A Good Example by Christian Union

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 22, 1885

A Good Example.

By Christian Union

PAUL was not content simply to preach the gospel, he chose other men to become preachers in turn. The case of Timothy gives us a little insight into the principles on which he made this selection. He was a child of devout parentage, and from childhood educated in the Holy Scriptures; he was a man, too, of some natural gifts which adapted him to this work—gifts strengthened by the Spirit of God.

It seems to me that the example of Paul is one worthy of the consideration of modern ministers and modern churches. In England, at least in nonconforming churches, the young men are selected for the ministry by this same method; the young man whose birth, whose education, and whose native gifts, as exhibited in the prayer-meeting and in the Sunday-school, show adaptation to the work of the ministry, is counseled by his pastor to leave the clerkship, the store, the shop, the farm, and give himself to the higher calling; then comes the special education to adapt him for his work. As Christ saw in Peter the qualities that were to make him a revival preacher, and called him from the fishing-nets, so, though with no such miraculous insight, the gift in the young man is seen, and the calling comes because the gift is seen. If we want more men in the ministry, still more we want more manhood in the ministry, men better adapted to ministerial work; and this process of natural selection would give them to us. Every considerable church ought to have its representatives studying for the pulpit, and every church of years ought also to be the mother of apostles. In like manner and by like process the teachers for our Sunday-schools should be selected, and a training-class should be organized where they could be fitted for their work.—Christian Union.