Proclaimer Blog
An Able and Faithful Ministry: piety
In between other things, I’ve been reading James Garrestson’s new biography of Samuel Miller, one of the founders of Princeton Theological Seminary. It prompted me to read his inaugural sermon at the Seminary, preached on the text of 2 Timothy 2 (entitled “an able and faithful ministry” which Garretson then uses as his biography title). It’s a wide ranging sermon, more of a lecture really, but containing some valuable insights on ministry. The sermon is available online here, but I thought I would share some of what he says which still resonates today.
First up, Miller says that every minister needs to have evangelical piety. It is, he says, the “first requisite.” This is – as you might imagine – a kind of mystical mumbo-jumbo that some people assume piety to be, but rather, “that he is a regenerated man; that he has a living faith in that Saviour whom he preaches to others; that the love of Christ habitually constrains him; that he has himself walked those paths of humility, self-denial and holy communion with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, in which it is the business of his life to endeavour to lead his fellow men.”
This is indeed a high calling! And “without piety, he cannot be an able minister.” Miller argues that we too readily get excited about those who want to go into ministry (from his point of view, as families, from ours, more likely as churches) without really seeing any evidence of this godliness. “This kind of destination…is as dangerous as it is unwarranted.”
Moreover, and here it is particularly convicting for those in theological education, we convince ourselves that such institutions are “calculated for training up learned and eloquent men”. Thus, “accursed be all that learning which sets itself in opposition to vital piety! Accursed be all that learning which disguises or is ashamed of vital piety. Accursed be all that learning which is not made subservient to the promotion and the glory of vital piety.”
It’s not that piety is everything (more of that tomorrow). But if it lacking, then a man in ministry is nothing. We might say, to put it in more modern language, that a preacher without a real, living and active faith is destined to destroy both himself and his ministry. All of which is a sobering thought for every preacher and teacher.
“Examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith” (2 Cor 13.5).