My wife and I purchased our first house just over a year ago, and two considerations about water were a big part of the motivating factor in purchasing it. Visually, a small side-stream from the Huron River runs down the back of our property, giving us a beautiful waterfront view. Functionally, our water supply comes from a well, which apparently is a major bonus among the “crunchy” crowd of which my wife is a partial but not overdone member. Both water features play their part in adding benefits to our home, and comparing them helps me reflect on the meaning and value of being a pastor-scholar.One major difference between our water-front view and our water-supply well is depth. The side-stream that provides a stunning scene is right at the surface, whereas our well reaches deep into the earth. All the attention may be on the water with a view. The water in the well, however, is what is essential to life. You have to dig deep to have water that constantly supplies what you need.Pastoral ministry is a funny thing. I’ve heard a well-known Christian figure say that “preaching the gospel isn’t rocket science.” The claim is true in the sense that we have a message that—at least in the essentials—is uncomplicated and straightforward. To announce the free grace of God for salvation in Jesus Christ does not require you to work out any new formulas. At the same time, my sense of rocket science is that if you can do the time in computing the formulas, however hard, you can reach the conclusion of your task. By contrast, I know the formula of what I need to say in gospel proclamation but still often find myself without what I need for my task. The reserves of the soul can run low when you care for other people’s souls. I know that I need to explain a text of Scripture to apply it to people’s life and heart, but getting there at times seems beyond what I have in the tank.One of the striking things about the stream in our yard is that it is pretty when it’s flowing, but it often runs dry. The dam upstream from us shuts off the supply to create a private lake for a number of homes but leaves us with a stretch of outright mud. In addition, the water in the stream is clear and bright when it flows but is not fit for drinking. What seems pretty often has the least to give and runs out quickly. The deep well, however, has never let us down. We cannot see its supply, but only the head of the automatic well pump that sticks out of the ground. The taps in my house, which have never run dry, evidence its reliability. The tests on our water quality show that it is bacteria free. But what has a well to do at all with being a pastor-scholar?Scholarship is about digging deep. So many times in pastoral ministry, I could have come up short and furnished my people with a sermon or counsel of outright mud rather than running water. Besides the full-bore grace of the Holy Spirit, what has kept the tap running is a deeply dug well in my own soul that acts as a full reservoir of truth. I cannot always see or feel it. When the need has come to bear, God’s grace has still let it flow from the tap to provide for his people.Lest we get a cockeyed perspective on this issue, we need to think about what it means to be a pastor-scholar. Pastor-scholar is both a functional description and an identity question. I am a pastor because God through the processes of his church’s courts has called me to be one. Some count me a scholar, so I need to grapple with how that perception might help you readers. I do not count myself a scholar because I have a PhD, nor because I teach classes at a few seminaries, nor because I have published a few books. When we are honest, we know that morons of the highest grade have managed to accomplish all these things at some point or another.I am willing to own the label of “pastor-scholar” in the sense that I am always in the quest to understand truth at an increasingly deeper level as a way to be equipped to shepherd God’s people with a modicum of usefulness.Self-satisfaction is the scourge of fruitful pastoring. Part of being a scholar is to have a greater sense of what you need to learn than what you have learned. If you are impressed with your own knowledge, then you are a failure as a scholar. Every pastor should be a scholar in the sense that you are never satisfied with what you do understand about God and what he has done for us in the Lord Jesus. We need to be on the continual quest to grasp this truth and whatever supports and explains it at a deeper and deeper lever.Even so, self-satisfaction is one of our easiest temptations to indulge. It can feel like quite an achievement to complete an MDiv, especially at a well-respected school. Do you think that your people are supposed to take your word for it whatever you say because of your academic pedigree? Are people supposed to just accept your opinion because you passed ecclesiastical examinations in the past? The men who assume the affirmative answer—explicitly or even in the silent recesses of your heart—are not scholars. They might be the first to call themselves scholars though.The pastor-scholar model is valuable because it reminds us that we are never enough in ourselves. A stream in that backyard is indeed beautiful. Appearance can have its usefulness but not as an end in itself. To be a pastor-scholar is not about achieving outward accolades or even an educational pedigree. It is about the continual quest to fathom more of the riches of God’s revelation so that we can help others drink of those riches. It is about relentlessly searching to find more to be more useful because we are not satisfied to remain as we are.At the same time, the pastor-scholar model is valuable because it leads to the sort of practices that resource us so that we do not easily run dry. Those who insatiably seek after more understanding of the truth inevitably store it up. Every well has a reservoir. If you dig a deep well into God’s truth, you will have a reservoir. When you feel empty from your own strength, the truth that you need to help God’s people will be on hand. You will not have to insist that anyone listen to you because the truth and its reason can flow out of you as you open the faucet. This fullness may not be obvious on the surface. The flow of living water will prove itself as you help God’s people.The idea of the pastor-scholar has had many spins, interpretations, commendations, and criticisms. In the end, it is fruitless to seek the moniker itself. If you chase activities, you will likely have the steam for very few of them, at least to do them all well. If you succeed in attaining the appearance without the waterflow and water quality, people will rightly fault you for trying to fly too close to the sun when you should have stayed on the ground. The practice of self-promotion is hardly ever received as anything other than shameless.Great fruitfulness resides in the quest to mortify our self-satisfaction and to strive for deeper mastery of the truth. Whether people call you a pastor-scholar or something else, the Lord will see your desire to know him and his works with greater fullness. Accordingly, whatever people call you, you will be a fount of help to Christ’s sheep. They will be watered, and Christ will be honored. Dig deep, and see what flows forth.Harrison Perkins (PhD, Queen’s University Belfast; MDiv 2015) is pastor of Oakland Hills Community Church (OPC), a Senior Research Fellow at the Craig Center for the Study of the Westminster Standards, online instructor in church history at Westminster Theological Seminary, visiting faculty at Birmingham Theological Seminary, a visiting lecturer in systematic theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary, and author of several books including Reformed Covenant Theology: A Systematic Introduction.This article is from our Spring 2026 edition of UPDATE Magazine, High Standards for a Holy Calling.
