If Solomon needed an "understanding mind . . . [to] discern between good and evil" (1 Kings 3:9, R.S.V.) as the basis of his ability to guide Israel, how much more does the Christian preacher need an understanding mind to guide God's people through the complexities of life today!
Did Solomon become possessed of wide knowledge by a sudden Heaven-sent gift, or did he have to exert his God-given faculties to acquire by human application what he so sorely needed? In Ecclesiastes 1:12, 13 (R.S.V.) we read: "I the Preacher . . . applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven." Application of the mind is the only way by which we preachers today can gain knowledge requisite for success in our calling. Even wisdom, which follows correct correlation and application of knowledge, comes to us, especially in spiritual things, as a result of humble, persistent striving. (See Prophets and Kings, page 31.)
It is not too much to say that the difference between success and failure is that some men have learned to apply the mind and others are mentally indolent.
One of the foremost dangers of the ministerial life is intellectual indolence, and it is far more common than is generally supposed. Mental activity is not natural, but acquired; not congenital, but achieved. . . . A man may be "fussy" and busy and yet be an intellectual "dawdler."—W. H. GRIFFITH THOMAS, The Work of the Ministry, p. 97.
Most of us make too little mental exertion and thereby become "content with dull thoughts, an indolent mind."—Education, p. 278. How often it happens that a preacher needs to be moved from a church after a comparatively short stay because "he has given them all he has." Beyond that point the congregation recognizes that it has moved into the area of repetition, and the fire dies in both the preacher's soul and the people's. The preacher who can hold and build up a congregation consistently for a period of years must read, pray, study, and meditate on a regular daily pattern if his armor is to remain polished and sharpened for the battles of the Lord.
"No man can preach well without study," wrote I. H. Evans many years ago in The Preacher and His Preaching, page 142. Study of the Word, study of current literature (particularly of standard theological classics, both denominational and universal), study of men and women—these are the ingredients from which the preacher draws knowledge, power, satisfaction, success.
Today we seem to be too busy to read, though reading is part of a preacher's work. In reality we are not too busy. We can do anything we want to do, if we want it badly enough. Reading, study, prayer, meditation, make good preachers, other things being equal. They develop and vitalize the mind, and it is "with the mind" that we serve God (Rom. 7:25) and preach His Word. "The mind . . . allies finite to the infinite. . . . The mind is the capital of the body."—Testimonies, vol. 3, p. 136. "The mind," said Milton in Paradise Lost, "is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." "The cultivated mind is the measure of the man. Your education should continue during your lifetime."—The Ministry of Healing, p. 499.
If these things are true of the minds of men in general, they are more so of the preacher's. The preacher's mind, no less than the layman's, needs guidance. "The mind should not be left to wander at random upon every subject that the adversary of souls may suggest."—Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 460.
The preacher who rigorously guards and apportions his time so that reading has its proportionate place, and whose reading is carefully selected, will become a balanced thinker, safeguarded from extremes.
All the powers of the mind should be called into use and developed in order for men and women to have well-balanced minds. The world is full of one-sided men and women.—Testimonies, vol. 3, pp. 152, 153.
Mrs. White wrote in Testimonies, volume 5, page 644: "We have found in our experience that if Satan cannot keep souls bound in the ice of indifference, he will try to push them into the fire of fanaticism." A devout and wisely read preacher should be neither icily indifferent nor fierily fanatical. Good preaching is balanced.
Good preaching does not come from the indolent or the fanatic. It comes from a mind ennobled by God's Word and enriched by sedulous reading, from a soul on fire with the love of God and with a burden to help mankind.
In his book Profitable Bible Study, page 203, Dr. Wilbur Smith comments on the present impoverishment of the Christian pulpit:
I really believe that the failure of many men to read the best books they can afford dealing with the Scriptures, continually digging into this great gold mine of divine truth, and being thrilled every day with new and fascinating discoveries, the failure of men in the ministry to give themselves wholeheartedly to a study of the Word of God, is one of the deepest reasons for the present impoverished and anemic condition of the Christian Church, and the root cause of the terrible and tragic restlessness which possesses so many thousands of ministers throughout our country.
The Ministerial Book Club selections for 1959 afford the opportunity of selected reading at reasonable prices for ministers who have limited time and money. Those of us who like to select our own reading will nevertheless profit by the perusal of books approved by a group of discriminating readers. Six books (listed below) for less than $20, instead of $24, is reasonable expenditure for valuable material, every bit of which adds to a minister's effectiveness. Sets are still available through your church missionary secretary, or your Book and Bible House. Do not fail to make this valuable addition to your library:
Archaeology and the Pre-Christian Centuries, J. A. Thompson-11.50.
The Church Faces the Isms, Arnold B. Rhodes—$4.50.
Feed My Sheep, H. M. S. Richards—$5.00.
Handbook of Church Management, William H. Leach—$8.00.
Minister's Library Handbook, Jay J. Smith—$2.5Q.
Really Living, Compiled by Narcotics Education, Inc.—$2.50.
