Great Themes of the Bible (continued)
PREACHERS AND PREACHING
1. Curist's AMBASSADORS He (Matt. x. uff.) we are told who they were that Christ ordained to be His apostles or ambassadors; they were His disciples. He had called them to be His disciples some time before: His immediate followers and constant attendants. He then told them they should be made fishers of men, which promise he now performed. Christ commonly confers honours and graces by degrees. The light of both, like that of the morning, "shines more and more"'. All this while Christ had had these twelve:
(a) In a state of probation. 'Though He knows what is in men, knew from the first what was in them (John vi. 70), yet He took this method to give an example to His Church. The ministry being a great trust, it is fit that men should be tried, for a time, before they be trusted with it. "'Let them first be proved" (1 Tim. ili. 10). Therefore, hands must not be laid suddenly on any man. Let him first be observed as a candidate and probationer, a proposant (that is the term the French churches use), because some men's sins go before, others follow (1 Tim. Werne
(5) In a state of preparation. All this while he had been fitting them for this great work. Those whom Christ intends for, and calls to, any work, He first prepares and qualifies, in some measure, for it. He prepared them, first, by "'taking them to be with Him''. The best preparative for the work of the ministry is an acquaintance and communion with Jesus Christ. Those who would ''serve Christ'? must first be ''with Him" (John xii. 26). Paul had Christ revealed not only ''to him"', but "in him'', before he went to preach Him among the Gentiles (Gal. i. 16). By the lively acts of faith and the frequent exercise of prayer and meditation that fellowship with Christ must be maintained and kept up, which is a requisite qualification for the work of the ministry. He prepared them, secondly, by ''teaching them'"'. They were with Him as scholars or pupils. He taught them