A MINISTER'S OPPORTUNITIES RALPH G. TURNBULL Table of Contents I The Ceritude of Vocation II The Stewardship of Time III The Satisfaction of Study IV The Tools of Learning V The Devotion of Heart VI The Beauty of Holiness VII The Standard of Excellence VIII The Wisdom of Experience IX The Power of Ambition X The Sense of What is Vital XI The Discipline of Writing XII The Minting of Words XIII The Audacity of Authorship XIV The Worth of a Library XV The Mind of the Interpreter XVI The Vision of the Ministry XVII The Passion to Preach XVIII The Gospel in the Space Age XIX The Memory of Other Days XX The Pilgrim in Progress I The Certitude of Vocation "Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." (EPH. 3:7, 8, RSV) "The office does not sanctify the man; the man sanctifies the office." (A MINISTER'S OBSTACLES) "Function and not status is of the essence of the Christian ministry." (T. W. MANSON) "If you are to get the preaching that you need, you must think highly, and you must teach your minister to think highly of his sacred office." (BERNARD LORD MANNING) THE MINISTRY IS a calling set apart from other tasks. In the divine providence there is an unfolding of a design and destiny for our lives. The Spanish thinker, Miguel de Unamuno (1864- 1936), testified: There is a certain characteristic common to all those whom we call geniuses or great men and other heroes. Each of them has a consciousness of being a man apart, chosen very expressly by God for the performance of a certain work. Men and women of destiny near the end of life have left on record words which indicate their convictions that the whole of their life had meaning. They were conscious of a divine providence which shaped and molded their lives for a definite goal. Horace Bushnell (1802-1876), in his sermon "Every Man's Life a Plan of God," stated that "God has a definite life plan for each one, girding him visibly and invisibly for some exact thing which it will be the true significance and glory of his life to have accomplished." The thought reflects Isaiah 45:5: "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me. The Gentile King Cyrus is here spoken of as in the hands of God. Here are plan and purpose, design and destiny. The writer remembers well that at the age of sixteen he read this sermon and was convinced that if God had a plan for his life, then it was right to seek that plan out and pursue it with modesty and an open mind. For those who may not be familiar with Bushnell's remarkable sermon, it is well to recall its basic structure. In the first part he notes (1) that the Scriptures show the course of individual lives to be part of God's plan and (2) that in the works of God we trace design and not chance. In this part of the sermon, Bushnell expounds these truths with fitting illustrations. He also allows the possibility of the individual's missing God's plan: "God has, then, a definite life-plan set for every man; one that, being accepted and followed, will conduct him to the best and noblest end possible. No qualification of this doctrine is needed, save the fearful one just named; that we, by our perversity, so often refuse to take the place and do the work he gives us." In the econd part of the sermon, Bushnell raises the question: "How can we ever get hold of this life-plan God has made for us, or find our way into it?" He then gives practical answers to this question, the first of which are negative: (1) you will never come into God's plan if you study singularity; (2) you should not seek to copy the life of another; (3) you are never to complain of your birth, your training, your employments, your hardships; nor should you fancy that you could be something if only you had a different lot and sphere assigned to you; (4) you should not expect that God will set you in a scheme of life, the whole course of which you will know beforehand. [steps of faith] Following the negative, the positive note is sounded with the question: "How, then, can a man, who really desires to do so, discern the plan God has for him, so as to live it?" One may be on the point of choosing this or that calling, wanting to know where duty lies and what course God Himself would have him take. Bushnell's directions begin at a point most remote, where the generality of truth is widest: (1) consider the character of God, and you will draw a significant deduction from that, for all that God designs for you is in harmony with His character; (2) consider your creaturely relationship to Him; (3) remember you have a conscience; (4) regard God's law and His written Word as guides to present duty; (5) be an observer of God's providence; (6) consult your friends, especially those who hold to the teaching of God; (7) go to God Himself, and ask for His help; for as certainly as He has a plan or calling for you, He will somehow guide you into it. This is the proper office and work of His Spirit. In the third and final section of the sermon, Bushnell discusses objections to and problems raised by his thesis, and in ten paragraphs (not unlike the Puritan structure) he makes the application pertinent and personal without dubiety. Prosperity and adversity, knowledge and ignorance, success and failure, young and old - all are brought under review. His conclusion sounds the conviction that it is never too late to seek and find God's plan. A condition is that there must be a complete renunciation of self-will. God and religion must be practically first .... Take your duty, and be strong in it, as God will make you strong. ... Understand, also, that the great question here is, not what you will get, but what you will become. Take your burdens, and troubles, and losses, and wrongs, if come they must and will, and your opportunities, knowing that God has girded you for greater things than these. O, to live out such a life as God appoints, how great a thing it is! - to do the duties, make the sacrifices, bear the adversities, finish the plan, and then to say, with Christ (who of us will be able?) - "It is finished!" This sermon has a timeless quality, a magnificent simple theme. The profound conviction of a divine life-plan catches the imagination, fires the mind, and challenges the will. Bushnell has outlined and elucidated in this sermon God's providential caring for those who seek His mind and will. In this sense the sermon is timeless in its application and influence. Bushnell surely and wisely outlined practical steps to follow in seeking to know the will of God. Man experiences a growing consciousness of inner awakening when such steps are taken. Bushnell took his examples from Scripture and history. There were others who also discerned the same providence at work in molding the destinies of mankind. Shakespeare has it: There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will. Similar convictions were voiced by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: And out of darkness came the hands That reach thro' nature, moulding men; and by Robert Browning: But I need, now as then, Thee, God, who mouldest men. For a number of years, Robert Browning has been out of favor, as if he had nothing to say to our tempestuous age. But for those of us who were once exposed to his insights, there is satisfaction in rereading Browning. Who can deny the strength and vigor of those poems which treat of biblical subjects? Recall, for example, the memorable "Rabbi Ben Ezra" with its wrestling concerning doubt and the question of purpose and destiny. Borrowing Jeremiah's metaphor of the potter's wheel, Browning states: He fixed thee 'mid this dance Of plastic circumstance, This present, thou, forsooth, wouldest fain arrest; Machinery just meant To give thy soul its bent, Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. Heart and head, love and reason, were intertwined as the poet shared the fruit of his faith and passion for righteousness. Browning has that robust spirit which does not play with lesser loyalties but encircles the highest and the best. His incurable optimism is not a passing and ephemeral mood of the moment, but finds its roots in eternal truth. His interpretation of truth is realistically linked to divine revelation. Constructive critics of Browning include Welshman Henry Jones (1852-1922), professor of philosophy at Glasgow University, who issued a small book of selections entitled Browning as a Religious and Philosophical Teacher (Philadelphia: Richard West, 1973 reprint of 1891 edition). Jones claimed that in Browning we have seminal ideas which not only are profound, but are expressed in simple terms where ordinary people live. Linked with Jones is the Scottish preacher John A.