The Requisites of True Ministry—No.1

In the first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul is really proclaiming his burden of heart for those who have already been won by his preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They have been brought into church fellowship, but their experience in church membership is not satisfactory. And it is that to which he is addressing himself in this epistle.

Something had come into the lives and ex­perience of that people for whom he had wrestled and prayed, and in behalf of whom he had been used of God in presenting the truth and in bringing them to Christ. Their de­velopment, however, had been unsatisfactory. There was contention; there was division. And wherever there is contention or division in the church of God, there is selfishness and weakness somewhere in the hearts of some of its members. Put those conditions together in church life, and the result is inevitably un­satisfactory. Give the devil control of the feelings, the heart, or the understanding of someone, and that one will think crookedly and lead others to think crookedly. And out of that wrong thinking will grow a situation that misrepresents the gospel of our Saviour.

I have had much to do with such situations in church experience, and I am talking to men who have had much to do with such problems. I confidently believe that your experience is exactly what mine is in measuring the factors that go to make up such situations,—that you have never found a contentious church troubled about anything that is really vital Almost without exception it is something petty and childish that causes serious church troubles—small things which should not seriously occupy the attention of adults, and which could never beget dissension if self were yielded to God, and such matters were measured from the other person's viewpoint.

It was that sort of thing coming into the experience of the church at Corinth that was spoiling the experience of those dear souls in their relation to Jesus Christ. Meeting that situation in this second chapter, Paul goes back and recounts the experience that he himself had had in coming at the first to Corinth to preach the gospel. It must have been very satisfactory to Paul, in view of the serious situ­ation that had developed, to be able in review of his own experience to find his motive, his purpose, and his life in his first labors for that people absolutely satisfactory. It surely must have been a comfort to him now to find that in his approach to his work for those Corinthians he was determined to know noth­ing among them "save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified."

Examining again his own attitude toward that service, he recognized that it had been absolutely unselfish. In it he found nothing with which to reproach himself. He had summed it up and gone over it all, and he was able to set it down in the pages of his epistle that the trouble was in no way due to the way the church had been raised up—not anything in Paul's personal experience, in the spirit he manifested, in the message he preached, in the objective that he had in preaching that mes­sage, or in anything that had to do with the good work that he there had wrought for God.

Paul looked back over his own experience and said, "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him cruci­fied." What was it that he knew? He knew Christ. How did he know Christ?—Crucified. What does it mean to know Christ crucified? It means to know Christ as a personal Saviour. What does that mean? It means to have our sins washed away by the precious blood of Christ. Facing a situation of contention and division in the church at Corinth, Paul could frankly tell the church that when he raised it up, his own sins had been washed away. Well indeed would it be if all gospel ministers could meet their churches with the same as­surance of soul, and know that through Him who has been crucified for us, our own guilt is gone and our own sins have been taken away.

We observe, too, that no spirit of self-exaltation was in Paul as he labored. "I was with you in weakness," he said, "and in fear, and in much trembling." Somehow one can have confidence in a preacher with that experi­ence. It is pitiful sometimes to see a man strutting before a congregation of sinners, seek­ing to make the lowly Jesus known to that congregation by an exhibition of personal ar­rogance. The superior man is out of place in the preacher's desk.

If we are at all able to make known the riches of God's grace in Christ Jesus, it is be­cause of what God has done for us. We may have gifts that God can use; and if we have, we should use them for Him. But we have received them from God, and we should desire to use them only as God desires. I do not believe that the spirit of the lowly Jesus in us will cause us to feel superior to others. I believe that a spirit of superiority should never be encouraged or cultivated by us. Rather should our knowledge of the crucified Christ give us humbleness of mind because of what Christ has graciously done for us. It is this experience of trembling, of fearing, and of dependence upon the Lord that makes our min­istry successful, for we cannot succeed without God. Have you never gone before a congrega­tion without having taken time to realize what it means to meet God face to face in the work of preaching to sinners? Have you never gone to your solemn work feeling sufficient in your­self for the occasion? And has that not, after­ward, led you to repentance?

Paul could look back on his work with the church at Corinth, and writing to them could say, "I was with you in . . fear, and in much trembling." There was humility in the man's heart that enabled him to put his foot right down on self, and look up to God and claim power for fruitful service. The way of true ministry is the way of personal humility, and of trustful dependence on the mighty God. We who are anxious to serve aright, must walk in humility before God and before our fellow men, and bring no service crippled by selfishness to the task of winning men to Christ.

Then, there is a message brought to us in the first verse of this second chapter, a per­sonal expression of the way this man labored, and the message he bore: "I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God." Now it would be natural, if, having raised up a church into which divi­sion and strife afterward came, we should then go back over our experience and examine it carefully. Surely shame would seize upon us if in doing that we discovered that we had not de­clared to that church the testimony of God, but had put ourselves forward, and had advanced some philosophy of our own in place of a "Thus saith the Lord."

As you will note, Paul called that people to witness to the important fact that he had come declaring the testimony of God. Further, the testimony of God centered in that which Paul knew. It centered where his own personal ex­perience centered,—in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Every message that declares the testimony of God must center there. Let our preaching, then, be a declaration of the testi­mony of God, that our message shall center in Christ crucified. To do this is to have a con­verted church membership. Such preaching is necessary, first, to bring sinners to Christ; and after that, it is just as necessary to keep them from falling away from Christ. The experience of the church should both center in Christ crucified, and be kept always truly in that center.

(To be continued)