Below are 10 quotes from Paul Tripp’s book Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry. Though the title implies it might be a book just for pastors, I have found that any believer would benefit from reading this book for two reasons. First, Tripp’s basic premise is how we must continue to understand our daily need of God’s grace. All of us would do well to continue to read of our need in this area. And second, it would assist us in empathizing with the demands and pressures of pastoral ministry.
Here are 10 quotes from the book that I have found both challenging and thought-provoking…
Autonomous Christianity never works, because our spiritual life was designed by God to be a community project (p. 38).
Bad things happen when maturity is more defined by knowing that it is by being. Danger is afloat when you come to love the ideas more than the God whom they represent and the people they are meant to free (p. 42).
It is your own daily experience of the rescue of the gospel that gives you a passion for people to experience the same rescue (p. 64).
Could it be that many of the stresses of ministry are the result of our seeking to get things out of ministry that it will never deliver? (p. 102).
Once something is our treasure, it will command our desires and shape our behavior (p. 103).
No one gives grace better than a person who is deeply persuaded that he needs it himself and is being given it in Christ. This tenderness causes me to be gracious, gentle, patient, understanding, and hopeful in the face of the sin of others, while never compromising God’s holy call (p. 122).
We must never forget that we earned neither our standing with the Lord nor our place in ministry (p. 161).
It’s pride, not humility, that makes it hard to say no (p. 162).
We must remember that there is no grace that we offer to others that we don’t at once need ourselves (p. 194).
Ministry is war for the gospel in your own heart (p. 203).
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