This article on The Necessity of Training Pastors as a part of pastoral ministry was published by Tabletalk in November, 2021.
If you ask ten Christians what a pastor is called to do, you are likely to get ten different answers. Yet with all that Christians expect of their pastors today, still very few of them expect that they train new pastors. In the nineteenth century, with the demands of westward expansion and the development of professional graduate schools, churches in America moved toward preparing future ministers in theological schools and away from the former apprenticeship model. Bible colleges and seminaries undoubtedly serve the church in countless ways, but many Christians now assume that the task of training the next generation of pastors is the responsibility solely of those institutions, apart from the local church.
In Scripture, however, training pastors for the future is assumed to be the responsibility of pastors today. There is an observable biblical pattern where ministers both teach God’s Word extensively to the many and also intensively train the few to minister the Word themselves. To take just one example from the Old Testament, Ezra publicly taught God’s Word to the entire assembly (Neh. 8:2–3, 8), and he schooled the heads of households, priests, and Levites in “the words of the Law” (Neh. 8:13). Of course, the ministry of our Lord Jesus was also marked by this dual focus, as He taught the gathered crowds and trained the twelve disciples who would later proclaim His word to the nations (e.g., Mark 4:1, 10).
Read the entire article at Tabletalk.