Preaching and Preachers

The Congregationyou might have servicesfor the different ages,then one for the factoryworkers and one for professional people and so on endlessly. Theresult would be that you would be dividing up and atomising yourcongregation; you would never have a common public act of worship,and a sermon preached, at all. You would have to be dividing yourselfup in this way and your work would be endless. In any case it wouldbe entirely destructive of this great fundamental principle of the NewTestament, that we are all one: 'There is neither Jew nor Gentile,Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, male or female.' I add, there isneither intellectual nor non-intellectual, factory worker, professionalman or anything else. We are all one in sin, one in failure, one inhopelessness, one in need of the Lord Jesus Christ and His greatsalvation.Let me put it in this way. Having spent the first part of my adultlife as a physician in medicine I have often been interested in thedifference between the work of the physician and the work of thepreacher. Of course there are many similarities, but there is oneessential difference which comes out in this way. How does thephysician deal with his patient? Well, the first thing he does is to askthe patient to give an account of his symptoms and his troubles-hisaches and pains, where it is, how long he has had it, how it began, hasit varied, etc. All this has to be gone into in great detail. The doctortakes a careful history of the case and then enquires as to the patient'sprevious history from childhood onwards. Having done that he takesthe family history, for that may throw considerable light upon thisparticular ailment. There are hereditary and familial diseases, andfamilial predispositions to disease, so the family history is most important.Having ascertained these facts he then proceeds to make hisphysical examination of the patient.Now without this detailed, specific, special personal knowledge ofthe patient the physician cannot do his work; and it is at this point, Isay, that there is such a striking contrast between the work of thephysician and that of the preacher. The preacher does not need toknow these personal facts concerning his congregation. This is a133