the postmodern pop pastor

The Way We Preach the Word
Because of what the Bible is, the content of preaching seeks to correspond to the content of the Bible. God has breathed out these words and promises to illuminate them in the believing heart, mind and soul. If we preach anything other than the Bible we rob God's people of their great treasure and feed them cheap filler and preservatives that may lead to rapid and unnatural growth, which we all know is just another way to describe cancer.

Preaching that is consistent with the proclamation of the authoritative text as such following the traditional protestant hermeneutics has been described as expository preaching, preaching that explains.[1] The Word of God in written form serves as the foundation and backbone of the sermon. Publicly observing the biblical content must be the preacher’s first task. To ask questions about the meaning of the text with make no sense prior to explaining its content. To seek to apply an unknown and misunderstood idea is quite frankly ludicrous. The explanation of the biblical text is by no means the entirety of the sermon, as Robert Thomas has said. However, without such an exposition, biblical principles will fall mutely on biblically illiterate ears.

Expositional preaching allows the authority to remain with the text rather than the preacher. The inspired words of Scripture are the means by which God exercises His authority in the community of His people. The authority resides in God alone and God exercises that authority by means of the Scripture. Wayne Grudem concisely ties together the need for an authoritative text in preaching:

Throughout the history of church the greatest preachers have been those who have recognized that they have no authority in themselves and have seen their task as being to explain the words of Scripture and apply them clearly to the lives of their hearers. Their preaching has drawn its power not from the proclamation of their own Christian experiences or the experiences of others, nor from their own opinions, creative ideas, or rhetorical skills, but from God’s powerful words. Essentially they stood in the pulpit, pointed to the Biblical texts and said in effect to the congregation, “This is what this verse means. Do you see the meaning here as well? Then you must believe it and obey it with all your heart, for God himself is saying this to you today!” Only the written words of Scripture can give this kind of authority to preaching.[2]

If the preacher is not extending God's authority to the congregation then it far too quickly becomes his own. I see preaching without an authoritative text as a Nieztschian will to power.

The role of the expositional preacher is also to implicate the hearers who, like himself/ herself, sit under the authority of God. Doug Pagitt uses the word “implicate” for the preachers task. Implication is the present version of Nathan saying to David, "You are the man. This is your story, pick it up from here." The preacher implicates the congregation on behalf of our God who speaks to us through the inspired text. [3] The preacher is likewise implicated herself. Graeme Goldsworthy notes that, “while the preacher has a task of addressing others, the word of God comes to all alike, both preacher and congregation.[4]

We preach from the middle, as members of the community to which and on behalf of which we speak.

The preacher is like w jazz musician who improvises on a theme. The jazz musician receives the signal that it is time to play solo for eight bars or maybe sixteen. He or she must then take the theme and improvise, play out all the feelings and expressions of the theme, letting the music soar into the very beings of those who listen so that they are no longer listeners only by themselves become part of the music.[5]

In my preaching community, the influence of the reformation gives authority to the preaching of the words of the inspired text. The reformed preacher acts as God's spokesman so he can point one finger at the text and another at his congregation and say, "Thus says the Lord." Our Free Church tradition asks the preacher to clarify the words Scripture so that the believing community may have the words in their heart for the Spirit to make alive. Finally, our postmodern context keeps us speaking to the present aliveness of the inspired words of Scripture. What was spoken under inspiration to the early church through the apostles is our story. We are not the "you," of Ephesians, but they are our people, their God is our God and we are the living members of the church of the Firstborn, purchased with the blood of the precious lamb from every tribe, tongue and nation to declare the manifold wisdom of God to the watching world.

[1] Attempting a definition of Expository Preaching is difficult. Richard Mayhue defines it as, “1. The message finds its sole source in Scripture. 2. The message is extracted from Scripture through careful exegesis. 3. The message preparation correctly interprets Scripture in its normal sense and its context. 4. The message clearly explains the original God-intended meaning of Scripture. 5. The message applies the Scriptural meaning for today. Richard Mayhue, “Rediscovering Expository Preaching,” Rediscovering Expository Preaching, (Dallas, TX: Word, 1992), 12-13. Graeme Goldsworthy states, “The long and the short of it is that this kind of expository preaching is a matter of responding to the Bible as it really is.” Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible, 121. John Stott writes: To expound Scripture is to open up the text with such faithfulness and sensitivity that God’s voice is heard and his people obey him. John Stott, “A Definition of Biblical Preaching,” The Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 24. Kenton Anderson prefers to use the term expository, “to describe preaching that is faithful to the message, intent, impact, and perhaps even the form of the text.” Kenton C. Anderson, Choosing to Preach: A Comprehensive Introduction to Sermon Options and Structures, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), 25.
[2] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1994) 82, as quoted in David Allen, “A Tale of Two Roads,” 496. Peter Adams also addresses the connection between biblical authority and preaching. Peter Adam, Speaking God’s Words: A Practical Theology of Expository Preaching, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1996), 87-109.
[3] Doug Pagitt, Preaching Re-Imagined, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 95-105. This is the most significant part of Pagitt’s book. It may be the only point that he makes in the book, certainly the only point he makes well. Implicating moves beyond application, past what to do to who are we to be in light of this text.
[4] Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible, 128.
[5] Edwina Hunter, “The Preacher as a Social Being,” Preaching as a Social Act, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1988), 98

In the Christian community, it is the aim to be theologically consistent. That is, to clearly align practice with theology. We have examined a theology of the Word, proclamation, the community and the calling of one to preach on behalf of the whole. The following posts will turn to reflect on a philosophy of preaching that acts on those beliefs.

The Way We Hear the Word

We hear the Word of God in the inspired text. As Scripture, the Bible is truthful revelation of the infinite God in written form. He has communicated to us through these words and continues to communicate through the Spirit’s illumination of these very same words.

Proper hermeneutics are consistent with such a high view of Scripture and proclamation. I was fortunate to learn the science and art of hermeneutics from very level headed men. Robert Thomas, a mentor at The Master’s Seminary has written, “The expositor must teach his audience the meaning of the text intended by its author and understood by its original recipients.” He goes on to add, “A major precaution to observe is not to preach exegetical data from the pulpit… he must explain the text in a way that is interesting and understandable to people.[1]” While these men had their presuppositions, each attempted to honestly keep them from becoming prejudices.[2]

The Word of God has been breathed from the very mouth of God in the form that the story exists.[3] Therefore, it is essential that any who long to find the voice of the Spirit speaking to our present context first determine the voice as it was inspired. Leland Ryken insists upon the importance of the “actual text” of Scripture for enabling the reader to listen as they are intended to listen and to hear what they are intended to hear. “Readers are dependent on the words of the text for all they eventually experience in their reading of the work.[4]”
With this being the case, determining the original meaning or authorial intent as closely as possible becomes a vital task. Failure at this level will necessarily result in an inaccurate “hearing” and an inaccurate living. Ryken offers this familiar reference from E.D. Hirsh concerning interpretation:

A stable and determinate meaning requires an author’s determining will…All valid interpretation of every sort is founded on the recognition of what an author meant.[5]

This is the classic protestant hermeneutic, functioning since the reformation. This necessity is no longer in vogue as reader-response theories of interpretation remove the hope of actually hearing the voice of the Spirit in our day.[6]

We maintain a historical grammatical system of hermeneutics, taking every care to ensure that the author’s intent is discerned as nearly as possible. By refraining from both a wooden literalism and unfettered spiritualization, the inspired text once again takes center stage. Preaching the inspired text accurately cooperates with the Spirit of God's use of the Word of God in the hearts of the people of God.

[1] Robert L. Thomas, “Exegesis and Expository Preaching,” Rediscovering Expository Preaching, (Dallas, TX: Word, 1992), 137, 143.
[2] Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1991), 412. I must distinguish between “presupposition” and “prejudice …My basic point is that they can be identified. When prejudices become subconscious and are taken for granted, the interpreter never examines them and they become the major hermeneutical tool, determining the meaning of the text. While this often happens and does indeed obfuscate the possibility of discovering the original meaning of the text, this is not a necessary occurrence.
[3] No air actually moved across lips and gums of God, but this is the metaphor that God chose to use when describing the written revelation in Scripture, 2 Tim. 3:16.
[4] Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002), 144.
[5] E.D. Hirsch, as quoted in Leland Ryken, The Word of God in English, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002), 147.
[6] Brian A. Shealy, “Redrawing the Line Between Hermeneutics and Application,” The Master’s Seminary Journal 8 (1997): 87.

The Community’s Call to Preach
The general call to all believing people includes the call to proclamation. The Word goes out as the people of God go out. There are those who do not possess gifts for public proclamation. They will preach in a hundred informal pulpits but probably should not be released on a poor and unsuspecting congregation of hearers.

The call to preach comes from God upon certain individual members of the community to speak to and on behalf of that community. The call is to preach from the middle. My call to preach parallels the historic combination of internal and outward confirmation. The initial “calling” came through the mouth of a good friend and mentor. I entered preparations for the ministry because I was asked to by God through the community. This outward call was confirmed by inward desire. As David Hegg observes:

In drafting and appointing a man to ministry, God acts to place a righteous desire for ministry upon the man’s heart. Unfortunately, it is all too often assumed that any man claiming this desire for ministry must be called of God. And yet it must be agreed that if the desire for ministry is truly from God, then that desire for ministry will be the right kind of desire… Just as a man’s character is a validation of God’s call on his life, so also the proper attitude toward the job of pastoring is a display that the desire in his heart is of God.[1]

This desire has been repeatedly confirmed by external recognition of attitude and ability as well as the joy which comes with fulfilling the calling. The call to preach came from the community to one in community, myself, and continues to be confirmed by the community who states, “This one speaks to us and on our behalf. This one preaches from the middle.”

The call to preach demands that I believe God for myself. It also demands that the text of Scripture first finds a place at my table where I eat generously of the holy meal. I am in favor of a clear and repeated presentation of the realities of the preaching life. While we cannot say "do as the Bible says not as your pastor does,” there is something to this statement, “You are following Christ and not me. This teaching is my standard too, I believe it, but I fail to live up to it at times.” My faith, not my perfection, ought to inspire following. I see the modern version of Paul's "follow me as I follow Christ" as being, “Follow faith. You know me, I am a part of your community. Follow my faith through successes, follow it through failure, and follow it through repentance. Hopefully, following my faith will always lead you to Jesus.”

[1] David Hegg. Appointed to Preach: Assessing a Call to Ministry, (Geanies House, Fearn, Ross-Shire, Great Britain: Mentor, 1999), 53-54.

The Preaching Community
Proclamation embodies the verbal communication so that it remains personal as He is personal. In the act of preaching, the Word is continually rescued from dusty pages and breathed into life as they move from one person to another.

Proclamation is consistent with the relationship context He has established with His creation and with His chosen people in particular. The words of God always come within relationship. This truth makes the disconnected preacher who delivers truth from on high without vital connection to the congregation a theological anomaly. Therefore, “We” preach.

Man is a communal being. There is no such thing as an isolated individual. Each one was created in the image of the communal God. Bruce Ware has explained it this way:

It is not enough just to exist together alongside but independent of others…God intends that there be a created community of persons in which there is an interconnection and interdependence, so that what on does affects another, what one needs can be applied by another, and what on seeks to accomplish may be assisted by another. [1]

Because the Trinitarian communal God created man as a community and addressed them as community, proclamation is always a communal experience. Both the preacher and the hearers fit into this category. The preaching image bearer speaks to the listening image bearer with all of the respect that is due to the God in whom image he/she exists. The fusion of diversity and unity within the Godhead sets the essential pattern for any such human relationship that requires proper authority and submission. As the Son submits to the will of the Father or the Spirit to being sent by both the Father and the Son, so humans necessarily submit to authority at times and at other times, they exercise it. In either role, one must imitate the relationships of the Trinity. Therefore, the preaching member of the community exercises this position from the middle.

[1] Bruce Ware, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles and Relevance, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 134.

Preaching the Word of God

God is there and is not silent, as Francis Schaeffer has said. This God has chosen to use the act of proclamation to spread the good news of His salvation and His very present reign. We see it clearly in Paul’s admonition to Timothy.

“Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.[1]”

Preaching makes logical and theological sense in light of His communicative personality. The God who communicates as an eternal Trinity, extends that conversation to include His created persons and logically entrusts His revealed message to their hands.

Common sense also plays a part in that if a message is to be spread, it is going to happen in words and when words are transferred from one with knowledge to one without, proclamation has taken place. There is no other way for content to be delivered apart from spoken words. The Exodus, as a grand metaphor of God as deliverer, would have revealed nothing had He not also provided divine commentary through the prophet Moses. J.I. Packer:

Without this [verbal communication from Himself], revelation in the full and saving sense cannot take place at all. For no public historical happening, as such (an exodus, a conquest, a captivity, a crucifixion, an empty tomb), can reveal God apart from an accompanying word from God to explain it, or a prior promise which it is seen to confirm or fulfill.[2]

Without definitive special revelation, events fail to convey any distinct content as to God’s person, nature or relationship to mankind[3].

[1] 2 Timothy 4:2, English Standard Version.
[2] J. I. Packer, God Has Spoken: Revelation and the Bible, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House), 1993), 76.
[3] Graeme Goldsworthy concurs with this understanding of revelation. He writes, “only a word from God can truly interpret the meaning of the events from the Exodus to the kingship and beyond.” Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 105.

Our God has Spoken

The Bible is God's revelation in written form, breathed out and inscripturated by the superintending of the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures provide the foundation for faith and practice of the Christian community. The revelation that the Bible presents is complete. Nothing else is need in order to know God, how to be saved or how to live a life that pleases Him.

The implications of having God’s very words are multifaceted. Foundationally, having God’s very words or revelation in the Bible reminds us that God is personal. He possesses the qualities of personhood that sets Him apart as a living divine being. He speaks to His creation. While being wholly other than His creation, He is involved in the most personal kind of relationship, communication. Relationship, then, establishes the context in which to receive the very words of God in Scripture. God, the creator, has spoken. More narrowly for Christian people, God, our savior has spoken. As inspired revelation of the wholly trustworthy God, the Bible is the means by which God exercises his authority in the community.

Holy Scripture…[is] the one divinely given Word by which God intends to rule the Christian community and in which he presently confronts the church with a norm higher than her own conscience.[1]

As the children of God, we believe the words He has spoken in propositional form; we obey the words He has given as commands and we participate in the words that come as poetry and as story. The implication of possessing God’s very words written form is that we know what to believe about our God and how to continue in relationship to Him because He has communicated and continues to communicate through the Spirit’s illumination of those very same words.

Because the Bible is Scripture, inspired revelation by God in written form, we preach the Bible. God has breathed out these words and promises to illuminate them in the believing heart, mind and soul. My role is to explain and to clarify within my community. If we preach anything other than the Bible (even for 40 days) we rob God's people of their great treasure and fed them instead cheap filler that may lead to rapid and unnatural growth, which we all know is just another way to describe cancer.

The divine Word transforms the human soul. We can speak only a few words about the process before we must bow the knee to the mysterious work of God’s Spirit in the believing heart. Paul writes:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.[2]

Scripture delivers these four profits in the believing life. It teaches what was not known. The Bible provides true, but not exhaustive, knowledge about God and God’s ways in the world. Biblical knowledge comes in a variety of forms that range from story to poetry to propositional statement. It corrects where doctrine is held that is unworthy of God. We call such false doctrine, “heresy.” As the means by which God exercises His authority, the Bible rebukes bad behavior and positively trains the willing heart to act righteously in wisdom based upon what has been taught.

Furthermore, the Scriptures demonstrate by their existence and their record that words[3] are affective, they influence in a formative direction. Eugene Peterson writes:

The Christian Scriptures are the primary text for Christian spirituality…We don’t form our personal spiritual lives out of a random assemblage of favorite texts in combination with individual circumstances; we are formed by the Holy Spirit in accordance with the text of Holy Scripture.[4]

While some will want to make a clear distinction between approaching the Scriptures for information as opposed to transformation, I don’t see this as a possibility. M. Robert Mulholland, whom I have much respect for, addresses the issue this way:

God asks to be loved with all our minds and all our hearts. The informational aspect relates to primarily (though not exclusively) to our minds. It must be balanced with the formational aspect, which relates primarily (though not exclusively) to our hearts.[5]

We are whole human persons. We cannot read with one part of being and not another. Walt Russell comments on Mulholland’s example of reading for transformation:

The spiritual concerns and goals expressed by these examples are clearly admirable…Such practices remove any sense of shared understanding or meaning that other readers could have with the same text…It is a mistake to pit informational reading against reading for spiritual formation.[6]

True transformation will always take place as a result of the Spirit of God illuminating a true knowledge of the Word of God, which is information. We preach the inspired information for spiritual transformation. As to how the Word transforms, it is a work of the Spirit of God to bring about according to His own sovereignty.

The Westminster Divines codified the truth that the formative power of the faith, both initially and ongoing, belongs to the Spirit of God and the Spirit works in relation to His inspired Word.

We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it does abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.
Westminster Confession of Faith[7]

Ultimately, the Word transforms because the Spirit works with it. The child of God is transformed as the Spirit of God uses the Word of God through the mouths of the people of God, which we call preaching or proclamation.

[1] Carl Henry, “The Authority and Inspiration of the Bible” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan), 1979, 10.
[2] 2 Timothy 3:16-17, English Standard Version.
[3] “Words” meaning the conveying of thought via either the movement of air over the vocal cords or the movement of the hand and pen over the paper.
[4] Eugene Peterson, Eat this Book: a conversation in the art of spiritual reading, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 15.
[5] M. Robert Mulholland Jr., Shaped by the Word: The Power of Scripture in Spiritual Formation, (Nashville, TN: Upper Room Books, 2000), 63.
[6] Walt Russell, Playing with Fire: How the Bible Ignites Change in your Soul, (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2000), 40-41.
[7] Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, article 5.

A theology of preaching finds formation based upon the communal nature of the Trinitarian God and a theology of the Bible as the Word of God in written form. It will require a clearly defined understanding of what the Bible speaks concerning the necessity and nature of proclamation. Finally, a theology of preaching will build upon the revelation of God concerning the image bearing community and the calling of an individual to speak from the middle of that community as a preacher.

Our Trinitarian God

The Christian church’s historic testimony concerning the relationships within Triune God is found in the Nicene Creed:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty…And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God…And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord, and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son]; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.

The Creed, as in all such documents, presents more of a definition than an explanation. However, this particular statement includes helpful terms such as “begotten,” and “proceeds,” to describe the internal relationship between the members of the Holy Trinity. These three within one do not, indeed cannot, exist outside of their communal bond.

Relationality has always been understood as intrinsically part of God’s ontology. This ontological relationality has been built into us as divine image bearers and serves as the paradigmatic imagery for my understanding of spiritual community. We cannot but relate to ourselves, to others and to God – that is our identity. To relate in all of these contexts as God relates is to be formed spiritually and is that goal of spiritual community.

Every Sunday is Christmas for a preacher. It’s hard to sleep on Saturday night and I wake up before the alarm clock rings with words on my lips. I speed through the necessary personal hygiene in order to be tolerable to other human beings and accelerate to the nearest pulpit where these gifts can be unwrapped. For those of us currently serving in associate roles, the pulpit can take varying forms. Setting up chairs for Sunday School provides an audience for one. Folks serving in hospitality ministries often find themselves on the other end of a pulpit in the shape of a coffee cup. Preachers preach, that is what we do, its in our blood, it’s a divine appointment that cannot be ignored without great personal cost. Our theology calls us to preach. Our traditions teach us how to preach and our experiences enhance the desire by repeatedly confirming that calling within.

I am also in community. The people I preach to are the people I live with. They are my neighbors, my friends and the referees for my son’s soccer game. They have influence on my life just as I do in theirs. They know the Word. They have the indwelling Spirit and they play a role in the active dynamic of preaching. So, it might be better to say that “we” preach, rather than “I” preach. I proclaim of the truths of God to and on behalf a people to whom I myself belong. I preach as one of them. I do not preach as one way out in front. I preach from the middle.

Leaving the PNW today...its been a great trip.

Preaching a sermon is a communal activity. I, as a preacher, do not preach alone. In fact, I cannot preach alone.

More on this later, but here are a few thoughts.

• The way you prepare to listen affects the sermon, not just preparing for yourself but preparing for participating.
• The way I prepare to preach that includes you in thought, prayer and relationship.
• The way I invite you to interact in the art/ event of preaching.
• The way you do interact. Speak up, man!

...because I am a preacher.

Every Sunday is Christmas for a preacher. It’s hard to sleep on Saturday night and we wake up before the alarm clock rings with words on our lips. We speed through the necessary personal hygiene in order to be tolerable to other human beings and accelerate to the nearest pulpit where our gifts can be unwrapped. For those of us currently serving in associate roles, the pulpit can take varying forms. Setting up chairs for Sunday School provides an audience for one. Folks serving in hospitality ministries often find themselves on the other end of a pulpit in the shape of a coffee cup. Preachers preach, that is what we do, its in our blood, it’s a divine appointment that cannot be ignored without great personal cost. Our theology calls us to preach. Our traditions teach us how to preach and our experiences enhance the desire by repeatedly confirming that calling within.

Preaching is not going away. As long as there have been people of God, there has been preaching.

I Preach

• Its who I am
• Its what I do
• Because preaching is hopeful!

I choose to preach

Every morning I arrive at the Lynden WA border crossing about 7:45. Canada doesnt open till 8, eh.

This week's course focuses on preaching for spiritual formation. See some of the "just read" books for texts related to the discussion.

over there
Originally uploaded by neo_athanasius.

This beautiful old footbridge lives at Whatcom Falls Park. There was sun for good light and nobody on it. How likely was that?

I'm enjoying my time in the north so far. Classes start today.

Chapter 2. In which Pooh goes visiting and gets into a tight place.

David Hegg, my Pastor (and boss) has written on the subject of the call to preach in the book Appointed to Preach: Assessing a Call to the Ministry from Christian Focus.

The Man God Appoints: Character and Desire
The most serious questions facing both the candidate and the church in the ordination process concern the measure of the man. Just what are we looking for? What are the distinguishing marks of a man’s life that come as a result of God’s call? And how do we measure them? These questions must be answered according to the truth of Scripture which, providentially, is clearly set out for us.

The Distinguishing Marks of God’s Appointment
The entrance to public ministry has historically been divided into two stages. First, there is the internal call of God to the man by which God begins the process. Bannerman states:

There is a distinction, and a most important one in the argument, to be drawn between the title to the possession of the ministerial office, and the title to the exercise of the ministerial office. The former, or the right to the office is the gift immediately of Christ; His call, directly addressed to the individual, gives him this first right. The latter, or the right to the exercise of the office, is also the gift of Christ; not however, immediately or directly bestowed, but conferred through the regular and outward appointment of the Church. The first, or a right to the ministerial office, is one involved in the call of the Savior Himself, addressed and announced to the individual by the bestowment upon him of those special gifts and graces of a spiritual kind which alone can qualify him for the office.1

It is the nature of this internal call, from Christ to the man, that occupies our attention here. What does it look like? How may it fairly be assessed to be of God? If, as stated above, God first drafts the man and then moves to fit him for ministry, what evidence will there be of this special work of God that can be used to demonstrate to both the man and the church that the call is of God?

1 James Bannerman, The Church of Christ (reprint of 1869 ed., Banner of Truth, 1974) vol. 1:431.

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