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Podcast: 3 Church Fathers Every Pastor Should Be Reading (Coleman Ford)

July 29, 2024 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Our Churches Today Need the Church Fathers

In this episode, Coleman Ford shares his thoughts on why so many evangelical pastors aren’t familiar with the church fathers and how this lack of awareness can negatively impact their ministries.

Ancient Wisdom for the Care of Souls

Ancient Wisdom for the Care of Souls

Coleman M. Ford, Shawn J. Wilhite

Professors Coleman M. Ford and Shawn J. Wilhite help pastors to embrace a classic, patristic vision of ministry through a study of pastoral virtues and early church figures.

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

01:23 - A Case for Listening to the Church Fathers

Matt Tully
Coleman, thank you so much for joining me today on The Crossway Podcast.

Coleman Ford
Glad to be here, Matt. Thank you for having me.

Matt Tully
Your new book with Shawn Wilhite is, in short, a book about looking back to the church fathers to find wisdom for pastoral ministry today. And yet my guess is that many, if not most, evangelical pastors today, many of which might be listening to this interview, haven't actually spent much time with the church fathers. They haven’t read much of the fathers. Maybe they did a little bit in seminary, but it’s not been a major focus for them. They maybe don’t even feel like they know many of them other than maybe a couple of the key figures—Athanasius, Augustine. Why do you think it is that the church fathers are relatively unknown to us as evangelicals?

Coleman Ford
Well, this is a question that Shawn and I ourselves have asked and sort of been moved by in our own experience.

Matt Tully
So you agree that this is true?

Coleman Ford
Absolutely. The trope is “There’s no church history until my church started.” A lot of people think that way. Functionally, we know that’s not true, but that’s kind of how it plays out. And also because anything that is earlier than perhaps the Reformation or the seventeenth or eighteenth century, depending on your tradition (maybe that’s when it really rose into prominence), can be seen as suspect, can be the boogeyman of Catholic thinking and Roman Catholicism. That seems to be the domain of the fathers and medieval church, which really couldn’t be further from the truth. And the sense of these men molding and shaping the way that we think, the way that we read our scriptures, and as we talk about in the book, the way that we should think about pastoral ministry, as you mentioned, Matt, it’s just unfamiliar territory. And so what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to peel back that curtain. Like a Wizard of Oz moment—you peel it back and you realize, no, these were just normal, fallible men that we believe were extremely intelligent, read their Bibles, knew their Bibles really well, might’ve had some different approaches or some different thoughts that we can charitably critique, but are nonetheless brothers in the faith. Men who cared deeply about Christ’s church and the gospel. And so if we can begin to help pastors and evangelical Christians today appreciate that fact more, it can remove a little bit of that taboo nature when it comes to the fathers. And that’s what we’re hoping to do.

Matt Tully
It seems like it’s also probably just a function of the general lack of interest in history that can sometimes characterize our churches. As you think about your church, how do you try to instill, not just in your people but maybe even in your own heart, an appreciation for history?

Coleman Ford
That’s a great question. And I think some churches, maybe because of the pastors and maybe the culture that’s there, they’re already maybe predisposed to more intellectual conversations. And maybe that pastor’s been to seminary, maybe he has a doctorate. But that’s not the case, of course, with every church and perhaps is the case with fewer churches than more churches. And so I think when you think about how we can cultivate a love for history, we have to continue to remind people that the Christian faith is not just some mysterious sort of spiritual experience. It is a historic faith. Paul talks about Christ dying at the right time. The confession that we hold to pinpoints historical moments—Pontius Pilate and other things—that we sort of look to as markers of our faith. And just to remind Christians that we are Christians because there’s a historical moment that has taken place. Yes, it’s cosmic. Yes, it has lots of different spiritual implications. But it’s a historical experience. And so therefore I would say we above all people should care about history, should care about the way in which the church of Christ has developed throughout history. And therefore, again, not to be afraid of unpacking a little bit of this and exploring our heritage. And then also to recognize just that fact that it is our heritage. I’m a Baptist. It’s not just about being a Baptist. It’s about being a catholic Christian in the great tradition of the faith.

Matt Tully
A small c catholic.

Coleman Ford
A small c catholic that says, No, I’m a part of this family, and these people are my uncles and grandfathers in the faith (or however you want to put that). And they need to be listened to and we need to continue to encourage people in the church to see them as vital conversation partners and friends. It doesn’t mean we have to agree with everything they said, but they help us in lots of ways.

06:06 - Can We Trust Their Theology?

Matt Tully
Hitting on something you’ve already mentioned, I think one of the reasons that I would guess that many modern Christians haven’t devoted a lot of time to reading the fathers is because we might not, to put it simply, fully trust them. We might have the sense that some of what they had to say, and I want to use a technical term here, was pretty wacky. They had some weird theological ideas and language and concepts, and sometimes they’re just straight up confusing to us as we try to engage with them a little bit. Is there any truth to that concern? Are the fathers maybe somewhat dangerous because of some of the things that they seem to be saying?

Coleman Ford
Well, wacky is a good technical term. Isn’t it, Matt? It’s unfamiliar territory for sure. It’s almost like an undiscovered country that you know exists out there, but you’re afraid to cross the terrain. There’s one of those cartoony rope bridges that if you take the wrong step, you’re going to fall down the ravine and perish forever. And there are those moments or maybe people that you might even know that they read the fathers, and all of a sudden they felt like they needed to become a Roman Catholic or an Eastern Orthodox.

Matt Tully
Right. We hear stories like that sometimes.

Coleman Ford
And sometimes maybe that story gets perpetuated or used as sort of a constraint to say, Okay, well don’t go there. Don’t read these people. But what we need to do and what we need to probably do a better job of is helping people, I’m thinking of evangelical Christians in particular, inhabit the world that the fathers were in. We can only do that to a certain degree. We can’t reconstruct that completely, but what we can say is, Here’s what their commitments were. Their commitments were to the supremacy of Christ in all things. Christ is Lord. And depending on the era of church history, the first few centuries for sure, that often meant death. That often meant persecution in a real, physical sense.

Matt Tully
There were real stakes for them as Christians.

Coleman Ford
Absolutely. And so to take that seriously is one thing to mention. But then to sort of give them the benefit of doubt. They’re not here to confuse you on purpose. They’re not here to throw in some weird platonic philosophy to muddle the water or something like this. What they’re doing is they’re coming to conclusions from a premise of faith. So Augustine—and Anselm later picks this up—says that your life as a Christian is faith seeking understanding. And so when you think about certain fathers, depending on the era, they’re answering questions of their day and age just like we are. We’re in a moment in history where we’re having to answer questions about sexual identity, transgender ideology, maybe even political theology and political questions that are coming to the fore again. And just in that way, Origen was trying to answer questions of his day. Who is the Son? How does he relate to the Father? They believed in Christ as Lord. They believed that the Son was fully divine and fully human. But what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to give vocabulary to that. Tertullian very famously gives us vocabulary for how to understand the Trinity. And you look at it and you think, Okay, I don’t know if that clarifies anything. But what they’re trying to do is take what they already believe to be true, the Scriptures and the understanding of the metaphysical reality of who God is as the triune God, and then say, Okay, how can I help these people—maybe an individual that they’re writing to or a church—understand what seems to be almost mysterious and un-understandable?

Matt Tully
Inexplicable.

Coleman Ford
Inexplicable. Right. Better word there, Matt. And so for us to enter into that will require maybe a different way of reading, maybe a different way of understanding. But if nothing else, to give them the benefit of the doubt and say, Okay, three persons. What do y’all mean by that? That’s not what I think people mean today. That must mean something a little bit different in the fourth century. But again, not to be casual about language or something like this, but really trying to help us as Christians—I’m thinking of the universal church—understand who the God of the Bible is, and to do that to the best of their ability, given the skills that they have and given the context that they’re in. And also remembering there are pastoral issues that are taking place in each of these individual’s ministries that might be informing some of the ways that they’re talking about this. And that’s not bad. We just need to understand that.

Matt Tully
I’m struck by how there probably are quite a few theological concepts. You mentioned three persons. The idea of the Trinity. One God, one essence, three persons. That language that we all—as people today, as Christians today, and especially pastors—totally take for granted. We all know that formulation. We would repeat that formulation. That was something that the fathers developed. They helped to give words to biblical truths that they were wrestling with. So do you think we sometimes benefit from the fathers and incorporate their ideas in ways we don’t even realize?

Coleman Ford
Absolutely. Again, you mentioned the language that is embedded in a lot of confessions and creedal statements that we hold to almost just by assumption—This is what we believe. And then also just the idea of, as we talk about in our book, various spiritual practices that we could benefit from that maybe we didn’t realize were from the fathers. Reading the text in a meditative way and in an engaging way. There have been lots of people throughout church history that have talked about that, but I would make the argument that the reason they’re talking about it that way is because a guy like Augustine is talking about it that way. Or someone like Basil of Caesarea is informing that in some way. And then of course we think about just the Scriptures themselves giving us different modes or ways of engaging the text. And so it is in the water in ways that we don’t really see. And not that we have to therefore understand that was Athanasius who said that, or that was Cyril of Alexandria who gave us that. What we can do is just come to appreciate that we stand on their shoulders and that we should not just, in a cavalier fashion, cast off the shackles of the early church for some more pithy formulation or something that might look better on a social media platform or a website. And I’m not accusing anyone of doing that. That might be our modern tendency to think about that.

Matt Tully
It feels like in at least the Reformed evangelical world, there has been a recovery of the Reformation, of appreciating so much of the Reformers and the Puritans after them. Do you feel like the same is happening as well for the church fathers? Are you encouraged by maybe their recovery that might be happening more broadly?

Coleman Ford
I think so. You’ve got increasingly more lay-level readings that are coming out. I’ve heard of organizations and groups in particular that are promoting classic works for the sake of spiritual formation and discipleship. Maybe even working through counseling issues. There are just certain texts throughout history that sort of inform very practical things. We touch on that a little bit in the book, just trying to say these texts might seem like high theology, but they actually get down to very core practical things.

Matt Tully
A lot of these guys were pastors. They were actually ministering to real, regular people.

Coleman Ford
I think that’s something that people often forget when they approach the church fathers. Again, they think theology, they think these philosophizing individuals.

Matt Tully
The councils.

Coleman Ford
Yeah, the councils; they’re all getting together. They’re yelling at each other, throwing things at each other. And to a degree, that did happen. I’m not saying that didn’t happen.

Matt Tully
There were some lively meetings.

Coleman Ford
Yeah. That make some of our denominational meetings look like a little preschool playground. But I think I would make the argument, on the whole, that is happening because of pastoral concern. You think about, for instance, I think of an instance with Augustine writing to Jerome. Jerome was the famous translator of the Scriptures into the Latin language—the Vulgate. And it’s just one little translation difference. In the book of Jonah in the word “gourd” that is translated cubita.

Matt Tully
Gourd, like a pumpkin.

Coleman Ford
Yeah. And it’s a translation into the Latin that was different from the older Latin texts that they were using. And you might ask why I am talking about this. Well, people in Augustine’s church were enraged. They thought people were changing the text of Scripture because, actually, Jerome had maybe translated it better than what their translation had. They’d gotten some older Latin translation. This happens, right? We maybe translate one word differently, and then another one comes up and they’re like, I don’t know. Is that the best way? So anyways, but that reveals to me that people in the pews of Augustine’s church really cared about Scripture. And so Augustine’s writing to Jerome saying, Hey, was this the best choice? I’m thinking about how people have received this. Is it spiritually enriching? So again, that’s one minor example to say that these men were pastorally engaged. A guy like Cyprian, you just read through some of his writings, and others as well, and they cared about people in the church. It’s not just theology for theology’s sake; it’s theology for the flourishing of the church and for the formation of souls. And so, again, that goes back to the title of our book, which is tapping into that care of souls idea that’s very ancient, very much connected to how pastoral ministry is supposed to work.

15:16 - Basil of Caesarea

Matt Tully
You structured the book really helpfully, where every chapter is looking at a different father and drawing out one particular lesson or insight related to pastoral life and ministry from that person. Let’s dig into a few of those people. We can’t cover all of them today, but you already mentioned Basil of Caesarea. Who was he? When did he live? Why is he worth getting to know?

Coleman Ford
Basil is a great figure to know. He’s part of this group of three that are traditionally called the Cappadocians because they come from this area of Cappadocia, a Roman province, which is now in the modern-day Turkey region. And he’s important on many levels. He is a bishop, he’s a pastor, as we’ve already mentioned. He’s a monastic reformer, which is something we don’t talk about specifically in the book. We mentioned it a little bit. But he’s someone who is advocating for spiritual life in general. So we’re thinking mid-fourth century, mid to late fourth century.

Matt Tully
The 300s.

Coleman Ford
That’s right. The 300s. Thank you, Matt. Post Constantine. So Constantine’s on the scene, 325, and he’s giving prominence to the church. It’s not the official religion, of course, but now Christianity is favored.

Matt Tully
No longer persecuted, but actually privileged to some extent.

Coleman Ford
That’s right. Pastors now have a lot of say and authority, whereas they didn’t before. And Basil, for better or worse, is leaning into that. He’s got a few statements where he talks about how they have never encountered a pastor before. They have never encountered a true Bishop, and he’s showing a little bit of bravado. But all that being said, he’s trying to help his readers, his listeners, consider Christian virtue. And in particular, and what we write about in the book, is the idea of humility. There’s a sermon specifically that he’s working through. And the context—a lot of different people think, Okay, who’s he talking to? Is it a privileged class of people? It seems to be he’s using a lot of references to wealth and some things. But regardless, the application is for everyone that to live a humble life is what is most glorifying to God, and it’s actually what brings us the most joy and happiness. So contrasting different views of the good life, which is a philosophical idea, the happy life, which would have been well-known in his day from Aristotle and others—

Matt Tully
There was an established conversation around, What is the good life?

Coleman Ford
That’s right. Still today we still talk about that. And he’s tapping into that and he’s saying here’s the good life. If you want glory, you need to humble yourself. You need to look to Christ who did that. And he’s using tons of biblical material, of course, and beautiful imagery that would’ve connected to the culture, as a good pastor, preacher would’ve done. And we want to, as you mentioned, Matt, show forth a facet of Basil that would help pastors (and any reader) just understand humility as really the key virtue. Many others are talking about it, of course. Augustine and others talk about it. But we just wanted to draw out of Basil that idea so that people would see his pastoral heart, see the desire that he himself wants to do this. He himself wants to practice this, and he’s promoting it and encouraging it with his listeners as well.

Matt Tully
I can’t think of a more timely virtue to highlight, especially in the midst of a culture at a time in which we live right now where so often the way that Christians are viewed by outsiders is one of the charges, sometimes fair and sometimes not, is that we are prideful people. Church leaders in particular have been accused, rightly so, of being harsh and having bravado and a level of arrogance that pushes people away. So to be called to humility from someone who lived just a couple centuries after the apostles is pretty interesting.

Coleman Ford
Again, a common theme throughout any, I would argue, productive time in church history is advocating for the virtue of humility. And we’re not throwing anyone under the bus right now, but we do need to continue to go back to, Who are the people that we’re platforming? Who are the people that we’re putting forward as the models for pastoral success and pastoral ministry? I know in seminary, and this was not intentional at all, at least I don’t think so, but the people that were put before us as seminary students were the ones who had big churches, who had big ministries, multi-site this, book deals this. And there is, of course, a godly reason and rationale for putting those people before us.

Matt Tully
You yourself worked at a large church and were part of that kind of a ministry.

Coleman Ford
Right. And so there’s nothing nefarious about that at all. But the sort of unintended consequences might be that it’s communicated this is what pastoral success looks like. So it’s big, it’s multi-million, it’s however many thousands. And typically what you didn’t get in so many platforms and a lot of conference platforms is, Here’s a humble pastor who is working with fifty people in a rural context. What can we learn from this person?

Matt Tully
Basil would say, Look at that person sometimes too.

Coleman Ford
Yeah, I think so. And if you think about actually the ministry of a lot of these individuals, especially like Augustine, who is such a prolific name and figure for us regardless of your tradition. All Christians are influenced by him. He was a pastor of a backwoods sort of town in the Roman Empire in a North African region. And in a lot of these places, they were called to be the pastor. Some were, of course, like the Constantinople’s and the Antioch’s and the Rome’s of the day, but a lot of them were also just this was their neighborhood church. Gregory of Nazianzus was queued up to follow his father as the pastor of their church in their town. So the reason we know them, of course, is because of their theology and their writing, but it wasn’t necessarily because, Oh, here’s all the stats from their church.

Matt Tully
Augustine is a much bigger deal today than he was when he was alive.

Coleman Ford
He was well known and people knew him, but it was, again, for the writing and the theologizing. And that brings up another point. Are we giving attention to pastors who are helping us think deeply and helping us really unpack things, or are we giving attention to leaders who sort of have the seven practical tips for growing your church? Some of that might be helpful, I don’t know, but I would want us to be more attentive to people who are asking, How do we think deeply about Scripture? How do we think deeply about pastoral ministry? And even if that person is coming from rural Kansas and has a church of seventy-five that will never grow much bigger than that, their wisdom is what we’re looking towards. And so again, that’s the spirit of this book is looking at the wisdom of these individuals.

21:49 - Irenaeus

Matt Tully
Let’s look at another father, Irenaeus. Who is he? What can we learn from him?

Coleman Ford
We position Irenaeus as the biblical pastor, which sounds very odd. They’re all biblical. Let me be clear.

Matt Tully
But he, in particular, emphasized the word of God.

Coleman Ford
Yeah, in particular and in a very early stage. So he’s late second century. He comes from the eastern part of the Roman Empire, though is educated in Rome. At some point he becomes a Christian and then goes to Lyon, France, which at the time Lugdunum is the Roman Latin name for that town. He arrives on the heels of a persecution there. The bishop of the town had just been martyred. There’s a local uprising against Christians. And then Irenaeus is thrust into leadership there. And when he’s in Rome, he isn’t seeing these things. When he’s in other parts of the Roman empire, he’s seeing how quasi-Christian things are being talked about. Things that sound Christian, sound biblical, but when you get down to the core of it, it is pagan and just not Christian at all.

Matt Tully
Was that compromise related to the persecution that they were experiencing?

Coleman Ford
No, it wouldn’t be necessarily a compromise because of the persecution. It would just be lofty teachers coming in. There’s a guy by the name of Valentinius, a guy by the name of Marcian in Rome. Irenaeus would have been well aware of these people. In fact, he mentions them, of course, in his writings. They were proposing Christian sounding ideas about who you are as a person, who God is, what evil is—some of these big questions of life—and they’re gaining followings. They’re gaining listeners, building a platform. And Irenaeus sees that for what it is. It’s biblically deficient. It does not get to the core of who God is, does not understand the idea of redemption through Christ. It’s all about, according to these teachers, it’s all about knowing secret knowledge and getting into these clubs and circles and a pyramid scheme, if you want to say it that way. So Irenaeus is going back to the Scriptures. He’s unpacking the biblical storyline and he’s saying, This is the work of the one true God who’s manifested himself in the Son and Jesus Christ, who’s worked by the power of his Spirit since the very beginning. He’s dismantling these false ideas. His famous work against heresies is really helping Christians, again, as a pastor. He’s saying, Your salvation is at stake.

Matt Tully
And these are heresies that are in the water that people in his church presumably are hearing and maybe being tempted by.

Coleman Ford
Yeah, being influenced by, no doubt. They sound good. They’ve got some Christian language to it. Maybe they allow them to maybe experience some things that they want to do, yet their Christian pastor is saying, no, that’s not good for you. So tickling the ears, as Paul talks about. And so Irenaeus is very concerned with that. Again, he just unpacks the Scriptures. He says, This is what the scriptural testimony gives us. And therefore, when you hear these things out in the world, this is the lens that you should filter them through.

24:47 - Gregory the Great

Matt Tully
Again, I’m sure every pastor listening right now can think of those things that are in the broader culture that tickle the ears of our people. And again, this is a lesson here to take them back to the Scriptures, show them from the Scriptures the truth. Let’s talk about one more person, Gregory the Great. How about that for a legacy—the Great?

Coleman Ford
It’s good to have “the Great” as your last name.

Matt Tully
That’s right.

Coleman Ford
It’s something we’re striving for.

Matt Tully
So who was he?

Coleman Ford
You could call him Gregory the Great; I would say maybe Gregory of Rome to maybe bring him down a little bit. Of course, he would never want to be called “the Great,” I’m sure. But yeah, Gregory is a very interesting figure. He’s a transitional figure. Towards the end of the patristic era—late 500s, specifically in a time where Rome has already fallen. That happened in the early 400s. Rome still existed, of course, as a city, as a center—

Matt Tully
But the empire is shattered.

Coleman Ford
The empire’s gone. And so now you have Gothic kingdoms that are dispersed everywhere. And Gregory is an official, he’s well educated, he’s still, in that very traditional sense, a Roman elite, if you can say it that way. There’s still a little bit of a feeling that that matters during his time. But as he gets involved in church ministry and church leadership, he essentially becomes a benefactor to the city of Rome, as someone who had wealth from his family of origin, but also as someone who cared deeply pastorally for the city. So he’s distributing out of his own pocket and from the church funds, caring for people when there are certain plagues, certain famines. He’s really growing in prominence. And in fact, you can look at Gregory as being, though there were others before him that could say this, but becoming what would be the Roman Catholic Pope. I am the leader, the benefactor. And there are a few things that he says where you’re like, Okay, I don’t know if that’s helping your case, Gregory. But what we turn to is we turn to his Pastoral Rule, which is a very famous work that I would just encourage every pastor to read as a ongoing discipline.

Matt Tully
So it’s not very long?

Coleman Ford
Not very long, easily digestible, very practical. He’s quasi-monastic, so he’s of that vein, he’s thinking these ways, he has that sort of disposition. But again, what he wants those who are reading and listening to do is to pastor in a way similar to what we talked about with Basil, with humility and with understanding the gravity of their task. Not to be afraid of it and not to run away from it necessarily, but to understand that being a pastor is a high calling and requires much of you and requires you to lay yourself down and to let go of things. And his life and others in the early church are example of this, who might’ve come from wealth, might’ve come from prominence, felt the call of the Lord that was verified in different ways, and sort of shed away those worldly pursuits to lay their life down for ministry. And wouldn’t that be the case today? Don’t we want to encourage pastors and ministry leaders to see that today? And though not every pastor listening probably comes from a wealthy family, but to remember that your call to ministry means saying no to lots of things, saying no to things that may not be bad for you, but it’s just not within your call, I would argue. It’s not within the bounds of serving the church and serving and shepherding those under you. And Gregory’s a good conversation partner with that. He’s a sobering conversation partner with that. And we want to try to draw out that idea of care of souls—that is from him—that shepherding is a ministry of caring for the souls of those under you.

Matt Tully
And one of the things that you draw out in the book is Gregory’s emphasis on contemplation and practicing some of these spiritual disciplines around silence and solitude as another way that perhaps pastors in particular truly understand and inhabit the great, sacred role that God has given them as pastors. Speak a little bit about that. That’s an example of topics that I think oftentimes as protestants we can be a little suspicious of.

Coleman Ford
The word “contemplation” sounds a little bit fuzzy and also otherworldly, mystical, or whatever you want to say. But the reason we draw that out from Gregory is we do see in him, and he explicitly says this, that is a vital facet to pastoral ministry. Though we want all people to know God and to grow in their knowledge of God, the pastor is the leader of that, the example of that. Again, not perfect, but their own life of contemplation—sitting with God and his Scriptures—is to be the fuel for their ministry, to spill out, to model. You mentioned silence and solitude. I would rather have more pastors dedicate more time to silence and solitude than maybe strategic planning or vision casting. That is an important facet of pastoral ministry and pastoral leadership. But were it to be the case that more pastoral leaders and ministry leaders were dedicating themselves to silence and solitude, I would make the case and argue that all those other pastoral functions would increase in their effectiveness. And if nothing else, just give better theological, spiritual shape to why we’re doing that. So why do I need to cast a vision for the next ten years in this church? Well, because I want people to know God more. And as I’m growing in my knowledge and love for the Lord, we’re going to take steps to do that in different ways. Why do we want to be more effective in ministry in our community? Well, it’s because we want people to know the living God who has made himself known through Christ. And therefore the pastor who is leading out of that, the health of their soul, by contemplating the Lord and sitting in silence and solitude, we would make the case that it is just a much more joyful endeavor to do that. And so the temptations for pastors today, and we know this and we feel this, is to produce, is to, if I can use a technical term, get butts in the chairs, gets butts in the pews. What’s the bottom line? Are we in the black? That is important. Don’t hear me say otherwise, but the primary role of the pastor, we would say, is to grow in their communion with the Lord so that he would bring other people with him as he’s called to lead and shepherd and be accountable for the men and women, the families, and individuals in his care. That he would be doing so out of increasing his love for the Lord.

31:15 - Lightning Round

Matt Tully
Maybe a few rapid fire questions here at the end. How should pastors not use the church fathers?

Coleman Ford
They should not use them as proof texts for whatever doctrine they want to prove or whatever point that they want to use. The fathers have tons to say about doctrine. They are the sort of foundational thinkers in a lot of our doctrine, though it’s ultimately scriptural. Again, helping us understand it. But the fathers, depending on when you’re reading them and how you’re reading them, you might think that they’re saying something opposite, but what they’re trying to do is draw out another point here. So Augustine at one point might be advocating for this thing over here, like a double predestinarian view, and you go over here and he’s a little softer on that. He’s not really talking about that anymore. So you might need to wrestle with that or think through that, but you can’t just say, Well, I’m going to go with Augustine A and not listen to Augustine B or something like that. And again, they’re conversation partners. I find myself in a certain confessional home, convictionally, that I think is shaped by the fathers generally, but I’m going to land with that confession, ultimately guided by the norming norm of Scripture. And the fathers will be a part of that conversation. So don’t go to proof text the fathers and find whatever you want to say and what Augustine said and say, It must be right.

Matt Tully
If you had to pick, who’s your favorite church father? I’m sure this is like picking from your children, but who’s your favorite church father, and give us a one sentence answer on why.

Coleman Ford
I’ve already mentioned Augustine is, as I affectionately call him in classes I teach, he’s my homeboy. I find a lot of affinity with Augustine. His story in Confessions is very much my story of faith, wandering in a fog of philosophy and of lust and licentious living, coming home to the Lord and having a very dramatic conversion. And I think that’s a story of a lot of people, to be honest. So Confessions needs to be on a regular reading list for people. And if I were to summarize that in one sentence, that is he helps us get into our own heart so that we can see that God is there.

Matt Tully
Isn’t Confessions often considered one of the first autobiographies?

Coleman Ford
Yeah, it is. It’s spiritual and it’s a prayer to God, so it’s not detailed and blow by blow.

Matt Tully
It’s not a comprehensive, On this date I was born.

Coleman Ford
Yeah. And you know it’s funny because you had guys like Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, he’s writing a biography of sorts, but it’s very, Here’s how great I am. Here are the things I’ve done for Rome. Here’s how awesome I am.

Matt Tully
That’s not Augustine.

Coleman Ford
That’s not Augustine. He says, Here’s how horrible I was and how God rescued me and saved me. So it’s a complete 180 in that sense.

Matt Tully
Who is the most misunderstood church father?

Coleman Ford
We mentioned Origen. We want to bring Origen into the light and sort of rescue Origen in a way.

Matt Tully
I was going to say Origen is an interesting choice to include. He’s often, by some Christians, considered a heretic.

Coleman Ford
Yes. And while I would probably want to put guardrails around some of his theology, which we talk about, his dedication to the Scriptures is often overlooked. And in fact, his life in general and the faithfulness of this individual is often overlooked. So for someone who the church felt like might’ve been heretical, he wasn’t a direct martyr, but he died in persecution, or rather from the wounds that he received based on being in prison and persecution. So it’s hard to argue with that in some ways. It’s also hard to argue with the fact that the man himself loved Scripture so much that he learned multiple languages, that he’s considered the first true biblical scholar. That’s how we position him, as get into the Scriptures, learn the languages, get this sort of in your blood as much as possible. And he’s misunderstood in that way. He truly did love the Lord. He truly did hold fast to the confession.

Matt Tully
Even if he made some mistakes perhaps.

Coleman Ford
His theology ends up being the seedbed for either orthodoxy in the fourth century or heresy in the fourth century, because you’re reading him certain ways.

Matt Tully
Both of them were drawing on him.

Coleman Ford
Yeah, that’s right. Again, back to a previous question, you need to read them knowing that it is a conversation rather than, Okay, I like this.

Matt Tully
That they’ve got all the right answers. Who’s the most neglected church father?

Coleman Ford
Oh, there are plenty of neglected church fathers. Without getting too granular, there are some that I would mention that we don’t talk about in the book, but there’s an individual by the name of Macarius Simeon from the fourth century. He was known by Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil. He’s just this figure that’s out there. He was a much more monastic figure, and he’s sometimes called pseudo-Macarius, because some people may not think that’s his real name. I think it was, but either way, the depth of his spirituality, infectious. He wrote a bunch of homilies on the Spirit. You can find them anywhere online for the most part. And you read those and you realize, wow, these individuals, and this one in particular, truly loved the Holy Spirit of God, truly wanted to be changed and shaped by them. And though we looked at Basil, he’s written on the Holy Spirit, Augustine wrote on the Trinity, and other people too, there are these figures, someone like Didymus the Blind, who’s in there and some others as well.

Matt Tully
Some of the greatest names.

Coleman Ford
Yeah, that’s right. I love these names.

Matt Tully
Gregory the Great. Didymus the Blind.

Coleman Ford
Once you get into literature, you start seeing them everywhere, but if you’re just casually perusing it, you don’t really pick it up right away. But they’re worth exploring. Once you get to level two, let’s look at Macarius, let’s look at Didymus, and let’s see how they are mining out the Scriptures for this deep, spiritual truth for the transformation of souls.

Matt Tully
Last couple of questions. Who’s the most surprisingly modern church father?

Coleman Ford
Well, I have to go back to Augustine, and specifically I’m thinking about his City of God. So City of God is that big tome that we’re all afraid to read, and I would commend you to just start working on it little bit by little bit. He is answering the perennial questions of humanity. Are you a citizen of the city of man? Here are all the things that define that. Or are you a citizen of the city of God? And here are the ways that is defined. But then he’s answering questions of spirituality and false gods that are part of Roman culture, which of course today we have plenty of those false gods but by different names of course.

Matt Tully
I’m just struck by, as we read any of these fathers, there is a little translation that often has to happen even if we’re reading an English translation. He’s going to mention Augustine, and City of God mentions all these false pagan gods. We’re not wrestling with that today, but the parallel there, if we just take a one step of translation, we can see how it would apply.

Coleman Ford
Absolutely. And again, he’s dismantling Roman culture bit by bit. And he’s responding apologetically to these people who think, Well, maybe Christianity has failed us. Maybe this is why Rome fell. We became soft. That’s what these Romans are saying, these pagans are saying, because they embraced Christianity. And I see that today all the time. Specifically in a Western culture that is extremely confused but also trying to grasp for identity in different ways. Maybe you have the uber masculine piece over here. So again, maybe pastors who are embracing this or maybe seeing this, that this is what it means to be a man. Or this is what it means to exist in culture today is to have affections for these things or maybe just a more nihilistic view of life in general. Augustine is very much, of course, not giving into that and exposing that and saying, Hey, in fact, going down these roads has caused a lot more harm than you think it has. And the Christian church or the gospel of Christ himself actually provides for much more happiness, much more solemnity, much more perspective in life. And he has lots of different ways that he’s apologetically encouraging his readers. And again, it seems like a massive task to undertake, but if you read City of God, you realize just how pressing these questions are even today in the twenty-first century.

Matt Tully
Coleman, thank you so much for taking the time today to walk us through and introduce us to a few of these fathers. You cover so many others in your book. We really appreciate it.

Coleman Ford
Thank you, Matt. Glad to be here.

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