The Seven Deadly Sins of Pastoral Ministry with Jamin Goggin

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Seven Deadly Sins of Pastoral Ministry with Jamin Goggin

Podcast: Know What You Believe with Michael Horton
Host: Michael Horton
Guest: Jamin Goggin
Episode Date: November 11, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this insightful and deeply pastoral episode, Michael Horton interviews Jamin Goggin about his latest book, Pastoral Confessions: The Healing Path to Faithful Ministry. The discussion focuses on the unique temptations and vices that pastors experience—framed as the “seven deadly sins” of pastoral ministry—and the urgent need for honesty, confession, and grace-filled community among church leaders. Together, Horton and Goggin dissect how pride, sloth, envy, wrath, and other vices subtly undermine pastoral work, while also emphasizing the hope, healing and freedom found in gospel confession.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Need for Pastoral Honesty and Confession

(Begins ~02:11)

• Horton reads from Goggin's book, emphasizing its audience: “This book is for the church. It's a book for sinners in need of grace, for rebels in need of a king's absolution … for all those who know they are sick and in need of a physician. Pastors do this every week. Well, at least good pastors, you know, you're in need of a physician, you know, we're simul justus et peccator. And it's a little harder in my experience for pastors to believe this of themselves. Is that true?” — Michael Horton, 02:11
• Goggin highlights the risks pastors feel in confessing sin, not just spiritually but vocationally:

  “There’s real challenges in the pastoral vocation that make confession of sin feel all the more risky … What if this affects my employment? … But nevertheless, we need the gospel, don’t we?” — Jamin Goggin, 02:57

Notable Point

• Pastors often feel pressure to be exemplary, which leads to isolation and masks (“either despair or mask,” as Horton puts it at 04:38).

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2. Pastoral Pride: The Primal Sin

(Begins ~06:51)

• Pride is described as the “primal sin”: both self-glorification and self-sufficiency.
• Subtle forms:

  “There’s two sides to the pride coin… grandiosity, self-glorification … but I think the other half is self reliance, self sufficiency … And I think that's where pride probably shows up with much more subtlety in pastors' lives and tends to go unnoticed.” — Jamin Goggin, 07:23

• Pride can masquerade as responsibility or diligence: “All these people are counting on me … operating in my strengths …” — Mike, 10:11
• Pride leads to fragile self-worth—being unable to handle critique, making an idol of the congregation’s or the wider church’s affirmation:

  “If the slightest critiques and criticisms kind of send us into panic mode and to marshal strong defense … my value and my worth are built on this thing that is mine …” — Jamin Goggin, 19:00, 19:44

Quote

• “We make idols of our members and we need them to affirm us.” — Mike, 21:07

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3. Sloth/Acedia in Pastoral Life

(~12:30; more in-depth from 28:16)

• “Acedia” (sloth) is more than laziness; it’s spiritual dryness, apathy, or despondence:

  “Apathy. … Pride, again, being the primal vice, it can show up in all these others, like in Acadia. … either a kind of slothfulness and laziness in the work or a kind of despair.” — Jamin Goggin, 12:34, 13:34

• “Burnout” often masks a deeper moral dimension that needs confession, not just therapy:

  “By returning to language like envy, greed, acedia, sloth, we can help name the … moral dimension … Maybe there’s something to actually confess here.” — Jamin Goggin, 15:16

• Busy pastors can still be spiritually slothful:

  “I can be profoundly slothful and be really busy and really diligent … but maybe the whole time I’m avoiding the hard work of love.” — Jamin Goggin, 30:04

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4. Wrath and Abuse in Ministry

(Begins ~23:14)

• Pastoral wrath often manifests as abuse, defensiveness, or exclusion, especially to perceived threats:

  “A lot of times it's talked about today as pastoral abuse … you are a threat to me and my success.” — Mike, 23:14

• The wrathful pastor operates as accuser and judge instead of shepherd:

  “I think the wrathful pastor relates to the body of Christ as a kind of accuser and judge rather than as a shepherd, rather than as an elder brother in God's household.” — Jamin Goggin, 24:24

• Wrath often leaks out when not confessed, poisoning relationships with congregants and other leaders.

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5. Lust and its Hidden Danger

(Begins ~26:01)

• Major public falls are often the end of a long, hidden chain:

  “So often in the church today we’re seeing the kind of very end, the catastrophic end of a long history of lust … if you find yourself here with lust, confess quickly, confess early at a time when those sins are not disqualifying.” — Jamin Goggin, 26:30

• Unconfessed struggles fester amid pain, loss, and entitlement:

  “[Lust] becomes a way to escape some of the pain, a way to kind of dull some of the grief, to mute some of the anger that hasn't been addressed.” — Jamin Goggin, 28:03

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6. Envy and Competition Among Pastors

(Begins ~33:43; especially 34:41–38:56)

• Envy in ministry culture is normalized, but it “robs us of the unique fellowship … that the shared yoke of ministry ought to be.”
• Pastors compare and compete, seeking validation from peers and wider church culture:

  “The slip to comparison is just now one more step to competition.” — Jamin Goggin, 35:37

• This mindset undermines needed friendship, trust, and mutual support among pastors.

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7. Hope, Confession, and Grace for Pastors

(Begins ~38:58; deep dive into confession at 39:59)

• Gospel principles of faith, hope, and love are proposed as antidotes to the deadly sins.
• Confession among pastors is scripturally mandated but often avoided out of fear:

  “Confess your sins to one another, that you may be healed … We need others to be praying for us … [Knowing grace] doesn't only happen in my prayer closet. It happens in and through his body. He has chosen this to be a means of knowing his grace.” — Jamin Goggin, 39:59–40:32

• Corporate and private confession should be recovered in church life; Horton notes the Reformation’s emphasis on public and private confession, not just auricular confession to a priest (43:46).
• Interpersonal or “accountability partner” confession and prayer is also upheld, so long as it leads to gospel absolution, not mere moral policing.

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Memorable Quotes and Moments

• “Confess quickly, confess early at a time when those sins are not disqualifying.”
  — Jamin Goggin, 27:18

• “The prideful pastor is consumed by what others think of them. Isn't that kind of the root of it?”
  — Mike, 21:07

• “I can be profoundly slothful and be really busy and really diligent … I can be doing all of that, actually, to avoid having the two conversations with the disgruntled church members who are hurting.”
  — Jamin Goggin, 30:04

• “The wrathful pastor relates to the body of Christ as a kind of accuser and judge rather than as a shepherd.”
  — Jamin Goggin, 24:24

• “We make idols of our members and we need them to affirm us.”
  — Mike, 21:07

• “You need colleagues … once we've clicked into that kind of comparison and competition mode … we rob ourselves of the joy of shared fellowship … and we need it, if we’re going to finish the race of ministry well and be found faithful. We cannot run alone.”
  — Jamin Goggin, 36:59

• “Confess your sins to one another, that you may be healed … and pray for one another.”
  — Jamin Goggin, 39:59

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:47 – 02:11: Introduction of Jamin Goggin and his new book, Pastoral Confessions.
• 02:11 – 05:51: The importance of confession among pastors and unique pressures of ministry.
• 06:51 – 21:16: In-depth survey of pride in pastoral ministry and its subtle forms.
• 12:30 – 15:58: Sloth (acedia), spiritual apathy, “burnout,” and their deeper moral roots.
• 23:14 – 25:12: Pastoral wrath, abuse, defensiveness, and the need to shepherd gently.
• 26:01 – 28:16: Lust, shame, secrecy, and public disqualifications.
• 28:16 – 31:01: “Acedia” (sloth) and the illusion of diligence masking spiritual laziness.
• 33:43 – 38:56: Envy, competition among pastors, and the loss of collegiality.
• 39:59 – 46:39: The biblical mandate to mutual confession; reformational and modern practices contrasted.
• 47:02 – End: Concluding remarks, practical wisdom on confession and blessing pastors in gospel ministry.

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Tone and Takeaway

This episode is rigorous yet tender, balancing theological reflection, personal candor, diagnosis of pastoral struggles, and practical, grace-centered hope. Listeners get frank discussion of the dangers lurking in every ministry, paired with robust reminders that only the gospel, lived out in honest confession and community, can deliver pastors (and churches!) from despair or pride.

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For further enrichment:
Go deeper by picking up Pastoral Confessions: The Healing Path to Faithful Ministry by Jamin Goggin, recommended by both host and guest as a wise, gospel-saturated resource for pastors and congregants alike.

Transcript

[Michael Horton]

We often look for God in the spectacular, but Advent reminds us that our extraordinary God came in the ordinary, in flesh and blood, to dwell with us. This Advent reflect on the wonder of the Incarnation with Heaven Came Down, a new devotional by Dr. Michael Horton. Published by Sola Media over four weeks. It explores how the Almighty veiled himself in flesh and not to terrify us, but to save us. Your support helps us bring the good news to more people. Consider requesting a copy for your own Advent reflections or as a gift for someone who needs hope this season. Get your copy with a donation of any amount to support our [e-mail] offers.

[Mike]

We don't want to live in the village green. At the end of the day, we can all leave and return to our houses of worship. But our goal is to encourage conversational theology in the village, where we can rub shoulders with Christians from different traditions and expressions. I've been looking forward to this interview with Jamon Goggin, a good friend over many years. And I know you've been working on this book. It's been part of your heart. Like your earlier book, the Way of the Dragon and the Way of the.

[Jamin Goggin]

Lamb.

[Mike]

You write out of where you are in your journey with the Lord, and you certainly have with this book, out of 20 years of pastoral experience. You also have a PhD from the University of Aberdeen. So you have the systematic theological side of things, but also a depth of pastoral experience. But both of those come out clearly in this book, Pastoral Confessions, the Healing Path to Faithful Ministry. And I should also mention that you are also editor with pastors.com.

[Jamin Goggin]

You run pastors associate professor at Talbot.

[Mike]

An associate professor at Talbot. How could I forget that? At Biola University. That's right. Yes.

[Jamin Goggin]

You know that place?

[Mike]

I know that place. Well, first of all, Jamin, you know, everybody starts by asking, so why did you write this book? Well, let me just read what you say at the beginning. This book is for the church. It's a book for sinners in need of grace, for rebels in need of king, a king's absolution, for spiritual harlots in need of the groom's steadfast love. This book is for all those who know they are sick and in need of a physician. Pastors do this every week. Well, at least good pastors, you know, you're in need of a physician, you know, were simultaneously just and sinner. And it's a little harder in my experience for pastors to believe this of themselves. Is that true?

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. It's a question of do we Believe the gospel and we preach it, we teach it, we preach it. Yeah. I think we proclaim the gospel. We want to kind of order our ministry around the gospel, even in really practical terms. And maybe the question for us as pastors is often if we're gospel centered in our preaching, we're gospel centered in our ministry initiatives, but we're not gospel centered at our center when we're alone. What does that mean? Yeah, and I think there's real challenges, I think, in the pastoral vocation that make the prospect of confession of sin and acknowledgement of sin feel all the more risky, perhaps beyond kind of the standard, well, we all fear condemnation. There's an inheritance there, I think, in Adam. What happens when we come out of hiding and say, here's where I am, Lord, and here's where I am to others. Here's what's really going on in my life. But I think, you know, pastors Having been one for 20 years, we have also some vocational reasons to maybe not come out of hiding. And there's risks. What if this affects my employment? What if this affects my livelihood and the way I provide for my family? Those are real questions, and I don't want to diminish, I think, the weight of those and maybe some of the reasons why pastors can feel anxious about actually acknowledging, here's my sin, here's why I'm in need of a savior, here's why I need forgiveness. But nevertheless, we need the gospel, don't we?

[Mike]

We. We do. And we, you know, so we hear a lot about pastoral burnout. So that would speak to the despair that a lot of us are driven to in the ministry. I'm supposed to be this. Yeah, this is what people expect me to be. A lot of people are looking up to me and expecting me to be their leader, which of course is true. But that can lead a person to despair, or it could lead a person to prevaricating to basically saying, let me explain myself first of all to myself, then to God and then to my people. Let me try to put on a mask. So either despair or mask, you're saying, using the seven deadly sins, that we need to take the mask off and not to spare, because we are just as needy and just as much recipients of the gospel we preach as are people.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think if pastors are going to be exemplars in the faith, which I take it the New Testament calls pastors to be those who model what maturity in Christ looks like, surely modeling what it is to live by grace Alone is central to that. And I don't want to discount that perhaps our lives ought to reflect a certain kind of maturity by way of character. And we don't want to diminish the seriousness of qualification to the pastoral office. But. And you don't if qualification equals sinlessness? Well, none would be found qualified if.

[Mike]

You don't confess your sins.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. But you know, there's none that are available for the job that are without sin. And to say we're without sin, I take it, would be to call God.

[Mike]

A liar and also lead our people to believe the opposite of what we preach.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

[Mike]

We what? Let's go through some of these. So first of all, you talk about the need for pastoral confession, but first of all, you hit pastoral pride, making God's ministry my ministry. You hear this very often. I go to so and so's church or what I want my ministry to be known for. You know, there's a kind of legacy thing. How do you see this pride eking its way to the surface of church life?

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. I think it's important to name here too, what really the whole tradition is in agreement on, which is pride's gonna be the primal sin here. Yeah. And so I think beginning there is the right place to begin putting myself first. Yeah, yeah. There's two sides to the pride coin that have to be acknowledged. One is life from the self and the other is life for the self. And I think we tend to maybe emphasize that for the self side more when we think of pride. So we think of things like grandiosity, self glorification, that the aim of our life is kind of to make a great name for ourselves or something like that. And that's one half of it, but I think the other half of it is self reliance, self sufficiency, self kind of derived and directed life. And I think that's where pride probably shows up with much more subtlety in pastors lives and tends to go unnoticed. You know, the kind of self glorifying and bloviating we might often call narcissist from the stage, who's just constantly talking about how great they are, telling story after story after story, everyone how great they are. Yeah.

[Mike]

Or even talking about all their failures to the congregation. Isn't that a kind of form of. Can't it be? Form of narcissist? Certainly can work. Let me tell you another story about myself.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yes.

[Mike]

How I'm a wounded warrior.

[Jamin Goggin]

Oh, certainly. Yeah. Especially nowadays. Right.

[Mike]

In our therapeutic.

[Jamin Goggin]

This can get you a lot of Hero points. Yeah. But I think what I'm driving at is just that I think that can be a little bit easier for us to identify. And I think what can be more challenging is to identify what are the ways that I'm, you know, to use simple biblical language. I'm leaning on my own understanding in the work that I'm doing. I take it as with all things in life, we can operate in the power of the flesh rather than by the Spirit.

[Mike]

God gives us gifts and then we think those gifts are the reason why we're.

[Jamin Goggin]

Paul will talk about this. With preaching. There's a mode of preaching by which we can void the cross of its power. And Paul's concern there is that there's a kind of self derived power showing a wielding of personality and rhetorical gifting and ability and silver tongue, even theological acumen. Right, right. Which can certainly be a temptation for me. And so I think here I really want to flag for pastors in particular, there might be ways that pride has actually kind of taken root a bit more in the ways you engage in your life and work in ministry that look more subtle, that often could just look like responsibility, that can get glossed as stewarding my gifts, taking my job seriously, wanting.

[Mike]

All these people are counting on me. Yeah.

[Jamin Goggin]

Operating in my strengths. These are the kinds of things that maybe we would often say, but in reality, perhaps again, to use the language you just flagged there from my book, we've made what is God's kind of ours. It's ours not only for the sake of maybe glory and recognition, but it's ours to kind of control and manage and to make happen. If this church is going to grow, I'm going to have to really bring more of me to the table.

[Mike]

Yeah. Oh, that's a great point. That's a great line.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah.

[Mike]

More of me. Not more of Christ necessarily, but more. Yeah. And no one would say that. Well, maybe some would, but yeah.

[Jamin Goggin]

Very few pastors, I've seen it in my own life, in seasons of real challenge.

[Mike]

I've seen it challenging.

[Jamin Goggin]

One season's a real challenge in ministry where, boy, things aren't going the way I would have expected. Maybe we're rolling out some kind of new ministry initiative or really inviting the congregation to participate in a. A missions initiative. Something's really good. There's good ends in mind.

[Mike]

Why aren't they responsive?

[Jamin Goggin]

And so what can happen in those moments is rather than meeting the Lord in real weakness, saying, wow, Lord, I need you here. I'm not sure what to make of this. What are you doing in the life of the church? I can kind of marshal more of my energy, my fervor. You need more passion, more conviction to drive them to do it.

[Mike]

You talk about this in your own experience coming off of a sabbatical. You do that under siblings, sloth, or Acadia, but sounds like a town in la. But it's also relevant here, isn't it, that you basically, you came off the sabbatical and you've. It's like the rest, actually. You had. Had it in what, 20 years or 17 years?

[Jamin Goggin]

Seventeen years, yeah.

[Mike]

And then you came off this sabbatical and you felt more tired during your sabbatical.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Because, like, you just felt it. You just felt the inner, you know, release. All these expectations that were really placed on you, not just that you placed on yourself, but, you know, that's where we've got to be on guard against pride, right?

[Jamin Goggin]

Absolutely. Well, and to your point, like, I.

[Mike]

Don'T find my satisfaction in God. I find my satisfaction in this job. And we tell people not to do that.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yes.

[Mike]

But we can do it in all sorts of spiritual ways.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. And I think naming Acadia there might be helpful, and I'm sure for most. That's a strange word, but it's really the root word for word we would often use, which is sloth root word in the tradition. And it denotes this sense of failing to care and just a carelessness. Other words that might, you know, fit within the. The kind of vernacular would be apathy. Right. Disinterest and disengagement. And to. To your point, pride, again, being the primal vice, it can show up in all these others, like in Acadia. And you know what. What. What I experienced in my life in that season was this kind of settled discontentment with. With life because I had sought to find so much of my contentment in my vocation and had been tossed kind of to and fro by the. Or a failure. Sometimes it feels great and I'm content. Sometimes it doesn't, and I'm not. And the toll that can take and the kind of energy drain and what can begin to settle in this is what I tried to name with Acadia, is either a kind of slothfulness and laziness in the work or a kind of despair, which is another kind of way Acadia can show up. That's why I choose Acadia, because I think Acadia actually helps name the two sides. One side being more slothful, kind of disengagement with the laborer, perhaps the other Being a more kind of despairing, what's the point? I kind of turn towards self pity. And I think for many pastors, one of the challenges with the ways we've come to talk about some of these things experientially in the church today, and you flagged it, is we turn towards maybe kind of therapeutic or sociological language and maybe more in a popularized sense.

[Mike]

And so even that language, something's toxic.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. But even that language of burnout, I find at least this has been my experience. I don't know if it's been yours, but it's a pretty plastic phrase. Like I hear it used a lot. And I often find myself wondering, what do you mean? Because sometimes I feel like what's being referred to is maybe a more kind of desolation in one's spiritual life, which, as you know, Puritans and reformers will have a lot to say about that. A felt experience of God's maybe absence and what God might be doing in times of wilderness or. Well, is that what you're talking about? Or at other times it is. Well, I'm overworked and I'm exhausted and maybe I've been a bit of a workaholic actually, and my body is actually kind of shutting down on me. For others it may be more clinical.

[Mike]

Depression or I don't have friends, I need more friends.

[Jamin Goggin]

But I think what I'm wanting to drive at here is by returning to language like envy, greed, Acadia, sloth, we can help name the kind of moral dimension of these things and actually name the sin there. Because what I find often happens is pastors that maybe are struggling with, quote, burnout. There is maybe a sin there. There is a kind of failure to care about that which God has called them to care for. Right. They've grown weary in doing good. And of course scripture has told them, do not grow weary in doing good. And yet the language of burnout isn't moving them towards. Maybe there's something to actually confess here. Yeah, maybe there's things to be cared for in. Maybe there are genuine burdens and maybe.

[Mike]

I need a vacation.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah, maybe there are wounds and I need to receive care. That's true. But also maybe there's ways in which there's a sin creeping in here that needs to be confessed and that's somewhere I get healing as well is genuine confession.

[Mike]

Because Satan finds easy access to us when we're tired.

[Jamin Goggin]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

[Mike]

So we, we. It may not be the presenting symptom.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yes.

[Mike]

But it's where he walks in and says, have I great got a great plan for you.

[Jamin Goggin]

You know, that's right.

[Mike]

I love the way each time in your discussions of the application of these vices to pastoral ministry, you have examples of what these look like. Because if you just, you know, you could go on for paragraph after paragraph talking about the thing itself, but you talk about its presenting symptoms. The prideful pastor relates to the church as a vehicle of their own personal success. You've talked about that. The prideful pastor has a distant relationship with members of their own congregation. Now, let's not just put everything on mega churches, and certainly not. There are plenty of small church pastors who never talk to their people. They preach, they teach, and they're gone.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. What I'm trying to do in providing these diagnostics throughout the book and examples is to say these may be some ways these show up. And of course, these all have to be discerned. As, you know, as many souls as there are, as many forms of these sins can take place.

[Mike]

And some people are just shy.

[Jamin Goggin]

Oh, no, certainly. But what I'm saying is, you know, that the examples could be endless. And also some of the examples that I'm providing, they need to not be discerned in my life because to your point, the distance between myself and perhaps congregation members, there could be a whole host of reasons. I want to acknowledge that that may be the result of having been really wounded and hurt by members of your congregation and coming to learn that maybe entering into relationships isn't a safe thing always. So I just. I want to acknowledge the complexity. But when pride has taken root in the pastor's heart and they're primarily relating to church as a kind of thing that they possess, a vehicle that they use for their own ends, the people of the church and I get into this with kind of greed. They become resources. We even begin to call people human resources. Human resources, assets. My people, their assets. I mean, this is.

[Mike]

This is.

[Jamin Goggin]

This is the language of monetary. Right.

[Mike]

It's the language of corporate America, not of the church.

[Jamin Goggin]

The things I accumulate that I can leverage and do something with. And when. When you begin to relate to people out of that lens, you no longer relate to people. And quite frankly, people having to relate to people becomes really inconvenient.

[Mike]

And yet they're your church.

[Jamin Goggin]

And yet they're your church. Yeah, exactly. But entering into the real lives of others, boy, if your endeavor is to really get somewhere and grow a platform and make a name for yourself, that's going to really bog you down. Because real relationships Require strange things like patience and kindness and bearing with the.

[Mike]

Fruit of the spirit.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. All the work that love actually requires.

[Mike]

But you'll read the fruit of the flesh, and it's like, oh, wow, okay, that hurts. That's like, oh, that's the fruit of the flesh. I thought it was just success in ministry.

[Jamin Goggin]

Right, right, right, right.

[Mike]

The prideful pastor is fragile. Wow. You see this especially online, right?

[Jamin Goggin]

Yes, yes. I think we know that probably there's some pride that needs to be identified and confessed. If the slightest critiques and criticisms kind of send us into panic mode and to marshal strong defense or to kind of rally the troops or to lash out in return right away without even considering, is there something here? My value and my worth are built on this thing that is mine that I'm developing. Also the degree to which I feel secure. So if you're criticism in my life is going to be connected to my work, which is going to be directly connected to what people are saying about that work.

[Mike]

If you think strategy number two doesn't work, if you have any criticisms about that, then 1 through 10, you're criticizing my whole ministry.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yes.

[Mike]

So the prideful pastor ministers out of their talents and abilities, not out of weakness. And then the prideful pastor hides their sin. See too much of that. The prideful pastor is unable to minister faithfully in a context of limited success. That's so important. And the prideful pastor is consumed by what others think of them. Isn't that kind of the root of it?

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Mike]

We make idols of our members and we need them to affirm us.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. And I think sometimes for pastors who've been in ministry for maybe a longer period of time, the affirmation of the congregation actually no longer satisfies that agenda. And so actually they can be receiving a lot of encouragement, affirmation from their church. But really what they're looking for is how am I doing on the landscape of the evangelical church?

[Mike]

Not are you a faithful ministry?

[Jamin Goggin]

Are others recognized? My ministry. Is my ministry being recognized. On the list of fastest growing, most influential are other pastors? Are the right people and the right other leaders saying, I'm really doing something, I'm really going somewhere. My church is a kind of it church, north star in the community that other churches should look at of how to really do ministry the right way?

[Mike]

And we can do that with doctrine too. Are we the theological orthodox ones that everybody look looks to? Absolutely all sorts of ways? This is what I mean by the.

[Jamin Goggin]

List could get in less.

[Michael Horton]

At Sola Media we're committed to helping Christians deepen their faith through clear, Christ centered teaching rooted in the riches of the Reformation. Every podcast, article and res produce is offered free of charge and it's only possible because of generous monthly supporters. When you become a partner Today, you'll receive two remarkable books as our Rediscovering the Holy Spirit by Dr. Michael Horton and Praying with Jesus by Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We believe these books can guide you into a clearer understanding of the Spirit's work and a richer prayer life. To become a partner and receive these two books, visit solamedia.org partner.

[Mike]

Pastoral wrath that comes out of pride. We don't have to spend much time on it, but you do a great job on this. That a lot of times it's talked about today as pastoral abuse.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike]

And you know, just you are, you. You are a threat to me and my success.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah.

[Mike]

To the kind of church we want to be, which is the kind of church I've decided we need to be. John Calvin said, a pastor needs two voices, one for the sheep and one for the wolves. And oftentimes I find there are many pastors who under the guise of being faithful ministers, maybe, you know, intending to be faithful ministers, let their slip of wrath show and say, this does not fit with what I've decided this church will be.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yes.

[Mike]

And you are the problem.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yes.

[Mike]

Even when they're not heretics or unrepentant, they're just a problem.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. I think the wrathful pastor relates to the body of Christ as a kind of accuser and judge rather than as a shepherd, rather than as an elder brother in God's household.

[Mike]

And, you know, good, generally speaking, be the accuser of the brethren.

[Jamin Goggin]

Not good. Yeah. And I think it can show up, of course, in sharp tone and in preaching, but I think also I think you've named something important. It can show up in pastors who are kind of on real heightened alert for any threat to their authority. And there's a kind of relating to maybe other elders, even other pastors, even through a lens of kind of suspicion.

[Mike]

And there's again the pride I have to have 100% buy in.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yes, yes. And oftentimes what you find is the wrathful pastor, they keep a record of wrongs.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Jamin Goggin]

And that record of wrongs will come out sometimes uncontrollably because of course, if the anger has not been dealt with properly, meaning it has not been brought into confession with the Lord and others, and eventually it will leak out. And it may leak out in A moment of yelling from the pulpit, you people need to. And you didn't do. And this last year. And. Or it may leak out a little more strategically. Right. In a targeted meeting with fellow elders or other pastors.

[Mike]

Or a social media post.

[Jamin Goggin]

Or a social media post, exactly. Right.

[Mike]

Okay. So personal lust. We've seen statistics on this. You say a pastor who unabashedly harasses women on his staff has likely been inspired by an addiction to the chauvinistic fantasy world of pornography and has been enabled by an ecclesial context in which he has unchecked authority and celebrity status. Boy, that's a dangerous cluster of factors.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah, yeah. I think what I'm trying to. One of the things I try to name in that chapter is I think so often in the church today we're seeing the kind of very end, the catastrophic end of a long history of lust in pastors lives. And it may be sexual abuse, it may be, you know, sexual misconduct, it may be an affair. What has led up to that, I find more often than not is a long story, a lot of steps. A long story, a lot of steps. And again, part of what I'm hoping to commend with the book is if you find yourself here with lust, confess quickly, Confess early at a time when those sins are not disqualifying.

[Mike]

Don't render your sins at the beginning.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. Rather than keep it hidden. Because if you see those stories and you find yourself going, how do you get there? Well, it's a long, slow road to get there. For the most part. Those stories are again, they're on the end of a long history of a hidden history of pornography addiction. For many years, a fantasy life that didn't go addressed for many years. And what begins to grow and develop over the course of a pastor's life as those things continue to remain hidden. And then you add pain and loss and grief and undealt with pain that turns into anger.

[Mike]

Like, I deserve this.

[Jamin Goggin]

Sure.

[Mike]

Look what I've gone through.

[Jamin Goggin]

Sure.

[Mike]

Self pity again.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. It becomes a way to escape some of the pain, a way to kind of dull some of the grief, to mute some of the anger that hasn't been addressed.

[Mike]

We're skipping a lot climb by means. Because there's.

[Jamin Goggin]

Give people a good reason to read the whole book.

[Mike]

Absolutely. That's what I'm trying to do. There's so much on every page. So acedia. It's always struck me as weird and deeply insightful that Karl Barth actually says it's not pride. That's the root of all sin. But. But sloth. And he makes this point that, you know, people think that they are courageous, that they're powerful when they tread down others and when they flip God off and when they're, you know, hi, I'm me. I'm beautiful. That. That is an act of courage. And he says it's actually an act of laziness.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You are refusing the difficult thing of being a human being.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah, yeah. I think when one of the things I try to name in the chapter, and just for the sake of using language, that's gonna sound a little more at hand for folks about the more slothful form of Akkadia, again, there's. I kind of named slothfulness and despondence as kind of the two modes of Akkadia.

[Mike]

All of these seem to have, like, despair is the flip side of.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I try to name some of that in the last chapter. A little bit. What I try to name in regards to sloth, I think this might be really helpful for pastors is it's laziness in faith, hope, and love. That's the problem. And in my own life and ministry and experience, I know actually I can be profoundly slothful and be really busy and be really diligent, and I can hole up in my study and read Augustine and Aquinas and Calvin and Luther.

[Mike]

One more time on finding rest in Christ, but not resting in Christ.

[Jamin Goggin]

But I can read them on that passage again.

[Mike]

I know.

[Jamin Goggin]

Me too. Because I need to do my due diligence because, of course, I'm a theologian who's also a pastor, and I can be doing all of that, actually, to avoid having the two conversations with the disgruntled church members who are hurting, who are disagreeing with one another, who can't resolve the conflict, and I just don't want to enter in.

[Mike]

I totally get that. I totally understand.

[Jamin Goggin]

So no one would look at me and say, he's lazy. No one. No, no, you're busy. Pastor's calendar. And he's doing sermon prep, and he's being faithful to prepare, and he's studying diligently. You know, he is facilitating meetings throughout the week with other leaders. I know he met with these key people in the church that do need help with something, but maybe the whole time, I'm avoiding the hard work of.

[Mike]

Love and just spending time with the Lord.

[Jamin Goggin]

Oh, of course. Certainly. Yeah. I think one of the things we see often for those that struggle with Acadia is they've given themselves to a Life of perilousness in ministry.

[Mike]

Yeah, because I'm. Well, I'm. I've struggled with this. Well, I failed at this. So I don't say I struggled with this. I failed at it. I will sometimes drape my busyness and. Well, I. I spend my whole life exegeting Scripture.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I spend my whole life teaching students in theological seminary. I mean, my whole life is Bible, but it's like, okay, so is this your relationship with the Lord, or is this something that you package for other people?

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. I can think of seasons in ministry where I felt again, a bit of kind of Katia setting in, Tired, weary, and beginning to go through the motions. And if you've done pastoral ministry long enough, you'll know what I'm talking about. You can click into, yeah, I know the meanings I've got and how to kind of lead those effectively. I kind of know what sermon prep looks like now. And if I walk through the right steps of study and preparation, I kind of know how to deliver a faithful sermon.

[Mike]

Like an engineer knows what to do when he goes on Monday.

[Jamin Goggin]

Before you know it. The thing you're avoiding in all of it is actually the hard work, which is entering into prayerful wrestling with the Lord about all those things and how you're really experiencing them and being honest with the Lord about the fact that I don't really have a passion for it right now, and I'm finding myself not really caring. And, Lord, what does it mean for my heart to be in this place? And I want to meet you in that? I find that I think many pastors will resonate with this, that we can enter into the counseling appointment. We can enter into the pulpit prayerlessly with answers. To the watching eyes, it would look like they're doing their job and they're being diligent, but we know we've actually avoided the harder work, which is to wrestle with the Lord and these things and to enter into those spaces prayerfully. I often say to my students at Talbot Seminary, the greatest gift you can offer is to those you enter into a room with for pastoral care and counseling is an abiding heart and the same thing in the pulpit. The greatest gift you can offer is one who shows up as one who's been prayerful.

[Mike]

You've come out of.

[Jamin Goggin]

I'm entering into this as one who's been with the Lord, and this is now a continued opportunity for me to be with the Lord and with you, together with the Lord.

[Mike]

There's a reason I think I cry every time we sing Psalm 42. And anyone who wants to go back and look at it, it's beautiful. It's heart wrenching. And every word of it expresses my heart, and I think it really touches on it. So I've spent more time on it because it's my deal. Okay, so pastoral envy competing with co laborers. I felt this definitely when reading this book. I wish that I could have written this. This is really big for pastors. And again, you're not judging pastors. This is not a book of. Here are all the problems of pastors. This is why ordinary sins of sinners, including Christians, are transformed into kind of distinct vices in pastoral ministry. Why is pastoral envy worse?

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah, well. And part of the argument there, Mike, too, is the pastoral vocation isn't somehow this kind of de facto completed sanctification role where all of a sudden, all these vices we know we all struggle with, but once I'm a pastor, they don't show up there? Part of the argument is, well, of course they do. Of course they do. Right.

[Mike]

I love the picture of. Not the Olympics, it was a different thing in Europe competitions. And one of the runners went back to collect a runner who had tripped and fallen and put his arm around him and carried him to the finish line. And that, to me was. That's the picture we're talking about here. Sinners helping other sinners, beggars helping other beggars find the bread. And.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah, and in regards to. I love that image in regards to envy, which. That image is like a kind of direct assault on the idea of envy even as we talk about it. I can feel this in my years as a pastor, that slip to comparison. And the slip to comparison is just now one more step to competition.

[Mike]

Who justifies me, God forbid, my neighbor.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. And again, pride kind of funding all these vices. And as I say in the book, once we've made God a rival in pride, how much easier to make. How much easier to make anybody else a rival if I'm already willing to do that, of course, humans, no problem. And so, yeah, this kind of competing with co laborers in Christ, I think the first thing I'd want to say about it, what just so grieves me in my own experience of this is what it robs us of as pastors, which is this unique fellowship of friendship and companionship that the shared yoke of ministry ought to be ours is a very unique, challenging, oftentimes lonely, isolating work, and one that few understand who haven't entered into it and don't know the kind of travails and challenges and wounds.

[Mike]

You need colleagues.

[Jamin Goggin]

You need them. Everyone does, of course, but pastors certainly. And so once, once we've clicked into that kind of comparison and competition mode, though, and begin to view others through the lens of competition, we begin to envy. We. We rob ourselves of the joy of shared fellowship. We rob ourselves of companionship and support and mutual edification and encouragement. And we need it if, if we're going to feel. Finish the race of ministry well and be found faithful. We cannot run alone. And so, yeah, I think, no question. I mean, the last thing I'll say here about it is I think without question, in many ways, at least in my experience of kind of North American evangelical church culture more broadly, I think it cannot be overstated how much competition and actually, therefore, envy has just kind of been baptized. Just. It's just kind of the way it is. Yeah. And I think that is worthy of some serious shared corporate confession together as a church that setting up rivalries. And I think of Paul to the Corinthians.

[Mike]

We've been doing it for a long time.

[Jamin Goggin]

What do you mean? Who's of Apollos and who's of.

[Mike]

We've been doing it that long.

[Jamin Goggin]

We're all servants of Jesus. And I'm so offended. Offended by what you're suggesting. I'm going to even say I'm grateful I didn't baptize many of you. Paul's response could not be more, no, no, thank you. I don't want anything to do with that.

[Mike]

But you know, why not? Because he was so ascetic and he had such a, you know, a great handle on this sin of jealousy. But that he cared about the gospel more than he cared about virtues or vices. I mean, he cared about virtues and he cared about vices, but he cared about that once. The gospel comes first in your ministry. Yes, right.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yes.

[Mike]

Everything you're talking about, which gets us.

[Jamin Goggin]

Absolutely. Amen.

[Mike]

Which gets us to your last part. You turn from the vices to pastoral faith, hope and love. And you talk about how to avoid despair, which of course is a very big. And that's a command, as you say. That's not just a therapeutic kind of thing. It's a command. And then confessing to one another, boy, that has just been lost. And again, it's so hard for pastors to confess to fellow pastors because if they confess to fellow pastors and to their elders, they will lose. This is what we think. We will lose our authority, our credibility and maybe our position in the church.

[Jamin Goggin]

I don't want to understate the challenge that pastors could feel in the call to confess sins to one another. But of course, we want to begin with a kind of, I think, biblical command. Confess your sins to one another, that you may be healed and pray for one another. And I think the invitation there is that pray for one another is crucial, that we need others to be praying for us. This isn't a tell God, and also you got to tell other people too.

[Mike]

I need.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. Ultimately what I'm in need of is God's action and God's grace to meet me in these places in my life, to know his grace experientially. But that doesn't only happen in my prayer closet. It does, but it happens in and through his body. He has chosen this to be a means of knowing his grace, and we need the prayers of others. And also I found this to be so true in my life that I don't know myself as well as I think I do. And sometimes the things I'm even thinking our sins aren't, sometimes they're personality quirks or things that I don't like about myself. And I need someone else to say, hey, you know what?

[Mike]

That's not advice. You're beating yourself up.

[Jamin Goggin]

And let me reflect. That's just part of who you are and there's nothing wrong. And then at other time, you know, there's this. In other words, I can turn to my heart, as scripture would say, can turn to condemning itself. And I need someone to remind me, God's greater than your heart. Don't, don't do that to yourself.

[Mike]

Or if you're lying to yourself, you need somebody to get in your groove.

[Jamin Goggin]

That's not true. But also, conversely, there may be things I don't see. And even in the confession of my sin, I don't recognize how deep it really does go or how it has affected others. And apart from the body of Christ, I'm not going to see that rightly. I need the work of the Spirit in and through brothers and sisters to help me see. Yeah, this is what's really true about that sin. Here's how it is really affecting others. Because of course, we know sins don't remain private and kept to myself. They affect the whole body.

[Mike]

Yeah. The Reformation, as you know, brought the confessional into the congregation.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yes.

[Mike]

So you had instead of private confession to a priest who gave you three Hail Marys or whatever, then he would absolve you. If you did this, there was a public confession of sin. And a public absolution. So we have that in our church still. But Luther and Calvin both said we want to retain private confession and absolution for consciences. Not to say it's necessary to be absolved of that particular sin, you can confess it to the Lord. But for consciences that still vary back and forth because of the law, and they have a legitimate concern about what they've done is so terrible, they think or they need to hear that same minister who did it in public, hear their confession in private and absolve them. We have so reacted against the Roman Catholic confessional. Yeah, I agree that we don't have what the reformers were talking about there as something ongoing and necessary that yes, any Christian can do this. Any believer is a priest. Any believer can do this. It's baptism, not ordination, that qualifies them. But especially, especially the one who is called publicly to do this, to do it in private. How important is it that we get back to the biblical teaching of confess your sins to one another?

[Jamin Goggin]

Well, you're hearing my yes and amens as you're going. And I just. You're taking. In many ways, in wonderful ways, the words are out of my mouth. I'm with Luther and Calvin on this one. And you and I have talked about this before. I am for both corporate and interpersonal confession. And I think both are needed. I think maybe what I can add to what you shared is to speak more to my experience being for many years in Southern Baptist context and non denominational context, we've actually kind of lost even the corporate. And it's not a part of the liturgy. It's not a meaningful part of what happens in worship. And I don't want to say that's true of all, but it's been true of much of my experience and I think it's true of many more non denominational or kind of Baptistic leaning ecclesial bodies. And I think there's a place, I'd want to say there's a place to begin, you know, there's a place to start to re acclimate our people to this movement of confession and absolution and a reminder of the good news of the gospel that, and we say it in our preaching. We need to be reminded of the gospel. We never mature past the gospel.

[Mike]

Yeah, those are my people.

[Jamin Goggin]

This is all that is right. This is a practice of mortification and vivification. It's entering in to that movement of Lord, here they are. We present our sins to you. We ask that by your spirit you meet us in this, you put these things to death in us. We need you here, apart from you. We can't deal with these things on our own. Enough of the self help solutions to what I see in myself. I'm giving it to you because I can't deal with it. And thank you that you have done something about it and dealt with it definitively on the cross. And would you do a work of your spirit now, bringing new life and enlivening my heart and my affections to love you in these places? Would you put to death what needs to be put to death? Would you bring to life in me the fruits of the spirit that you've called? I think framing it that way for pastors that maybe aren't as used to it, it's like, oh, that's all we're talking about here. And it's proclaiming the gospel. And so I couldn't agree more. I think where we have seen it maybe in more evangelical, non denominational contexts has been the more interpersonal. And there I want to, I want to commend and affirm that. And you know this in the last maybe 20 years, there's, there's a bit of a movement to have an accountability partner.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Jamin Goggin]

You know, and we smirk about it, but, you know, we could do worse than that. We could do worse than having an actual friend, a brother in Christ who knows us, who we have to meet with weekly. And the question is, what's really going on? What's really going on in your marriage? What's really going on with your eyes when you look at the laptop? Right. Like. And so I think as long as.

[Mike]

It'S accountability and absolution.

[Jamin Goggin]

Yeah. Amen. Amen. Yeah. But I think just the accountability partner piece, there's more to it. But I think that's a good point. There's two pieces to commend there. One is we need the corporate. We need that a part of our liturgy. And I think we need to encourage this to be interpersonal way of Christians relating to one another as a priesthood of all believers.

[Mike]

I have appreciated your friendship, Jamin and this book, Jamon Goggin, Pastoral Confessions. The Healing Path to Faithful Ministry is a wealth of gold. As you can see. It's not a giant tome which is deceptive because the wisdom that we've heard just today, and I just hit a couple of the highlights, it is just packed. So thank you so much for helping us as ministers of the Gospel address our vices and our need to flee to Christ and to his brothers. And sisters for health.

[Jamin Goggin]

Thank you my friend. Good to be with you, Good to spend time with you and I pray it is a blessing to the Church.

[Michael Horton]

Here at Sola, we encourage disciples and equip disciple makers by drawing on the riches of the Reformation to apply historic Christian theology to all of faith and life. Our work is only possible thanks to the generosity of thousands of supporters across the world. In order to keep our resources free, we need your support. Will you prayerfully consider a donation to help us equip and encourage even more people to grow in knowing God and seeing everything in his light? If so, please visit solarmedia.org donate.