The Augustinian Pastor | Joey Sherrard

This episode features a conversation with Joey Sherrard about his new book The Augustinian Pastor, exploring how the life and theology of Augustine can shape modern pastoral ministry. Drawing from his own journey—especially rediscovering Augustine during COVID—Sherrard highlights how Augustine’s work as a hands-on pastor was itself the outworking of and context in which he did his theological reflection. Key themes include the importance of pastoral friendship, the ongoing struggle with pride and sin, and the cultivation of humility through dependence on God. Pastors should see their ordinary work not as a barrier to theological depth, but as the very place where rich, enduring theology is formed.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

He kind of talks about how we should be circumspect when we evaluate other people. We should kind of look at them and say, you know what? Actually, they might be further along than I think that they are. He really asks us to contemplate the incarnation and to think about Jesus' humility as a way of disarming our pride. And he just pays a lot of attention to pride.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the CPT podcast. I'm Zach Wagner. I'm joined by CPT President Joel Lawrence. Hello, Joel.

Joel Lawrence 0:33

Hello, Zach.

SPEAKER_03 0:34

We just finished up a conversation with Joey Sherrard, who is a longtime CPT fellow and has a new book out entitled The Augustinian Pastor. Is there a subtitle for this?

Joel Lawrence 0:49

It is Deep Wisdom for Modern Ministry. Deep Wisdom for Modern Ministry.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Yes, and that's something that comes up in the conversation. You mentioned this at the end, and I thought this was a really helpful distinction. This is not a kind of portrait of Augustine as a pastor, although it certainly includes many elements of that. It is kind of a retrieval of the wisdom of Augustine and the Augustinian tradition and applying that um to the moment that we are living in today. What's one or two things that stuck out to you about this conversation with Joey?

Joel Lawrence 1:24

Well, I think what you see here is, you know, with with Joey's heart, Joey's mind, you know, for folks who read the book, which I highly, highly encourage, he brings a lot of his story into this and his his longing for mentors, his looking for someone who could kind of guide him in pastoral ministry. And he he finds Augustine through some um you know circumstances of COVID and happens to be in a reading group that's reading the confessions, and that starts him on a much, much deeper journey with Augustine. And I think what you have in this book is a really excellent example of a work of a pastor theologian, Joey Sherard, reflecting on a pastor theologian, Augustine, and how the themes of Augustine's life, the context is radically different. Many of the thematic things that he's dealing with in pastoral ministry are radically different, and yet they're also radically the same. And so being able to span these 1700 years and see the contrast, but also the deep diff the deep uh similarities that we have, I think was really profound for me, as well as what what Joey does here, which is to bring out, I think in a new way, just how deeply rooted Augustine's the theology is in pastoral ministry. He was an ecclesial theologian. He was doing theology from the church for the church. And I think that um comes across really, really beautifully in the book.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Well, we'll get right into the conversation, have some more themes on friendship and humility and other things that come out in the course of the conversation. So hope it's encouraging to you listeners, and we'll we'll hand it over to the recording now.

Joel Lawrence 3:19

Joey, it's great to have you back on the podcast. Welcome. Uh thanks, Joel. Thanks, Axe. Good to good to be with you guys. Yeah, we were just talking before we hit record. You're on last year. We heard we heard your story, um, but we wanted to bring you back on because uh of this exciting event of the publication of your new book, The Augustinian Pastor, Deep Wisdom for Modern Ministry. And we've been a little bit with you on this journey through the book. You you you brought a couple of chapters to the CPT Fellowships over the last couple, three years. And so it's just been really fun to see it kind of gestating and now to have it uh out in the wild. And I've really appreciated reading through it this week. So uh first, just thank you for the the labor of putting this book together. We're we're so grateful for that.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Yeah, well, this the Center for Pastor Theologians has really been not just a companion, but really sort of provided so much that has helped this project come to be. So all the the fellowships that I've presented to and just the vision that CPT uh represents is yeah, uh Augustine is is in lockstep with what it is that you guys are about. So I'm really grateful for y'all.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

I was thinking before we hit record, Augustine's gotta be, would there be anybody who wouldn't put him like in the top three of just like most influential theologians, pastor theologians, full stop? I I like no one almost no one attains the stature of Augustine except for maybe like a Luther. But yeah, that's a it's like the part it the designation par excellence is um is appropriate, it seems to me.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yeah, he's in he's in my top three. I know that. Absolutely.

Joel Lawrence 5:10

I think if there's if there is anyone who puts them who doesn't put him in the top three, I would say they're wrong. I think that's and I'd like to think if he was around today, he'd be a fellow of the Center for Pastor Theologians. Absolutely. Okay, so Jerry, before we dive into the book uh and hear about kind of your journey of writing the book and what you're hoping to accomplish through the book. You said we had you on last fall, but why don't you give us just a a couple minutes, reintroduce yourself to us so that uh we have some context of who you are, where you're coming from, a little bit of your journey of faith, your your educational journey, and what you're doing these days.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Yeah, I grew up uh most of my life in Mississippi and came to faith through a local church youth group that really welcomed me. And so for me, faith was before it was belief or behavior, it was belonging. And so that community really welcomed me and loved me and gave me a taste of something that was really precious uh to me. Um majored in religion uh in college and was just trying to discern some kind of path where the mind and the heart uh and ministry were all wed together. Thought that could be going back to a small liberal arts college and teaching, but really in seminary uh at Divinity School at Duke Divinity School really caught a vision for uh the life of the pastor as a vocation that demands heart, mind, soul, strength, and uh fell in love with it uh and had a really wonderful pastoral mentor who uh sh really embodied that vision in his own work of pastoral leadership. Was a local church pastor in Mississippi for six years, and then the Lord opened up a way to go back to school, went to the University of St. Andrews, where I was in residence for two and a half years with my wife and two young kids uh at the time, and wrote a thesis on a Scottish theologian named T. F. Torrance, and then the Lord called me where I am now, which is uh I would do discipleship at Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church just outside of Chattanooga. I'm an associate pastor there.

Joel Lawrence 7:25

So you don't have Augustine formally in your theological biography. So so take us through a bit of the backstory of this book. What what was it that sparked your your interest in Augustine? What was it that kind of helped you formulate the idea of a book on the Augustinian pastor?

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yes, yeah. Augustine was not someone who I had a lot of familiarity with. In fact, my the person I did my thesis on TF Torrents did not have a lot of nice things to say about Augustine. So he wouldn't have put Augustine. Yeah, he would not. No, yeah, he would be one of those guys who would not do that. But um, yeah, I I mean a couple of two couple things converged for me. One was, you know, like many of us, sitting in my, you know, basement uh study during COVID, you know, while we were all sort of isolated from one another and just trying to find a voice that would help me like put together all the pieces needed to think faith faithfully about, not just about pastoral ministry, but about my own life and heart. Um and then I threw um an institution that um Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando ran for a while, these local reading groups, it's called the Paidea Institute. Um we read in the fall of 2020, so you know, sitting outside on a church patio, uh they had a reading group for Augustine's confessions. And so I, as a part of preparing for that, to lead that group, I sort of re-engaged Augustine for the first time. And you know, I'd been involved with CPT for um probably four or five years at that point. And I just was now attuned to him in a different way, realizing this is a this is a pastor who's saying these things. And he really, you know, in all the ways that I understood confessions at the time, which I feel like every time I read that book again, there's some new layer to it. It just really kind of opened up things about my own heart and mind and soul in pastoral ministry. And then the next year, uh, these reading groups we read, Augustine's City of God, together. And so I was, you know, and that reading group, it was there were 20 people. Some of them were, you know, part-time librarians, some of them were stay-at-home moms, some of them were lawyers, and some of them were pastors. It was one of the most just life-giving reading group experiences I've ever had. And just seeing all of the wild and wonderful things Augustine is doing in uh City of God, again, as a pastor, it really made me want to dig more into this. And so I was doing some other things at RTS Orlando, and I emailed a book outline, like a chapter outline to Mike Allen, ahead of me going down. He was actually going down to do one of the student fellowships at RTS Orlando, and I said, Hey, like I'd love to talk about this while I'm down there. You know, tell me, tell me what you think. And he said, Hey, why don't you come talk to my class about that? City of God class that he was teaching that year. And I was like, I don't know if I said, I don't know if I have like 20 minutes on this. And he said, Well, you've got an hour. And so I I I went in there. It was one of those things I was like, I you know what, I feel like you should never.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

What is it? It's like the woman at the well, you are right that you don't have a husband.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

You have a husband.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Yeah, you're right that you don't have 20 minutes because you have a mom.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

Yes, yeah. I mean, yeah. So I was just kind of like, I feel like I should not say no to this, you know. Uh and so I went in there and I, you know, like, you know, 50 minutes later, I looked down at my watch and I was and I was like, oh, okay. And the feedback from those from that initial uh group was really positive. And so I said, okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

Um Joey, were these MDiv students?

SPEAKER_00 11:50

They were, yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

Okay, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Yeah. So I just think, I mean, I just thought the more I spent time with Augustine, the more I mean, I just think he is such a gift to pastors in all the ways he is alert to the challenges that we face, like interior challenges, you know, our heart and sins, subtlety. He's just a very spiritually sensitive author and writer, but also just wide awake to all the things that you know we face, you know, in terms of preaching and teaching and thinking about the local church. Uh and the more the more I got in, which was by no means into all of his thought. I mean, he's he's written quite a quite a few works, um, the more I just I thought this was something I just really wanted to pass on to to other pastors.

Joel Lawrence 12:44

Yeah, I I I so appreciate the angle at it. Um you know, and you say this in the book, we we tend to think of Augustine as a theologian, which of course he was, or as a philosopher, which of course he was, but he was a he was a pastor, and so much of his think, so much of our thinking about Augustine stops at the point where he becomes a pastor. Like his biography, we we know the biography from the wanderings and from the searching and the confessions, but it's it's actually after that, and you know, then we know the Pelagian controversies and the Donatist controversies, but actually rooting his theology much more deeply in the day-in and day life, day in, day out life of a pastor. I just think that's such a contribution that opens up an angle into Augustine that we've known is there, but hasn't really been mined. So tell us a little bit more about, you know, I think his biography is probably generally pretty well known from people, but in terms of Augustine as a pastor and what he was dealing with and what he was rooted in, tell us a little bit more about that and how maybe he came alive for you in different ways by engaging with him as a day-to-day pastor, bishop with the challenges, the pressures, administration, all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yes. Yes. I mean, I I think, I think, particularly for people who are attracted to the Center for Pastor Theologian vision, who enjoy, you know, reading and writing and the kind of not just the active life of pastoral ministry, but the contemplative life. I just think Augustine's call to pastoral ministry is so compelling because he returned to Africa because he wanted to start a monastic community. And you know, he was dodging open pulpits in the fear that he would be called into them. And so he goes to Hippo Regis and sneaks in the back. And Valerius, the pastor at the time, the bishop kind of recognizes him and says, Hey, like I I think we've got I think we've got our next pastor in the building. And they the congregation forcibly like leads him to like up to the front of the church, and Valerius ordains him on the spot. And they had such a high view of ordination and what the spirit did when hands were were was laid on you know a man for pastoral ministry, um, that it was kind of a it was a done deal at that point. And Augustine says he wept, you know, uh as that happened. Uh, and not because, you know, not because he wished he had gotten put at a different you know place or had gotten a promotion or something like that, but because he did not, he did not want this life. Um and so he uh he ministered in that in that one church for the next you know 40 something years of his life, uh, and became the bishop. Uh and it was, you know, he he probably he preached multiple times a week. Um we have about 900 of his sermons, but that might be just like about 10% of what we have. He was a theological leader in the African church, and then this kind of larger church as well. He never left uh Roman Africa um after he returned from his kind of conversion moment in Milan. But so he, you know, he lived with kind of fellow monastics in training to be pastors, and so spent a lot of time with them um and training them. He uh and he spent a lot of his life I mean, he's he was prolific, obviously, in the midst of all the controversies, the maniches, you know, the Donatist controversy as kind of schismatic movement in the local church, then the Pelagian controversy. Um but he did all this while doing all the things that pastors know that pastors do. I mean, he spent a lot of his life doing uh heavily administrative daily work of settling disputes between congregation members, and not a part of his work. You can he kind of you know lets us know here and there that this was not the kind of thing that he really enjoyed, but he did it faithfully, and all of his work was as a pastor was worked out in that context of ordinary local church pastor life.

Joel Lawrence 17:30

I I think that would that was such a helpful part for me because I think it's easy to get an idealized vision of Augustine as sort of you know sitting in this semi-monastic retreat, just writing theology all day long. Right. But um, he was dealing with all the stuff that you deal with as a pastor. So, how how would you say that pastoral context really shaped his theological vision or maybe even his theological approach as he was dealing with the theological controversies of the time? How would being the pastor and a bishop shape that vision?

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Yes, I mean, I think Augustine never saw these controversies as a distraction from pastoral ministry or like a deviation from his calling, but he always thought about these things theologically, and he had this like in uncanny ability to, upon theologically reflecting upon them, to kind of metabolize local church controversy into you know enduring church doctrine. So the Donatist doctrine, you know, was the Donatist controversy, you know, is the kind of thing that you know pastors today know all too well, you know, these kind of like uh different postures that people take in the local church and the desire to kind of split away from one another and and things like that. And he really reflected theologically on uh that controversy in such a way that it's like it's clear that he is doing more with that controversy than maybe some of our initial instincts are. Um so yeah, I mean, I think he he really, in a way that I I've tried to learn from and apprentice myself to is he, I mean, all of all of pastoral life is irreducibly theological. And so how do you take uh what feels to us to be distractions and reflect upon them and and lead out of them using the full resources of the pastoral tradition or theological tradition?

SPEAKER_03 19:43

Yeah, absolutely. I think this is such a right at the center of the dilemma, as it were, of the kind of pastor theologian identity. And I think anyone who's into this vision and been kind of connected to the CPT, there's always a sense like, well, if I had more time, or if I were this scholastic theologian, like like a like a Thomas Aquinas, who's uh who's obviously very prolific, like on par, or if not uh if not uh well beyond Augustine. But um, I really appreciate the way you direct us to this like day-in, day out ministry context reality. Because I think there can be a temptation for pastors to think, man, I'd have time for more careful theological reflection if I didn't have this obnoxious sermon prep or meeting with these congregants or this elder meeting or something like that. They're not, I think the insight that we're always trying to drive towards in our fellowships is those actually aren't two separate things. Like the theological work is not something other than someone in your congregation dies unexpectedly, and now you have to do a funeral in addition to your sermon prep, and you can't work on that book chapter that you wanted to work on and had carved out all this time to do. So I really like the the word you use metabolize, because that views the kind of day in, day out life of the ministry as part of the same organic system that produces the theological reflection. Um, that in the case of someone like Augustine uh has you know echoed down centuries and literally, literally millennia. And you know, it it bears repeating that the ministry life of the pastor is not somehow opposite or a barrier to or um an an obstacle in the way of doing the theological work that uh we f we feel called to.

Joel Lawrence 21:59

Yes. Absolutely. And Joe, in in light of that, um, before we di dip into some of the themes of the book, would just be curious at at this point to have you reflect personally on how your work with Augustine has shaped your day-to-day as a pastor and how you think about what it is that you're doing as a pastor and all the different facets of pastoral life.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yeah, I mean, some of it has to do with how I think about ordering my days, and so some of the the things that Augustine has to say about, which we might talk about later, about a rule of life for pastoral ministry, um the importance of praying the psalms uh for me, uh, the um pastoral friendship, uh, which is something that has increasingly grown more important to me as I think about my own longevity and ministry and what's needed for it. But also, I think Augustine's kind of framework for thinking about what it is that kind of pastoral ministry is all about all about is you know, forming people to love God and love neighbor. And that kind of very simple but not simplistic framework for pastoral ministry about helping people order their loves well, help and thinking about that as my own. That's been like a really helpful North Star for me when I think about what pastoral ministry is is all about as a work of love and uh forming people to be to be lovers who love well.

Joel Lawrence 23:41

So, yeah, let's let's let's dig into some of the themes. You've you highlighted a couple of there. Um, I've got a couple that I was prompted to ask you about, and anything else, obviously, that you want to bring in, feel free to bring in as we go along the way. But let's start with that. You just mentioned pastoral friendship, which is is uh a really part of a really big part of Augustine's story, but also, you know, as you're illustrating as you're narrating your own story, that has become a very critical part of what you do. In fact, you you kind of start the book talking about a moment where you're pretty fried, pretty burnt out, and you're and you're getting on an airplane to go hang out with some people, and the Lord's doing some stuff in your life that you're not even fully aware of at the moment of what the Lord's doing. So yeah, so talk to us. I think one of the challenges we all have as as pastors is how can we be pastors and have friends? Um fact, a lot of times we're warned against having friends as pastors, um, which I've always found to be just incredibly bizarre. But there are complications to it. So take us through what Augustine, like his own pattern of friendship, how this plays out in his life, and then and then also a little bit more of your story. How has that shaped your understanding of what it means to how you have pursued friendships as a pastor?

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yes. I I mean Augustine has friendship as a theme of the confessions, one of the like you know, numerous themes of confessions, in a really interesting way. I mean, he begins by showing us like the malformative possibilities of friendship, uh, which is something that I think pastors should also be alert to. Like, not all friendships are created equal, right? Like I and I as I thought about what Augustine's talking about, you know, it's the it's he talks about the you know the theft of pairs in book two of the confessions as this kind of thing that he wouldn't have done if he was by himself, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:47

And I thought I often think about friends who like want to go to the games and stuff like this as well. Am I remembering that right?

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yes, yeah. Olypius is kind of dragged to the to the games and back into to sin by his his friends.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

And I think pastoral friendship, I mean, I uh I have like, you know, I know the the possibilities and you know, and have sadly, you know, at times participated in them of like being around pastoral friends where like there's a kind of a an air of cynicism, you know, uh about the the call that we have. And that I think is it kind of acts exponentially on our hearts in ways that wouldn't just be possible by ourselves. Um but then Augustine also has these really beautiful, positive, you know, visions of friendship. I mean, you know, the the famous quote from Peter Brown in his autobiography or his biography of Augustine is like, Augustine will never be alone. You know, he's always even when he's converted. We think about Augustine as this like highly introverted, you know, introspective man, but he's like, I mean, Olypius is next to him when he converts, and they convert together in many ways. Um and and then Augustine is always surrounded by friends in pastoral ministry, like he he lives, you know, in this you know, monastic community. And I think significantly what Augustine had that we don't have is friendship as like an institution and ideal, whereas we have it as kind of this weird amorphous word that like could mean any number of things, right? It could mean a social media connection, it could mean an acquaintance, like, or it could mean like a deep soul friend. And so Augustine has a letter where he's corresponding with this person who like used to be a friend before they both came to know the Lord, and now they're friends in this much more kind of much more, much more shared ideal that they have. But it's it's an it's a cultural artifact that he knows to appeal to. Like they have this idea of friendship that comes from their time from Cicero, like, and that's what we don't have, is we don't have this sense of friendship as an ideal. And so I tried to, you know, in that chapter, try to look at Augustine and say, well, how could we maybe put this ideal on the table and and say, let's let our friendships follow after, you know, and seek this kind of this greater good together, rather than being this kind of very fragile kind of thing that is based on whether or not we, you know, pay each other enough compliments and don't step on each other's toes or things like that. And so that's been really helpful through for a group of friends that I have in pastoral ministry, where we have pretty explicitly kind of stated an ideal for our friendship. If we we say that to one another when we gather and we try to push one another on to say, like, let's we're after something more than just liking each other. We're after becoming someone together. And so let's let's try to do that together.

Joel Lawrence 29:11

Can you take us a little a little more into that? Because I think having some kind of a template for pastors who are struggling to have friends and maybe don't even know and you know, are kind of recognizing what you're saying, that word doesn't have a ton of meaning these days. It's it's it's kind of been been voided of meaning in our cultural context. Obviously, you know, it's gonna be different for everybody, but but just give us a little bit more of a snapshot of what that looks like for you and your friendships. You know, you you talking here about a Zoom call weekly with people and jumping on, and there's a particular structure that you do that. Can you just give us a little more depth on that?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yes. Yeah. So we um we very you know, unintentionally, but with greater intention, the more we were around another, kind of fell into real into friendship with one another. And it was through kind of pledging to gather regularly over Zoom. So we are now all fairly geographically separate from one another, but we've just kind of covenanted, which I think that word is advisedly used, um, you know, together to meet together. We'll often read something that we wrote together, which basically says, like, here's what we're gonna do. And we kind of we talk about explicitly about how we want to know one another, not only in our kind of public-facing ministry, but in like what's going on in the privacy of our of our homes, our relationship with our our wives, our how we treat our children, like are we holding secrets, you know, and how can we how can we not be isolated in that? Um we we pray the psalms together, you know, uh uh regularly, like on our own, but like we've kind of said, we're the psalms is gonna form our life together, and we'll gather in person as well. Um and so that format and structure, almost just the announcing the intention that we want to, we want to have this life together and we want to live with integrity with one another, uh, has formed how we what we talk about and how we talk about ourselves.

Joel Lawrence 31:34

Beautiful to hear that. That's uh I think pretty rare for for many pastors to have that kind of intentionality. And I I think obviously in God's providence that has become true for you. But I I think we'd probably be a lot better off as pastors if we all were were in those kinds of relationships. And so I think something compelling of this book is just to encourage people to think about what that could look like for them and and maybe themselves initiate and take the risk of starting to form those kinds of relationships. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Yeah, and we're all lonely. I mean, yeah, sometimes we're all lonely.

Joel Lawrence 32:14

So let's just let's just name it in the book. There you go. There you go. Yeah. All right. The the um the next theme that struck me, it's it's really the the first chapter of the book, the pastor's story, is how I think one of the reasons Augustine's so compelling, and particularly why the confessions are so compelling, is it is such a deep dive into his own soul and just opening up his story. Um he's not he's not pulling any punches, he's doing his best to be as honest as he can with himself about understanding the impulses, understanding the goodness of God, but also understanding the depth of sin and the inexplicability of sin and the you never really are freed from it. Um so I would just love to hear you think about how, as pastors, this kind of wrestling with sin in a healthy way, in a way that that is actually bearing fruit. Um what does that look like in Augustine's life? And and then again, in in your own, in your own life, how has that been been playing out? How has that helped to form you to come to deeper understanding of who you are, God's grace in your life, but also the kind of intractability of the flesh that we that we consistently encounter?

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Yes. Yes. I mean, uh Confessions is such a remarkable book. I mean, not least because I mean the the sort of uh introspective memoir is pretty popular these days, but like in Augustine's day, I mean, it was this was just such an odd thing.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

He he invented it, some have argued.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Yes, that's right, yes, yes, and I most lives of bishops and things like that was like pretty hagiographic. It was like, you know, it was kind of the classic evangelical testimony, like there was life before Christ, and then I met Jesus, and now things are great, right? Um, but that's not the confessions by any stretch of the imagination. And what Augustine does, you know, in this very in this attempt to tell the truth about himself, right? Which I think he very honestly labels it as an attempt. I mean, that's yeah, part of what it means to pray this, is to say, Lord, like I don't know all this, but here's what I think I here's what I think I know. Let me spread it out all before you. Naming these things honestly and looking, you know, you know, putting them under the spotlight and looking at like why did this happen? Why did I do this? You know, and even as he tells a story of God's grace in delivering him from those things, he returns to them again, you know, in book 10 of the confessions and basically says, like, I know these things still live in me. And the, I mean, the structure of Augustine's confessions, I got this from other people. Um, you know, it sort of follows this descent into sin that follows the description of sin that we find in 1 John 2.16.

unknown 35:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

You know, the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is a nice, it's not the only kind of typology of sin we get, but it's a really effective one, I think, to be able to say, like, I it's not just that I sinned in general, but I sinned specifically. And even as God has begun to remove, you know, to sanctify these parts of my life, what I love about him in book 10 is he just says, like, let me just be honest with you, this is where this stuff still comes up. And he's very, you know, particularly when it comes to pride, like he just names how intractable it is, like, because he he lives in a public profession where you know praise is is not just like a part of his work, but he I mean he says like it's not a bad thing that people say you're doing a good job, Pastor. Like if they're not saying it, like maybe something's wrong, right? But he's he's just really interrogating his own motives and saying, like, but but why do I want people to say that? Like, like, why, what is it about me? And that encouraged me to using that same typology, you know, and I occasionally will use that typology as like an examine of my own life, you know, like where is where does the pride, which is very obvious, the you know, concupiscence of the flesh, but also concupiscence of the eyes, which Augustine says he's using a kind of an older theological category to describe vice called curiosity.

Joel Lawrence 37:06

Yeah, this was so interesting to me. Yeah, that that part was so interesting. Talk a little bit about the vice of curiosity.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Yeah, so I mean, we understand curiosity in a very different way. Um we think about curiosity as you know, someone who's generally interested in the world around them. But for Augustine, curiosity is like a way to describe this kind of restless searching, scrolling, superficial engagement, kind of on to the next. Like, I mean, the ways that he describes it are I mean, it's it's like our timelines, you know, on social media. It's like, let me look at this, okay, let me look at the next thing. You know, and these he talks about the way that curiosity invites us to feel things without letting our feelings kind of move towards and terminate on actual actions and responses, you know, it's so it's kind of like you know, watching a bunch of like YouTube videos that make get us emotional and then just kind of clicking to the next thing, right? And but it what it does is it prevents us from um kind of really moving to the heart of things, you know. So he talks of one but like kind of scratching a sore, like that's what it feels like to that. And I just I mean, Augustine and you know, and I am separated by 1600 years, but I just felt like he's talking about my experience when I'm on Amazon. Yeah, yeah.

Joel Lawrence 38:42

Well, human psychology, human sinfulness, it takes different forms and different eras, but there's a there's a route to it that I think again, that's I think one of the reasons he's so appealing is I can find myself in his story so easily. And he helps illustrate my story, the the the story of my own interior. Yes. Um the the uh the last theme I wanted to just to touch on here is is humility. Um, right. So if if kind of the the root of sin is pride, the the interior journey shows us the the stubbornness of our own pridefulness. Talk us talk to us a little bit about how Augustine understands humility and what does that look like for him, and then and then again, how how how has that shaped you and the way you think about your own self and your pastoral ministry?

SPEAKER_00 39:35

Yeah, I mean, Augustine I think describes humility as this kind of I feel like the language that I use in the book is kind of like glad dependence upon God in all things that is a virtue that is is really only acquired by not looking at the virtue itself, but by looking at God. Um and he just does a really good job of describing how I think tricky it is, virtue. Like he has this uh treatise that I stumbled upon. He wrote it, it's called Holy Vir on Holy Virginity. It's he's wrote it to women who had taken vows of virginity, and it's this piece of pastoral counsel to them where he basically says, like, I'm more worried about you because you're doing this, because the dangers of pride like that accompany like virtue in the Christian life just make pride harder to see, you know. Like he talks about the I think it's Luke 18, the you know, the Pharisee and the tax collector outside the temple, you know, and he, I mean, in a way that really opened up that parable for me, he says, like, let's just name that the Paris the Pharisee was he was a righteous man, you know, he like he was doing all of these wonderful things, and yet it is exactly his righteousness that that created the conditions for this pride, you know. And I think that helped me really get a sense of why pride is so tricky in pastors' lives, um, and helped me kind of flag that um for myself. And he he has scattered throughout his works this kind of this sort of pastoral guidance to help people uh kind of keep their pride at bay. And you know, he some of it is just kind of like having a sort of generosity when we think about other people, you know. He kind of talks about how we should, you know, be circumspect when we evaluate other people. We should kind of look at them and say, you know what, actually they might be further along than I think that they are. You know, he really asks us to contemplate the incarnation and to think about Jesus' humility as a way of disarming our pride. Yeah, he asks us to kind of just kind of remember how much more we have to go in the Christian life. And he just pays a lot of attention to to pride, not just as like an individual thing, but as like a cultural um phenomenon as well. So it just it's helped me to see things, I hope, um, and see things in myself. Um just as this is for him cornerstone virtue. Like without it kind of holds all the virtues together in his mind. Yeah.

Joel Lawrence 42:35

Well, Joey, as we uh kind of move the conversation to a conclusion, uh just give you opportunity. There are other any other themes that you would like to highlight, any any encouragements for pastors, ministry leaders who are listening that that you'd like to give in light of your your work?

SPEAKER_00 42:56

Yeah, I mean, I I themes that come up in the book. I mean, I I stumbled upon how Augustine thinks about the church in the final large chapter of the book on ecclesiology. And I really I just thought he gives a really helpful way to estimate the church. Like I think we all know that we should be thinking about our churches, right? And one like and evaluating them. And I think we know that simply like saying, well, what's our attendance and what's our budget, and like how's our building look is not enough. But the way that he uh really invites us to kind of learn to see the church spiritually, to think about the church as and those in our congregation as you know, forming them to be people who who love. Like, I just found that really just really beautiful that he that he did that. And this all came out of the Donatist controversy. But I would say most of what I really appreciated about Augustine would encourage. Encourage people, you know, whether or not they get this particular book, but to just read Augustine themselves is like I just think you you are reading someone who is so relatable, you know. I I mean we Augustine has been unfortunately like frozen in time as this figure to us, but I mean he he knows what it's like to be a pastor. And there are these moments that I discovered in this little book called On Instructing Beginners in the Faith, where he has a section called like how to avoid discouragement. And he just kind of goes through all these little moments that we all know where he talks explicitly like you're working on something and someone interrupts you. Like we all know what that's like, right? We all always like to be like, today's the day where I'm gonna read this book, and then you know, it's a five-alarm fire, you know, in the church, you know. Or, you know, we we have this sermon that we want to preach, and like we get up, we mount the steps to the pulpit or whatever we do, and we're like, gosh, like I don't feel like I communicated that well. And he's just he's just he's he says, Jesus, Jesus understood what that was like, you know, in his own way. Um, and that's but that's what the incarnation is about. It's about bringing the mediating the things of God uh to humanity. So I just would I just think Augustine is his work has stood the time, this is the test of time for so many reasons because it it he he touches on the really human things, and I think he touches on the really pastoral things. And so I have not exhausted his work in this book. Um and and a pastor who decided to apprentice themselves to him would also find a a rich a rich thing that would, I think, sustain them in their their life and ministry.

Joel Lawrence 45:59

Well, I I'm so grateful for the book. It's it's really well written, lots of great insight. What I I think what I appreciate, and he has even come out in this conversation, is it's not the book isn't Augustine as pastor, just kind of a look back. It's the Augustinian pastor. It's that's about how we can pastor today in light of Augustine. I I I just think that's so timely for our moment when we we desperately need exemplars and looking looking back 1700 years to find someone who's in a very different context than we are, but also as we've highlighted through the conversation, facing a lot of the same challenges, a lot of the same pressures to learn from them, as you talked about the apprenticeship being mentored by by Augustine. That's something I think is will be very valuable for all for all who read the book. Is again, it's not a history book about Augustine and as a pastor. It's about how we can live out some of these patterns that were that are in Augustine's life, that are in our life, the evergreen pastoral challenges that we have. So thanks so much for the work that you've put into this and sharing it with us. Again, the book is the uh the Augustinian pastor, Deep Wisdom for Modern Ministry, published by Baker officially uh off the presses uh Tuesday, March 24th, which means by the time people are listening to this, they can click right from here to Amazon and order the book. So thanks again, Joey. Great to have you with us.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

Thank you, guys.

SPEAKER_03 47:39

Thanks, Joey. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the CPT Podcast, a theology podcast for the church. If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider subscribing if you haven't already? You can also help us out by leaving a rating and especially a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. We love hearing from listeners in this way, and it helps others find out about the show. The Pastor Theologians Podcast is a production of the Center for Pastor Theologians. You can learn more about the CPT at our website, Pastor Theologians.com. You can also find us on Facebook, YouTube, and follow us on X. This show is produced by Seth Porch and Sophia Luke. The show is recorded and edited in partnership with Glowfire Creative, and editing is done by Seth Freakore. Hosting duties are shared by Joel Lawrence, Ray Paul, and me, Zach Wagner. Thanks for listening.