The Preacher

His Life and Work

by

John Henry Jowett

©1912 Harper & Brothers. Database © 2008 WORD search Corp.

Contents

Lecture One. The Call to be a Preacher

I

II

Lecture Two. The Perils of the Preacher

Lecture Three. The Preacher’s Themes

Lecture Four. The Preacher In His Study

Lecture Five. The Preacher in his Pulpit

Lecture Six. The Preacher in the Home

Lecture Seven. The Preacher as a Man of Affairs

Lecture One

The Call to be a Preacher

“Separated unto the Gospel of God”

In the course of these lectures I am to speak on the general theme of “The Preacher: his life and work.” There is little or no need of introduction. The only prefatory word I wish to offer is this. I have been in the Christian ministry for over twenty years. I love my calling. I have a glowing delight in its services. I am conscious of no distractions in the shape of any competitors for my strength and allegiance. I have had but one passion, and I have lived for it—the absorbingly arduous yet glorious work of proclaiming the grace and love of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I stand before you, therefore, as a fellow-labourer, who has been over a certain part of the field, and my simple purpose is to dip into the pool of my experiences, to record certain practical judgments and discoveries, and to offer counsels and warnings which have been born out of my own successes and defeats.

I assume that I am speaking to men who are looking upon the field from the standpoint of the circumference, who are contemplating the work of the ministry, who are now disciplining their powers, preparing their instruments, and generally arranging their plans for a journey over what is to them a yet untravelled country. I have been over some of the roads, and I want to tell you some of the things which I have found.

I

Today I am to speak on the Preacher’s call and mission. It is of momentous importance how a man enters the ministry. There is a “door” into this sheepfold, and there is “some other way.” A man may enter as a result of merely personal calculation: or he may enter from the constraint of the purely secular counsel of his friends. He may take up the ministry as a profession, as a means of earning a living, as a desirable social distinction, as a business that offers pleasantly favourable chances of cultured leisure, of coveted readerships, and of attractive publicity. A man may become a minister because, after carefully weighing comparative advantages, he prefers the ministry to law, or to medicine, or to science, or to trade and commerce. The ministry is ranged among many other secular alternatives, and it is chosen because of some outstanding allurement that appeals to personal taste. Now in all such decisions the candidate for the ministry misses the appointed door. His vision is entirely horizontal. His outlook is that of “the man of the world.” Similar considerations are prevalent: similar maxims and axioms are assumed: the same scales of judgment are used. The constraining motive ...