The Call to the Ministry

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 7, 1910

The Call to the Ministry

It has been truly said that when one is called to the work of the gospel ministry, his brethren will recognize this fact quite as readily as the one who is thus called. Francis Wayland, in the Western Recorder (Baptist) of March 24, 1910, gives expression to this truth:—

We believe that there is such a thing as a call to the ministry; that is, that a man is moved by the Holy Spirit to enter upon this work. This call is manifested in two ways: first, in his own heart; and secondly, in the hearts of his brethren. So far as he himself is concerned, it appears in the form of a solemn conviction of duty resting upon him with such weight that he believes it impossible for him to please Christ in any other way than in preaching the gospel. He dares not enter upon any other pursuit until he has made every effort in his power to be admitted to this work. I beg these remarks to be remembered. They may be considered by many as obsolete and behind the age. It may be so, and yet the age may be wrong.

Continuing, Mr. Wayland speaks of the motives which lead many men to-day to enter upon this sacred calling:—

I know it is common to hear men, even among Baptists, talk of the choice of a profession, and of balancing in their minds whether they should be lawyers, ministers, teachers, or physicians. They will say, perhaps, they dislike the turmoil of politics, the hard and irregular labor of a physician, the monotony of teaching; they are fond of study, of writing, and of quiet mental improvement; and besides, they can enter the ministry, be married and settled so much more easily than would be possible in any other profession, that they, on the whole, prefer it. Now I would always dissuade such a man from entering the ministry at all. If he could, with just as clear a conscience, be a lawyer as a minister, let him be a lawyer by all means. The church of Christ can do without him. He proposes to enter the ministry of reconciliation from merely selfish motives, and the Saviour has no occasion for his services. He makes a convenience of the ministry of the word; he uses it to promote his own objects; he is a hireling whose own the sheep are not. If he begins in this way, in this way he will, unless the grace of God prevent, so continue. He will soon tire of the work and leave it for something else, or he will continue in it to shed around him on every side the example of well-educated, cold, worldly minded selfishness.

It can not be denied that this describes conditions as they exist to-day in very many cases. Many men have entered upon a ministerial career, not because they heard the call of God sounding in their ears, not because they felt as did the apostle Paul, "Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel," but because they saw in that calling a means of livelihood better suited to their selfish desires than that afforded by any other. Such men are always ready to believe they hear the call of God in every invitation extended to them to occupy a position of greater financial remuneration. The ministry of God is brought down to the basis of dollars and cents, and instead of crying out against the evils of the present age, they must cater to those influences which help to afford them their support. The true minister of Jesus Christ, who feels that upon him rests the burden of souls, and who has received from his divine Master a message for dying men, will to the utmost of his ability fulfil his mission regardless of questions of pecuniary interest. Counting not his life dear unto himself, but willing to spend and be spent for the Master, he will seek to walk in the footsteps of his divine Lord, and give to the world a true spirit of sacrifice. His salary will not be regarded as his reward, but rather only a means whereby he is enabled to work for God. His reward will be the joy here and throughout eternity of having been an instrument in God's hands for the salvation of his fellow men.