The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "All At It," a sermon preached on Sunday morning 16 September 1888 at the Met Tab.
t is thought nowadays that a man must not try to proclaim the gospel, unless he has had a good education. To try and preach Christ, and yet to commit grammatical blunders, is looked upon as a grave offence. People are mightly offended at the idea of the gospel being properly preached by an uneducated man. This I believe to be a very injurious mistake.There is nothing whatsoever in the whole compass of Scripture to excuse any mouth from speaking for Jesus when the heart is really acquainted with His salvation. We are not all called to "preach," in the new sense of the term, but we are all called to make Jesus known if we know Him.
Has the gospel ever been spread to any extent by men of high literary power? Look through the whole line of history, and see if it is so. Have the men of splendid eloquence been remarkable for winning souls? I could quote names that stand first in the roll of oratory, which are low down in the roll of soul-winners. Those whom God has most honoured have been men who, whatever their gifts, have consecrated them to God, and have earnestly declared the great truths of God's Word. Men who have been terribly in earnest, and have faithfully described man's ruin by sin, and God's remedy of grace—men who have warned sinners to escape from the wrath to come by believing in the Lord Jesus—these have been useful. If they had great gifts, they were no detriment to them; if they had few talents, this did not disqualify them.
It has pleased God to use the base things of this world, and things that are despised, for the accomplishment of His great purposes of love. Paul declared that he proclaimed the gospel, "not with wisdom of words." He feared what might happen if he used wordly rhetoric, and therefore he refused the wisdom of words. We have need to do so now with emphasis. Let us trust in the divine energy of the Holy Ghost, and speak the truth in reliance upon His might, whether we can speak fluently with Apollos, or are slow of speech, like Moses.
3 comments:
Spurgeon is encouraging. A man doesn't have to have an MDiv to be a pastor? A never-been-to-seminary guy can serve Christ, teach/preach from the Bible, be sound in doctrine and life, and make a difference in the kingdom? God can still use (as Acts 4:13 says) "uneducated and untrained men"?
+1 to David's comment, although I would not use Acts 4:13 in this way (I understand that to be a slam at John & Peter for not being educated in the Greek rhetorical style of debate). Too many churches have developed a reliance on a system of none-church institutions to train men who will be sent to them. The Bible shows us each church training up men to serve within and be sent out to serve other churches as planted.
Does this apply to housewife watchbloggers?
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