01.04. THE INDIVIDUAL MESSAGE OF THE MINISTRY
CHAPTER IV THE INDIVIDUAL MESSAGE OF THE MINISTRY The prophet, says Ewald, is one who "has seen or heard something which does not concern himself, or not himself alone, which will not let him rest, for which he must work by his words... He has exactly the feeling of having received a special trust, a mission, an errand from his God, distinctly to declare, in spite of all hindrances, at the right place the higher voice which he cannot any longer hide and suppress within him. He acts and speaks not of his own accord; a higher One impels him, to resist whom is sin; it is his God, who is also the God of those to whom he must speak. And those to whom he speaks often come by his proclamation to feel their God as alive within them; they hear what they sought for but did not find; they surmise and recognize in him who declares to them what they had long sought, the preacher and interpreter of his own and their God, the mediator between them and God." [1] It is this divine impulse supplying the motive, this divine theme furnishing the message, and this divine object to bring men to feel their God as alive within them, which distinguishes the [1] G. H. A. von Ewald: Prophets of the Old Testament, i, 7.
Christian minister from men of other professions, which in some respects closely resemble his own.
He is both like and unlike the journalist, the author, the teacher, and the moral reformer. A comparison of the Christian ministry with these analogous professions will help to make clear his specific function.
I. The office of the journalist is twofold: to report the history of the day, and to interpret its meaning. In the first work, that of reporter, the modern American press exhibits great enterprise, though not always great discrimination; in the second work, that of interpreter, it is not always equally successful. Its interpretations are affected by the demands of its subscribers, by the interests of its advertisers, by the relation of events to its favored political or ecclesiastical organization; and when it escapes all these belittling, if not malign influences, it is still apt to consider the immediate, not the ultimate, the provincial, not the world-wide, effect of the event whose significance it endeavors to explain. The minister is not a reporter of events. He may on occasion make himself one by a first-hand study of some public incident on which he wishes to speak.
He may go to the coal-fields of Pennsylvania during a great coal strike, or to Colorado during a time of mob law, and return to give his congregation the results of his investigations. It is always doubtful, however, whether he can investigate as well as the trained reporter, or secure as accurate and trustworthy results as he might secure by a careful collection and comparison of different newspaper reports. On the other hand, the work of interpretation is sometimes the minister’s; all the more so, because this function is so often ignored, refused, or ill performed by the journalist. He may take a current event for his text, as Christ on one occasion took the massacre of the Galileans and the disaster at the tower of Siloam for a text. [1] The application of eternal principles to current problems may often be his duty, as it was the duty, courageously fulfilled, by the Hebrew prophets. In this work of interpreting public events there are three principles by which the minister should be guided.
He should beware of preaching to the newspapers; beware of selecting a topic because the general public is interested in it and he shares the general interest. The sermon is a message to the congregation that listens to the preacher, and to none other. If, as the minister thinks of that congregation, of the men immersed in the temptations of business life, of wives and mothers wearied with household cares, or alternately dazzled and satiated with society charms, of the young men and maidens with their eager hopes, their perilous surroundings, their vibrant life, the theme which it appears to him will help them most in the experiences of the [1] Luke 13:1-5. coming week is the coal strike in Pennsylvania or the mob law in Colorado, he may make that his theme. But he should select it solely because it is what his congregation needs, not because it is what the daily press are talking about.
If he selects such a theme, he should speak of the duties of his own congregation. He should not chide the violence of workingmen in preaching to a congregation of employers, or the greed of capitalists in preaching to a congregation of workingmen, or the superstition and ignorance of negroes in preaching to Anglo-Saxons, or the cruelty of an AngloSaxon mob in preaching to a congregation of negroes.
If every white preacher would preach to inspire white men to take up the white men’s burden, and every negro preacher to inspire negro men to bear bravely their black men’s burden, and every preacher to employers would speak of the duties of employers to the employed, and every preacher to workingmen of the duties of workingmen to their employers, the race problem and the labor problem would be much nearer their solution than they are to-day. Class preaching can have but one effect, - to intensify class prejudice and widen the gulf between the classes; and class preaching, by which I mean preaching to one class on the sins and the duties of another class, is unfortunately very common in America. In preaching on current events the minister should interpret those events in the light of eternal principles. He should measure them by their relation, not to a party, nor to a church, but to the kingdom of God. He should tell us whether they are promoting or hindering that righteousness and peace and joy which constitute the kingdom of God. He should give to his congregation the light which is thrown upon such events by the Beatitudes and the Golden Kule. He should get for himself, and give to his congregation, the long look, should treat current events in the spirit in which the Hebrew prophets treated them, should judge them not by twentieth-century standards, but by the standards of the Last Great Day. These three principles are all illustrated by Christ’s method; thus, on the occasion to which I have alluded above,[1] he preached to his immediate auditors, he turned their thoughts from the calamity which had befallen others to the sins which they themselves had perpetrated, and he brought to bear on those sins the light of the last judgment.
II. Literature, " in its more restricted sense," is defined by the Century Dictionary as " the class of writings in which expression and form in connection with ideas of permanent or universal interest are characteristic or essential features." The sermon, then, is literature, and the preacher an author; for the sermon is a writing or speech " in which expression and form in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interest are characteristic and 1 See ante, p. 110. essential features." And yet the difference between the work of the preacher and the work of the author, whether poet, dramatist, novelist, historian, biographer, or essayist, is fundamental. The emphasis of the author is on the form and expression, of the preacher on the ideas of permanent and universal interest; the object of the author is to interest, of the preacher to convince and comfort; the author seeks to interpret life, the preacher to impart life; if the poem, the novel, the biography, the history, or even the essay is didactic, it is defective; if the sermon is not didactic, it is no true sermon. We ask concerning the book, Is it artistic? The sermon is sometimes the more effective for being inartistic. In brief, the author is an artist; the test of his book, poem, or story is its artistic quality. The preacher is not an artist; the test of his sermon is its life giving power. A sermon is not an oration. If there can be anything more foolish than for a congregation to imagine that one man can give fifty-two orations a year, it is for that man himself to imagine that he can do so. The great orators of history, Demosthenes, Cicero, Burke, Chatham, Webster, Calhoun, Sumner, have given possibly a score of orations in a lifetime. It would be preposterous to expect from a minister two score of orations and more a year. The power of a sermon is interpreted in that Roman Catholic title for the priest, - Father. The father gathers his children about him in the gloaming and talks to them; tells them a story, gives them counsel. It is not an artistic story; it is not very eloquent counsel. If it were taken down by a shorthand writer and printed in a book, it would not be read by a great number of readers. But the children want it, and they would rather have the counsel that father gives than any other counsel from any other man. Its power is due to the personal relation. The power of the sermon must be the power of a personal relation; the counsel of a personal friend to personal friends; the revelation of God by a soul full of his Spirit to a congregation who need him.
Preachers should be afraid of great sermons; their congregations are. The minister may, perhaps, preach one occasionally by accident, but it always ought to be an accident. The value of the sermon lies in its power to impart life to the congregation.
If the congregation go away admiring the sermon, the minister has failed; if they go away forgetting the sermon, but carrying with them an impulse to a new life, coming they know not whence or how, he has succeeded. If, when he has preached his sermon, some one comes up after the service and says, " That was a great sermon you gave us this morning," let the preacher go home for an hour of humiliation, fasting, and prayer; but if he says, " Thank you! you helped me this morning," let the preacher go home to give God thanks.
III. The preacher is a teacher, but more than a teacher. The two professions are alike in that they both aim at the development of character through the ministry of truth. And yet they differ, both in the immediate object of their respective vocations and in the ultimate source of their power. They both address themselves to the will; but the one reaches it indirectly through the intellectual powers, the other directly through the motive powers.
It is the function of the teacher to gather out of the reservoired experience of the past what it has for us and give it to the oncoming generation. We wonder sometimes that the world does not grow wise more rapidly. Six thousand years, and so little progress! Not six thousand years; the world of men is only about forty or fifty years old, sixty at the utmost; for the world of men is no older than a generation. The babes come into the infant school knowing no more than their fathers knew, and, when they have learned what this life has to teach them, they go out into whatever school there lies beyond, we know not. It is the function of the teacher to take the reservoired experience of the past and give as much of it as is possible to the children as they come upon the stage. In this educational process, control, discipline, training, are necessary, but they are incidental and subsidiary. As the process of education goes on, this disciplinary work lessens, and finally disappears in the university, where there is practically no discipline, and the pupils are left to self-government. The education itself also tends to affect the character in the springs of action.
Thus mathematics perfectly taught tends to develop exactitude of character, and literature breadth of human sympathy. But this tendency again is incidental and subsidiary. The object of the teacher is to give his pupils the benefit of the world’s experience, and he largely leaves that experience to convey its own lessons. The best teachers moralize but little. The preacher, on the other hand, appeals not to the experience of mankind, but to the intuitions of the individual soul; he does not seek to inform a pupil as to the experiences of others, he endeavors to awaken in the heart of his hearer a new experience. His object is to bring the individual soul into communion with the living God, and so inspire in him a life of loyalty to God, and to do this by inspiring in the individual such a perception of the Infinite, manifested in Jesus Christ, as will awaken in him the desire, and form within him the purpose, to lead a Christlike life and attain a Christlike character. Let us recur to Professor Huxley’s definition of education: " Education is the instruction of intellect in the laws of nature... and the fashioning of the affections and the will into an earnest and loving desire to be in harmony with those laws." [1] It is the primary work of the teacher to instruct the intellect, the primary work of the ministry to fashion the affections and the will, the first furnishes information, the second power;
[1] See ante, p. 58. the first develops the observing and reasoning faculties, the second the motives; the first trains the pilot, the second educates the engineer. No doubt the teacher promotes morality, and the preacher intelligence; but intelligence is the professed aim of the teacher, and morality the professed aim of the preacher; the specific work of the teacher is training, of the preacher inspiration. But even more than the difference in the respective aims of the teacher and the preacher is the difference in the secret of their power. The teacher draws upon the outward and visible experience of mankind, the preacher appeals to the inner and the spiritual life of men; the power of the one is learning, of the other piety; the one imparts what he has acquired from the experience of others, the other transmits what he has received from his God. No one can be a good teacher without scholarship, because it is the function of the teacher to impart to others what scholarship has imparted to him; but there have been many efficient teachers not remarkable for their godliness.. No one can be a good preacher without godliness, because it is the function of the preacher to give men acquaintance with God; but there have been many effective preachers who were not scholars. Says Herbert Spencer, Unlike the ordinary consciousness, the religious consciousness is concerned with that which lies beyond the sphere of sense. A brute thinks only of the things which can be seen, heard, tested, etc, and the like is true of the untaught child, the deaf-mute, and the lowest savage. But the developing man has thoughts about existences which he regards as usually intangible, inaudible, invisible; and yet which he regards as operative upon him. [1] The teacher deals primarily with the ordinary consciousness, and his power depends upon his accurate knowledge of what lies within the sphere of sense; the preacher deals with that which lies beyond the ordinary consciousness, and his power depends on his ability to make real to men and operative upon them a spiritual world which is intangible, inaudible, and invisible. The teacher draws his lessons from what has been, the preacher awakens a hope of what yet may be; the teacher conveys a knowledge of the actual, the preacher inspires a conception of the possible; the teacher enforces wisdom by lessons drawn from the history of past experience, the preacher presents a realized ideal of life in a Divine Person who teaches us the principles of life, and reveals to us the spirit of life, and so shows us what we may ourselves become.[2] IV. The minister is a moral reformer, but he is more than a moral reformer, and he makes a mistake [1] Herbert Spencer: Religious Retrospect and Prospect, " Ecclesiastical Institutions," p. 827.
[2] See this distinction between secular teaching and the work of the preacher stated with characteristic clearness and beauty by James Martineau, in " Factors of Spiritual Growth in Modern Society," Essays, iv, 75-91. if he substitutes leading a moral reform for preaching the gospel.
Out of personal sins grow social abuses; out of self-indulgent appetite, the saloon; out of ambition, political despotism; out of covetousness, industrial oppression. The reformer attacks the social abuse, - the saloon, the political despotism, the industrial oppression. The minister may or may not join with him in this attack. Whether he does or not will depend partly upon his temperament, partly upon the nature of the institutions of his country, partly upon the conditions of the time in which he lives. But whatever his temperament, whatever the institutions or the conditions of his time, if he is a true preacher he is not content merely to attack the social abuses which have grown out of personal sin.
He will seek to extirpate the appetite, not merely to overthrow the saloon; to inspire ambition with the spirit of service, not merely to destroy the monarchy, the machine, or the boss; to make acquisitiveness subservient to benevolence, not merely to substitute free labor for slavery, or a socialistic order for unregulated competition. For he sees that unregulated appetite is responsible for the dyspeptic as well as for the drunkard, that ignoble ambition substitutes the irresponsible boss for the absolute czar, and greed of wealth inflicts parallel if not equal cruelties on the slaves of America, the serfs in Russia, and the factory hands in England.
If the minister attacks injurious social or political forces, as slavery in industry or monarchy in government, it is because these forms violate the laws of God, thwart the free development of the individual, and prevent the consummation of the kingdom of God. To the moral reformer reform is an end, to the preacher it is only a means. His object is always the life of God in the soul of man, and so the kingdom of God in the social order. [1] His inspiration is always the love of God, and of men as the children of God, and a hope in him as the Redeemer of the world.
Henry Ward Beecher was, partly owing to his temperament, partly to his Puritan education, and partly to the times in which he lived, preeminently a moral reformer. But no one has stated more clearly than he this principle, that to the preacher moral reform ought always to be a means, not an end, the end being the kingdom of God, and that to him the inspiration ought to be not merely humanity, but love for and loyalty to Jesus Christ. Our highest and strongest reason for seeking justice among men is not the benefit to men themselves, exceedingly strong as that motive is and ought to be. We do not join the movement party of our times simply because we are inspired by an inward and constitutional benevolence. We are conscious of both these motives and of many other collateral ones; but we are earnestly conscious of another feeling stronger than either, that lives unimpaired when these faint, yea, that gives vigor [1] See ante, chap, ii, pp. 47-54. and persistence to these feelings when they are discouraged; and that is a strong, personal, enthusiastic love for Jesus Christ. I regard the movement of the world toward justice and rectitude to be of His inspiration.
I believe my own aspirations, having a base in my natural faculties, to be influenced and directed by Christ’s spirit. The mingled affection and adoration which I feel for Him is the strongest feeling that I know.
Whether I will or not, whether it be a phantasy or a sober sentiment, the fact is the same nevertheless, that that which will give pleasure to Christ’s heart and bring to my consciousness a smile of gladness on His face in behalf of my endeavor, is incalculably more to me than any other motive. I would work for the slave for his own sake, but I am sure that I would work ten times as earnestly for the slave for Christ’s sake. [1]
V. But the minister is not only more than a journalist, an author, a secular teacher, or a moral reformer; he is also more than a teacher of theology.
Theology is not religion. Keligion is the life of God in the soul of man; theology is what philosophers have thought about that life. The scorn for creeds is a thoughtless scorn. He who says, I do not believe in creeds, expresses a creed by that saying. " I do not believe in creeds "is his creed. Whoever thinks on any subject to a purpose and with a result has a creed, for the result is his creed. If he thinks on politics and is a freetrader, free-trade is his creed; if on sociology and [1] Henry Ward Beecher: Quoted in Biography by Mrs. Beecher et al, p. 269; in Biography by Lyman Abbott, pp. 193, 194. is an individualist, individualism is his creed; if he thinks to any purpose on religion, the result of that thinking is his creed. " Religion is a weakness which a man must outgrow on attaining maturity " is the creed of David Friedrich Strauss. [1] This is as truly a creed as is the Westminster Confession of Faith or the Thirty-nine Articles. But though creeds are important and are a necessary result of serious thinking, they are not life.
Theology is important, but it is not religion. Astronomy is what men think about stars, but astronomy is not stars; botany is what men think about flowers, but botany is not flowers; so theology is what men think about the life of God in the soul of man, but theology is not the life of God in the soul of man, and it cannot take the place of that life.
Men come to church for religion: that is, for life. To be more specific, they come for the fruit of the Spirit: for love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, serviceableness, fidelity, meekness, self control. When they get only theology, that is, only what philosophers have thought about this fruit of the Spirit, and the cause which produces it, and the methods of its development, and the consequences of lacking it, they go away dissatisfied.
To-morrow morning the reader will go down to breakfast and will expect his rolls and coffee; if instead of rolls and coffee his wife should read him a lecture on hygiene, he would go away dissatisfied;
[1] See ante, p. 35. and if that should happen often, he would go somewhere else for breakfast. It is quite important that the housewife should understand the principles of hygiene in order that she may know how to prepare breakfast; but what we want is breakfast, not a lecture on hygiene. So what men and women go to church for is religion, not a lecture about religion; and when they go to church and get, not religion, but a philosophy about religion, they stop going.
It is not strange.
Next Sunday morning a man comes to church.
He is dissatisfied with himself. He has wasted his time; he has been mean in business; he has been cross with his wife; he has been tyrannical with his children; he is half conscious of it, and is discontented with himself. Perhaps his feelings are deeper. Perhaps he looks back on a life that has been thrown away; perhaps he has deep within himself the feeling that he dares not meet his God, and dares not face the future, and, so feeling, goes to church. The preacher announces his text and proceeds to give him a lecture on the atonement.
He explains to him that there is a theory of the atonement that Christ died to satisfy the wrath of God; a theory that Christ died to satisfy the law of God; a theory that Christ died in order to produce a certain impression on the human mind; a theory that Christ died in order to impart the life of God to man; and then, at the end, the preacher, in order to make it sound like a sermon, closes with the exhortation, "Accept Christ and be saved;" and the man goes away unsatisfied. He goes to another church, and another preacher takes the same text and preaches also on the atonement. But he has before him this aching, hungering, needy heart, and he says to his congregation, " When you hear these words, « Prepare to meet your God,’ are you afraid to meet him? I tell you that Christ has died, and whatever wrath there is in God against sin is met and answered, and God’s love is offered to you. Do you say, ’ God may forgive me, but I cannot forgive myself; his law rises up against me; and my own conscience condemns me? ’ I tell you that his law is satisfied, and his Son, your Saviour, has come to bring you peace. Do you say, ’I do not repent; I cannot repent; nothing that I have done to another or to myself moves me? ’ I tell you Christ died for you. I put before you his bleeding hands and feet and pierced heart that you may know what God’s love is, that God’s love may move you. Do you say, ’ I cannot arise; I cannot feel; I am dead? ’ I tell you that the crucified Christ stands at the door of the grave and says, ’ Lazarus, come forth! ’ I tell you that God loves us and raises us up even when we are dead in trespasses and sins. Arise, begin a new life, for you are a new man if you choose to be a new man." One has delivered a lecture, the other has preached a sermon. One has given his congregation theology, the other has given them religion. Or perhaps it is a mother who has come to the church. She has had a hard week and is tired out. The children have been cross, the husband has been impatient, or indifferent and unloving; the cook has left without notice; everything has gone wrong. The wearied wife thinks it is hardly worth while trying to live any longer. She questions whether she will go to church, whether she would not better stay at home and read a book. But habit is strong upon her, and she goes. The minister takes for his text, " Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God." [1] " Now," she says, " I am going to get a sermon of comfort." The minister proceeds to give her a lecture on the Higher Criticism. He says: " It used to be thought that there was but one Isaiah; but there are two Isaiahs - at least two, perhaps a score, and I am going to prove it to you." And then he puts on his boxing-gloves and begins to attack the old traditions. There are always a few people in every congregation who admire the courage of such a man, though it really does not require much courage to conduct a boxing-match with a stuffed dummy.
Others - a few - wonder at the learning, saying, " What a scholarly minister we have got! " But the poor mother goes back to her home and says (that is, she would say it if she dared, even to herself), " I really would have done better had I stayed at home and read a good story." And so far as [1] Isaiah 40:1. the sermon is concerned she is right; she would have done better. On the other hand, another minister, who believes that there are two Isaiahs, preaches on this same text. He says nothing about two Isaiahs, but he uses his conviction that the second Isaiah lived toward the close of the exile. He says, "This people Israel had sinned against God; their life had gone awry; they had been carried away from their homes; they had spent seventy years in exile; they were discouraged; they believed God had deserted them, that he had forgotten them, that he cared no more for them. Then came this message to the prophet, « Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God; ye have received double for all your sins.’ Even the prophet could not believe the words, and he said, I What kind of a message can I bring to thy people? They are but grass. They are perishing.’ And the answer came back to him, ’ Though they are but grass and perish, the word of God endureth for ever.
Take comfort and be strong.[1] Then, with this mother in his mind, and with similar weary, worn, discouraged hearts in his mind, the minister says, " You think there is no God. Have you more reason to think that there is no God than had Judea in exile? You are discouraged. Have you more reason to be discouraged than they had? You have sinned and think that you are suffering the punishment [1] Isaiah 40:1 ff. for your sins, and that there is no help for you. Have you more reason to think that there is no help for you than they had? Have you sinned more than Judah had sinned? To you, in your loneliness, your discouragement, your remorse, the message of the Gospel is, ’Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.’ " And the minister brings comfort to this mother, and sends her back with new hope in her heart, and she will come next Sunday. The one preacher has lectured on the Higher Criticism, the other has used it.
What I have said here respecting the difference between religion and theology, and the demand of congregations for religion rather than for theology, I said some years ago in an address delivered to a ministerial gathering in New England. The address was published in " The Outlook," and it brought to me from a correspondent the following letter, I should like to ask one question: Do you not think that with the burdened man and the grieving woman there comes also to church the person whose difficulties are intellectual, who doubts, to whom the old orthodoxy has almost closed the way of faith, and who needs, who hungers for, an exposition of truth almost theological?
I can conceive such a one enlightened, brought to the Cross indeed, by a discussion of the theories of the Atonement in which difficulties and misconceptions were removed. Of course, what such a person needs is the fact of an atonement rather than the theory explaining it; but to explode some of the theories might open the way to the fact, the reality. Your own preaching, it seems to me, has been peculiarly to the class who have been led to a larger religion through a simpler and truer theology. [1] The answer to this letter is twofold. First, the minister may sometimes be simply a teacher. He may give lectures in place of sermons. He may tell his congregation in a series of lectures what is the New Theology, or what is the New Criticism, or what is the New Sociology. This is often an advantageous thing to do; but he should understand clearly the difference between teaching and preaching, between a lecture and a sermon. It is also true that it is one function of the preacher, in and through his sermon, to correct misapprehensions and remove intellectual difficulties; but he should never forget that his object in preaching should be to remove those intellectual difficulties which prevent the development of the spiritual life, and because they prevent the development of the spiritual life; that his aim must always be, not the elucidation of theology, but the impartation of life. The world is not saved by theology, either old or new; it is saved by the life of God imparted to the soul of man.
There is, as Martineau has said, plenty of scope for the young prophet who will bring into his mission the rationality and veracity of modern thought, provided it is accompanied with the faith and fervor which accompanied the ancient thought. But [1] The Outlook, December 9, 1899. rationality and veracity of modern thought are powerless to do the work of the ministry unless they are vitalized by and made a vehicle for a simple faith and a sincere fervor. To sum this chapter up in a paragraph: The minister is sometimes an interpreter of current events, but he is more than a journalist; his sermons should be literature, but he is more than an author; he is an instructor in truth, but he is more than a teacher; he seeks the regeneration of society, but he is more than a moral reformer; he is a teacher of the truth about God, but he is more than a teacher of theology. He is a minister of religion, that is, of the life of God in the soul of man. The spiritual hunger of humanity is well expressed in the words of the General Confession: " We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us. But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare Thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore Thou those who are penitent; according to Thy promises declared unto mankind, in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for His sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of Thy holy name." [1] The message of the Christian minister is the answer of the Gospel to this " cry of the human."
[1] Book of Common Prayer.
It is the message of Jesus Christ to the woman that was a sinner, " Thy sins are forgiven; " it is the message of Jesus Christ to the fishermen, " Follow me; " it is the message of Jesus Christ to his disciples bereft of his presence for a second time by the Ascension, " Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you." It is the threefold message of pardon for the past, guidance for the future, and power to achieve. The mission of the Christian minister is interpreted for him by his Master’s commission, " Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." [1] He is to bring men into living connection with the living God; he is to inspire them with the purpose to possess the spirit and follow the example of Jesus Christ; he is to teach them what following Christ in this twentieth century involves. The mission of the minister is interpreted for him by the words of the Apostle Paul: " And he gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the holy in the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all come unto the unity of the faith and of the perfect knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect manhood, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."
1 Matthew 28:19-20.