In case the weather in the Upstate hasn’t been convincing enough, the calendar announces today as the official beginning of summer. One of the most popular things to do during this time of year involves filling out a summer reading list.
Sunday’s message from Nehemiah 6 referenced two books that should be on everyone’s summer reading list.
1. Charles Simeon: A Pastor of a Generation
If anyone’s life parallels the pastoral endurance and prudence Nehemiah models (especially chapter 4-6), it is Charles Simeon.
Charles Simeon (1759-1836), contemporary of John Newton (1725-1807) and William Wilberforce (1759-1833), served the same congregation for fifty-four years. He did so amidst much hardship and isolation. Three years after his conversion, suffering from loneliness, he lamented that he had been unable to find even one person who shared his evangelical beliefs.
The first twelve years of his ministry at Holy Trinity Church (where Richard Sibbes and Thomas Goodwin once pastored) were characterized by blistering opposition.
- He was regularly locked out of his own church.
- The congregation hired another minister to lead a second Sunday service so they wouldn’t have to hear him.
- Students at nearby Cambridge University regularly interrupted whatever services he was able to conduct and pummeled him with insults.
In addition to the brutal hardships he endured as a minister, he served on faculty at Cambridge University, where he was a constant object of verbal terrorism and scorn by his colleagues.
I read this book about twelve years ago at a particular low point in life. It ministered much grace to me then, and I have returned to it for refreshment many times since. Simeon’s biography will rouse you from your summer slumber to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ (2 Tim. 2:3). It will also encourage you to labor and toil by setting your hope on the living God (1 Tim. 4:10).
(In addition to the paperback copy linked to above, Simeon’s complete biography can also be accessed on Google Books.)
2. “The Blind Eye and The Deaf Ear” from a short chapter in Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students.
This entire book is a worthy read. With perfect whit and wisdom, Spurgeon addresses many subjects that will demand the minister’s attention (and every lay person’s attention, too).
Nehemiah endured malicious gossip and slander throughout his ministry. In “The Blind Ear and The Deaf Ear” Spurgeon advises Christians to employ “one blind and eye and one deaf ear” against such verbal terrorism. The veteran Spurgeon ends the chapter with his usual whit encouraging Christians to use the blind eye and the deaf ear:
Is not this a sufficient explanation of my declaration that I have one blind eye and one deaf ear, and that they are the best eye and ear I have?
The headings from “The Blind Eye and The Deaf Ear”:
- Blind Eye and Deaf Ear in Beginning a New Ministry
- Blind Eye and Deaf Ear in Regard to Salary
- Blind Eye and Deaf Ear Toward Gossip
- Blind Eye and Deaf Ear Toward (Personal) Criticism
- Blind Eye Towards Opinions About Yourself, and
- Blind Eye and Deaf Ear Toward False Reports (About You).
Here’s part of his advice to those who, like Nehemiah and Charles Simeon, are enduring false reports:
In the case of false reports against yourself, for the most part use the deaf ear. Unfortunately liars are not yet extinct, and, like Richard Baxter and John Bunyan, you may be accused of crimes which your soul abhors. Be not staggered thereby, for this trial has befallen the very best of men, and even your Lord did not escape the envenomed tongue of falsehood. In almost all cases it is the wisest course to let such things die a natural death. A great lie, if unnoticed, is like a big fish out of water, it dashes and plunges and beats itself to death in a short time. To answer it is to supply it with its element, and help it to a longer life. Falsehoods usually carry their own refutation somewhere about them, and sting themselves to death.
(Similar to the book above, almost all of Lectures to My Students is free on Google Books)
