The pre-eminent honour and sublime theme of the Christian ministry
I. The Christian ministry is a Divine institution.
1. The Christian minister is divinely commissioned. “Dispensation” involves the idea of stewardship.
2. The true minister is charged with the most complete proclamation of the Divine Word.
II. The Christian ministry deals with a theme of profound significance and ineffable worth.
1. It is designated a mystery. The gospel is still a mystery to the unconverted.
2. It is a mystery unveiled to those who are morally fitted to understand it. “To His saints.” God chose His own time for making it known. Like all the Divine procedures, the development was gradual, increasing in clearness and completeness as the fulness of time approached. It is an axiom in optics that the eye only sees what it brings with it the power to see:and in spiritual things the soul comprehends the revelation of God only as it is fitted by she Spirit.
3. The revelation of the mystery was an act of the Divine will. “To whom God would make known.” There was nothing impelling Him to unfold it but His own good pleasure.
4. The revelation of the mystery endowed humanity with a vast inheritance of moral wealth. “What is the riches of the glory of this mystery.”
(1) This inheritance enriched the most needy. It was exhibited “among the Gentiles.”
(2) This inheritance includes the hope inspired by the indwelling Christ. “Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Lessons--
1. The Christian ministry involves solemn responsibilities.
2. The transcendent theme of the Christian ministry is divinely revealed.
3. Personal experience of the grace of God endows man with the clearest insight into its mystery and the most satisfying possession of its spiritual riches. (G. Barlow.)
Divine ordination to the ministry
If they say, “You have gifts for preaching, and you might have been a tolerable preacher if you had been properly ordained,” I reply that I was properly ordained. My father ordained me. Ah! I was better ordained than that:my greater Father ordained me. He ordained me twice’:first, when He put his hand on my head before I was born, and said, “Be a head;” and then, after I had carried it round a few years, when He stretched out His hand and touched my heart rather than my head, and said, “Be ordained again.” First, He makes the head-piece to think; and then He touches the heart, and says, “Go preach My gospel.” When a man has had that done to him, he is ordained. A pope could not make him any better; a bishop could not make him any better; a whole presbytery could not make him any better. (H. W. Beecher.)
St. Paul a proof of his gospel
This is not merely an appeal to their affection for him, though that is perfectly legitimate. Holy words may be holier because dear lips have taught them to us, and even the truth of God may allowably have a firmer hold upon our hearts because of our love for some who have ministered it to us. It is a poor commentary on a preacher’s work if, after long service to a congregation, hiswords do not come with power given to them by old affection and confidence. The humblest teacher who has done his master’s errand will have some to whom he can appeal, as Paul did, and urge them to keep hold of the message he has preached. But there is more than that in the apostle’s mind. He was accustomed to quote the fact that he, the persecutor, had been made the messenger of Christ, as a living proof of the infinite mercy and power of that ascended Lord, whom His eyes saw on the road to Damascus. So here he puts stress on the fact that he became a minister as being an “evidence of Christianity.” The history of his conversion is one of the strongest proofs of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. You know, he seems to say, what turned me from being a persecutor into an apostle. It was because I saw the living Christ, and “heard the words of His mouth,” and, I beseech you, listen to no words which make His dominion less sovereign, and His sole and sufficient work on the Cross less mighty. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
