A few months ago in a remote town of northern Vermont I picked up a book of sermons by distinguished Methodist preachers. Published in the year 1853, it contained sermons by Nathan Bangs, Wilbur Fisk, and other worthies of that century.
The editor had written a remarkable preface on the nature and state of the Methodist ministry. He said that while it was advancing, as a whole the ministry of that church might not equal the ministry of some of the other denominations in educational attainment. But whatever disadvantage the Methodist ministry suffered in the matter of formal learning, it was undergirded by its reliance upon a heavenly calling and the urgency and divine compulsion of its witness.
The editor went on to say that John Wesley was a scholar of large erudition who would have attained distinction as a cleric. But he became a "master in Israel" when he was kindled by a divine enthusiasm and sustained in it by the joy of salvation and the power of God.
While there is a truth in this observation, there is also a danger of oversimplification. Since the nineteenth century this argument has too often been used to justify anti-intellectualism in the church and depreciation of educational standards for the ministry. Ironically, in the 1890s Ellen G. White wrote a series of 11 testimonies first published as Special Testimonies to Ministers and Workers in which she lamented, "They [our ministers] might have done tenfold more work intelligently had they cared to become intellectual giants."1 In that same testimony she affirmed that "their efforts to acquire knowledge will not in the least hinder their spiritual growth." 2
We must, of course, affirm that the ministry of the Word of God cannot depend alone upon well-trained and educated talent. Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nothing great was ever achieved with out enthusiasm" brings to mind mind the ferment of the eighteenth-century revival in England under Wesley and the evangelicals. This kind of sentiment flew in the face of the conventional sober opinion of that age. But such enthusiasm is not mere excitement or strenuous endeavor. It is human life transfigured and radiant with a Spirit-ignited fire, a God-intoxicated purpose. The truth expressed in the editor's preface is simply that, for the effectual propagation of the gospel, mere human nature, however competent and informed, is not enough.
God's most serviceable instrument
But, however popular that fallacy among us, the converse does not fol low that the disciplined and educated mind is of little consequence to the effectual ministry of the Word of God. The pages of church history may often foster the impression that Christianity is em powered, restored, and renewed more nearly by her saints than by her scholars. Yet it is when saintliness comes to dwell with disciplined intelligence that God finds His most serviceable human instruments.
In 1890 Mrs. White identified the secret of success as being "the union of divine power with human effort."3 She also wrote that God "does not supernaturally endow us with the qualifications we lack; but while we use that which we have, He will work with us to increase and strengthen every faculty."4 It was so with Paul, with Augustine, with Anselm, with Luther, with John Wesley, with James White, and with a host of others.
Just as nothing is accomplished with out enthusiasm, so also enthusiasm is of ten blind, unstable, and quixotic if it is not disciplined by an educated mind. It may well be that in the case of genius all rules fail; but, of the ranks of the ministry as of the race, we do not, I believe, presuppose genius.
Wesley had genius; he also had a disciplined mind. He became a "master in Israel" when his disciplined mind and spirit and his singular moral earnestness were irradiated by a divine vision and empowered by the Holy Spirit. "He who is endowed with the Holy Spirit has great capacities of heart and intellect, with strength of will and purpose that is unconquerable," emphasizes Ellen White.5 God can do much with minds of lesser magnitude and cultivation; but He can do more when He has more with which to do.
A competent person without God is no minister. But a competent person under God's authority and empowered by Him is a fit vessel of honor, a powerful executor of God's purpose. "Those who do not obtain the right kind of education before they enter upon God's work are not competent to accept this holy trust and to carry forward the work of reformation."6
1. Testimonies to Ministers, p. 194.
2. Ibid.
3. Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 509.
4. Christ's Object Lessons, pp. 353, 354.
5. Testimonies to Ministers, p. 176.
6. Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 584.