If pastoral work is removed from its ground it loses...the strength to grapple with the complexities inherent in the work. Separation, by ignorance or forgetfulness, from the biblical pastoral traditions is responsible for two parodies of pastoral work: one, the naive attempt to help people on our own, as best we can, out of the natural compassion and concern we have for them; and two, the insensitive harangues from the pulpit, where, safe from the unmanageable ambiguities of bedroom and kitchen, shopping mall and workshop, corporate boardroom and legislative caucus, we confidently declaim the pure word of God to our confused flock. The Bible has the power to prevent either parody, either the naive humanist absorption into the world or the pseudo-spiritual aloofness from the world. The Bible's paradigmatic interchanges of divine and human reality inform and renew pastoral capabilities so that the work can be practiced among the commonplaces of sin with no loss of the extraordinariness of grace. But if that is to be done, the idea of quick achievement and instant exploitation must be abandoned in order to develop, painstakingly, lives in Christ that are coherent and many-dimensioned.
Eugene H. Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, p.7
