of view, but he had a
(15:16):
very good mind.
Um and he was able to, you know,and he had a whole library of
information in his head.
So he was able to answer clearlyand strongly.
And I think I thought a lot ofAmericans probably hated that,
but many Christians admired it.
And I found it's interestingbecause I I I preached at the
(15:38):
memorial service of both ofthem, very different
personalities.
You know, R.
C.
was Pittsburgh, you know, he wasa Pittsburgh stealer.
Um, and and John, John wasalways beautifully dressed.
R RC R.
C.
dressed well, but R.
C.
you would never say R.
C.
was beautifully dressed, kind ofthing.
(16:00):
But I think the thing that thatstruck me about both of them was
that there was kindness in bothof them.
And actually, that was what mademe kind of look again at the
fruit of the spirit and see thatkindness is embedded there right
in the middle.
And I think I've noticed thatwith with with ministers who
(16:20):
have been in the generationabove me, um, that whatever
personality God has gifted themwith, some of them seem to be
more like Ezekiel than theApostle John.
And their preaching can be asdifferent.
Um, there is always that elementof personal kindness in them and
a Christ-like gentleness.
(16:42):
And um, that's, you know, I Ijust have loved them for that.
It's reminded me of Augustine,you know, when he says in in the
confessions about Ambrose, youknow, when I came to Milan, I
didn't really expect to find anygreat teaching because I didn't
believe there was great teachingin the Catholic Church.
But what touched me was that youwere kind to me.
(17:02):
And I've often thought if I wereif I were comp if I were
creating the individual whowould reach an intellect like
Augustine, the only thing I'd beinterested in would be
intellect.
Um and it just it's just been agreat lesson to me in both of
these men and in Augustine, whomI didn't know, um, that the
(17:24):
gospel does not exist in a kindof bubble of the intellect.
It's a whole person reality, andand many of us, maybe even most
of us, are drawn to Christbecause we've seen reflections
of him and others.
SPEAKER_01 (17:41):
Still reflecting on the gospel in the United States,
um, and uh I have beenscratching my head as I've I've
looked at um uh what's beengoing on there the last few
weeks, and uh I mean, and evensome uh Christian leaders in the
states saying things like ifyour pastor hasn't aligned
(18:03):
themselves with Charlie Kirk,find a different church and and
and things like that.
What do you make of all of that?
SPEAKER_00 (18:11):
In a way, I think Dominic, it's kind of analogous
to what one sometimes saw inNorthern Ireland in the days of
the Troubles with figures likeIan Paisley, um, where there was
a closer alignment to how youvoted with what you believed.
(18:33):
Um and and in a sense, I thinkunderneath all of that is a kind
of struggle either for identity,because people feel they need
they're lost in this world.
I mean, Christians feel this,you know, where am I with whom
am I going to align?
Because they they're perhaps notwell enough taught to know that
(18:58):
as long as you align withChrist, the gospel, the Trinity,
his word, and the people of God,you are secure.
And these big figures, in a, Ithink in a pretty unusual way in
the United States, gather tothemselves people who are
identified by the kingdom towhich they belong.
(19:20):
And I think that has happened inthis case.
And um, I've often reflected onthe fact that you know how in
the early church, if someone wasmartyred, martyred, then a kind
of sanctity blanket came overthe whole family, and the whole
family was special and kind ofuntouchable.
Um, and I think that's one ofthe things that has been
(19:42):
happening in the last few days,a kind of untouchability about
the profession of faith thatCharlie Kirk made.
Um, and perhaps not the kind ofanalysis that would recognize
the reality of what hashappened, but also would
(20:03):
question well, is this um isthis enthusiasm going to be
turned into faithful Christianliving?
Or is it all it going to do makepeople align with power
structures?
Um and very definitely, youknow, there are there are very
(20:23):
strong power structures in theUnited States in a way that I
don't think you would find inAustralia or in or in the United
Kingdom.
SPEAKER_01 (20:33):
Um I mean, I'm just trying to think about and and
seeking your advice on as apastor, what should my posture
be towards politics?
And so, I mean, I've I have beensomebody, our our congregation
members wouldn't know which wayI I vote.
Um, and I want people to come toour church who are highly
(20:56):
left-wing and highly right wing,and I stay in my lane of
preaching Christ and don't getin the lane of expressing
political views.
SPEAKER_00 (21:06):
Well, I am I'm very much with you, I think, Dominic.
Uh that's kind of church-stateseparation in its in its own
way.
That what I'm wanting to do inministry is really to give
people what I call the lensesthrough which they can see the
world fairly clearly, that willenable them to assess situations
(21:28):
in a fallen world.
And if it's a vote, then to voteaccordingly.
I think American friends havefound themselves in recent years
in pretty considerabledifficulty because they found
themselves uh faced withcandidates, neither of whom
actually appeals to them as aperson.
(21:51):
But at least in my world, youknow, they have they have they
have at least understood thisprinciple that the person of the
individual is not the mostimportant thing.
That what will happen as aresult of the individual may be
very different from thequestion, do you like him or her
or not?
Um and so I, you know, I'vealways done some really, really
(22:15):
interesting story.
I don't know if we've time forthis, but uh year a few years
ago, on the 50th anniversary ofMartin Lloyd Jones' lectures on
preaching and preachers, whichwere given at Westminster
Seminary, I was asked to givethe lecture in London, the uh
Lloyd Jones Memorial Lecture, onpreaching and preachers.
And at the end, I'm trying toland the plane, and there is a
photograph of him in IanMurray's biographies of him, in
(22:38):
which he's being introduced tothe Queen by Dr.
Marjorie Blackie, who was amember of his congregation, and
this was her retirement due, andthe Queen had turned up to it.
And so I thought Dr.
Lloyd John's face here expresseshow I think he thought about
preaching.
So I thought there is a sense ofprivilege in meeting the monarch
(23:01):
and a sense of modesty, humilityin meeting the monarch.
And so that was how I landed theplane, I thought, quite well.
And I I didn't realize I'd causesome turbulence because uh his
daughter, who who died recently,Anne, whom I knew, came up to
me.
I didn't know her well.
She said, that was very fine.
She said, I don't like thatphotograph.
(23:23):
So I think it's a very nicephotograph.
So as the conversation went on,she said, No, we don't like that
photograph.
And then she told me why, and itblew me out of the water.
She said, Because my father wasa Republican.
And I thought, I should havethought about that.
Welshman, lover of the Puritans.
(23:44):
It never crossed my mind.
And I wondered, did anyone inWestminster Chapel when he was
minister there know that he wasa Republican and not a royalist?
And my guess was probably not.
Because he stayed in his lane.
He stayed in his lane, you know.
Um So I think I think that is agreat I think we do our
(24:07):
congregation a kind ofdisservice if we tell them what
to think and what to do but areunable to show, like the
Westminster Confession is thisexpression that I think is very
helpful, that this conclusion isdrawn from Scripture by good and
(24:28):
necessary consequence.
And I I think sometimes peoplethink, well, this is good
consequence, so there is noother way you can do it.
But you've got to show also bynecessary consequence to be able
to bind something on people'sconsciences.
Give me an example of that.
Umone might say, in inconnection with the with the
(24:53):
teaching of the WestminsterConfession, just to use it as an
example of what is true ofScripture, um, my view is
consistent with what theconfession says.
But there may be other viewsthat are consistent with what
the confession says.
So if you think of the way Paulcomported himself, in one
(25:17):
context, comporting himself as aJew, in another context
comporting himself as a Gentilebeliever, somebody might say you
are being inconsistent.
Um you have to be one or theother.
And I think Paul would say fromthe gospel you cannot show by
(25:39):
good and necessary consequencethat that's the case.
And I think it's a very it's nota principle that answers all the
questions, but I think it is aprinciple that dissolves some of
the unnecessary tensions thatthere are.
So, like for example, what whathe does in Romans 14 and 15, it
(26:01):
is a really good consequence ofthe gospel that you eat meat,
right?
That uh you don't mind havingbacon and eggs for your
breakfast.
But it's not a necessaryconsequence of the gospel that
you eat bacon and eggs for yourbreakfast.
And unless you can show thatit's a necessary consequence as
(26:21):
well as a good consequence, thenyou cannot impose that as a
dogma on the life of the church.
And you know, in Romans 14, 15he does this really beautiful
job of seeking to dissolve thetensions that presumably have
arisen in a church where the theJewish believers have been
(26:45):
thrown out because of Claudius'sdecree and have come back and
discovered we're in a gentilechurch now.
What are we going to do?
And and we're upsetting ourgentile friends and they're
upsetting us.
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
Tell us about, as a minister in Scotland, your
interactions with the Queen.
How did you know about this?
SPEAKER_00 (27:05):
Well, um, so uh the Queen uh would would vacation in
the summer in Scotland, in atBalmoral Castle.
And um I think Victoria actuallybuilt the church, not
individually, um, but built thechurch that is just outside the
(27:26):
gates of Balmoral Castle, whichis where the Queen would
worship.
And there would be invitationsgiven to people to go and
preach.
And I I got an invitation to go,which I I actually declined, um,
and will not go into the reasonsfor declining it.
(27:46):
But then one of the royalchaplains called me and said,
You would really be helping usif you came.
And I think he was probablyevangelically sympathetic, but I
also kind of had picked up thatthere were grumblings and
murmurings that the Queen rarelyheard evangelical preachers or
(28:07):
preachers who weren't known ashe is an evangelical.
And I thought, well, maybe thisis the tactic that when people
say that again, oh sure, we hadthat man Ferguson two years ago.
We of course we haveevangelicals.
So so I then I accepted theinvitation.
And accepting the invitationmeant that you spent the weekend
(28:28):
with them and and lived withthem.
It was in a way In the castle.
In the castle.
Um for me it was a bit like andhad breakfast and yeah, so it
was a bit like entering a soapopera you had watched all your
life.
Like watching the crown.
She was the only queen I couldremember.
SPEAKER_01 (28:48):
Well, I mean, just when you were talking about
Lloyd Jones and The Queen.
I mean, you think she was themonarch back then?
SPEAKER_00 (28:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it was a it was a reallyinteresting experience.
Uh a very interestingexperience, illuminating
experience.
Um and in in in many ways it wasum it was a it was a it was a it
was an opportunity to serve theLord.
(29:16):
There are I didn't sign theofficial Secrets Act, but there
are there are some things thathappened over the weekend I
might tell somebody personally,but I wouldn't I wouldn't share
on the podcast.
It's just us.
It's just us.
The one thing I would say wasthe um the queen, the other
members of the royal family camedown for breakfast.
(29:37):
The queen does not come down forbreakfast.
But uh on the Sunday night whenthe whole weekend was over, that
w it really struck me that shecame right across the room to
speak to me, uh, to thank me forthe message in church.
And I I thought afterwards sheshe didn't need to do that.
(29:59):
Um It was uh it was it wasreally a signal of grace.
Um I uh I n I know a funeraldirector who knows the funeral
director, and he told me thatthat the funeral director uh who
had gone to Balmoral, the onething he he kind of regretted
(30:20):
was that he didn't make a noteof the passage in the Bible that
was open beside her.
Now, an open Bible could meananything, but you know, my
impression of her was that shewas a genuine woman.
A duteous, she was a verydutious woman.
(30:42):
Um and you know, to be honest, Ialways felt she's surrounded by
actually intellectually quiteable men, but they preach for
ten minutes, and that's a worldin which you're not really being
fed the mana from heaven, andgrow growing is is difficult,
and so I kind of assumed sheread her Bible and prayed.
SPEAKER_01 (31:07):
How do you preach to power?
SPEAKER_00 (31:10):
To power, yeah.
Um by ignoring its power, Ithink.
Um there were lots of otherpeople in the in the church, and
in in my uh so the the thepreacher is invited, his wife is
not invited, and one member ofthe royal family explained to me
(31:33):
that this is because Victoriadid not invite the wives.
So there are obviously still menin grey suits who tell you um
this is the way it's always beendone.
But my memory of the service,it's a while ago now, was it
really was a it was a greatservice.
And my wife and daughteractually came to the service,
(31:55):
and um somebody said on the wayout, uh a visitor who was
presumably there, um said tothem, assuming that they were
members of the church, the localchurch, said, Is it always like
this?
Um So there I think there reallywas a touch of the spirit in the
(32:15):
service.
And I I I preached the way Iwould have preached to any
congregation.
SPEAKER_01 (32:21):
Um warning against legalism and antinomianism has
been one of the themes of yourwork over the years.
Um what are your concerns in thecontemporary church at the
moment?
Probably both.
SPEAKER_00 (32:35):
Um I've I've kind of long held, well, let just go
back in my personal life.
I was, I think, I was probablyabout 15 or 16, a very young
Christian.
My family didn't go to churchtill after I was converted.
And some of the books that werefed to me, one of the first was
(32:57):
Watchmen Knees, The NormalChristian Life.
And I could, I could just neverget it.
But it caused me to wrestle withthe question, what does it
actually mean to be united toChrist?
Um, it it took me a year or twoactually to actually to kind of
pay attention to the fact thatChristians are in Christ.
(33:22):
I remember maybe I was 15reading 2 Corinthians 12, Paul
says, I knew a man in Christ,and thinking, who was this man
in Christ?
He knew.
And it just didn't dawn on me hewas talking about himself.
And rather than saying, I am aChristian, actually, that was
how he would have describedhimself as a man in Christ.
(33:43):
Um, but then by the time I was17, I was a first-year
university student, and I wasreally, I was just still
struggling to understandpassages like Romans 6,
Colossians 3, other passages,Galatians 2.20, which was like a
big verse that you had tomemorize, but nobody ever
actually explained what it meantto be crucified with Christ.
(34:05):
And um I heard a message in myvery first term at university
that really helped me.
And so I suppose union withChrist was a theme embedded in
scripture that had become aspecial help to me.
(34:26):
And it wasn't, it didn't takelong to realize that whether
Paul was dealing with legalismin the church or antinomianism
in the church, he was alwaysbringing both of these
diversions back to the principlewe're united to Christ.
(34:47):
And if we're united to Christ,these implications follow.
Um and and so that that's justbeen something that I guess
that's lingered in my mind andprobably come out in in my
writings over the years.
SPEAKER_01 (35:04):
Now we've had a number of uh questions submitted
on Facebook for us.
Uh I'm just gonna bowl them upand then get you to hit them
quickly.
This is the lightning round.
Yeah, this is the lightningraping with short answers, you
know, Dominic.
How could Jodie Jessup asks, howcan we disciple believers in
such a way that Christ becomesnot just central to their
doctrine, but central to theiraffections?
SPEAKER_00 (35:23):
Well, I think being conscious of that, that
individuals are not just brains.
Um, and I think that thenaffects the way we quotes
disciple them.
Um I'm I've become kind of ubersensitive to different forms of
(35:46):
discipleship in which therelationship is more one of um
teacher and student, and lessone of older friend and younger
friend.
So in my years at seminary, no,it not every seminary student
bonds to the same facultymember, which is good, but
(36:09):
different students bond todifferent faculty members or are
attracted to their style orwhatever.
And so over the over the years Itaught in seminary, students
would come and say, Would youmentor me?
And I always said, No, I won't,but I will be your friend if you
want.
Because I think I sensed um thatthat was what Jesus mentored his
(36:33):
disciples into friendship.
Um, you're my friends.
SPEAKER_01 (36:38):
I mean, that's very interesting.
We're having a thing here ofincreasing pressure to be
involved in professionalsupervision.
And and yet I think actually, ifwe had better, deeper
friendships, that would bebetter.
SPEAKER_00 (36:51):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, the man who was myminister when I was a student,
William Still, who's a legendaryfigure, um, great and eccentric
man who had no formal educationbetween about 14 and 26.
And so he didn't preach instraight lines with easy to
follow divisions.
He was more like a deep seadiver, I sometimes say, who
(37:15):
where are you, Mr.
Still?
And then he would come up with aperil in his hand.
And um he he invested himself inme without me ever feeling there
is a kind of authority structurehere.
And I think that that's that'sactually what I fear.
Um I actually fear it sometimesin counseling as well, that the
(37:40):
counselor is the expert and andthe Christian becomes a client.
Whereas in the life of thechurch, which the life of the
church in the ministry of theword, which is where we
centrally get our counseling,the relationship is pastor to
people, friend to friend,brother to brother, brother to
(38:03):
sister.
Um, and I would rather see thosekinds of relationships develop.
And so sometimes, you know, I'vesaid to younger men, you know,
the best thing you can do is toget near enough someone who is
already a minister, near enoughto smell his breath.
And I I I think that's that'show it works.
SPEAKER_01 (38:25):
Uh, last question, Mark Allison.
In what ways do even faithfuland learned evangelicals in the
Anglo Sphere sometimes fail tograsp the whole Christ?
SPEAKER_00 (38:36):
Well, he is so whole, we're all struggling to
grasp him.
Um I I often go back to what Ithink is the wisdom of the early
fathers and their emphasis onthe reality of the two natures
united in the one person.
Um, because I I have thisfeeling that many evangelicals
(39:00):
think, for example, that Christdid what he did by infusing a
percent or two of deity into hislife.
The the kind of the the theproof text, as it were, that uh
I often use is so uh Luke 2tells us that Jesus uh went back
(39:23):
home, was obedient to hisparents, um, and he grew in
wisdom and stature and in favorwith God and man.
And you can grasp that he grewin stature, you know, obviously.
You can maybe grasp he grew inwisdom, although that might be a
little more challenging for you,because like in your mind you
(39:45):
kind of assume he was God and sohe knew everything.
Um you you understand that atleast with many men he grew in
favor.
But do you have a Jesus whocould have grown in favor with
God?
And if I if I quote that text, Ikind of usually pause and
(40:07):
actually, you know, look intothe faces of people in the
congregation, and I'm I'm alwaysstruck by this kind of um
because maybe it's because wehave sp we have inevitably had
to defend his deity, that we wecan easily lose touch with his
(40:31):
humanity.
And then if like if I fastforward from that to Hebrews 13
and the author of Hebrews sayingthat he is the same yesterday,
today, and forever, which have akind of theory many Christians
think is a rather long way ofsaying he's eternal, when what
it is actually saying is what hewas yesterday, what he was in
(40:54):
the authors yesterday, that isto say, what he was, at least in
the days, what he calls the daysof his flesh.
That is who he is and what he isfor you today.
Which interestingly for me haskind of come to mean that the
letter in the New Testament thatbrings the incarnate Christ
closest to us is actually theepistle to the Hebrews, which I
(41:18):
think some of us find one of themore difficult parts of
Scripture to preach.
So I think having uh having agood theological paradigm which
the Father sought to give ushelps us to take in, gives us,
as I sometimes say, velcrostrips, to take in what is
actually there in the text, butleft to ourselves without the
(41:42):
communion of the saints, we wemight never notice.
SPEAKER_01 (41:45):
I have a stack more questions, but we're out of
time.
So thank you for coming.
SPEAKER_00 (41:49):
Thank you for having me, Tom.
SPEAKER_01 (41:50):
My guest on The Pastor's Heart, Sinclair
Ferguson, and uh Sinclair inAustralia at the moment, uh,
speaking in Melbourne, Brisbane,and Sydney on a whirlwind trip.
And uh he's out here with LignerMinistries.
My name's Dominic Steele.
This has been The Pastor'sHeart.
We'll look forward to yourcompany next Tuesday afternoon.
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