Seven reasons why pastors need to be holy

 Posted at Reformation Scotland:

Moral failure in high-profile ministers is exceptionally ruinous to the good they may have previously done in their ministry and can be devastatingly destabilising to the faith of those who had benefited from their work. It underlines how essential it is for ministers to be genuinely holy and actually godly from the heart outwards. Personal holiness is a gospel issue since it affects the conviction with which the gospel is declared and also its credibility if the messenger fails to live up to the message. The souls of many are at stake. The conduct of a negligent minister has eternal consequences (1 Tim. 4:16). Ministers are engaged in the most important, and most holy, work there is. In an essay on the qualifications of a minister, James Durham mentions learning, gifts, and grace. Most of the essay is devoted to grace as a qualification. His definition of grace includes not only saving grace but also godliness. The following extract from Durham’s essay has recently been republished in a book titled, Preventing Ministry Failure. It provides seven ways in which holiness is necessary for ministers.

Holiness in the ministry is necessary by precept, for holiness is a qualification alongside things like ability to “convince gainsayers” in the list in Titus 1:8–9.

Holiness in a minister is also useful and necessary in many respects as a means to an end.

Holiness is necessary for the minister himself

He cannot be confident in his calling, or in a sense of being approved of God in this calling, without being holy. Though he may be called by the church, yet if he is not holy he cannot act as someone who has been called by God, and so he will inevitably be greatly incapacitated.

Holiness is necessary for the work of the ministry

It is in the nature of the ministry that it requires communion with God and standing in His counsel (Jer. 23:18, 22). Without this, it may be accounted a stealing of His Word without acknowledging of Himself (v. 30). Although it is necessary in any calling to have communion with God and stand in His counsel, yet the nature of the ministry makes these things uniquely necessary for this work.

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