An Overview of Each Chapter
Richard Baxter divides his book into three chapters:
Chapter 1 - The Oversight of Ourselves
Chapter 2 – The Oversight of the Flock
Chapter 3 – Application
Each chapter is divided into sections. Chapter three is divided into sections, parts, and articles.
Chapter 1
The Oversight of Ourselves
Section 1
The Nature of the Oversight
This personal oversight begins with the necessity of the pastor being converted: “See that the work of saving grace be thoroughly wrought in your own souls. Take heed to yourselves, lest you be void of that saving grace of God which you offer to others, and be strangers to the effectual working of that gospel which you preach; and lest, while you proclaim to the world the necessity of a Saviour, your own hearts should neglect him, and you should miss an interest in him and his saving benefits.[10] This is the same counsel with which Charles Spurgeon opened his Lectures to My Students.
Next, Baxter exhorted his fellow pastors: Content not yourselves with being in a state of grace, but be also careful that your graces are kept in vigorous and lively exercise, and that you preach to yourselves the sermons which you study before you preach them to others.[11] This advice reminds me of the example of Ezra who was called a “skilled teacher” (7:6). God’s hand was on Ezra in 7:9 “Because Ezra had prepared his heart to seek [study] the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgment” (7:10). Baxter admonished his co-laborers to practice what they preached “lest your example contradict your doctrine.”[12] These pastors were also exhorted to “Take heed yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn.”[13]
Lastly, Baxter instructed these men of God to “take heed to yourselves ... he must not be himself a babe in knowledge, that will teach men all those mysterious things which must be known in order to salvation.”[14]
In his final challenge in Section One, Baxter with an emotional “O” declared, “Therefore, brethren lose no time! Study, and pray, and confer, and practice; for in these four ways your abilities must be increased. Take heed to yourselves, lest you are weak through your own negligence, and lest you mar the work of God by your weakness.”[15] You can almost hear an echo of Paul’s challenge to Timothy: “Take heed unto yourself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this you shall both save yourself and them that hear you” (1 Tim 4:16).
[10] Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2020), 17
[11] Ibid., 27.
[12] Ibid., 29.
[13] Ibid., 35.
[14] Ibid., 36.
[15] Ibid., 40.