Hello, this is Pastor John. I get to start this episode by talking about another

Pastor John, John Newton. Newton was a key leader in England in the 18th century, as you know,

the author of the incredibly popular hymn, Amazing Grace. Newton was a former captain of

a slave trading ship and was dramatically converted from this life of sin and eventually

helped William Wilberforce and the British slave trade. So I wanted to take a moment to introduce

you to a new book about a part of Newton's life that goes overlooked. His 40 plus years in pastoral

ministry and the amazing ministry of writing letters to people in need. The book is written by Tony

Rankie, the host of this podcast, Tony calls his book Pastoral Synthesis. He wants you to be

pastored by John Newton and so he gathered up all of Newton's many published letters, about a

thousand of them in various collections. Many of them preserved in old, rare, fragile volumes in

libraries around the world. He found them, studied them, and then identified Newton's key

answers to the perennial questions of the Christian life and then Tony wrote all his findings

into a guided tour of Newton's thought. It's a kind of As Pastor John Newton. The book releases this

week, it's titled Newton on the Christian life to live as Christ. I commend it very highly.

What is the key to ministry longevity? There is a key and John Piper finds it in the ministry

legacy of John Newton. Here's how Pastor John Piper explained it in his 2001 biographical message.

Newton's realism about the limits of this life. Oh, how helpful it is to hear his realism. Only so

much is possible in a fallen world. We grown waiting for the redemption of our bodies and if we don't

realize the limits of our ministry, we will absolutely go crazy trying to fix the world and fix

everybody. He said, my course of study, like that of a surgeon, has been principally in walking

the hospital. He did not, however, become cynical as he walked the hospital and saw the irremedial

diseases of Bedlam. You know, where Bedlam comes from in St. Stalin hospital in his day. He said,

...