Shepherd the Flock

By God’s providence a friend of mine lent me a book earlier this year: John Flavel’s Keeping the Heart. Without a doubt this is one of the very best Christian books I have ever read, and hope to post a full, thorough review of it here on my blog one day. But just to frank: the book has forever impacted me and changed my perspective on the Christian life.

Flavel admonishes us to ‘keep the heart’, or keep watch over the heart, as it is the fountain from which all of our actions flow (Prov 4:23). Over the course of the relatively short work, Flavel gives different ‘seasons’ by which we must be ever diligent in watching over our own hearts. The first season is during a time of prosperity, the second season is during adversity, and so on.

But the seventh ‘season’ struck a cord with me, and I’d like to share some of those thoughts here.

Flavel states:
“The seventh season calling for more than common diligence to keep the heart is when we receive injuries and abuses from men.”

Basically, we must keep close watch over ourselves when we are mistreated by others. We are naturally inclined to vigorously defend ourselves when wronged, and to often times attack or seek revenge towards the one that hurt us. But this should not be so for the Christian, as we must transcend the tendency of the flesh and humble ourselves before God and man.

Within his second ‘remedy’ for keeping the heart from vengeful motives during times of adversity, Flavel instructs us to look at the example and life of Jesus Christ, the Apostles, and other great saints who were mistreated and yet responded in love, humility and forgiveness. We are to fall in love with them, he states, and seek to follow in their steps.

He then tells a wonderful story about John Calvin:

“Mr. Calvin, though a man of quick spirit, yet had attained such a degree of this Christ-like forgiveness that when Luther had used some opprobrious language of him, the good man said no more but this: ‘Although he should call me a devil, yet I will acknowledge him to be an eminent servant of Jesus Christ.’”

And about John Dod:

“John Dod…when one was enraged at his precise, convincing doctrine and picked a quarrel with him, smote him on the face, and knocked out two of his teeth, this meek servant of Christ spit out the teeth and blood into his hand and said, “See, here, you have knocked out two of my teeth, and that without and just provocation; but on the condition that I might do your soul good, I would give you leave to knock out all the rest.”

I am utterly amazed at such love and humility. Make no mistake, Flavel asserts the importance of doctrine by saying that Dod had ‘precise’ and ‘convincing doctrine’, but I am saddened by how many Christians today use a ‘love’ for doctrine as a bullying-club to hate and distance themselves from other believers. It’s no wonder that doctrinal disputes don’t more often take the form of a fist-fight in the manner above!

No doubt that taking a strong stance on doctrine is essential to the Christian faith, for without truth, we have no faith. But too often we utterly neglect love and humility so we can ‘prove’ to the other person just how wrong we think they are! It’s like, ‘I don’t want you to think that I approve of you or what you believe in, so I’m going to distance myself from you/break fellowship with you.’, to say nothing of the bitterness that does spill out into actual quarrels.

Brethren, we are called to a higher standard than this. Let us seek the spiritual profit of others, like Dod did (‘that I might do your soul good’), and let us voluntarily give up what rights we think we have in order to truly exemplify Christ-like love.

Calvin elsewhere says:

“How extremely difficult it is for you dutifully to seek the advantage of your neighbor, unless you quit all selfish considerations and almost forget yourself…Scripture urges and warns us that whatever favors we may have obtained from the Lord, we have received them as a trust on condition that they should be applied to the common benefit of the church…we must prefer the profit of others.”

Do you prefer the profit of others? Or are you too concerned with ‘Shepherding’ yourself? I challenge you to look deeply into your own heart when answering that question.