Proclaimer Blog
An Able and Faithful Ministry: talents
Following on from yesterday’s post about Samuel Miller, he spends just a short time in his inaugural sermon talking about talents. This is second qualification for an able and faithful ministry after piety. He is helpfully realistic: “not every minister must, of necessity, be a man of genius.” To which many of us breathe a sigh of relief. It’s something that’s worth picking up on, however. We aspire, of course, to be the best preachers we can be. But we are not all Stott or Lloyd-Jones or Lucas, and – guess what – that’s fine! We can burden ourselves with too much self-expectation.
What is interesting when it comes to talents is that Samuel Miller, to the normal abilities to teach (what doctor would ever be allowed to practise, he argues, without some demonstrable ability), turns his attention to what he calls “good sense.” Without this, he says, the effectiveness of a preacher will be seriously curtailed.
“Though a minister concentrated himself in all the piety and all the learning of the Christian church, yet if he had not a decent stock of good sense, for directing and applying his other qualifications, he would be worse than useless. Upon good sense depends all that is dignified, prudent, conciliatory, and respectable in private deportment; and all that is judicious, seasonable and calculated to edify in public ministration.” A minister without good sense, he argues, will end up in “drivelling childishness” which will bring the ministry and the Bible into contempt.
Not one to mince his words! How does he justify this biblically? Simple: he takes Jesus’ words in Matthew 10.16 and says that “good sense” is shorthand for being “as wise as serpents, as harmless as doves.”
There’s something in this for those in ministry today, including myself. We live in an angry world, where rights are claimed over responsibilities offered. We live in a litigious world, greedy for money. We live in an advertising world, where all kinds of shameless strategies are used to lure us into giving up our hard earned cash. We live in an infantile world, the world of the prank, where we trick others and then laugh at their reactions. In this climate, the preacher of the gospel of grace must be different. He must surely have good sense.
Matthew 10.16 is only a short verse. But it’s worth thinking about, working through and praying in.