Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 01:4 (Fall 1992)
Article: Who Else? An Appeal for True Preaching!
Author: Richard C. Lucas

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Who Else? An Appeal for True Preaching!

R. C. Lucas

Editor’s Introduction: This article was originally a letter mailed to encourage evangelical ministers in the Evangelical Minister’s Assembly, which convenes in London each June. It retains much of its original letter format and is only slightly altered for publication in this form. R. C. Lucas wrote it to encourage ministers to consider the question, “Who will bring the Word of God to your church if you don’t?”

Writing from King’s College, Cambridge, on September 23, 1782, to Mr. J. Venn (the son of the better known Henry) on the occasion of his ordination, Charles Simeon said,

My dearest friend, I most sincerely congratulate you, not on permission to receive 40 pounds or 50 pounds a year, nor on the title of Reverend, but on your accession to the most valuable, most honorable, most important, and most glorious office in the world—to that of an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is the hope and purpose of the June Assembly to serve those in the great office of the pastor/teacher. In difficult and confusing times we all need help and encouragement from one another. We need to understand our task and believe it: we need a firm confidence in the fact that we have a great work to accomplish which will not be done if we—and like-minded pastors in all the Protestant churches—do not do it. Let me give seven illustrations of what I mean; there could certainly be several more.

1. Who else but the pastor/teacher can devote himself wholly to prayer and the ministry of the Word?

Christians today, like everyone else it seems, lead very busy lives with all too little time for prayer and Bible study. To be fulltime in the church pastorate, to be freed from the daily business of earning one’s living, to have a real measure

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of security in precarious times, to “have time” to think and pray and give oneself to the sacred Scriptures, this is a remarkable gift and provision of God. Like Moses’ mother we are paid to do the one job above all others that we longed to have. From time to time I find it salutary to repent of self-pity and gentle grumbling and recognize my astonishing privilege. Therein, of course, lies our heavy responsibility before God and man. As every young minister knows, it is the easiest thing in the world to fritter that precious time away, to find handling the 24 hours of comparative freedom a difficult discipline, and to slip into bad habits that may, in the end, last a lifetime. For instance, to have one’s office at home is not always a blessing—for wives as for husbands—and it is interesting that American pastors tend to “go t...