Still Not Professionals: Ten Pleas for Today’s Pastors is a celebration and extension of John Piper’s Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. With two brief exhortations from Piper and eight others from veteran pastors, this short ebook aims to strengthen and challenge Christians in general, and pastors in particular, for the labor of everyday life and ministry. The contributors were asked to express their “heart of hearts” for fellow leaders. You’ll find these chapters tap into profound human themes, in both the pastor and his flock, and will be of use, we hope, beyond the North American context of the contributors.

by John Piper Modal , Daniel L. Akin Modal , Thabiti Anyabwile Modal , Mike Bullmore Modal , Sam Crabtree Modal , Ray Ortlund Modal , Jeff Vanderstelt Modal , and Douglas Wilson
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Full Text Here:
BROTHERS, WE ARE NOT SISTERS
Douglas Wilson
To say that one thing is not another thing is not to register a complaint against either.
To say that the sun is not the moon is not to criticize the moon, and to say that the land is not the sea is not to file a com- plaint against the sea. God establishes differences in the world with the intention of them complementing one another, and not so that his variegated world would try to melt itself down into one great indistinguishable mass. A pine cone is not a cheesecake is not a covered bridge. A man is not a woman, but God bless them both.
And so to exhort my brothers in the ministry to remember that they are not sisters is in no way a form of disdain, either open or disguised, toward the sisters. As brothers in ministry, there are many things we must learn from the sisters, and we must take care to learn these things carefully and appropriately.
For just one example, the apostle Paul says he was gentle among the Thessalonians, the way a nurse with small children would be (1 Thessalonians 2:7). The Bible says that women
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Still Not Professionals Ten Pleas for Today’s Pastors
should not set up to teach the men authoritatively (1 Timothy 2:12), but this is a very different thing than men learning from women (Acts 18:26). How on earth would it be possible for a man to live with his wife with understanding (1 Peter 3:7) with- out learning anything from her?
Masculine Presence in the Pulpit
That said, in these egalitarian times, we must insist on a mas- culine presence in the pulpit because the church is the bride of Christ, and needs to obey her husband in everything (Ephe- sians 5:24). The Lord requires this of us (1 Timothy 2:12), and so that is what we must do. The individual man in the pulpit must be masculine because the bride of Christ must be femi- nine. The appropriate feminine response of the Church is to be submissive, and you cannot be submissive while disobeying.
But as we accept this responsibility as the wisdom of God, and embrace it on that basis, we should not be surprised if a number of additional incentives and reasons occur to us as well.
For the Sake of Young Men
We must be masculine in our ministry for the sake of many young men entering the ministry—men who grew to manhood without an appropriate role model in their father. We are their fathers in the work now, and so we must model for them what this kind of masculinity looks like—what courage with an open book looks like.
The Bible teaches that the best forms of learning are imita- tive, and if we want the next...