Call to Remembrance the Former Days
By J. W. Posey
It is Satan’s studied plan to distract the minds of God’s people from the things of the greatest importance pertaining to their good and to God’s cause. This is true, especially in regard to the method, or system, which Christ established to advance his work in the earth. Christ, in establishing his work, advocated by example as well as by precept the house-to-house plan. In fact, the first institute for house-to-house workers was held in the hills of Judea, and Christ himself was chairman, or chief spokesman. He first sent out the twelve. Definite instruction was given as to the particular message they should carry, how they should travel and be equipped, and certain territory was assigned each two of the workers. Matt. 10: 5-13. He afterward sent out the seventy “into every city and place, whither he himself would come.” Luke 10: 1. By this reference it is plain that house-to-house work is a preceding work—it even goes before the ministerial. After the ascension and the day of Pentecost, after the outpouring of the Spirit, the house-to-house plan was still carried on. Later comes the miraculous experience and conversion of Paul, who was not only an eloquent preacher, but an accomplished house-to-house worker as well. Acts 20: 18-21. We have no record that Christ and the disciples carried literature, or did the particular work we commonly call canvassing, so we will not speculate as to that; but we do have definite Scriptural record that Paul carried books (2 Tim. 4: 13), and definite testimony that he was a canvasser. See “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VI, page 321, last paragraph. Putting these records together, we have reason to believe22that Paul was a bookseller. First is a testimony that he carried books; second, the Testimony says: “Let none think that it belittles a minister of the gospel to engage in canvassing as a means of carrying truth to the people. In doing this work he is laboring in the same manner as did the apostle Paul.” In speaking of our ministers canvassing, not only is visiting implied, but we all know that one, if not the principal, thought, is that they should sell books. Again: can we conceive of a man like Paul, with a special call, an unrivaled Christian experience, going to people’s houses, laboring and reading with them, and yet not offering them a chance to purchase a book? or in the pulpit, giving one of his eloquent and soul-stirring sermons, with quotations from his books, and at the close of his discourse not inviting those who wished a book to come forward?—J. W. Posey, in The Reporter.