Preaching and Preachers

The Preacherurged him to go on. The actual fact was that the poor fellow lackedthe mental ability necessary to the making of a preacher. It was assimple as that. He would never have been able to pass even the preliminaryexaminations; and even if he had scraped through themsomehow, he lacked the mental capacity demanded by the work wehave already described. So we have got to emphasise natural intelligenceand ability. Ifa man is to 'rightly divide the word of truth' hemust have ability. The Apostle Paul says that he must be 'apt toteach'. As preaching means delivering the message of God in theway which we have described, involving the relationship betweensystematic theology and the exact meaning of the particular text, itobviously demands a certain degree of intellect and ability. So if aman lacks a basic minimum in that respect he is clearly not called tobe a preacher.Then I would add to that 'the gift of speech'. Here again is something,surely, that we are tending to forget today. That is why I haveput all that emphasis upon the act of preaching, upon the actualspeaking part. What is a preacher? The first thing, obviously, is that.he is a speaker. He is not primarily a writer of books, he is not anessayist or a literary man; the preacher is primarily a speaker. So ifthe candidate has not got the gift of speech, whatever else he mayhave, he is not going to make a preacher. Hemay bea great theologian,he can be an excellent man at giving private advice and counselling,and many other things, but by basic definition, if a man has not gotthe gift of speech he cannot be a preacher.Once more I can illustrate this by an example. I remember the caseof a young man who was a very good scientist and who had done well,and was doing well, inhis own line. He came to me saying that he wassure that he was called to be a preacher. But immediately I knew thathe was wrong. Why? Not because of any special insight on my part,but simply because he obviously could scarcely express himselfevenin private conversation leave alone in public. He was a very able man,but he obviously had not got the gift of communicating. He could notspeak freely; he was hesitant and halting and doubtful, and diffidentIII