What Should Pastors Read?

Random musing....
Just read Matt 20. It is about the parable of the workers in the vineyard. How stark is this parable talks about our constant desire to compare our lot with the rest of humanity. Our insatiable need to find some form of justice. "It not fair! What about me?"- those who only work for an hour is getting just as much as me who toil from dawn to dusk! Because we reckon we should be rewarded more or being recognised.

Hmm.. been trying to be consistent with the SOAP journalling. Hope to share it on this Sunday.

What Should Pastors Read? Hmm.... find the following blog by Scot McKnight, the writer of "Jesus Creed" interesting. So I just cut and paste it in verbatim here.

In list number 7. Read some Blog....

A couple of posts and a couple of e-mails separate from the blogsite lead me to make some suggestions on what pastors should read. I've been asked what I think pastors should read, but I make these suggestions with some trepidation because I am not a pastor. So, see this as a conversation from a professor of Bible and theology to those who see their vocations in pastoral terms. Above all, a pastor's vocation, fluctuating from one place to another, is to pastor the people to whom he is assigned (by God and denominational leaders). Pastoring does not mean that pastors ought to know everything and be able to do everything and be everything to everybody all the time world without end.
I do not believe the pastor's primary responsiblity is to read all day long so he or she can look smart and cultured on Sunday morning. It is to pastor, and that must be the first and most important thing. But, friend, you must take care of your heart, soul, mind, and strength -- and many find that to take place by personal stimulation and physical exercise.There are some who need to study less and love more and some who need to love less and study more.So, here's a kick-start to a conversation:
1. Read the Bible daily -- and say your prayers. Study the Bible; read your commentaries.
2. Keep up with the current church discussion by reading magazines like Books and Culture, Christianity Today, Christian Century, etc.. These magazines will lead you to important books that are coming out. You may have to choose one and only one.
3. At least once a year read something about one of the Church's great figures -- like Peter Brown's biography of Augustine or the new one on Augustine by James O'Donnell.
4. Know your denominational issues by reading your denomination's magazine.
5. Try to keep up with political and intellectual trends by reading magazines from different viewpoints. I'll tell you what I read just to figure out what is going one from different angles: I read The New York Review of Books, Commentary, and The London Review of Books. These magazines will lead you to books to read, and try to limit yourself to what you know you will actually read.
6. Read something of personal pleasure: I read The American Scholar. It comes out four times a year. I love essays and this is nothing but essays, and sometimes it is on things that bore me to tears and I skip those. But, more often than not it gives me something to think about.
7. Read some blogs.

Finally, lest this look like a mountain of work imposed on pastors by some egghead professor, let me put it like this: for the sake of God's work in this world, love God, love others, and be the best pastor you can be. And part of that means being a good theologian.

Psalm 42

We had a pretty good prayer meeting tonight. It was good not because of numbers but it was a very genuine cry of repentance and confessions by all the men present. We repented on behalf of the church, for our coldness of hearts, and generally cry for a real revival and for God to raise up more faithful and faith-filled men in our midst.

I shared with an exposition from Psalms 42 - presumably written by the Sons of Korah. The remnants of the rebellious lot against Moses.
They are real worshippers and singers

A Psalm of genuine cry to God for his intervention, real broken and contrite heart. "Where is your God?" Their enemies or distractors continues to taunt..... David was tuanted by Shimei when he was forced to leave Jerusalem when his own son, Absalom rebelled against him. The Lord Jesus was tuanted by the soldiers who nailed him on the cross. "My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me?"..... ( Matt 27:46)


Psalm 42

For the director of music. A maskil of the Sons of Korah.
1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, "Where is your God?"
4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.
5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and
6 my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
8 By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?"
10 My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?"
11 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.