Transcript
Scott Anderson: Well, Paul, you've written a new book called Dangerous Calling[: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry] and it's a provocative title, and I wonder if you could just talk to us a little bit about what you mean by the phrase "dangerous calling". In other words, tell us who this book is for and why their calling is dangerous.
A Set of Temptations Unique to Ministry
Paul Tripp: The more I've thought about my own life and ministry, the more I've talked to pastors literally around the world, the more I've become convinced that there are a set of temptations that, if not unique to, are intensified by local church ministry, that there's a way in which you step into the middle of that war of the gospel. And that war is not just about how am I going to train people in the gospel my church, it's really the war of the gospel in my heart.
What's going to motivate me? What am I going to want? Why am I going to do the things I do? Why did that elder upset me? Why am I less than honest about my own life? It's a war that goes on inside of me and nobody's talking about this. I mean, when you when you talk about struggles of ministry, what are the typical topics?
It's tension between family and ministry, ministry burnout, and running away with your secretary. If those things happen, they're really the fruit of this deeper war that never gets talked about. And I got to the point, Scott, where I could not not write this book. I had to write this book because I thought if all that happens is I'm used of God to break the silence and a conversation begins, that's worth all the effort writing the book.
Scott: Good. You said in the early chapters that this was the hardest book for you to write, personally, that you've ever written. Why did you say that?
How This Book Exposed My Own Heart
Paul: In ways that I wouldn't have anticipated, this book exposed my own heart. I mean, there were times when that was so profound, I literally had to stop writing and do my own business with God. It was very painful, but I want to say this. That's the pain of grace.
That's God pressing in on me in ways that I can't escape. It's under the thumb of a gloriously gracious Redeemer who's not going to let me out because He loves me. That's grace and I'm thankful for that pain because there are places where I'm now aware and I say to myself, "I'm not going back there." It's like vomit in my mouth.
That's what God's trying to do and so, I'm thankful for the pain of writing this book. I will say it's hard for me to imagine that anybody will benefit more from this book than I have. If no one ever read it, I'd write it again because of what God's done in my own heart.
