Scot McKnight - Pastor Paul: Nurturing a Culture of Christoformity in the Church

I left the Chteau at mid-day, and had to start at once for Dombasle. On my way back I stopped on the fringe of the wood from which one has a view of wide flat country, long scarcely visible slopes which trail slowly downwards to the sea. I had bought some bread and butter in the village and I ate it hungrily. The kind of torpor had come over me which I feel after every decisive moment, every real trial in my life: a not unpleasant dullness of thought bringing with it a strange sensation of lightness, of joy. What sort of joy? I can find no word. A shapeless joy. That which had to be, has been and is no longerno more than that. I got back home very late and met old Clovis on the road. He gave me a small packet from Mme la Comtesse. I could not make up my mind to open it, and yet I knew what was inside. It was the little empty medallion, strung at the end of its broken chain. There was also a letter. Here it is. A curious letter:

Monsieur le Cur, I dont suppose you can imagine my state of mind when you left me, since all such questions of psychology probably mean nothing at all to you. What can I say to you? I have lived in the most horrible solitude, alone with the desperate memory of a child. And it seems to me that another child has brought me to life again. I hope you wont be annoyed with me for regarding you as a child. Because you are! May God keep you one for ever!...

I wanted you to know all this to-night. I had to tell you. And dont lets mention it ever again. Never again. How peaceful that sounds! Never. Im saying it under my breath as I writeand it seems to express miraculously, ineffably, the peace youve given me.

Georges Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest

Paul never spoke other than as a pastor.

J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle

He was a pastor, and a pastors pastor.

N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God

They [the pastors] were the stewards of ultimate things.

Marilynne Robinson, Home