C. Physically and emotionally: You must seek to attain and maintain an accurate understanding of your present physical and emotional constitution and engage in a regular but flexible discipline aimed at keeping these two aspects of your redeemed humanity in optimum health and vigor.
1. The necessity for and inevitability of this concern for the pastor’s physical and emotional health and vigor.
a. The biblical doctrine of man demands it.
Gen. 2:7
Mt. 10:28
Lk. 16:19ff
Prov. 3:7-8; 4:20-23; 17:22; 18:14
Ps. 6, 32, 51
1 Kings 19:2ff
Mt. 4:7
Mk. 6:31
Col. 2:20-23
1 Tim. 4:1-5
C. H. Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1960), pp. 198-199.
b. The law of God demands it. 6th Commandment
See WLC Question 135.
c. The biblical doctrine of salvation demands it.
Rom. 8:23
Phil. 3:20-21
1 Thess. 4:14
1 Cor. 15
Rom. 12:1
1 Cor. 6:13, 20
Phil. 1:19-20
1 Tim. 4:7-8 with 5:23
d. The biblical doctrine of preaching demands it.
Col. 3:23
e. The past and present experience of men of God demands it.
Ebenezer Porter, Lectures on Homiletics and on Preaching and on Public Prayer and Lectures on Eloquence and Style (Andover, MA: Gould and Newman, 1836), footnote on pp. 510-511;
William G. Blaikie, For the Work of the Ministry (London: J. Nisbet & Co., n.d.), pp. 83-85.