Richard Baxter’s Advice to Pastors
August 31, 2026
August 31, 2026
Abstract: Jonathan Threlfall commends Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor by highlighting fifteen exhortations to pastors from one of the sections of this classic book. Baxter urged pastors to consider the eternal weight of their task and to rely on God fully to carry it out faithfully. Rather than aiming for personal ambition, pastors should aim for the glory of God and the spiritual good of their people.
Richard Baxter was feeling sick—so sick, in fact, that he had to miss a speaking engagement at an important pastors’ conference. His slated topic was the need for pastors to engage in systematic personal discipleship. While many pastors knew that they should be preaching every Sunday, few had taken seriously their responsibilities outside the pulpit. Baxter, a seventeenth-century English Puritan, believed that pastors needed to adopt a more rigorous system to ensure that all the people under their care understood the gospel and were growing spiritually.
Baxter never got to deliver this talk: instead, he wrote and published it. Today, we know it as one of the most searching and hard-hitting exhortations to pastors ever written—The Reformed Pastor.11 .Richard Baxter,The Reformed Pastor (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1974).The first edition of this work was published in 1656. (“Reformed” here is close to the meaning of the word “reform” in “reform school.”)
The Reformed Pastor has been praised by Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Anglicans alike. Congregationalist minister John Angell James wrote: “I have made, next to the Bible, Baxter’s Reformed Pastor my rule as regards the object of my ministry.” John Wesley wrote, “Can we find a better method of [catechesis] than Mr. Baxter’s? If not, let us adopt it without delay.”
If you’re a pastor and haven’t read The Reformed Pastor, I would encourage you to pick it up and read it.
To whet your appetite and to encourage you, I want to highlight several points from the section of the book titled “The Manner of this Oversight.” Each main point is Baxter’s, but I’ve shortened, reworded, and reworked them a bit so that (hopefully) they will land effectively for modern readers. (Words in quotation marks are Baxter’s own.)
Do you secretly hope for recognition and even fame as a pastor? Personal ambition might make you a better preacher, but if it does, you’ve just become a cleverer sinner and blinded yourself to the depth of your sin. Aim for God’s glory alone, not yours.
We are trying (through the power of God’s Spirit) to save the world from damnation, to nurture God’s people, and to overcome the devil and demolish his kingdom. Are these tasks to be accomplished with a careless mind and a lazy hand? Pastoring calls for utmost diligence.
Lay the foundation of gospel truths before building the superstructure of theology. People need milk before they eat meat. This is why the early church labored so hard to catechize would-be members before they baptized them.
When deciding what to preach and teach, let necessity guide you. The question is not: “What will be most impressive, impactful, or exciting?” It is, rather: “What do my people need to hear?” “If we were sufficient for everything, we might attempt everything, and take in order the whole Encyclopedia: but life is short, and we are dull, and eternal things are necessary, and the souls that depend on our teaching are precious.”
Of course, a pastor who repeats foundational truths doesn’t have to be boring. Put fresh clothes on timeless teachings.
If you want to be understood, you must make yourself understandable. Don’t preach over people’s heads: learn how to connect with them. The best way to make a good case for a good cause is to make it as plain as possible. If you’re having a hard time explaining a concept to someone, is it because you don’t really understand it yourself?
Pride will keep you from learning and growing. It will also keep people from hearing the important truths you have to teach. If God threw down a proud angel from heaven, would he want a proud preacher in the pulpit?
With some people, you need to speak gently and share truths that bring comfort; with others, you need to be firm and share truths that startle them out of their complacency. Get to know God’s Word, your own heart, and the hearts of others to discern which circumstance calls for which approach.
A serious pastor need not be morose and ill-humored. A merry heart does good like medicine. But the eternal consequence of your task demands gravity, not flippancy. To talk casually about heaven and hell is as bad as not talking about them at all.
Your people must know that you find your greatest pleasure in doing them good, and that you are troubled when they are hurting. They should see that you care for their salvation more than you care for anything else, whether your wealth, freedom, honor, or even your own life. Most people value counsel only as much as it comes from someone who deeply cares about them. When people know you sincerely love them, they will readily listen to you.
But heed this warning: don’t use love as an excuse for not confronting their sins. Loving is not incompatible with rebuking. If you truly befriend your people, you will help them fight their worst enemies: their own sins.
After you study diligently, preach your heart out, meet with people, and pray for them, you may find that they don’t appreciate your efforts. They might even view you as their enemy. Endure this with patience, and continue to do good.
Reverence comes when you are deeply aware of God’s holy presence and communicate often with him in prayer. You are in the presence of God: live like you believe it.
A preacher who has modest skills as a communicator but speaks as if he’s in the very presence of God—that man is far more effective than an eloquent preacher who speaks irreverently. And when a preacher’s fervency isn’t matched by his reverence, his preaching becomes counterproductive.
Reject the kind of preaching that is designed to make people laugh, entertain them, or merely move their emotions instead of impressing them with a holy reverence for God. “We should, as it were, suppose we saw the throne of God, and the millions of glorious angels attending him, that we may be awed with his majesty when we draw near him in holy things, lest we profane them and take his name in vain.”
There is a place for philosophy and technique, but these must always serve and not compete with God’s Word. Beware of a heart-drift that takes less delight in the plain preaching of the Bible and begins to draw more from other books and ideas. It is God’s Word, not clever ideas, that brings a person to spiritual life, and it will always resonate with true believers.
Ministry fruit—specifically the conversion of unbelievers and the edification of believers—is what you are working for. Set your heart on these things; otherwise, you are not likely to see them happen. It’s troubling to see a pastor who can be satisfied with doing the same things year after year, with little or no fruit of his labors. “Let all who preach for Christ and men’s salvation be unsatisfied till they have the thing they preach for.”
A pastor who is happy so long as he draws a salary and people say nice things about his sermons and programs, but who never sees sinners turn to Christ—that man must be preaching for himself, but not for Christ, no matter how splendidly he preaches.
It’s true, of course, that a pastor may find comfort even when going through dry seasons of ministry. But even that man, though finding his contentment in Christ alone, will still long to see people come to Christ.
“And who is adequate for such a task as this?” (2 Cor. 2:16). If Paul the apostle asked such a question, should we feel satisfied with our own powers for pastoral ministry? Quite the opposite: we must be aware every moment that we depend completely on Christ to do any good.
Until you are driven to your knees in desperation, you haven’t really understood the reality of your inadequacy. Prayer must carry on our work as well as preaching: you can’t preach earnestly to your people unless you have prayed earnestly for them. If you don’t plead with God to give them faith and repentance, you won’t persuade them to believe and repent. A pastor must be a man who speaks to God on behalf of his people before he speaks to his people on behalf of God.
Don’t limit your vision to your own congregation: see and value Christ’s work in the whole church. The church as a whole is healthier when her local pastors love and fellowship with one another. Far from being the instigators of divisions, pastors should be the healers of divisions. Work and study to see how you might be part of closing up, rather than creating, breaches in the church.
The way to cultivate and maintain this harmony is to “keep to the ancient simplicity of the Christian faith, and the foundation and centre of catholic unity.” Learn the difference between essentials and peripherals, between absolutes and opinions. This doesn’t mean that you should ignore theological differences; rather, study them out to see where the real difference lies, and whether it’s a matter of primary, secondary, or tertiary importance.