A 02 - The Minister In His Personal Life
CHAPTER TWO IN HIS PERSONAL LIFE THE MINISTER IN HIS PERSONAL LIFE THE Minister is a distinct personality from the personality of the MAN. Jesus was a man; but He was more than a man; he was the Son of God. He said and did much as a Son that He could not have done as a man. As God manifest in the flesh He said: “I am the light of the world.” As a man He said: “I am a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Two distinct personalities were in Jesus Christ. Two distinct personalities are in the minister. He is a Man and a Minister. Jesus was man last. He descended from the highest to the lowest; the minister ascends from the lowest to the highest. Minister is higher than man, though man is only a “little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor.” The minister is more than a man, and, therefore, he should be more in his personal life than a man. His ministerial personality should represent his high calling. The chief thing in the gospel dispensation is the personality of Jesus. “I am the truth.”
’ ’ Come unto me. “ “He that believeth on me. ““This is my son.” The cross stands for the “crucified one.” The old dispensation was legal, ceremonial, sacrificial, and symbolical; but, in the fulness of time, God sent forth His Son. The personal element in the gospel is the vital force in salvation. No matter what the theological concept of this personality may be, the spirit of Christianity would disappear, if this personal Savior were left out of the equation of salvation. This same personal element is involved in salvation. “Son, daughter, give me thy heart,” L e, thyself.
Jesus distinctly says, “As the Father hath sent me, so have / sent t/ot*.” That must include a personal ministry. Pulpit ministration is only one function of the minister. His personal life is the largest thing in his ministry. His personal character, habits, influence, attaininents, constitute the largest value in his ministry. In gunnery the rule is, that the gun should be a hundred times the weight of the projectile. In preaching the minister should he a hundred times weightier than his message.
Jesus was always larger than His message or His miracle. What He did was never as large as what He was. No wonder Jesus spent thirty years in preparation and only three years in His public ministry. The most important thing in a minister is to prepare himself. We are all conscious that our ministerial weakness is in ourselves and not in the gospel. ’ ’ The word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Yet we know that we are slow and weak and do not reach the hearts of men. Our sermons are often better than ourselves. The need of the age is not good sermons, but good ministers. We are wise enough but not harmless enough. We have not fully appreciated the importance of ourselves in the ministry. The personal value appears most plainly in the personal fall of a minister. A brilliant ministry may collapse in the personal indiscretion of the minister. The majesty and glory of the ministry of Jesus was in His spotless personality. They attacked His teaching but found no fault in His personal life. The least attention is given to personal training, though most important of all. Literary and theological training are stressed in school and before committees, while personal life is left to the result of forces that work without direction. The minister’s normal habits are the indexes to his real character as expressed in his outward life. Whatever others may do ’he is not at liberty to indulge in games that waste time and contain no element of recreation.
Keeping busy in good service satisfies the public mind and his own conscience. His habits should express his interest in people and in the gospel. “On the job” is a modern phrase that expresses what the public demands. No one objects to recreation and the minister might well take one day out of seven as his day of rest. Saturday or Monday seem to be the natural days from which to make his selection.
He must cultivate the habit of sincerity among the people. There is no room for specials; he must indulge in no hard feelings; his normal attitude must be that of impartiality. His disposition must not be churlish. He must not be grouchy. While he should be pleasant, he must not drop below the dignity of his high calling in Christ Jesus.
Dress is more important in personal life than people imagine. Dress indicates stages in human progress. Trace British progress from the time when naked savages lined the shores of the British Isles till the present time and it will appear that dress is no mean part of that empire’s greatness. Even in our own day savagry appears in our dress without the virtue that goes with savage stages of society. The tendency downward always appears in the fashion plates and the styles that force policemen to arrest women on the streets. The minister and even his family must set a standard of modest dress that common judgment approves. The minister himself must strike a medium ground in dress as well as other personal habits; he must not dress in too clerical a fashion, and he must not put ’himself in the class with the dude, the sport, or society man. Simplicity, neatness, comfort, should characterize his dress. Gay colors, latest cuts, jaunty style, are out of place. Spotless linen is always in taste and a personal asset for the minister. Moreover the minister must not be led into the danger of “gay clothing.” Jas 2:3. His dress and his manner will go together and both should be inconspicuous.
Business enters into the minister’s life as well as all others. Here is a field of danger and opportunity. His life should be exemplary in this field as well as others. Business with the minister should come to him, in the necessities of domestic life, and church enterprises.
He should not court business nor seek wealth; but in all his business duties he should be honest and fair in his dealings. It is a mistake for ministers to think they must keep pace with the styles and luxuries of the age. If possible, debt must be avoided. It is the peril of all men, but especially of the minister. Men will overlook almost everything sooner than an unpaid bill. His example here will mean much to the community. There is no better place for the minister to “deny himself and take up his cross” than here. He needs clothes, he needs books, he needs furniture, he needs food for his family. He is tempted to get them. Anybody will trust him till he quits paying. Remember Jesus “made Himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. ’ ’ Php 2:7. It was this self-denial that made Jesus; though He “had not where to lay His head.” The combination of personal poverty, decency, honesty, and manhood, is the most valuable asset in the minister’s life. Nowhere has a rich and stylish minister been of great value. “They left all and followed Him” is the greatest comment on the early apostles. We are not doing it now; but we ought to do it. The world never needed it more than at the present. Crowns bejewelled above the British crown in the tower of London await the families of ministers who live with him in the plain and simple life that helps the poor to be honest as well as pious. Extravagance is one of the dangers to religion of this age, and the minister’s personal life counts for more than pastoral visit or sermon in this danger field. Extravagance in expenditures leads to extravagance in every line of life.
Those who overspend will overspeak overlive and overpromise. No minister can preach with the incubus of debt upon him, nor with his family leading in the fashions of the day; downright honesty crowns learning, piety, and personal character. The minister cannot excel in business, or luxury, or even learning; his only field is to excel in personal life; and here is the field of largest opportunity to represent Jesus Christ. The minister is no less a social being than other men and his associations and affiliations will enter into his value among men. Jesus attended places of worship, funerals, marriage feasts, dinners, and suppers in private homes, and entered into the social life of His day, with all the ardor and sincerity of His nature. Ministers may follow His example in all the relations that represent the real life of their age; but their ministerial value is reduced when they seek popularity through doubtful associations in social entertainments, political contests, or sporting games. Paul entered the theater, but not as a spectator; “when the city was filled with confusion, they caught Paul’s companions, Gaius and Aristarchus, and rushed them into the theater. “When Paul would have entered in unto the people, the disciples suffered him not. ’ ’ Acts 19:29; Acts 19:30. The minister need not spend all ’his strength in war on dancing, card-playing, and theater-going from his pulpit; but his social life must be a rebuke to all wrong-doing and an example for all sane living. No rule can be fixed for his social relations except he must not subject “himself to adverse criticism by the pious nor be used as an excuse by the godless. Jesus identified himself with no sects, held Himself aloof from no class, lived worthy of the imitation of all and taught purity of speech, purity of thought, and love unfeigned. The minister may exercise his political rights as a citizen, but should avoid partizan controversies and associations, lest he divide the flock. His patriotism should never obscure his Christianity and his political views should not destroy his spiritual influence over men. His personal rights and ministerial duties do not conflict; but in all social relations his ministerial obligations are the largest of all.
Paul was a great scholar, and a great Roman, but he was greatest as a minister. ““What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.” Php 3:8. Political, educational, and reformatory opportunities should have no attraction for the real minister of Christ.
There may be ministers called to these fields; let every minister weigh that question well. Paul exhorts Timothy not to participate in “other men’s sins” in the selection of ministers. He would thereby adopt the sins he overlooked.
Then Paul exhorts him, “Keep thyself pure.” The personal life of the minister is the real asset in his ministry. The winebibber cannot teach temperance, the fornicator virtue, the debtor honesty, the spendthrift economy, nor the despondent man hope. The gospel runs through the minister as the city water through the earth and its purity will be determined by the minister’s life. Amos came from the vineyard; Elisha from the plow; Peter from the fishing smack; Matthew from the receipt of custom; and Paul from the office of a persecutor; but they all represented personalities of great strength and loyalty to Jesus Christ. The schools cannot make ministers; they can only educate them. We think of armies, navies, and forts as our national defenses; but the real strength of the nation is in the shops, stores, fields, schools, churches, and homes of the interior where the arts of peace move on in regular activities, and souls fill temples with quiet praises. It is not the outward utterances from pulpit and platform that represent the real power of the ministry; but away back in the domain of ’his inner thought and affection, where character is crystallized and life is fashioned, that the minister becomes mighty in influence over men. The wealth of the world is not in the rumbling volcano sending forth smoke and fire; but in the quiet mountains where God fashioned the coal, the iron, the lead, and the gold. The volcano attracts the reporter, the mine the investor. Ministers need not court popularity nor the applause o multitudes; let them, rather, furnish thought, example, devotion, and character worthy of approbation and imitation. Men who have undertaken to give us the ministry of Christ have called their writings “The Life of Christ.” All biography follows this example. It is “The Life of Cromwell,” “The Life of George Washington,” “The Life of Luther,” “The Life” should be the largest, the best thing of the minister.