| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 13 |
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But in spite of these conditions, the ministry has its attractions which should draw resistless upon the hearts of worthy men. The minister is an ambassador of Christ. “We are ambassadors therefore,” says St. Paul, “on behalf of Christ, as though God was entreating by us.” The minister brings to men the good news of the love of God, and calls them to accept that love. Can there be any earthly honour so high, any calling as sacred as this?
The minister himself is a representative of Christ in the saving of the world. We know something of what Christ did for the community in which he lived, for the homes into which he was received, for the individuals into whose lives he came. What he was to the community, to privileged households, and to the people who enjoyed his personal friendship, that the minister of Christ is today to the households and to the men and women to who he ministers.
Dr. John Watson(Ian Maclaren), in one of his lectures to theological students, speaks thus of his own boyhood pastor: “People turned to him as by instinct in their joys and sorrows; men consulted him in the crises of life, and, as they lay a dying, committed their wives and children to his care. He was a head to every widow, a father to the orphans, and the friend of all lowly, discouraged, unsuccessful souls. Ten miles away people did not know his name, but his own congregation regarded no other, and in the Lord’s presence it was well known, and was often mentioned. When he laid down his trust, and arrived on the other side, many whom he had fed and guided and restored and comforted, till he saw them through the gates, were waiting to receive their shepherd minister, and as they stood round him before the Lord, he, of all men, could say without shame, ‘Behold, Lord, thine under shepherd, and the flock thou didst give me.’”
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