Hammer, Meet Nail. Nail, Hammer.

The Gospel Coalition recently announced Paul Tripp (executive director of the Center for Pastoral Life and Care) as their new weekly blogger. Tripp introduces the themes that he says will characterize his posts and, in so doing, writes a great post. Here is an excerpt:

1. The reality of spiritual blindness in the life of the pastor. If sin blinds, and it does, then as long as sin remains in the heart of a pastor, there will be pockets of spiritual blindness. And as I have written elsewhere, the scary thing with spiritually blind people is that they’re blind to their blindness. This means that the pastor needs “instruments of seeing” in his life as much as the people to whom he ministers (see Heb. 3:12-13).

2. The fact that a pastor is a man in the middle of his own sanctification. Being a pastor definitely does not mean you are a grace graduate. How seriously do we take the ongoing need for further growth and change in the heart and lives of those of us who lead or in those who lead us? It is impossible for a pastor to teach or preach anything he doesn’t desperately need himself.

3. The pastor’s need for the ministry of the body of Christ. How is it that in many churches we have constructed a culture where the pastor lives above or outside of the body of Christ? Think about it: If Christ is the head of his body, then everything else is just body. Since the pastor is a member of the body of Christ, he is in full need of what the body was designed to do and produce (see Eph. 4:1-16).

4. The unique temptations of ministry. There are a unique set of deceptive and seductive idols that accompany pastoral ministry. In ministry, it is easy to confuse building the kingdom of self with building the kingdom of God, because in the pastorate you build both kingdoms by doing ministry!

5. The unrelenting pursuit of grace in the life of the pastor. The personal and ministerial security of a pastor do not rest in his knowledge, experience, or skill. No, his place of rest and hope is exactly the same as everyone to whom he ministers: the rescuing and transforming grace of Christ Jesus. That grace will never fail to pursue him and will again and again rescue him from himself, often at times when he has no idea he needs any rescue at all.

Hits the nail on the head, from my perspective.