Once you see it, you cannot unsee it; once you really read it, you realize it is reading you; once you have wrestled with it for a blessing, you cannot walk away the same. Hebrews 13:17 is a text for both pastors and their people: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.”

The verse speaks about the office of pastor but is written to the whole church. Its truth instructs as well as sobers our souls. As for this passage, stammers John Chrysostom, “though I have mentioned it once already, yet I will break silence about it now, for the fear of its warning is continually agitating my soul” (Treatise Concerning the Christian Priesthood, 6.1). All need to ride along for this single-verse foretaste of the final judgment, where pastors and their people, shepherds and sheep, stand together before the awesome throne of the chief Shepherd.

I hope God will stamp this verse upon our souls and that our communities will never be the same. This verse has had a deep effect on many men of God before us, and boasts a cloud of pastoral witnesses who would counsel us as we pass. I hope to allow a few to speak. Consider, then, Hebrews 13:17 in three parts: (1) the pastor’s business, (2) the pastor’s report, and (3) the response of the church.

The Pastor’s Business

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls . . .

Pastors can lack fruit because pastors can lack clarity. With so many needs and so many differing opportunities for good, pastors can be pulled in as many different directions as he has people. To this, Hebrews 13:17 purifies the pastoral office: his business is to care for souls, to watch over them. As doctors deal with the health of the body, pastors deal with the health of the soul. Summarizes John Owen,

The work and design of these rulers is solely to take care of your souls — by all means to preserve them from evil, sin, backsliding; to instruct and feed them; to promote their faith and obedience; that they may be led safely to eternal rest. For this end is their office appointed, and herein do they labor continually. (An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 4:454)

Pastors keep their eyes on souls and seek to lead them safely to eternal rest — an ambition “without which [pastor] is an empty name.” To see how this charge focuses the work, consider more carefully the words souls and keeping watch.

Souls. The soul is that part of a man, woman, child that shall live forever, somewhere. Do you appreciate the value of your soul — that which Jesus tells you not to barter for the world and all its pleasures (Matthew 16:26)? Pastors, do you appreciate the awful greatness of your stewardship? Lemuel Haynes puts it bluntly: “The man who does not appreciate the worth of souls and is not greatly affected with their dangerous situation is not qualified for the sacred office” (Collected Writings of Lemuel Haynes, 183).

“As doctors deal with the health of the body, pastors deal with the health of the soul.”

Notice, we are discussing the work of a pastor, not just a preacher. Keeping watch over souls entails receiving information, not just giving it. When many think of pastoring, they think about standing up front, mic turned on, Bible open. But how many want the long hours with souls — asking and listening, speaking and repeating, praying and encouraging and correcting, house after house, family after family?

How does a pastor fulfill this charge? Practically, soul-watching includes at least three activities: knowing, feeding, and warning.

1. Knowing

The pastor deals not only with the differing spiritual conditions of his own soul and the souls of his family, but with dozens more simultaneously. How variable their conditions, how varying the remedies. See them there: Some are drawing swords against Apollyon; others pant, climbing Hill Difficulty; still others submerge neck-deep in the Slough of Despond. A few feast within Palace Beautiful, but more window-shop at Vanity Fair or receive bruises from Giant Despair. Flatterer seduces; Demas beckons; Lord Hate-Good is still hating good. What few aids to the Celestial City, and what towering opposition. How needful are pastors?

The pastoral plurality must regularly acquaint themselves with each member’s state. Paul commands, “Pay careful attention to . . . all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers” (Acts 20:28). To “all the flock,” not “favorite sheep”; “careful attention,” not “occasional glances.”

How? By being with them. Inquire into their love for Christ, their time in the word and prayer, their fellowship in the church, the presence of family worship in their homes. Eat meals together, pray together, sing together, and open the word together. Develop care records and organize your prayer life so that none fall through the cracks. Make time to counsel, and be intentional to press past life updates to see how is it with their souls. Are they beginning to doubt, walking in sin, growing in grace? Are they still traveling safely toward Immanuel’s land?

2. Feeding

We know them, and then we feed them. With what? These leaders have already been described as “those who spoke to you the word of God” (Hebrews 13:7). These men spoke, “Thus says the Lord” and “Behold your God!”

Oh, to have his word! Not just to preach it (though we love that too) but to sit with sinners, sufferers, and unsatisfied ones — to address the soul’s raw wounds with the balm of the word that reveals our God.

Caesarius of Arles gives us examples:

[The minister applies] heavenly remedies, saying to each sinner: Do not be proud, brother, because it is written: “God resists the proud.” Do not be angry, because we read: “Anger lodges in the bosom of a fool”; and again: “The wrath of man does not work the justice of God.” If they perchance see disobedience, they say kindly and humbly: Do not be disobedient, brother, because it is written . . . “Obey your superiors and be subject to them, for they keep watch as having to render an account of your souls.” . . . If by speaking well he recognizes that he is Christ’s helper and a defender of justice, let him rejoice and give thanks to God, and with his help let him persevere to the end, for not he who has begun, but he who “Perseveres shall be saved.” (Sermons of St. Caesarius of Arles, 2:352–53)

Pastors strive to lend a listening ear and bless with a Scripture-speaking mouth. Apply the heavenly remedies.

3. Warning

“Keeping watch over your souls” is no mere sightseeing assignment. Elders watch from the high tower of the watchman given in Ezekiel.

Son of man, I have made [you] a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. (Ezekiel 33:7–8)

We are not at peace; a holy war rages, and our enemy cannot spell surrender. Lemuel Haynes describes it this way:

When soldiers are called forth, and sentinels stand upon the wall, it denotes war. The souls of men are environed with ten thousand enemies that are seeking their ruin. Earth and hell are combined together to destroy. How many already have fallen victims to their ferocity! The infernal powers are daily dragging their prey to the prison of hell. (Collected Writings, 45)

And so, we must warn — men, women, and children. We cannot be blind watchmen, “silent dogs [who] cannot bark” (Isaiah 56:10). “Pretend not to love them,” corrects Richard Baxter, “if you favor their sins, and seek not their salvation. . . . If you be their best friends, help them against their worst enemies” (The Reformed Pastor, 100).

As ministers, we know, feed, and warn against the soul’s enemies for the Christian’s eternal good and Christ’s honor.

The Pastor’s Report

Now, the pastor’s report: How did he, with his fellow elders, keep watch over their souls?

It is this part of the text that disquieted John Chrysostom: “Our condition here, indeed, is such as thou hast heard. But our condition hereafter how shall we endure, when we are compelled to give our account for each of those who have been entrusted to us?” (Treatise Concerning the Christian Priesthood, 6.1). Undershepherds are accountable shepherds. And what shall a negligent shepherd say on that great day?

Let’s consider it both negatively and positively. First, imagine the horror of a negligent pastor seeing those under his care led away to judgment. Philip Doddridge paints the chilling scene:

It is a tragic spectacle to behold a criminal dying by human laws, even where the methods of execution are gentle . . . and I doubt not but it would grieve us to the heart to see any who had been under our ministerial care in that deplorable circumstance. But, oh, how much more deeply must it pierce our very souls to see them led forth to that dreadful execution, with those of whom Christ shall say, “As for these Mine enemies, who would not that I should reign over them, bring them forth, and slay them before Me!” Oh, how will it wound us to hear the beginning of those cries and wailings which must never end! How shall we endure the reflection, “These wretches are perishing forever, in part because I would not take any pains to attempt their salvation!” (The Evil and Danger of Neglecting the Souls of Men, 27)

Yet on the other side of that heavy contemplation, see the equally dense delight of seeing them enter glory, as pictured by Haynes:

Ministers will meet the pious part of their congregations with great rejoicing, especially those to whom they had been instrumental in saving good. Such will be the ministers’ own crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus. . . . Ministers and their people when they have finished their course will remember those Bethel visits that they have enjoyed in the sanctuary and around the Table of the Lord and the sweet counsel they have taken together. They will remember the seasonable reproofs given to each other, and whatever differences have taken place between them will all be forgiven and forever exterminated. They will see the wisdom and goodness of God in all these things. Thus when the ministers of Christ have finished their course, that will put an end to all their troubles; and so their ministry will end or issue in their unspeakable joy and consolation. (Collected Writings, 189–90)

May we all know such unspeakable joy and consolation with our people on that great Day.

A Word to the Sheep

Finally, how should the church respond? We do not need to search for an application: care for your pastor’s soul. How? Hear the verse in full:

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

The author places the happy obedience of the sheep in the shadow of the great pastoral task on their behalf. John Calvin helps us feel the connection:

His meaning is, that the heavier the burden they bear, the more honor they deserve; for the more labor any one undertakes for our sake, and the more difficulty and danger he incurs for us, the greater are our obligations to him. And such is the office of [pastors], that it involves the greatest labor and the greatest danger; if, then, we wish to be grateful, we can hardly render to them that which is due; and especially, as they are to give an account of us to God, it would be disgraceful for us to make no account of them. (Commentary on Hebrews)

Some need to be reminded to obey your pastors — and how could you not if they be true pastors keeping watch over your soul? Consider how they have your best in mind. Consider what burdens they bear on your behalf, what judgment they venture for your good. Should you make their job heavier than it is by ignoring their teaching, counsel, and correction?

O church, consider how mountainous is their task and how serious their coming judgment, and let the pastors do this work — this eternal work, this trembling work, this hard and sad and sometimes lonely work — with joy, and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to them or to you.