074. NOT MORE, BUT BETTER, MINISTERS

NOT MORE, BUT BETTER, MINISTERS

I would not have spoken but for the audience I was asked to address and for the subject that occurred to me. I do not know what audience more than this would call forth a man’s highest powers. I feel awestricken when I think of the changes in the world which you educated and able and Christian young men may bring about; I feel still more awe-stricken when I think that God may make my address the means of pointing out to some of you the one path of duty which is also the path of glory. Whether this be the result or not, my subject is one which should interest us all, and I beg you to hear me for my cause. I propose to speak of Qualifications For The Ministry.

There are reasons why every minister and every layman should specially consider it. The ministry is coming to be a profession. As our churches increase in wealth and numbers, young men flock into it. It is a mistake to say that there is a lack of men in the ministry. There is a minister at every crossroads. But of trained and competent ministers, ministers who unite ability and devotion, ministers who have the evangelistic and missionary spirit, there is a sad and a growing lack.

We need to attract the fit men, and to bar out those who are unfit. And since both ministers and laymen are charged with the duty of providing men who know the truth and are able to communicate it, there is not one of us upon whom this subject does not impose serious obligations. What may we fairly demand of those who present themselves as candidates for the sacred office? What may we consider as proper qualifications in ourselves when we seek to enter it? I have no doubt that many men have an exaggerated notion of what is required,—a notion which neither Scripture nor reason substantiates. When I was pastor in Cleveland I saw the sign of a colored barber which read as follows: "John Jones, barber and hairdresser; also, dealer in old clothes; also, cures all chronic diseases." John Jones was what is called "an all-round man." I do not understand the Scripture to demand such a variety of qualifications as this.

There is a diversity of gifts. No minister of the gospel need be a walking encyclopedia or a dynamite cruiser. I am not discussing exceptional cases. Special places and special services have their special claims. While Qualifications for the Ministry is my subject, I would interpret the subject by the question : What qualifications should we, in all ordinary cases, demand of those whom we ordain to the ministry of the gospel? I propose to mention six of these qualifications : natural gifts, general culture, a Christian experience, a divine call, a gospel message, and a spiritual power. You will perceive that the first two—the gifts and the culture— are natural qualifications, while the last four—the experience, the call, the message, and the power—are distinctly supernatural, since only God can bestow them.

Let me first say a word about natural gifts. It is certainly desirable that the preacher should have a ringing voice and a fine presence. But men have been very successful without these. Only recently I heard of an accomplished young man, a graduate of one of our colleges, who longed to preach the gospel, but who was prevented by the fact that he had accidentally lost one of his fingers. He could not bring to God’s altar that which was blind or halt or maimed. respected the scruple, for it indicated a high view of the ministerial office, but I was obliged to tell him that with God mind and heart and will counted for more than mere body.

We have no reason to believe that Jesus our Lord was a model of physical beauty. His face was more marred than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. Of Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, it was said that his bodily presence was weak and his speech contemptible. Christmas Evans, the great Welsh preacher, had lost an eye, and he was called "the oneeyed orator of Anglesey." But Robert Hall said that one eye "could light an army through a wilderness."

Mind and heart and will can make up for physical defects. The greatest natural gift, in my judgment, is one in which all these are united, and I call it the gift of propagandism. It is the aptness to teach of which the apostle speaks. It involves not only the ability to perceive clearly, and to feel deeply, but also the inner impulse to express one’s thought and feeling, and to win others over to the same belief as that which we cherish ourselves. Many men fail in the Christian ministry simply for lack of this spirit of propagandism. They are interested in the gospel as a mere matter of intellectual curiosity; they are men of learning; they rest personally upon Jesus Christ as their Saviour. But they were never born with the will to command others. They are silent, reserved, introspective. Such men may make investigators, but they can never make teachers; and they can never make preachers.

Self-revelation is the business of the preacher. What he knows he must tell. What he believes he must make others believe. When you find a natural propagandist, the man who believes something, feels strongly about it, and is bound that you shall feel as he does, count that as a great gift of God, and ask whether that man has not the mind and heart and will that qualify him for the Christian ministry. But weak men, men who have no ideas of their own, no fervor, no boldness, no power to face other men and to influence them, should keep out of the ministry; and, if they will not keep themselves out, they should be kept out by their brethren; for, if they enter it, they bring the ministry into contempt. "What is needed in the ministry to-day is not more men, but more man." The aptness to teach, which the Scripture requires in the minister, is not simply ability to teach, but also determination to teach.

Natural gifts, however, constitute only the first qualification for a minister of the gospel. There must also be general culture. I do not plead for the highest university and European training for every preacher. I only claim that in each age and in each community those who are to be the leaders of thought must know more than those whom they instruct. No man will sit long under the preaching of one who is his inferior. This does not mean that the preacher is to be a specialist in farming or engineering, but it does mean that the preacher must show himself a fairly competent and cultivated man, if he is to win the confidence of the engineer or the farmer.