I'm here after midnight studying in Psalm 6. Verse 7 says, "My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes." As I'm consulting the notes/commentary of Albert Barnes I'm reading along through each verse until I came to this one and on it he says the following...
"Even while I am writing this I am called in my pastoral visitations to attend on a young lady lying on a bed of languishing, and probably of death, one of whose symptoms is a quite diminished, and indeed almost total loss of vision, as the effect of trouble and disease."
As I read this I found myself in the shoes of Albert Barnes. I was sitting in my study writing a commentary about Psalm 6 (as I'm also doing now) and my study of Scripture brings to mind the people to whom I minister and who are in need of encouragement. I could picture myself walking into the hospital to see that young lady... who was soon to die without having lived a full life. What would I say to her? What COULD I say to her? Would opening my mouth do more harm than good?
Barnes wrote this tiny note into his commentary without fear of seeming unprofessional or not scholarly. He included it because the Lord laid it on his heart and it wasn't edited out later. It is truly a pastor's heart to be studying the Word and immediately to relate it to those in need. It's SO the heart of a shepherd to think of his people during his study. Yes he has to think of them to prepare a sermon, but by his very calling he simply can't help it... at any stage of preparation. He's always thinking of how the Word will come to bear on those who need It. We tend to read commentaries forgetting there are real people behind them who are in the middle of real ministry as they write them. It makes me wonder what else were pastors going through as they penned the words of a commentary. How did God use what they were studying at that time in their own personal ministries? I don't know much about Albert Barnes. I just use his notes because E-Sword provides them to me for free. But I do know that he has taught me something tonight about the heart of a shepherd.
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