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. 



48