Columbia Theological Seminary Bulletin, 56, number 3, August 1963

Columbia Theological Seminary

Volume LVI, No. 3
August, 1963

Contents

Page

1 The Opening of School, September 9-12, 1963

2 Student Enrollment, 1963-1964

2 Alumni Week, November 4-8, 1963

4 Annual Meeting of the Alumni Association

5 The James McDowell Richards
Chair of Biblical Exposition

6 Faculty Items

7 Recent Books and Articles

By the Faculty of Columbia Seminary

10 "Ears to Hear" Address given by

The Rev. Wade Prichard Huie, Jr., Ph.D.

52 The Minister As Prophet Inaugural Address
By Dean Greer McKee

COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

701 Columbia Drive
DECATUR, GEORGIA

Volume LVI August, 1963 No. 3

Published quarterly by the Directors and Faculty of Columbia Theological
Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, U. S.

Entered as second-class matter, May 9, 1928, at the Post Office at Decatur,
Ga., under the Act of Congress of August 24, 1912.

The Opening of School
September 9-12, 1963

Columbia Theological Seminary will open its new session
at exercises to be held in the Columbia Presbyterian Church on
Thursday, September 12, 1963, at 8:00 o'clock P.M. These
exercises will conclude a week of activities with registration of
new students on September 9-10, orientation for these students,
September 11-12, and registration of upper classmen and grad-
uate students on September 11-12.

Professor S. Barton Babbage will make the opening address
at the Columbia Presbyterian Church at 8:00 o'clock P.M. on
Thursday, September 12. Doctor Babbage comes to Columbia
Seminary by invitation of the Board of Directors as Visiting Pro-
fessor of Apologetics for a three-year term. In addition to de-
livering the opening address of the year, he will also speak at
services to be held in the Columbia Presbyterian Church at
10:00 o'clock A.M. on Friday and Saturday, September 13, 14,
and at 7:30 o'clock P.M. on September 14. Professor Babbage
comes to Columbia Seminary from Melbourne, Australia,
where he served as Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne,
Principal of Ridley Theological College, and President of Mel-
bourne College of Divinity.

Student Enrollment
1963-1964

Present prospects are that a class c-t more than average
size, of widely varied geographical origin, and of good academic
preparation and ability will matriculate at Columbia Seminary
on September 12. This institution, however, continues to share
the concern of theological schools everywhere with reference to
the inadequate, and, in some cases, decreasing enrollment of
ministerial candidates at a time when an increasing demand is
made for Christian workers. Owing to the fact that it is located

1

in an expanding area of the country, Columbia Seminary con-
sistently is unable to meet the demands being made for pastors,
missionaries, teachers and Christian Education workers. Under
the circumstances it is imperative that Columbia Seminary
Alumni share in this concern and assist the Seminary in encour-
aging gifted young men to consider the work of the Christian
ministry. Alumni and other ministers are urged to place before
the young people of our Church the need and opportunity con-
fronting us in this connection.

Alumni Week
November 4-8, 1963

Alumni Week lecturers include the Reverend P. L. Leh-
mann, Auburn Professor of Systematic Theology of Union
Theological Seminary in New York, who will deliver the Smyth
Lectures on the subject "The Shape of Righteousness"; the
Reverend Marshall C. Dendy, Executive Secretary, Board of
Christian Education, Presbyterian Church in the United States,
who will deliver the Alumni Lectures on Christian Nurture,
and the Reverend George M. Docherty, Pastor of the New
York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C, who
will be the Preacher of the Week.

Beginning on Tuesday, November 5, Dr. Dendy will
speak in the Columbia Presbyterian Church each morning
through Friday, at 9 : 30 o'clock A.M. Dr. Docherty will preach
each morning, Monday through Friday, at 1 1 : 00 o'clock A.M.
in the Columbia Presbyterian Church. Dr. Lehmann will de-
liver the Smyth Lectures Monday through Friday at 7 : 30
o'clock P.M. in the Columbia Presbyterian Church.

Doctor Lehmann is widely known for his interest in
Christian Ethics, and has served on the faculties of several
eminent schools of theology. A native of Baltimore, Maryland,
Professor Lehmann attended Ohio State University, received
B.D. and Th.D. degrees from Union Theological Seminary of
New York, and has since received the D.D. from Lawrence Col-
lege and the honorary M.A. from Harvard University. He has

taught successively at Elmhurst College, Eden Theological
Seminary, Wellesley College, Princeton Theological Seminary
and Harvard University before assuming his present position
at Union Seminary in New York. His work has been in a variety
of fields ranging from Bible and Systematic Theology to Re-
ligion and Philosophy. He was for a time associate editor of the
Religious Book Department of Westminster Press, and during
part of his tenure at Princeton Theological Seminary was Di-
rector of Graduate Studies. He is the author of Forgiveness
(1940, Re-Educating Germany (1945, translation from the
German by Werner Richter), The Anti-Pelagian Writings, a
companion to the study of Augustine, and The Christ ology of
Reinhold Niebuhr. His Ethics, A Christian Concept will be
published in October.

As Alumni Lecturer during Lecture Week the Seminary
will honor the distinguished Executive Secretary of the Board
of Christian Education, Dr. Marshall C. Dendy, D.D. Dr.
Dendy, a native of Lavonia, Georgia, received his collegiate
training at Presbyterian College of South Carolina, graduated
from Columbia Theological Seminary and earned an M.A. at
the University of Tennessee. He was awarded the degree, Doc-
tor of Divinity, by King College. Ordained by Augusta Presby-
tery, Dr. Dendy was called to serve as the superintendent of
Home Missions for the Presbytery, and also served the Craw-
fordville Church. He has since served as pastor of the Aveleigh
Church of Newberry, S.C., the First Presbyterian Church of
Gainesville, Florida, the Fifth Avenue Church of Knoxville,
Tennessee, and the First Presbyterian Church of Orlando,
Florida. Since 1953 he has served in his present position as
Executive Secretary of the Board of Christian Education of the
Presbyterian Church, U.S. Dr. Dendy's lectures will present a
study of Christian Education under John Calvin in Geneva,
under John Knox in Edinburgh and in the Presbyterian
Church, U.S. including an examination of the forthcoming
Covenant Life Curriculum.

Preacher for this Ministers' Week will be Dr. George M.
Docherty, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church
of Washington, D. C. Dr. Docherty was born in Glasgow, Scot-
land. He received his M.A. from Glasgow University and his
B.D. from Trinity College. After serving the Church of Scot-

land in Sandyhills and in the North Church of Aberdeen, and
as minister coadjutor of the Barony of Glasgow, he came to the
United States in 1950 to assume his present position. In the
United States he has preached widely and has lectured several
times. He is the author of a book of sermons, One Way of
Living (1958).

Annual Meeting

of the Alumni Association

The Annual Meeting of the Alumni Association will be
held at 12:45 o'clock P.M. in the Tull Dining Room on Tues-
day, November 5, 1963. Since facilities at the Seminary are
over-burdened it will not be possible for Alumni or their wives
to be housed on the campus. However, it will be possible for
the wives of Alumni who make their reservations promptly to
attend the Alumni Luncheon with their husbands.

Several classes are planning reunions at this meeting. Class
representatives who are arranging for these reunions are as
follows :
1958 Rev. B. Clayton Bell, 1109 Magnolia Avenue, Dothan,

Alabama.
1953 Rev. Wade H. Bell, Jr., 3358 Midway Road, Decatur,

Georgia.
1948 Dr. Allen C. Jacobs, Presbyterian Children's Home,

Talladega, Alabama.
1943 Dr. David E. Wilkinson, Presbyterian Hospital, 200

Hawthorne Avenue, Charlotte, N. C.
1938 Dr. Van M. Arnold, 613 University, Memphis 7, Tenn.
1933 Dr. Bonneau H. Dickson, 341 Ponce de Leon Avenue,

Atlanta 8, Georgia.
1928 Dr. Eugene T. Wilson, 3434 Roswell Road, N. W.,

Atlanta, Georgia.
1923 Dr. Sam Burney Hay, Stillman College, P. O. Drawer

483, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
1918 Dr. Charles M. Gibbs, Sr., 102 Arbutus Trail, Cornelia,

Georgia.

4

Arrangements are being made for these classes to be
seated together at the luncheon and at least one class, the
class of 1953, will have a banquet on Monday evening, Novem-
ber 4, as a part of the Alumni activities. The Alumni Council
is anxious that as many graduates as possible attend all of the
exercises during Alumni Week but that a special effort should
be made to attend the Alumni Luncheon en November 5.

The James McDowell Richards
Chair of Biblical Education

By now Columbia Seminary Alumni are aware of the de-
cision made at the last meeting of the Alumni Association on
November 6, 1962, to attempt to raise $200,000 to establish a
J. McDowell Richards Chair of Biblical Exposition. As of July
22, 1963, 187 graduates of the Seminary had pledged $60,831.40
to this effort. Pledges have ranged from $15.00 to $2,000.00
with the average pledge ranging from $300.00 to $500.00.

Graduates should be reminded of the fact that the Alumni
Council has suggested that every alumnus should be given an
opportunity to take part in this effort with whatever pledge he
feels he can make, and that these pledges are to be paid over a
suggested five-year period. Each graduate, however, is encour-
aged to participate in this effort in keeping with his own ability
and desire to do so.

Alumni who would like to make their pledges to be re-
ported in the over-all total at the Alumni Luncheon are encour-
aged to do so. Pledges should be made to Columbia Theological
Seminary with a notation that they are to be applied to the
James McDowell Richards Chair of Biblical Exposition.

Faculty Items

Mention has already been made of the action of the Board
of Directors at the regular meeting in May 1963, in inviting

5

Dr. S. Barton Babbage to join the faculty of Columbia Seminary
as Visiting Professor in the Department of Apologetics. Dr.
Babbage comes to Columbia Seminary from Melbourne, Aus-
tralia, where he served as Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, Mel-
bourne, President of Melbourne College of Divinity and Prin-
cipal of Ridley Theological College. Graduates who were at the
Seminary 1961-62 are already acquainted with the unique
literary ability and the gracious personality of this new pro-
fessor who spent two quarters on the campus as a Visiting
Lecturer during the year 1961-62. Dr. Babbage holds the de-
grees of B.A. and M.A. from the University of New Zealand,
Ph.D. from the University of London, and Th.D. from the
Australian College of Theology. During World War II he
served as Senior Chaplain in the Royal Air Force. Dr. Babbage
has been actively associated with the work of the World Council
of Churches, more especially as a member of the Australian
Executive and as Secretary of the Faith and Order Commis-
sion. He is the author of several books including Man in Nature
and in Grace, Puritanism and Richard Bancroft, and Christi-
anity and Sex. Mrs. Babbage was the former Miss Janet
Elizabeth King, a native of England. The Babbages will be
accompanied to Decatur by their three sons, Malcolm Stuart,
Christopher Charles, and Timothy Gordon. Their daughter,
Veronica Elizabeth, will remain in Australia for the present
to complete her college education.

At the same meeting of the Board of Directors two mem-
bers of the Faculty were promoted from the rank of Associate
Professor to that of Professor. Dr. Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr., was
elected Professor of Systematic Theology and Dr. Ludwig R.
Dewitz was elected Professor of Old Testament Language,
Literature and Exegesis.

Professor Harry Black Beverly passed his doctoral exam-
inations at Basel in July, 1963, magna cum laude. His thesis
will be published in the near future. With the successful pas-
sing of his examination Mr. Beverly is now doctor designatus.

Recent Books and Articles
by the Faculty of Columbia Seminary

Professor S. Barton Babbage

Puritanism and Richard Bancroft SPCK, London;
Christianity and Sex Inter- Varsity Press.

Articles in : The Expository Times ; Evangelical Quar-
terly; St. Mark's Review; Reformed Theo-
logical Review; Christianity Today; The
Churchman; I.V.F. Magazine; Life of Faith.

Professor Charles Blanton Cousar

Article: "The Church's Missionary Vocation According
to Luke - Acts," Columbia Theological Sem-
inary Bulletin, Vol LVI, No. 2 (June 1963)
pp. 13-22.

Professor Paul Traugott Fuhrmann

"An Introduction to the Great Creeds of the Church" pub-
lished in Scotland by the St. Andrew Press, 1962.

Professor Charles Darby Fulton

Article: "Are We Going out of Business?" Christianity
Today, March 1962.

Professor James Herbert Gailey, Jr.

Volume 15, The Laymen's Commentary, A Treatment of
Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggi, Zech-
ariah and Malachi.
"The Earliest Form of Sabbath Law and its Significance",
read before the Southern Section of the Society of Bibli-
cal Literature at its annual meeting in Black Mountain,
N. C.

"Expectation of the Christ" to be used in the October-
December 1963 issue of Day by Day.

Professor Shirley Caperton Guthrie, Jr.

Translation: "Redemptive Event and History," by Wolf-
hart Pannenberg, in Essays on Old Testament Her-
meneutics, J. L. Mays, ed., John Knox Press.
To be published in spring 1964: Translation: Karl Barth,

7

Christian Doctrine according to the Heidelberg
Catechism, John Knox Press.

Professor Manford George Gutzke

"Plain Talk about Christian Words", now in the hands
of the publishers.

Professor Neely Dixon McCarter

Articles: "The Possibility of Christian Education in the
Light of Karl Barth's Theology", Religious
Education, March- April 1962 (Vol. LVII,
No. 2).

"The Place of the Bible In Christian Educa-
tion," Columbia Theological Seminary Bulle-
tin, May 1962 (Vol. LV^ No. 2).

Hear the Word of the Lord (Richmond, Va.:
Covenant Life Curriculum Press, 1963). Core
study book for 11th & 12th grades and a
Leader's Guide.

"Concerning the Discipline of Christian Educa-
tion," a chapter in the forthcoming (1964)
Festschrift for Paul Vieth, edited by W. B.
Kennedy and S. Little, tentative title, Christian
Education Looks to the Future.

Professor Thomas Haldane McDill, Jr.

Article: "Books in Pastoral Psychology 1962", published
in the January, 1963, issue of Pastoral Psychology.

Professor Dean Greer McKee
Several book reviews.

Professor William Childs Robinson

Books :

THE REFORMATION: A REDISCOVERY OF
GRACE, Eerdmans, 1962.

Chapter Predestination in BASIC CHRISTIAN BE-
LIEFS edited by Henry, 1963.

Chapter The Church in a similar symposium edited
by Henry 1963

8

Introduction to THE RELEVANCE OF PREACH-
ING bv Marcel trans, bv Rob Roy MacGregor, Baker.
1963. '

Translation with James M. Robinson of E. Thurney-
sen THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT, John Knox
Press, 1964.

Articles :

Auferstehung, A.skese, Fasten in Biblisch-Historisches
Handwoerterbuch, Goettingen, 1962.

Sanctification, Apostles for revision of I.S.B.E., 1964.
Church, Lord, Lamb, Reconciliation, Wrath for
Baker's DICTIONARY OF THEOLOGY, 1960.

The New Testament Witness to the Virgin Birth, The
Presbyterian Journal, 1963.

THE RESURRECTION, as Portrayed in the N.T.
Interpretation, 1962.

'Ears to Hear"

The address given by

The Rev. Wade Prichard Huie, Jr., Ph. D.

on the occasion of his inauguration as

Peter Marshall Professor of Homiletics

Columbia Theological Seminary

May 10, 1963

10

"Ears to Hear'

Mr. Chairman, Mr. President, Members of the Board,
Professor Green (my first tutor in Homiletics), Colleagues,
Fellow Students, and Friends:

Preaching involves the mouth and the ear. Both are cru-
cial for the proclamation of the Gospel.

The importance of the mouth is generally recognized. The
preacher, we say, is one who is called to give public expres-
sion to the faith. Homiletics involves the outgo or output of
the Christian message. It is functional, with the arrow pointed
outward. The minister who is weak in the pulpit may be
described as "one who needs training in organizing and ex-
pressing his thoughts," or "one who cannot get it across."
When we are questioned about a man's preaching ability, it
is normal for us to center on the mouth.

In our conception of the role of the preacher the ear is
largely forgotten. When one speaks of a minister's ability in
preaching, he seldom comments, "Well, he has trouble with
his ears," or "He cannot listen very well." In the preaching
of the Church the mouth is generally taken into account;
the ear seldom is.

Since this important aspect of preaching is so often
neglected, we shall focus our attention this morning on the
place of the ear in the preaching ministry of the Church.
The department of homiletics will assist a man to be a pro-
claimed but it is concerned also with training him to be a
listener. If the preacher is to equip the Church for its minis-
try, he must accept his responsibility for equipping the Church
for listening. The preacher is concerned for his own ears and
for the ears of the congregation.

"EARS TO HEAR" is the theme about which I want
to make four observations. The first is: Preaching involves
the ear.

1. PREACHING INVOLVES THE EAR.

( 1 ) One does not read far into the New Testament with-
out coming to the words, "He who has ears to hear, let him

11

hear." 1 They express the repeated emphasis of the New Testa-
ment on listening.

This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!

I say to you that hear.

My sheep hear my voice.

Take heed what you hear.

(They) gathered together to hear the word of God.

Faith comes from what is heard, and what is

heard comes by the preaching of Christ.
If any one hears my voice and opens the door.
He who has an ear,, let him hear what the Spirit

says to the churches.
Blessed are . . . your ears for they hear. 2

This New Testament stress on hearing has echoed an emphasis
in the Old Testament.

Hear the Word of the Lord.

Let your ear receive the word of his mouth.

Speak, for thy servant hears.

Incline your ear, and come to me; hear,
that your soul may live.'' 3
The Bible has a concern for hearing. Men are warned about
having "itching ears", or being "dull of hearing" or "heavy
of hearing". 4 The Parable of the Sower encourages the
preacher to look for fruit, but it also points to the stewardship
of listening. Ears are significant; they are a responsible wealth.
"He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

In Biblical thought, hearing is the key word for man's
response to God. For the mystery religions the highest ex-
perience was to see God; for the Bible the basic attitude is to
hear God. Occasionally in the Scriptures men are described
as having a vision, but what is seen is given meaning only
through what is heard. God is the hidden one, but he is not
the silent one. He speaks, and he can be heard.

At the First Advent men were able to see what God was
like, although even here what they saw was the Word of God.

*Mark 4:9.

2 Luke 9:35; 6:27; John 10:27; Mark 4:24; Acts 13:44; Romans 10:17;

Revelation 3:20 3:22 Matthew 13:16.
3 Hosea 4:1 Jeremiah 9:20; I Samuel 3:10; Isaiah 55:3.
4 II Timothy 4:3; Hebrews 3:11; Acts 28:27.

12

At the Second Advent men will again be able to see, for
"every eye shall see him." The Parousia is the time for seeing.
But now is the time for hearing:' Our walk is not by sight,
but by faith, and our faith is based on what we hear. So as
we preach in the light of "Christ who has come" and "Christ
who is to come," we seek to mediate Christ's presence through
what our congregation hears. Even the sacraments are ad-
ministered not in silence but with the spoken word. We hear
through baptism and we hear through the Lord's Supper.

Hearing is closely associated with obeying. The Hebrews
had no word for obey. To hear was to obey. The most impor-
tant formula in Israel's religion began: "Hear, O Israel. "
According to the Fourth Gospel, "He who is of God" is one
who "hears the word of God," not the mystic who has had
a vision. 7 The Kingdom of God is characterized by one who
"hears . . . and does" the word of the King. s God speaks,
and our response in hearing is not so much that we might
know more, but that we might obey more. The opposite of
knowing in biblical thought is disobedience, not ignorance.
God's Word always has man's salvation in view r , and is meant
to establish communion between God and man to enable
him "to glorify God and enjoy him forever."

(2) The Church has been at its best when it has re-
membered that it has ears to hear. The Protestant Reforma-
tion made the Church once again a listening community.
Calvin recognized the Church to be found wherever there
is "the Word of God sincerely preached and heard/' (italics
mine) and "the sacraments administered according to the
institution of Christ." 9 Since the Reformation the Church
has struggled over whether it is to be a listening community,
and to whom it will listen. Is it to listen to itself as it hears
a member share his experience with another, or a theologian

'Wingren, Gustaf, The Living Word. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press,
1960, pp. 108ff. Richardson. Alan, An Introduction to New Testament
Theology. London: SCM Press, 1958. pp. 53ff.

"Deuteronomy 6 : 4.
' John 8:47.
"Matthew 7:24.

n Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by Henry
Beverid^e. London: James Clark. IV. i. 9.

13

offer his system to another, or as a worker speaks of the needs
of another? Or is it to listen first to a Voice from outside
itself, the Voice it hears in Scripture, the Voice of God? Will
people leaving a place of worship remember the voice of an
expert in dogma or in language, in moral character or spiritual
experience, or will they remember the Voice of God?

Preaching is the means by which this Voice is conveyed
to men. "The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of
God" is the way one reformed confession puts it. 10 This does
not mean that the Voice of God can be equated with the
voice of man; it means that through the voice of man the
voice of God can be heard. The promise of Jesus may be ful-
filled in the preacher: "He who hears you hears me." 11 The
sermon may be thought of as being heard with the outer
ear, the Word of God with the inner ear. If you want to
locate a sermon, you find it, not in the mind, not in the heart,
not even on paper, but you find it out there with one end
at the preacher's mouth and the other end at the listener's
ear.

(3) Now if the listener's ear is involved so significantly
in preaching, then we must be concerned with the way he
hears. There is a passive hearing in which little is learned
and few attitudes are changed. On the other hand there is
an active hearing in which the person responds to what he
has heard. This kind of hearing offers better possibilities for
"a meeting of meaning" 12 between two persons. This kind
of hearing leads to learning and to changed attitudes and
styles of life.

What are the implications for preaching of such active
or responsive hearing? Shall we look for the old fashioned
"Amen" or for the spontaneous outcry which was heard in
the first century Church? Such "talk back" during the ser-
mon may be helpful for some situations, but others may call
for a "feel back" or "think back" during the sermon and
a "talk back" after the service. In some way there should

10 Second Helvetic Confession.

"Luke 10:16,

12 Howe, Reuel L,, The Miracle of Dialogue. Greenwich: Seabury Press,
1963. p. 23.

14

be "feed back" of some kind. The method of such dialogue is
not important; the principle of dialogue is.

"Communication" is the word in vogue to describe this
speaking-hearing process. Its overuse or misuse leads some to
depreciate its significance. It will help us, however, to re-
member the word as it has been used in the Church for cen-
turies. "To communicate" means to participate in Holy Com-
munion where a person takes something offered, is changed
by it, and does something with it. So in preaching "to com-
municate" involves taking something offered, being changed
by it, and doing something with it.

The function of the preacher is to help the listener to
be responsible in this action. The listener is called upon to
say "Yes" or "No", but we are concerned that this nega-
tive answer never be caused by an offense of the preacher.
So we take seriously the ear of the listener, trusting that our
preaching may be the first word not the last in a conver-
sation between God and him, the beginning not the con-
cluding word. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

II. PREACHING INVOLVES OUR EARS.

To say that preaching involves the ear is really to say that
preaching involves OUR ears our ears as preacher as well
as congregation and this is the second observation I want to
make.

( 1 ) To each preaching situation we bring consciously
or unconsciously our past experiences: prejudices, failures,
ambitions, and all the inner drives and conflicts which reflect
the pattern of our personalities. These experiences may cause
us to give private interpretations to words and ideas and atti-
tudes and feelings that are expressed. What is taken in at the
ear may be quite different from what leaves the mouth. The
message is distorted as we twist what is said to make it more
compatible with our likes and dislikes. We throw up various
forms of "hearing-blocks" to that which threatens and dis-
turbs us. Far more than we realize we hear what we want
to hear and thus do not hear at all !

(2) To the preaching situation we bring not only the
inner self but also the outer environment. The functioning

15

of our ear is affected by whether we are white or black,
whether our work calls for a white collar or a blue collar,
whether our government is democratic or totalitarian, whether
our membership is in the Chamber of Commerce or the AFL-
CIO, whether our conception of the universe is mechanistic
or dynamic, whether we live in a quiet rural community or
in a noisy city, whether our ears were trained in the pre-tele-
vision era or afterwards. Most of us in the Western world,
for example, come to the hearing situation with ears that have
heard the words of the Christian faith over and over again.
Our ears have hardened to them, or we may have such a
watered-down conception of these symbols that they cease to
make an impression on our inner ear.

Our hearing is conditioned by the world without as well
as by the world within. A knowledge of both of these worlds
is indispensable to the preacher who would overcome the
limitations they place on the listen-ability of people. But in
addition to the psychological and the sociological there is
another area of concern which is even more significant to the
preacher the theological. The ear we bring to the preaching
situation is conditioned not only by the world without and
the world within, but also by our relation to the world beyond.

(3) The human ear is set over against God. It has been
conditioned by sin. It is a conquered ear. What is heard is
deceptive, distorted, unreliable. As far as God is concerned, the
ear is deaf, unable to receive the Word. 13

What is the use of preaching then, if the ear cannot hear?
There is no use if only we depend on our preaching. But years
ago a promise was made through the prophet Isaiah: "The
ears of the deaf (shall be) unstopped." 14 And this promise
was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. His victory on the cross conquered
sinful ears and set men free to hear. Preaching is the bringing
of this conquest to bear on the listener. Nothing happens,
though, if only we preach. Something can happen if God
preaches through us, or to express it another way if the
Holy Spirit is active in the ear of the listener. The power
does not reside in the mouth of the preacher or in the ear
of the listener but in the voice of God.

13 An excellent discussion in Wingren, op. cit., Chapter VI.
14 Isaiah35:5.

16

So today by the word of the cross and the power of the
Spirit the miracle of listening takes place. The ear can be
turned toward God, the ear can be unstopped, the ear can
be responsive to the sermon. What happened on the day of
Pentecost was a miracle of listening. At the Tower of Babel
man was made unable to hear; at Pentecost he was enabled
to hear again. Both the word of the cross and the gift of the
Spirit came together there. So we keep on preaching and
we keep on praying, remembering that the opening of the
ear is a mystery, and that it is the Lord's doing.

Our ears may be opened, but when we come to hear
preaching they are still our ears, our human ears. We want
to hear the easy word, so when the word is hard, we put
fingers in our ears. We are conditioned by sin. The habit of
dull listening prevails. So again and again the Word and the
Spirit must come together to work the miracle of listening.
The Easter season joins with Pentecost to make listening pos-
sible. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

III. THE PREACHER HIMSELF IS CALLED TO BE A
LISTENER.

Up to this point we have made two observations about
"ears to hear" : Preaching involves the ear, and preaching in-
volves OUR ears. Now we come to the third observation:
The preacher himself is called to be a listener.

This may be the most difficult task in his ministry.
Neither his public image nor his training nor his natural
inclinations will encourage him to accept the listening role.
Preachers are not usually thought of as great listeners. Said
an Anglican bishop, "A sermon is something a clergyman will
cross the continent to deliver, but will not cross the street to
hear." 10 Though listening be difficult, it is crucial for the
preacher. In the new Covenant Life Curriculum of our Church
the first step in the teaching-learning process is listening. So
it is in preaching, for he who has not first listened is not pre-
pared to preach.

To what is the preacher to listen? The answer is obvious:
he is to listen to God. But what does this mean in terms of
preparing to preach?

1 "'Kennedy, Gerald K., His Word Through Preaching. New York: Harper
& Bros., 1947, ix.

17

( 1 ) To begin with, he is to listen to the text on which
his sermon is based. As a scholar he carefully utilizes all the
tools of exegesis. He studies the passage analytically and syn-
thetically. He looks at it in parts and as a whole. He does
his best not to impose his theological system or his religious
experience on the text. He tries not to let his questions or
his expectations dominate his interpretation. His primary aim
is to listen to hear God speak through the text.

The preacher who listens carefully may find his congrega-
tion in the text. They do not come on the scene after he has
exegeted the passage and he begins to apply his findings to
them. They were in the text before he chose it. We see them
there as we find God's people there. God did not speak his
Word into empty space; he spoke to people, his people. The
Word and people belong together. 16 They are together in the
Bible, and they belong together in our preaching. The listen-
ing preacher then will not be concerned with making the
Word relevant; he will recognize that it is relevant and will
seek to show its relevance.

Faithful listening requires that the text be heard in the
context of the whole Bible. The text is to be heard in the
light of the one story of the Bible, the story of God's gathering
to himself a people, and preserving and saving them, a story
that is fulfilled in the life, death, and risen life of our Lord.
So the text is to be heard as a witness to the act of God in
his Son. To listen to the text is to listen to Jesus Christ. And
this is true of the Old Testament as well as the New Testa-
ment. As one scholar of the Old Testament expresses it:
"Jesus Christ provides the vowel points which give a sense
to the consonants of the Hebrew text." 17

(2) The preacher is called to be a listener not only to
the text but also to the Church. Listening to the Church,
past as well as present, means listening to her creedal state-
ments, to her theologians, to her official courts. In regard to
the text the listening is unconditional; with the Church it is
conditional. The preacher must choose and discern. Still he

16 Wingren, op. cit. } pp. 25-27.

17 Wilhelm Vischer quoted in von Allmen, Jean- Jacques, Preaching and

Congregation. Translated by B. I. Nicholas. Richmond: John Knox

Press, 1962, p. 25.

18

listens with respect, for this is the company of those who
through the ages and across the world have been listening to
the text. What they have heard can help the preacher to hear
what the text is saying and can serve as a check against private
interpretation, so distorted by his own dull hearing. 18

Listening to the Church means listening not only to the
whole Church but also to the particular Church in the local
congregation. The sermon is not designed for people in gen-
eral; it is intended for people in a particular place and at
a particular time. To them the preacher must listen. The
danger of such listening is that they may become the source
of his message. Their questions may consume so much sermon
time that he will neglect the ultimate questions which the
Bible asks and answers. They will speak of their needs, and
he will be tempted to show how Christ is the answer to their
needs, forgetting that the concern of Christ is not so much
to meet man's needs but to alter them. There is a danger in
the preacher's listening to his congregation, but there is the
necessity that he listen. The voice of his people assists him
in relating them to the people found in the text and in trans-
lating what he has heard to what they can hear. In his ser-
mon preparation he may even follow the method used by Paul
in Romans where from time to time he indicates that he is
aware of the listener's objections and reactions, thus directly
involving the one who is receiving the message.

(3) There is one other voice which the preacher must
heed in approaching the pulpit the voice of the world. He
is to give first attention to the text, but he hears it in the
context of the Church and in the context of the world. Again
there is danger, for such listening may cause the world to be-
come the source of the message. This is tragic, whether the
message originates in Geneva or Edinburgh, on Wall Street
or Main Street, at the country club or the corner drug store,
across the street or within the preacher. The voice of the
world must not become the voice of the pulpit, but the

18 Calvin found significance in the fact that it was Phillip and not an
angel who was sent by God to guide the eunuch to hear the Word,
and he warned against those men "who trust too much their own
wit," refusing the use of commentaries and other aids provided by
the Church. Commentary on Acts 8:31.

19

preacher must know the world in which he speaks in order
to understand the frame of reference to which the congrega-
tion relates what they hear.

In writing to the Colossians Paul had listened to gnos-
ticism. In writing to Corinth Paul knew of the various power
structures and community pressures against which the people
were struggling. The writings of John demonstrate his knowl-
edge of Greek philosophy. And is it possible that the story
of the Good Samaritan can be truthfully told without our
listening to the social-political situation of the world out of
which it came, with its strong hostility between Jew and
Samaritan?

The preacher is called to listen to the world of the first
century and to the world of the twentieth century. This means
that those who preach in America today are to be sensitive to
the currents and cross-currents of American culture. People
within and without the Church are parts of this pattern of
life, which has produced such axioms as these:

A man's religion is his own business

We must succeed, we must.

Certainly we need it; they have one next door.

What's new must be good; what's old can't be.

Who is God that we are mindful of him?

Whoever would be great must be first with the most. 19

We listen to such axioms, not in order that they become the
text of the sermon, but in order that they not be the text, that
is, the source of the message. The preacher is a part of this
world, and knowledge of the world assists him in distinguishing
what comes from God and what comes from the world. And
such knowledge helps in conveying to his people who live
in this world the Word from God 3 word which is not
against, but for the world. To listen to the world is to take
seriously the ear of the preacher as well as the ear of the
congregation.

(4) So the preacher is called to listen: to the text, to
the Church, to the world, but the stance for all his listening
is on his knees. He may be sitting at the study desk or standing

19 Suggested by Abbey, Merrill R., Preaching to the Contemporary Mind,
New York: Abingdon Press, 1963. pp. 72-75.

20

by the hospital bed or walking down Main Street, but his atti-
tude is that of one on his knees. The true listener is one who
depends upon God and recognizes his own un worthiness *o
be addressed by God, and yet waits in jovful expectation that
the Word of God may come to the preacher on his knees.
This attitude of submission was expressed by Calvin so well:

God sometimes connects Himself with his servants,
and sometimes separates Himself from them . . . He
never resigns to them his own office?

So the preacher must ever be a listener on his knees. "He
who has ears to hear, let him hear."

IV. THE PREACHER IS CALLED TO ENCOURAGE
THE CONGREGATION TO LISTEN.

We come now to the fourth observation on our theme,
EARS TO HEAR. If it is true that the preacher himself is
called to be a listener, it is also true that the preacher is called
to encourage the congregation to listen.

( 1 ) One way he can do this is by recognizing his role
as a translator. The word points to one of the live issues in
contemporary theology. Many theologians wrestle with the
problem of translation, the question of how r the message can
be conveyed to modern man in an understandable and mean-
ingful way. Karl Barth is not usually thought of as being
in the forefront of such discussions, yet even his description
of preaching stresses the need for the preacher to speak "in
his own words" to make the message "comprehensible to men
of his day". 21 Barth also recognizes the need for a "church lan-
guage", but he declares that it must be "translatable into the
speech of Mr. Everyman, the man and woman on the street . . .
By the very nature of the Christian Church there is only one
task, to make the Confession heard in the sphere of the world
. . . There must be translation." 22

The clue to guide in this translation is God's own transla-
tion, Jesus Christ. God spoke in this divine-human person.

-"Commentary on Malachi 4:6.

21 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics. Translated by G. T. Thompson:

Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1960. Vol. I., Part L, p. 61.
"Barth, Karl, Dogmatics in Outline. New York: Harper & Bros., 1959,

pp. 31-33.

21

God's Word was expressed in human form. So as we seek to
proclaim God's Word we give expression to it in human lan-
guage. Otherwise our language becomes docetic, and docetism
in preaching is as dangerous as in Christology. The danger
in so-called "religious language" is that it tends "to confirm
trivial Christianity and to amplify illusions of faithfulness."
Instead of awakening faith it serves to render it more self-
satisfied and dormant than ever. 23

If the congregation is to be involved in active hearing,
then our message must be human. Translation runs the risk of
twisting the message or thinning it down, but that risk must
be taken if the message is to be expressed in language which
relates to this day and to this world. If God took a risk when
he became man, how can we be afraid of it? As translator
the preacher keeps before him the ear of the listener as he
remains faithful to the humanity of our Lord.

( 2 ) A second way that the preacher encourages the con-
gregation to listen is by recognizing their role as participants
in the preaching ministry. To the Church, the whole Church,
Christ has given the responsibility for heralding the Good
News of God. Some are called to stand in the pulpit, and for
this work special preparation is needed. Others are called to
sit in the pew, and though their preparation has been different,
they are not without gifts which can complement the gifts
of those in the pulpit. No one member bears the burden for
preaching, and no members can claim they are free of this
burden. If a sermon involves both speaking and hearing, then
the more the congregation is involved in the sermon, the
better prepared they are for active listening. 24

In our day we have observed in the Church in Europe
and America a recovery of the ministry of the laity. A new
appreciation has been given to the role of those in the pew
in various aspects of the Church's life. One sign of this recov-
ery is an increased participation by the laity in the preaching
ministry of the Church. This participation has taken a variety
of forms.

23 Sellers, James E., The Outsider and the Word of God. New York:

Abingdon, 1961, pp. 138, 143.
24 The theological basis and the practical implications are developed in

Ritschl, Dietrich, A Theology of Proclamation. Richmond: John

Knox Press, 1960. pp. 117-134, 149-157.

22

One is the "talk back session" immediately following the
sermon or later in the day or week. Members are encouraged
to tell what they heard and what this means to them. Other
ministers involve small groups of the congregation in "ser-
mon growing" sessions as pastor and people study the sermon
text together in order that they may hear more clearly what
the text says and means. In one church a number of home
study groups, meeting on a weekday, study the chapter from
which the sermon is to be taken the following Sunday. Some-
times the Scripture is given out on the previous Sunday so that
families may study together in preparation for active hearing
in the service. Church sessions and other similar groups are
sometimes used in the selecting of texts. The introduction of
Covenant Life Curriculum into our Church affords a special
opportunity for the minister to engage his people in this mu-
tual ministry. What better place can the minister begin adult
education than in the pulpit and in groups related to his
pulpit ministry either before or after the sermon is given?
Such experimental approaches have their dangers which need
to be recognized, and they may threaten the minister's
authoritarian image. But as other members learn to partici-
pate in the preaching ministry, they will be enabled better
to fulfill their role as the community of listeners, and the
minister is assisted in fulfilling his role as the preacher-
teacher. 25

The responsibility of the whole Church for preaching is
not a new idea. Calvin frequently spoke of the place of the
congregation in preaching. He was continually reminding
them what preaching is, how they were to prepare for it, what
they were to look for in the sermon, and how they were to
respond to it. It is said that he often advised the people not
to eat too much before coming to the sermon. On Friday eve-
nings, during part of his ministry, he would have a sermon
"feed back session". 26 His aim was that people should have
as active a part in the sermon as possible, for he realized this
was one way to encourage them as listeners. And for him

25 For further suggestions see two articles by Roy W. Fairchild in The
Pulpit, February, 1963, and March, 1963.

26 Nixon, Leroy, John Calvin, Expository Preacher. Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans Publishing Co.. 1950. p. 69.

23

the first mark of the Church was preaching and hearing the
Word of God. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

CONCLUSION

Listening then is our calling to be listeners ourselves
and to encourage our congregation to listen. Only then will
we be able to take seriously the preaching that involves the
ear, the preaching that involves our ears.

In the days of ancient Israel when a slave chose to remain
in his master's service for life, he had a hole bored in the lobe
of his ear. 27 This symbolized the life-long obedience he was
pledged to render.

Slaves of Christ we have chosen to be. His mark placed
on our ears indicates that we do not know it all, that we can
be told something, that we are ready to listen before we speak,
that we love him enough to listen. His mark on our ear sym-
bolizes the life-long obedience we are pledged to render. "I
appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to
present your (ears) as a living sacrifice." 28

27 Exodus 21:6.
28 Romans 12:1.

24

The Minister as Prophet

Inaugural Address

as Professor of Biblical Exposition

Columbia Theological Seminary

8:00 P.M. Monday, May 7, 1962

by

Dean Greer McKee, Th.D.

25

The Minister as Prophet

INTRODUCTION

A. We are being reminded with frequency of the need for
men and women for Church vocations. From whence shall
come the ministers for the congregations now pastorless
plus the replacements for those lost by retirement or death?
As many of us by now are aware, there has been an almost
steady decline of students in our accredited theological
schools across the country in recent years, though here at
Columbia we have rejoiced in a steady increase.

A recent article in one of our religious periodicals on
the minister shortage asks the question, Why? Why this
decline when population has been exploding? Why this
shortage when we are building churches at the rate of
nearly a billion dollars per year? Why this problem when
so many churches are full and two and three services are
required?

The article explains among other things that in former
times the ministry

1. Used to be the shortest road from blue denim (the farm
and kindred occupations) to the white collar!

2. It used to be the chief ambition of Christian families
to have a son go into the ministry.

3. The ministry out-ranked all other professions.
But this is so no more ! Now

1. There are many "status" professions and our space ex-
plorers are not exactly at the lowest altitude in any
sense !

2. There are many scholarships for other professions and
business and industry with money and skill are going
all-out to recruit "brains."

3. The post-war religious upsurge was not all it should
have been and many are relapsing into lethargy and
cynicism.

26

B. Let us add something that the article implied but did
not say. In recent decades the work of the minister has
become increasingly difficult and complicated. In some
respects it seems all but impossible.

Forty years ago Bishop Charles D. Williams of the Epis-
copal Church wrote a description of his task as a bishop.
After four decades one is amazed to find that his picture
of the bishop's office needs only minor adaptation to be-
come a job analysis for today's average pastor:

"He is a man 'scattered and peeled,/ 'troubled about
many things/ distracted with various and often mu-
tually variant occupations . . . He is expected to fulfill
many functions. He is ... a business man, an adminis-
trator and executive. Particularly is he the 'trouble
man' of a (sizable) corporation. All the (congrega-
tional squabbles) gather about his devoted head. He
has the responsibility for everything that goes wrong,
often without the authority to set anything right. He
serves as a lightning rod to carry off the accumulated
wrath of the (parochial and) ecclesiastical heavens. He
is constantly called on to act as a (counselor and
arbiter) and should have (the patience of Job and the
wisdom of Solomon.) . . . He is even sometimes in
demand as a social ornament to say grace at ban-
quets, make after-dinner speeches, adorn the stage at
public meetings, and minister to the aesthetic needs
of conventional society at fashionable weddings, bap-
tisms and funerals.

"In the midst of all this distraction and dissipa-
tion, he is expected to find time to be a preacher and a
teacher, a scholar and a leader, and above all, a man
of prayer and a man of God!" (The Prophetic Ministry
for Today, pp. 3-4.)

And, we would add, a prophet of the Most High,
one in whose word is the "ring of the incredible."

C. To help prepare a man for such a multifarious task is the
work of a theological seminary. And, of those on a faculty
roster, the opportunity and responsibility of a professor of
Biblical Exposition is certainly not the least.

27

D. I have therefore chosen as the subject for this address,
"The Minister as Prophet." There are three questions to
which we shall direct your attention in considering the
prophetic aspects of the ministry:

First, What is the function of the office?

Second, What must be the character of the man?

Third, What should be the nature of his training?

I

What is the function of the prophetic office?

There is a three-fold description that may be useful
to us in understanding and remembering what we want
to say on this point : the function of the prophet is, ( 1 )
to for-tell, (2) to forth-tell, and (3) to fore-tell. That is,
the prophet is to speak for God ; he is to speak to the people
to instruct, warn, and persuade ; he will have something to
say about the future.
A. Let us consider the first of these: the prophet's respon-
sibility to speak for God as we said, to "for-tell." It is
like the words of the Lord to Isaiah, "Whom shall I send,
and who will go for us?" Then Isaiah responded, "Here I
am! Send me." (Isa. 6:8) Or as God spoke to Jeremiah,
"... before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed
you a prophet to the nations." (Jer. 1:5) To Ezekiel
among the exiles in Babylonia, the Lord said, "Son of
man, I send you to the people of Israel . . . and you shall
say to them . . ." (Ezek. 2:3,4) The prophet is called to
speak for God.

Our word prophet, coming from the Greek prophetes,
means just that. The prophet is God's mouthpiece who
speaks "according to the mind of God and is conscious of
doing so." In the O.T. as prophecy developed to its full
flower among the "writing prophets", it had come to mean
very much what we have just said. It took "the form of
a declaration of the will or thought of Yahweh." The
common introduction to what the prophets had to say was,
"Thus saith the Lord," for what was said was not an
opinion of the speaker but a message from God.

Now there are certain things that should be said about
that message. One is that it should be theological. It will
be centered upon God and since the supreme revelation

28

of God is in his Son, the message will also be Christ ological
in the fullest meaning of that term. But the message
will also concern men men both as groups and as in-
dividuals. It will be social and it will be personal.

In all fairness to the O.T. prophets it must be said that
theirs was in large measure a social message. It was ad-
dressed to the nation of Israel, to the people as-a-whole.
We must by no means omit the element of the individual,
but neither should we neglect its counterpart, the mass-
aspect of the message. Even the Book of Psalms which
seems so personal was, more than we often realize, written
to a personification of the nation. It is Israel that sins,
confesses, repents, asks forgiveness, finds peace and blessing.
As Bishop Williams has so pointedly written,

"The prophets (of olden times) had not the remotest
conception of our modern notion of religion as a
'limited liability' business, concerned only with theology,
in the form of creed and dogma, ecclesiology, the gov-
ernment, discipline and cultus of the Church, pious
observances, or even with the mystic spiritual life of
the individual, much less with his security or salvation
in a world beyond. He had not the discernment to dis-
tinguish between personal morality as purely individual-
istic conduct and social ethics. The two were indis-
solubly one to him. To him religion claimed not only
eminent domain but universal and absolute sovereignty
over all human life in all its inter-relations.

"Consequently he ruthlessly mixed religion with
business, industry, commerce and society,, and meddled
with politics, national and international, and fre-
quently got himself stoned or sawn asunder for that
reason. 33 (Op. cit., pp. 45-46)

Our Lord placed himself in the same category with
the prophets when he condemned the religious leaders of
his day for building memorials to the prophets of the past
while they continued to murder the prophets of their own
day.

We should add one more characteristic of the prophetic
message, it was ethical. One of the most important aspects

29

of God's revelation of himself to the children of Israel
was that their faith was to be an ethical monotheism.
It was a message of righteousness both for individual and
nation. One of the dangerous tendencies was for this
righteousness to be of a ritual sort, a tendency which went
to seed in priestly ceremonialism and Pharaisaic legalism.
In this respect Israel was merely falling into the pit with
the rest of the ancient world which, as Theodore H. Rob-
inson says, "saw no connection between religion and
morality." (Prophecy and the Prophets, p. 5) But the
great procession of O.T. heroes from Adam to the post-
exilic prophets constantly and boldly demonstrates an ethi-
cal concern and stands as a reminder to all that morality
dare not be separated from one's profession of faith in God.

But let us take a further step in describing the prophetic
office. It was not only to for-tell, that is, speak for God,
it was also to

B. Forth-tell. It was to speak for God to the people. If the
first indicates the source of his call and the basis of his
authority, the idea that we desire to convey in the forth-
telling of the message is that the prophet was sent forth to
be a persuader of men. This was the direction of the
prophet's concern. In speaking of the preaching of Jere-
miah, Prof. John Skinner has said that its "primary aim
... as of all prophetic exhortation, we must hold to have
been the conversion of the people he addressed." (Prophecy
and Religion, p. 155)

The prophet sought to warn the delinquent, encourage
the faithful, inform the ignorant, and counsel the confused.
His was the voice of rebuke, of comfort and hope, of in-
struction and of wisdom.

One of the great debts that the church of today owes
to Biblical scholarship of the last one hundred years has
arisen in this connection. We have become more aware
than was the case previously that the prophets spoke first
of all to men and conditions in their immediate situation.

The prophets were concerned, as Bishop Williams has
written,

30

"not about methods but about motives, not about poli-
cies but about principles, not with the machinery, (that
is the rightful business of reformers and statesmen) ,
but with dynamics, the rightful business of the prophet
and man of God." (Op. cit., p. 58)

Bishop Williams in another place describes three kinds
of people in our own time for whom he coins a word and
calls all of them "impossibilists." One group is that of the
(( blind individualist" He is

"the conventional Christian who does not see the task at
all. Another is the pessimist who resorts, as pessimists
always do, to the apocalyptic and eschatological. He is
the second adventist or the millenarian. He faces the
task and gives it up. It is hopeless to human vision and
by any human means. Even human cooperation is use-
less. Only a miracle of Divine intervention can ac-
complish anything . . . The third impossibilist is the
impractical idealist, the visionary, the man with a
panacea, who has his own plan of the heavenly Jeru-
salem . . . He expects to attain it somehow by a Hour
de force' ', a human miracle, an immediate leap or flight.
He will consider or take none of the practical steps
on the long path that reaches from our present position
to that perfect state" (Op. cit., pp. 88-89)

Now the prophets of the eighth to the sixth centuries
may not have faced "impossibilists" in these exact forms
but their task was to speak to the "impossibilists" of their
day, men who needed to be informed of God's ways and
persuaded to walk in them.

C. But there was a third function most certainly associated
with the prophetic office in both the Old and the New
Testaments. The prophets were to speak for God to the
people, to for-tell and to forth-tell. But they were also to
fore-tell.

It is true that too often the predictive element of
prophecy has been over-emphasized to the obscuring and
sometimes all but exclusion of the declaration of the word
of the Lord to men in their own day. But we must not

31

swing to the other extreme and ignore this third significant
function.

As far as their predictions concerned the impending
judgments of God, I wonder if they would not have been
among the last to see anything remarkable about their
insights into the future. In fact, I suspect the prophet's
amazement has always been: "Why, Why don't you see
it for yourself? What is certain to come is clear as day!"
As Amos cried out, having reminded Israel of the evi-
dence all about her, "The lion has roared; who will not
fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?"
(Amos 3:8)

Lest we think that these are merely academic matters
of a bygone age, what would Amos say if he were to step
into the legislative halls of Washington with a filibuster in
progress? "Can you filibuster justice?" would he cry? What
would Amos have to say about the lobbies of pressure
groups that ignore the good of the whole to gain partisan
ends? What if he sat in on some of the councils of big busi-
ness or big labor, or on some of our church assemblies,
presbyteries, conferences, or session meetings? Would he
assure us of a bright future? Would he rejoice in our dis-
unity and, in particular, some of the reasons for it? If
Jeremiah were to step onto the scene, would he commend
us for crying "Communism!" and at the same time being
slow to rectify the conditions that produce it? There are
not a few areas of our life in which the whole host of
prophets would remind us that we are but ripening up
for judgment.

One look at the trouble spots in this world shows that
there are not only nations in the midst of revolutions but
vast areas ripening up for revolution. Especially is this
true of the Latin American countries to the south of us.
That revolution will be either Christianity or communism.
To say this is no matter of clairvoyance but simply a rec-
ognition of increasingly plain facts. There is no hope for
any church or churches that continue to identify them-
selves with the status quo, that build and maintain great
churches but by-pass the masses leaving them ignorant, de-
pressed, landless, disenfranchised and regarded as a sort

32

of second-rate branch of the human species. If our Chris-
tian Churches do not lead in the right kind of revolution
you may be sure that communism will lead in one that
will make this the Devil's world and not God's. This is
indeed a time when a prophetic ministry is most urgently
needed. With the deluge so near to being upon us, such
prophets will not be found preaching gradualism or em-
ploying merely delaying tactics. God grant that there may
be sufficient delay in which decisive action may be taken
for the preaching and, above all, the effective practice of
the Gospel in all the areas of life so surely involved. Now
what we have been saying is that prophets are needed
today as they were of old, who are experts in cause and
effect, men who can see far enough into the future to
know what should be done in the immediate day. As an
observer of life and something of a student of history, the
Old Testament prophet was able to see that "What's past
is prologue." Or as George Santayana once wrote, "Those
who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
it." (Life of Reason, Part I, p. 284) And as Prof. A. B.
Davidson years ago observed, "All thoughtful men have
in them something of the prophetic gift. By observing what
has been, they can come pretty near what will be."

Thus a major part of the predictive element in the
prophets was simply to interpret the plan and purpose
of God as it unfolds in history. The prophets were men
with the long view. The history they knew was history with
a moral as all interpretative history is. "Prophecy is the
philosophy of history," says Prof. Davidson. "Prophecy is
history become conscious, history expressing its own
meaning." (O.T. Prophecy, p. 98)

History then becomes a messenger of the Lord and the
voice of the prophet an instrument to bring its lessons to
bear upon the minds and actions of men.

What we have been saying is that the prophets were
so immersed in their own times that, with their knowledge
of God's ways and purpose known to them from the past
and with their own close communion with him, they could
not but discern future courses and consequences, particu-
larly as they related to God's triumph in history.

33

But there was another and a supremely important
aspect of the prophet's concern for the future: That was
the future of the Promise. Throughout the old there was
the forward look to the new. But this forward look did
not stop with the New Testament. It too is concerned with
the future. Its concern is with the response to Him who
has come in fulfillment of the O.T. Promise. Its message
is that the future is for him who in his present responds
to the Promise as given and fulfilled in the past.

The prophets of old, insofar as they were fore-tellers,
were concerned with such things. The minister as prophet
today is primarily concerned with the response of each
generation to the fulfilled Promise and our living in the
light of that fulfillment. He is a corrector of man's devia-
tion from what his life should be under the Covenant.
He calls for decision, immediate decision, on the part oi
men that will affect their future.

In O.T. times prophecy often ran counter to Israel's
life and practice; it often warned of impending judgment;
it always testified to God's acts in history and to his faith-
ful fulfillment of his word of promise.

Its primary witness was to God himself. Its first con-
cern, especially in the N.T., was to show forth Him who is
the Way and the Truth and the Life.

There is a sense in which the Promise is still in process
of fulfillment in that it does not reach its objective with-
out us and this will continue to be so until the final day
of the Lord. (Cf. Hebs. 11:40) That is to say, God's
promises are not all yet realized and the N.T. presses
on with these in light of the O.T. Jesus is not a Prophet
in the ordinary sense but He is the Prophet. He is the
supreme and perfect revealer of God and he is that be-
cause He himself is the revelation of God.

Let us now move on to our second major considera-
tion keeping before us this three-fold function of the
prophetic office : to speak for God, to speak to the people
in order to persuade them, and to inform and warn men of
things to come.

34

II

We now ask, what must be the character of the man
who fills this office?

A. Foremost we would place a deep, abiding consciousness
of God. Luther, Calvin and Wesley were great spokesmen
for God because in their inmost thoughts and feelings they
were ever conscious of him. Luther found the anchor for
the peace of his soul in salvation through faith by grace
alone; Calvin with his great mind founded his faith on
the great rock of the sovereignty of God. Wesley found his
heart "strangely warmed" and new power in his life by
the experience of Divine forgiveness and the assurance of
a personal Savior who by his Spirit enables a man to do
"greater works."

It is this awareness of the reality of the Divine that
makes clear the sense of call to the prophetic ministry, a
call which Otto Baab has said is "fully demonstrated by
the integrity of their lives, the consistency of their teach-
ings, and the congruity of their message with the gospel
in both Testaments." (Prophetic Preaching, p. 18)

It is the abiding of the human branch in the Divine
Vine that makes for men of conviction and principle. It
is this personal relationship with God in Christ through
the Spirit that makes a man alert to the voice of God. It
is one who himself has been reconciled that makes a fit
bearer of the gospel of reconciliation. This makes the dif-
ference between an arrogant, opinionated, blundering
ecclesiastic and false prophet, and a humble, considerate
and persistent voice speaking the truth and doing so often
at the loss of his own and his family's comfort, the promo-
tion he deserves, and, not infrequently, his job itself.

A man's consciousness of God will help him put a true
appraisal upon himself and to set him right and keep him
so in his own motives and ambitions. In the Discourses
of Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher of the late first and
early second centuries, there is a passage addressed to
one of the popular sophists of the day. In it one can easily
imagine a stern old Hebrew prophet talking to a popular
preacher of his own or of our time.

35

"The truth is, you love applause. (He might have said,
You are most careful to get the support of the powerful
and rich in your congregation and community.) You
care more for that than doing good. And so you invite
people to come and hear you. But does a philosopher
invite people to come and hear him? (How about the
pages of church advertising in the Saturday editions
of our newspapers?) Is it not that as the sun, or as
food, is its own sufficient attraction, so is the philosopher
his own sufficient attraction to those who are benefited
by him? Does a physician invite people to come and let
him heal them? . . . The business of exhortation is to
show people not simply what they like or want but
what they really need. But to show this, is it necessary
to place a thousand chairs and to invite people to come
and listen, and dress yourself up in a fine gown and
describe the death of Achilles! Tell me, who after hear-
ing one of your discourses ever became anxious or
reflected upon himself? Who as he went out of your
lecture-room said, 'The philosopher put his finger upon
my faults. I must not behave in that way again.' You
can not. The utmost satisfaction you get is when one
man says to another, ( That was a beautiful passage
about Xerxes? And the other replies, 'No, I liked best
that about the battle of Thermopylae.' " (See Wil-
liams: The Prophetic Ministry for Today, pp. 19-20)

I would like to add to this philosopher's sermon some
words from one of the great and popular preachers of the
Early Church, one who had won for himself the title of
Chrysostom, "the golden-mouthed," and yet one who
sought in every way to be a true prophet of God. I am
afraid that what he said may fit the 20th century preacher
even better than the fourth century in which he lived :

"There be many preachers who make long sermons. If
they be well applauded (In those days they applauded
sermons as well as the lectures of philosophers today
we might say, If all seats are filled at two or three serv-
ices) , they are as happy as if they had obtained a king-
dom; if they bring a sermon to an end in silence, their
despondency is worse, I may say, than hell. It is this

36

that ruins churches, that you seek not to hear sermons
that touch the heart, but sermons that will delight your
cars with their intonations and the structure of their
phrases as if you were listening to singers or lute-
players. And we preachers humor your fancies instead
of trying to cure them. We act like a weak father who
gives his sick child a cake or an ice or something nice
to eat just because he asks for it, and takes no pains
to give him what is good for him. And when the doc-
tors blame him, says, 'I could not bear to hear my
child cry/

"That is what we do when we elaborate beautiful
sentences, fine combinations and harmonies to please
and not to profit, to be admired and not to instruct, to
delight and not to touch you, to go away with your
applause in our ears but not to better your conduct.
Believe me, I am not speaking at random. When you
applaud, I feel at the moment as it is natural for me
to feel. I will make a clean breast of it. I am delighted
and overjoyed. And then when I go home and reflect
that the people who have been applauding me have
received no benefit, and indeed that whatever benefit
they might have received, has been killed by the ap-
plause and the praises, I am sore at heart. I lament and
fall to tears. I feel as if I had spoken altogether in vain."
(See Williams, op. cit., pp. 20-21)

How tragic when a good minister is defeated by the
success of his own talents. But this can happen and too
often does happen to disqualify him as a prophet of the
Most High God.

But it is a deep and abiding consciousness of the Divine
reality that will enable the servant of God to use in the
best way his talents and to do his duty. It is this conscious-
ness of the all-righteous One that will put backbone in his
theology and yet give hands and feet for the service of
men. It will not only give assurance in matters of doctrine,
but will provide discernment in matters of ethics.

B. This leads us to a second element required in the character
of the man who is to fulfill the prophetic office: He must

37

have a keen sensitivity to righteousness. Whether or not
you regard the Sermon on the Mount in the early chapters
of Matthew's gospel as a single utterance on one occasion
or a collection of sayings from many discourses, yet Mat-
thew is undoubtedly correct in giving us the impression that
from the early days of his ministry Jesus was bold, clear
and persistent in defining the basic principles of the King-
dom and of the Christian life and they all turned about
the theme of "exceeding righteousness." ". . . unless your
righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 5 : 20)

What Jesus began so early to teach he continued to the
end even though it meant the cross. The apostle Paul in
his longer ministry is after the same pattern. From the
days of his conversion when he was delivered from depend-
ing on outward marks of righteousness into a concern for
an inner righteousness that partook of the righteousness
of God and was then reflected in outward relationships,
Paul is in the line of the true prophets and of the prophet,
our Lord himself. All of Paul's letters are in large measure,
if not chiefly, written for practical purposes with a "Ser-
mon on the Mount" in nearly every one. So many of his
great Theological, Christological, Soteriological and other
doctrinal passages appear in his writings in order to sus-
tain his practical purpose. Hence he demonstrates how his
consciousness of God sustained in him a keen sensitivity
to righteousness.

If we go back to the antecedents of our Lord and Paul
in the O.T., the prophets of old in their passion for right-
eousness were what A. B. Bruce has called, "Men of abso-
lutely unparalleled moral earnestness" (Apologetics,
p. 233) ; in their placing of morality above ritual they
demonstrate "an exquisite sensitiveness to everything
savouring of insincerity." (Ibid., p. 236) As Bruce fur-
ther states, "Nothing is more frequent and more familiar
in the prophetic writings than contemptuous reference to
careful performance of religious duties by a people far
from God and righteousness in heart and life." (Ibid.,
p. 235 ) They loathed "pious phrases which had ceased to
represent conviction."

38

The prophets were voices crying against the luxury and
wastefulness, the denial of justice to the weak and needy,
the oppression of the poor and helpless, the immorality
and drunkeness, the greed and deceit, the callousness to-
ward the outsider or the unfortunate, the factions and
selfish pressure groups of their time. Yet these sins were
but symptoms of a deeper sin: man's love of self rather
than his neighbor; his love of mammon and the flesh rather
than God. What an atheism!

And where do we stand? The fact is that a man may
be sound in his creed, orthodox in his theology, meticu-
lous about his church-going and observance of the sacra-
ments, and yet be this kind of atheist. Our Lord's sharpest
condemnation was reserved for that brand of sinner
"Scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!"

On the other hand, what is more disappointing and
pathetic than those with an enthusiasm for the Christian
ethic but lacking a genuine faith in God by whose aid
alone the demons of this world will be cast out. Without
God "our striving will be losing" indeed.

C. There is a third quality that the man of God must have.
It is a love of men an overflowing and persistent love
of men.

"That love for One from which there doth not spring
Wide love for all is but a worthless thing."

James Russell Lowell

The apostle Paul having spoken of the variety of gifts
for apostles, prophets, teachers and others in I Cor. 12:28,
is led on by his conviction on exactly this point to show
"a still more excellent way" and thus to give us that great
climactic chapter on Christian love, I Cor. 13. Without
love, no gift is significant or useful; without love, we can
accomplish nothing though we can do anything!

"Ah, how skillful grows the hand
That obeyeth Love's command!
It is the heart, and not the brain,
That to the highest doth attain,

39

And he who followeth Love's behest
Far excelleth all the rest"

Henry W. Longfellow

D. A fourth element of the character of the true prophet is
the complementary part of our third: there will be a sin-
cere and consistent subordination of self.

It was in answer to the request of a godly mother for
her two sons that they be given the chief seats in our
Lord's new Kingdom that Jesus said to James and John
and the wife of Zebedee and to the jealousy indignant
ten, that "whosoever would be first among you must be
your slave; even as the Son of Man came not to be served
but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." The
N.T. rarely talks about Christian leaders but much about
servants, ministers, deacons and followers. One of its
references is to "blind leaders of the blind." There are
many people all up and down the line of life, in places
big and small, preachers and preachers' wives included,
who will never be happy until they give up trying to be
great men and are willing to be nobody for Christ's sake.
The man who thinks his job is too small for him has given
the first intimation that probably he is too small for his
job.

It should also be said that the occupant of the prophetic
office must be able to live under conditions of fear and
uncertainty. Dean Inge once said, "We are losing our
Christianity because Christianity is a religion for heroes,
while we are mainly harmless, good-natured little people
who want everybody to have a good time."

The prophetic minister will be disciplined in the sacri-
ficial life. He must have a great capacity for suffering.
Truly the gift of prophecy is one of the most dangerous
of gifts. In spite of the prophet's love for his neighbors and
his nation, there will be those who oppose him, who may
even come to hate him and seek to do him harm. Of all
the gifts of the Spirit, this is the one most likely to get
him into trouble. He may learn from experience to say
with Paul, ". . . we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that
suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces

40

character, and character produces hope, and hope docs not
disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into
our hearts through the Holv Spirit which has been given
to us." (Rom. 5:3-5)

And this has suggested a fifth essential in the character
of the man whom God would use to speak for him. The
prophet must be a man of indomitable hope. This hope
is closely linked with all the other qualities but especially
with his consciousness of God and love for men. In the
O.T. prophet it made him a voice of comfort and en-
couragement to others who suffer. "Their writings are per-
vaded by a spirit of optimism." (Bruce: Apologetics,
p. 245) Take the case of Jeremiah. Howard Kuist de-
scribes Jeremiah as "a prophet of inevitable doom to a
stiff-necked generation," yet "a true herald of the ever-
lasting gospel" ... "a figure of tragic sorrow, yet also a
man of unconquerable hope." (Layman's Commentary
on Jeremiah, p. 7)

Some have called Jeremiah the Weeping and the
Gloomy Prophet. But this is to miss the majestic grandeur
of his true character. In an analysis almost classic, Wil-
liam G. Ballantine, years ago, wrote of this man :

"Neither Moses, nor Joshua, nor Samuel, nor Elijah,
nor Paul, was ever subjected to a tithe of what Jeremiah
endured. As a sufferer he stands next to our Lord him-
self. Why should we attribute his distress to morbid pre-
disposition to melancholy? If he shrank from the stern
task assigned him, Moses and Isaiah had done the same.
If he yielded to discouragement in defeat, Joshua had
done the same. If he longed for a lodge in the wilder-
ness, the bold Elijah had sought the same. If he cursed
the day of his birth, Job, the great example of patience,
had done the same. If he wept over Jerusalem, so did
our Lord. That Jeremiah preserved the sweetness of his
affections, and the loyalty of his piety, and the boldness
of his official testimony to the end, argues rather a pre-
eminently ardent, high spirited, heroic nature. 33

Thus one might almost say that tribulation and hope
bear a root and branch relationship. How amazing that by
the grace of God the abundant sufferings of Jeremiah made

41

him pre-eminently a prophet abounding in hope amid the
darkness and tragedy of his time.

These then are some of the qualities that the seminary
should seek to develop in its students if it would send forth
a prophetic ministry.

Ill

Let us now turn to our third and last major question:
What must be the nature of the training that will go far-
thest in developing men, or women, with this particular
gift of the Spirit?

I think it proper to observe at this point that neither in
the Old or New Testament was this gift, the second in
Paul's list, restricted to men. Women also shared in it. The
list of names is not long but it is sufficient to establish the
fact that women were recipients of the gift: Miriam (Ex.
15:20), Deborah (Judges 4:4), Hannah (I Sam. 2:1),
and Huldah (II Kings 22:14). Some have asserted that
these were called prophetesses only because of the poetical
inspiration of their speech and not because of insight into
the future. (See C. E. Schenk in ISBE article on Proph-
etess) But both Deborah and Huldah are quoted as pre-
dicting coming events. (See Judges and II Kings.) Hannah
also speaks of judgment to come. I am afraid that too often
men ignore both the immediate and the larger context of
Scripture in their zeal to protect some favorite personal
opinion.

In the N.T. there are Anna (Luke 2:36) and the four
daughters of Philip (Acts 21:8, 9) . I see no reason to deny
any particular aspect of the prophetic gift to any of these
though there is very little evidence, and that circumstan-
tial, to go by. In other words, what would a widow of 84
talk about in speaking of a newborn babe if not about his
future? That there must have been some element of pre-
diction seems most natural. Regarding Philip's daughters,
it only says that they prophesied. But in the next verse the
same term is applied to Agabus who is quoted as predicting
Paul's arrest in Jerusalem. The evidence is not conclusive
but it is at least favorable to the view that the daughters
of Philip were no different in their function from the proph-
et Agabus, and there is nothing to the contrary.

42

Another observation that may be in order at this point
is that the literary prophets of the O. T. were very often,
if not usually, laymen. As far as we know only Jeremiah
and Ezekiel and possibly Zechariah were priests or of priest-
ly descent. Isaiah was a statesman, Amos was a shepherd
and herdsman and dresser of sycamore trees, Daniel and
Zephaniah were of the royal family. What the others were
is not known. There is reason to think that a good propor-
tion of them were laymen. In other words, the priestly
ordination was not synonymous with the calling as prophet.
Some years ago, Dr. J. R. P. Sclater wrote that, "In the
realm of religion you are walking dangerously when you
distinguish too sharply between an office and the man who
holds it. For religion is a personal thing: it is the pure in
heart and not the tribe of Aaron who reallv can see God.''
(P. 31, Harvard Divinity School Bulletin/ Apr. 1, 1938)
And it is noteworthy that the apostle Paul talks much about
prophets but in all his letters the term priest (hiereus) is
not even mentioned.

Should this not remind us of the soundness and the im-
portance of the Reformation and N.T. doctrine of the
priesthood of the believer and make us more concerned for
the prophetic reality than the priestly form? In other words,
ordination in itself has little to do with the kind of prophetic
ministry found in the Scriptures and which we are seeking
to describe. Two of the great prophetic voices of the last
generation were John R. Mott and Robert E. Speer. Neith-
er was ever ordained, but who would dispute their call to
be spokesmen for God and their effectiveness in that office.

Let us now proceed with what I am going to call certain
general features that should be found in seminary training
if a prophetic ministry is to be the product. It is not my
purpose to go into the details or the technical matters of
the structure and content of a seminary curriculum. Rather,
we are concerened with the kind of soil in which this quality
of the prophetic may grow.

1. The seminary should be a place where men and
women grow T spiritually and move on toward maturity in
Christ. Paul in the fourth chapter of Ephesians has given
us a good description of the marks of the mature Christian.

43

He will be conspicuous for the fullness and stability of his
knowledge of Christ; he will be possessed by a spirit of
unity; and he will ever speak the truth in love. All of this
may serve to remind us that a person may be an adult in
years but, in spiritual maturity, a babe in the cradle.

2. In seminary he will learn the life of "diligent self-
discipline." There will be the discipline of the mind. The
supremacy of reason and the will should become fused with
a passion for righteousness, for obedience to the sovereign
will of the Most High God.

Again, there will be the discipline of talents and of the
use of time. There are skills to be developed and specific
fields to be mastered. The time of us all is in danger of
being fragmented by many things often very good things.
But here as with the bread after the feeding of the 5,000,
we must learn to "gather up the fragments that nothing be
lost."

There is also the discipline of method to be acquired.
What we learn in seminary, the facts and the insights, can
only be a beginning. But it is of supreme importance that
we learn how to learn. I need not talk of the problem of
selection among many courses and of the pressure within
courses. We try various schemes the core curriculum, the
widely elective, the honors program and other ways in our
efforts to overcome the impossible task of learning all that
we ought to learn. In the mid-forties one of the seminary
presidents of the time stated that if a student were to take
all the courses offered by his school, it would take sixteen
years to finish and if he went on through the non-duplicat-
ing courses in two or three other of the large seminaries, he
would be 50 years in training and overdue for retirement
when he finished! And he discerningly added, the student
"Still might be unable to warm the heart of a child or ease
the pain of a suffering father or fill the hungry people with
the message of Jesus Christ." (President Bridges of the
Pacific School of Religion. )

This brings us to still another area of self-discipline. The
prophetic minister's training must not only include method
of study but what a teacher of mine used to call, method of

44

life, something of what is supposed to have made Metho-
dists ! Habits of prayer, the constant living of life as in the
presence of God, a relationship with Jesus Christ that is as
close as friend with friend, and a desire to please and obey
the Holy Spirit that goes beyond even our finest human
relationships this is an area that seminary training dare
not neglect. All of this is more than reading books about
God even the Bible; it is more than studying theology; it
has to do with prayer and worship and being alone with
God, then going forth to serve him.

3. A third general feature of seminary training should
be a sensitivity to others their needs, their rights, their
burdens, their inmost longings. The prophetic ministry will
try to take seriously the fact that Christ died not only to
make men at-one with God but also at-one with each other.
One of the identification marks of the Christian is "love for
one another." This will include a concern for the impor-
tance and nature of Christian unity. If World War I re-
vealed the futility of disunity among those who called
themselves Christians, World War II gave great impetus
to the cause of a united Christendom. One wonders how
much more fire and brimstone will have to fall upon the
earth to teach Christians what is primary and what is sec-
ondary, and how we often deceive ourselves and others as
to the real issues. If Christians love one another and want
to unite, if the two feet decide they want to work together,
is the Head of the Body going to object? There is "a more
excellent way." Let the love of Christ set us to working to-
gether. In that union there is strength and we have the word
of our Lord that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it." Let us be careful to sow understanding and love; the
world has had enough of fear and jealousy and division
even from Christians. For be assured that if we sow good,
we shall reap good; if we sow otherwise, we shall reap
otherwise.

B. But let us now briefly consider specific features that should
be found in seminary training if we are to have a prophetic
ministry.

1. First and foremost, there should be a thorough
grounding in the Scriptures. By this I mean not merely a

45

knowledge of technicalities but an "at-homeness in God's
Word." It must become, in the old saying, "the very meat
and drink" of the one who would be a servant of Christ.
In the words of P. T. Forsyth, "The Bible is the preacher
for preachers." It must first become a sermon to the preach-
er if he is to receive from it sermons for others. The proph-
etic minister must know how to study the Bible for himself ;
how to teach others to study it for themselves ; and how to
preach from it the "Thus says the Lord !" This is something
more than Hebrew and Greek, more than methods of study
or of higher criticism. It is a placing of oneself at the dis-
posal of the book that it may be written in our hearts and
exemplified in our lives.

2. A second feature is a thorough orientation in the
historical. The prophet is one with a good memory of the
past. This not only gives balance and perspective, it gives
confidence and faith, the kind that means the freedom and
courage to speak the word of the Lord faithfully. A know-
ledge of history is one of the best correctives for the fads
and fancies that persist in reappearing. I often think that
there is more to be learned from the heretics both what
to do and what not to do, what to believe and what not to
believe than there is from the orthodox. For remember
that in their own time the O. T. prophets, our Lord, the
apostles, the martyrs, the great reformers were nearly all
regarded as heretics by those who considered themselves
orthodox. History, along with an at-homeness in the con-
tent and spirit of the Scriptures, should save us from the
habit of preaching one aspect of the truth until we arrive
where we cannot distinguish between the message of the
Lord and our own opinion. One of the most interesting
illustrations of the integrity of the apostle Paul as a writer
of Holy Scripture and of his inspiration by the Holy Spirit
in that office was his candor in stating on at least one oc-
casion that some of the things he was writing were his own
opinions and not received from the Lord. This may cause
problems for some "high" doctrines of inspiration but too
often "high" doctrines represent the over-zeal of men rather
than the mature faith that God would have his servants
hold and exercise.

46

3. A third feature is that seminary training should
establish a man in the theological. To speak for God about
God to God's people, his servant should be qualified by
sound and mature knowledge of the nature of God and his
ways. If a man is to function effectively in Christ's body,
the Church, he must be instructed in its doctrines and or-
dinances. This knowledge and instruction will be no mere
academic matter as though it concerned something quite
impersonal and connected only with a remote past. Rather,
as we have previously stated, it will be something very much
up-to-date and of concern for the future involving a deep
and abiding consciousness of God, something that pastor
and people have experienced each personally and in the
fellowship of worship and service in his Name.

4. A fourth feature is no less important than the others.
In fact, they are in a sense a means to this as the end the
end being the practical, the realization of God's truth and
power in the life of minister, people and community.

The kind of person we have been talking about is no
show-case saint, devoting himself in a sort of holy isolation
to God and not to men. This is one who, like Moses, frejh
from God's presence with the divine radiance on his face,
goes down from the mountain top to move among the world
of needy, sinful men dwelling on varying levels below. The
deliverances of such prophets, whether they be pastors or
teachers, chaplains or missionaries, even administrators or
technicians; whether their deliverances be sermons or les-
sons, books or just deeds whatever they are they will be
as "drops of blood shed by the servants of the Lord for the
redemption of the world."

CONCLUSION

And so we return to the point at which we began. Who
is there in our time that will see the truth clearly, declare it
faithfully, and do it persuasively?

Our theme has been that through the centuries it has
been the prophet whom God has endowed with his truth
and endued with his Spirit that "the life of man" might be
lived "in the light of God." We have sought to describe the
function of the office, the character of the man who holds it,

47

and the nature of the training that should assist in cultivat-
ing the element of the prophet in any servant of God.

We should know that in this particular day of ours,
unless there is a drastic reckoning with the sins of men and
churches and nations, that the tomorrow is not far off when
this lovely city with the other great cities of our land and of
the world will be piles of death and rubble, and far more so
than were ever Coventry and Berlin. Will it be said of us
if there is any human voice left to say it

"Lo, all (their) pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre?"

This need not be so if we hear and heed the voice of God.

"Lord, may I be
A sword for Thee,
To cleave away,
Through night today,
That men may see
What life can be,
When lived with Thee"

Anthem by Woodman.

To this task this Professor of Biblical Exposition rededi-
cates himself.

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