July 30, 2020 Show with Angelo Valle on “The Pastoral Theology of John Owen”

The Pastoral Theology of John Owen and Why It Matters

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And I was so impressed by a young pastor who I heard preach not long ago at the installation service of my very dear friend, Pastor Jeff Waddington, who was just installed not long ago at an Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania.

And the young man that I'm speaking of, who was among several present who had their own sessions or their own parts of the ceremonies where they spoke, among those present were Pastor Angelo Valli, a pastor of Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria, Pennsylvania.

And today we are going to be discussing the pastoral theology of John Owen, which is actually the theme of Pastor Angelo Valli's doctoral dissertation. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Angelo Valli.

Thanks, Chris. It's a pleasure to be here with you. I just want to make one small note. It was the pastoral theology of John Owen was my THM thesis. Lord willing, it will be the subject of my doctorate.

Pleasure to be with you. Thank you for the privilege of being on air with you.

And I appreciate the correction and I am thrilled to have you on the program. After hearing you speak that day, I knew that I wanted to have you as a guest as soon as possible, and I'm glad that today is the day.

And in fact, we should also inform our listeners, we'll give you a heads up that tomorrow, God willing, Pastor Jeffrey C. Waddington, who I just mentioned, the new pastor at Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania, he will be my guest tomorrow.

We have not yet settled on a topic, but we will have that, God willing, confirmed by tonight. And I will begin to publicize that. But Dr. Waddington is always a fascinating guest on this program, a mutual friend of my guest today, Angelo Valli.

So I hope you make note of that and tune in tomorrow. But before we go into your own personal salvation testimony, which is a tradition on Iron Shepherd and Zion Radio, whenever we have a first time guest, especially if that guest is a Christian, the vast majority of the time, 99 .99999 of the time, our guests are Christian.

But once in a blue moon, we have a non-Christian guest, if they have something to say that I believe is of great value to the body of Christ, even if they themselves are not Christians. But when we have a Christian on, we like them to give their personal testimony of salvation.

And before we do that, why don't you tell our listeners something about Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria, Pennsylvania.

Sure. I have been the pastor of Christ Reformed Church the past seven years, be part of the United Church of Christ. And when I came, so my mission here is primarily the Heidelberg Catechism and subsequently the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dort.

And so we've been hoping to lead men, women, boys and girls to preaching on unashamedly reformed liturgy congregation who desire. One of them is in Geneva now in a pre-seminary program, the other one at Regent.

And Lord willing, it will be a pleasure. I'm here.

And if anybody wants to learn more about Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria, Pennsylvania, you can go to CRCAlexandria .org. CRCAlexandria .org. It's such a thrill to hear about a church being rescued from the clutches of apostasy in a false, tragically false denomination like the United Church of Christ, which had its roots, believe it or not, folks, in Puritanism.

And Congregationalism. And when you see many churches by the name of Congregationalists, not all, but many, they are tragically among the number of once theologically pristine churches that were Puritan in origin who had collapsed into apostasy and leftism.

And we are always glad to hear about a church like Christ Reformed Church. In fact, I've got to introduce you eventually to my friend Ed Boyle, who is pastoring Trinity Christian Church in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, which is in the same basic situation, a once in alignment or allegiance with the United Church of Christ denomination, but having left there a number of years ago and being taken in a Reformed direction by Pastor Boyle.

But I want to give our listeners our email address. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

Please, as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence. If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And even though our main theme today that we are discussing, the pastoral theology of John Owen is very specific, we will permit questions on a general basis regarding pastoral theology, the office of pastor, John Owen in general, or even our guest's own personal testimony, which he is about to provide, or anything regarding to his ministry.

So let us start, if you wouldn't mind, Pastor Angelo, giving our listeners that summary of your personal testimony, which would include your family upbringing, what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in, and what providential circumstances our Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you.

Family background, we were Puerto Rican, and so I was just born again. Yeah, those are polar opposite things.

If anybody listening is unfamiliar with that acronym ELCA, that's the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is neither evangelical nor Lutheran. In fact, you do have a remnant of biblically faithful, and even those that may be faithful to the history of the Lutheran Church, but they are a tiny remnant, and that is by and large an apostate denomination.

And so just to let you know, and I apologize to any faithful pastor or member of that denomination, but I'm sure that you would agree that my description is accurate.

Yes, one thing I've noticed is that even though there aren't many godless churches or churches that repudiate Scripture of Christ, more mainline denominations, that for the most part have departed congregations and evoke Christ and be a faithful witness.

Yes, years ago, I remember bumping into a pastor at a Reformed conference I was attending, and he introduced himself as the pastor of an ELCA church. And I said, really? And you're at this Reformed conference?

And he went, shhh.

I don't know how they do it, but they had that burden to try and proclaim Christ.

Well, I did interrupt you, so you may continue on that interesting upbringing that you had being in a Pentecostal church and yet being educated in a liberal Lutheran school.

Sure, so as many New Yorker knows, the goal is to get out. And so my father sought to have us leave New York's megachurch in Staten Island. It was very purposely, I believe born again, really came to love the scriptures, study of scripture that introduced me to my undergraduates and to my Christian college.

Becoming a youth pastor who had spent his days, did not grant me to be Greek, many good propensity began to change. I became obsessed with study and history and languages, changed my major so that I could do that.

Doing this, I was courting my wife. I often joked we would eventually get married. We were also theologically focused, and we began to hear about this thing from characters like John Piper, at the time Mark Dristarian, and then also the nation and the theology of Karl Barth that led me to Westminster Seminary.

I don't imagine many people share that same road. To there that I became more, where my wife and I turned to Westminster confession of faith, larger and shorter catechism, into our bedtime stories, as we would read them together and discuss, do we agree with this?

Why or why not? And as we wrestled through that, we became more and more convinced of the Reformed faith, which was very fascinating as we were attending, and my wife was on staff, sensational Arminian pastor.

Yeah, very interesting testimony indeed. Yes. Well, this topic is quite, I think, important, because pastors today, perhaps more than ever, should have stronger voices, giving them counsel and guidance when it comes to the calling that they have, than much of what is available in contemporary sources.

Now, of course, there are, thankfully, many and a growing number of fine Bible teachers and exegetes and pastoral examples in our day, a growing number of them. I could go on and on with men that I've even had on this show, like John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul, and many others who I would even consider heroes of the faith, but they are still, nonetheless, a minority today, I believe, not only because of liberalism, leftism, and apostasy, but even because of shallow evangelicalism.

But John Owen is a name that I'm assuming that the vast majority, if not every Reformed listener, has some idea who John Owen was, but there's still, especially since I have new believers who do listen to this show, and even those of other religions listening at times, there are some, perhaps even many, who don't know who John Owen was and why we should even be paying serious attention to his legacy that he has offered and left to the body of Christ by the grace of God.

So why don't you tell us, in summary, who John Owen was to begin with?

John Owen, turbulent times, famous tradition, so the beauty and the transform to the gospel, and anything that came across that, against that, he felt it was his to speak out against for the glory of Christ and the good of his people.

Yes, and John Owen, in spite of his high learning, his really impressive history of academic training and the prestige which he enjoyed in theological circles, he was humble enough and discerning enough to recognize the gifts of a man with probably an 180-degree opposite background, although a man who shared the same faith, for the most part, John Bunyan, and he allowed Bunyan, in fact, more than allowed, lovingly and eagerly welcomed John Bunyan into his own pulpit.

The relationship between Owen and John Owen was to try and help Bunyan be released from prison, but ultimately, as one mention from Mother Owen, Owen told Charles II, the King of England, that he would give all of his learning up if he could preach like Bunyan.

Praise God. And what was it that drew your focus to John Owen's pastoral theology? There are a number of heroes of the faith that pastoral theology might immediately come to mind when we remember their lives and legacies.

Robert Murray McShane comes to mind, Charles Spurgeon. What was it about John Owen's pastoral theology that immediately grabbed your attention, arrested your attention, and drew you into doing further study and even writing your thesis on this subject?

I'm a guitarist. I take ideas in music as if you like somebody, find their roots, find their influences, and you'll find their sound. For example, I love John Mayer. So if I trace him, I'll find Stevie Ray Vaughan, I'll find Eric Clapton, I'll find Hendrix.

And this is not the way I thought you would begin answering that question. I'm sorry.

It's all theology.

Continue.

All right.

Theology is the discussion of John, as it always seems. So I went from Owen, the mortification of sin by virtue of the bridge that modernized. So as I began to study, calling out things I had never noticed, found, as I was, I spent, I mentioned I was a guitarist, I traveled the country, go to youth camps, and I'd hear the same five sermons every week, and a lot of the guia are riveting and helpful because I wanted to understand what is his work and found that the Reformed faith, rather than not having anything to say, charismatic in the charismatics.

And I don't mean that in the sense of gift as much as a greater dependence on the fullness.

Amen. I mean, Reformed Christians, Calvinists, if you will, believers in the doctrines of sovereign grace, we have more of an essential view of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives than any charismatic or Pentecostal because we don't even believe that we can have genuine faith without the work of the Holy Spirit, actually revolutionizing and resurrecting our dead, lifeless souls.

That's right. We are so dependent on the Holy Spirit that every ounce of it, and that's what Owen really highlighted for me, the beauty of the Trinity. So those would be some of the reasons why I began my pursuit.

Yes, Dr. Truman has been one of my favorite guests,.

And you just reminded me that I have to invite him back on this program. I'm always fascinated by my discussions with him. Well, there are duties required in a pastor's calling should a man accept the call to the office of pastor.

And first of all, let's start with that. There would have been no question likely at all in Owen's day about men exclusively, rightfully receiving the call to the pastoral ministry. This is a exclusively male office.

Am I not correct?

Absolutely. First Timothy 2 makes that quite clear.

Feeding the Sheep and the Heart of Pastoral Ministry

Well, you know what we're going to do so I don't interrupt you mid-sentence. We're going to go to our first break right now. And when we return, I would like you to begin to discuss a vital aspect of the role of a pastor, which includes feeding the sheep.

And this is something that is of primary importance. Many of us, if not most of us, vividly remember Jesus Christ's thrice asking questions to Peter if he loved him. And one of the challenges to Peter was to feed his sheep.

And so we're going to be discussing that when we return from this break, this first break. If anybody has questions of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence. If you live outside the USA, please only remain anonymous. If your question involves a personal and private matter, don't go away.

We'll be right back with Angelo Valle.

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Call 1 -800 -669 -4878. Welcome back. This is Chris Armisen. If you just tuned into Iron Trump Zion Radio today, our guest for the very first time is Angelo Valley, pastor of Christ Reformed Church of Alexandria, Pennsylvania.

We are discussing the pastoral theology of John Owen. If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is ChrisArmisen at gmail .com. ChrisArmisen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Before I enter into a very important passage of scripture that I began to mention in John 21, starting with verse 15, when Jesus Christ is asking Simon Peter if he loves him three times, which subsequently enters into a very important aspect of John Owen's pastoral theology, feeding the sheep.

Before we do that, we have a very anxious friend of ours, mutual friend, the aforementioned Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington of Faith Presbyterian Church, Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania, who has a question for you.

And this better be good because I have no idea what he's referring to. This may be a joke. I don't know. Who is Juanista?

Juanista is one of my positive encouragement emoji and a daily bit of encouragement. And it began by saying, good morning, Angelo. Good morning, John Owen. He does some funny quip. It became John Owen, became John O 'Easta.

I am Juanista.

He gave you a female name.

He's an absurd and hysterical character.

Yes, I happen to be the unfortunate brunt of much of his insane humor. In fact, he also greets me every morning by text. It's something I actually look forward to. But thank you for wasting much of our valuable time, Dr. Waddington.

That's the question we got from a Jonathan Edwards scholar. Okay. Um, let me go into something infinitely more important in John chapter 21, starting at verse 15. Jesus Christ says to Peter, it says, so when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, tend my lambs. He said to him again, a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you.

He said to him, shepherd my sheep. He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you.

Jesus said to him, tend my sheep. Uh, why is tending and feeding the sheep such a crucial aspect of John Owen's pastoral theology and biblical pastoral theology?

Well, I think you just touched on the aspect of pastoral theology. So we recognize that the New Testament is in those moments. Or even, uh, Jeremiah 3 says, and I will give you past standing, more aged and echoing the very same ideas of Christ to other pastors and elders.

He repeats that in 1 Peter 5 to among you, that very passage from of the contents of one sentence summary for what Owen believes to be the heart of pastoral ministry. He writes in volume 16, page 47, the feeding then is the heart or foundation for Owen of pastoral ministry and every other subsequent duty is a necessary outworking or outpouring.

We do have a question for you from Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Harrison asks, I love reading Owen, but it's not easy. Do you know of any works republished, originally written by John Owen, that are translated in more modern English so that he would be easier to read?

Sure. Sure. Great question. Again, which is done by the Banner of Truth. So if you're looking for something, the Banner of Truth has these wonderful, the mortification, and both of these sermons preached by Owen to teenage boys at Oxford.

So, you know, they're going to be practical on those subjects. And then his work that I would add is the Holy Spirit, of course, more can be referenced, but they're affordable and available through the Banner of Truth, which I would commend you to look at.

Yes, they are indeed excellent. And if I'm not mistaken, one of the first of these Puritan paperbacks that I ever read as a young Christian was Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices by Thomas Brooks.

And I remember being struck by the fact that even though these, this work had been written centuries before, how contemporary the situation of the church in the world that Brooks was describing seemed to be.

It just showed you how relevant many of the writings of these great men from centuries ago have today. Their writings, many of them, are timeless.

They are indeed timeless. The brilliant thing about many of them is that they are sermons, which just continues to reveal to us, especially when it's written by men pulled by...

Great.

Well, thank you very much for writing in, Harrison, and continue to listen to Iron Sharpens Iron and spread the word in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania and beyond. Let's see here. Well, before I go to another listener, I just want you to move on to the further explanation, exactly what does feeding the flock mean?

That's a great question. Again, we want to look at Scripture. Owen sees himself as the Eastern Catholic tradition. He's regularly going to involve himself with the rest of the medieval church. So he, again, uses 1 Peter 5, Jeremiah 3, and John 21 to give us that idea.

But looking at Jeremiah 3 as the chief idea that pastors are called to feed, this idea is our job is not to be merely to... Again, I have no ill against my Anglican brothers. I have much love and respect for dealing with a unique historical moment.

And he said that we are called to lay aside all other employment. So lawful, all about the Word of God needs to be faithfully expounded. And with wisdom, one of the dangers, for example, if you have a typically immature, hardest boss in biblical theology, something you see perhaps from seminarians who have not learned how to talk to ordinary people yet.

He says you have to meet people where they are. And if they are young and babes, and vice versa was also the case. He pointed back to Hebrews and showing how the priests were careful in the giving of the sacrifice.

You have to see this requirement of wisdom and care and caring for God's people, he pointed out.

My very dear friend, going back to the early 1990s, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries has been known to frequently repeat something that is very true when it comes to the feeding of the sheep.

He has said, what you win them with is what you win them to. And he was connecting that with the tragedy of what has been known as the seeker-sensitive movement, the seeker-sensitive approach to preaching and evangelism, where somehow many in evangelical pulpits think that they're going to attract sheep into their midst by hanging sacks of goat food out their windows.

But that is not what very often happens. It does happen sometimes, just purely by the sovereign grace of God, drawing men unto himself in spite of the failures of men. But the subject matter of the sermons and the manner in which Christ is preached, and that Christ is preached, and the manner in which God is worshipped, these are all very important aspects of pastoral ministry, are they not?

Because the temptation of many, especially those who are perhaps in small churches, who are desperate to see their numbers grow, or even those pastoring very large churches who want to keep their churches large, the tendency is to seek to appease the appetites of the lost in order to keep a large congregation or grow a small one.

And this is a tragedy, isn't it, that people basically are bowing to pragmatism instead of just obeying God?

I would agree with that. It's our job to help the goats know that they are goats. If we do that, we have a successful feeding idea for Owen. He had five dynamics to it. A minister who is worth his salt would do these five things well.

One would be knowing the Word. You can't be useful in feeding Christ. Experience the Word, the joys of how you know it yourself. Again, he said to properly divide the Word with the tolls of men. If you care about Pete, thank you for that thought.

We have to go to our midway break right now, and please be patient, folks, because as those who listen to this program regularly will know, this middle break is a longer than normal break that we have during the program because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle because the FCC requires of them to localize their programming to Lake City, Florida, and they air this program twice a day in a pre-recorded format, both in morning drive and in the evening.

While we air our globally heard commercials, they air their own local announcements. So please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the information provided by as many of our sponsors as possible so that you can more frequently and more successfully patronize our advertisers and thereby giving them more incentive and motivation to remain our advertisers, which means, God willing, we will remain on the air for a longer future because we absolutely depend upon the financial support of our advertisers to exist.

So please do that, and also send in questions to Angelo Valley about our theme, the pastoral theology of John Owen, or about pastoral theology in general, or about John Owen in general. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence. If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous. If your question involves a personal and private matter, we'll be right back with Angelo Valley.

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