A WORD TO PREACHERS

(excerpt)
Eccles. 12:9-11- Our Record

The Word of God teaches that fitness is required in those that minister. One cannot read the letters of Paul without being impressed with the need of spiritual gifts to minister the Word of God. The ability of putting before others what is on our hearts grows with the using of the gift as the plowshare becomes brighter not by sitting idle but by making repeated furrows in the ground. But there can be no greater mistake than to suppose that the more one stands and talks on the platform the better he will get at a gift he doesn't have. It is very sad to see one that has a ready way of speaking occupying the time of a meeting for thirty to forty minutes with what could have been easily said in twenty minutes or less. Such a person confounds talking with ministering and natural talent with spiritual gift.

Meditation - He gave good heed - He pondered as the Revised Version has it in verse nine. Paul's word to Timothy comes to mind here when he told Timothy to meditate on these things. When the portion over which we are exercised as to ministering is pondered, its hidden beauties open up to our souls and prevents our preaching from being just a wilderness of words that tends to spiritual penury. Meditation is the great need of the present but in the rush and bustle of life it is being neglected; nor does it appear that conditions are likely to improve with those that entangle themselves with the world. Those who are in the greatest danger of neglecting meditation and prayer in regards to ministering to the Lords people are those who have a ready way of speaking - trusting to that fact and the fact that they have done so many times before with the result being that the spiritual minded realize that there is a lack of weight in what has been said. W.J. McClure, 1917-2007 
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