MINISTRY
by Charles J. Woodbridge, PH. D.*
that the Church of Jesus Christ theologically has been in no greater jeopardy since the time of the Protestant revolt. Subtle forces are at work. The very heart and core of our whole theological system — the inspiration of the Word of God— is being attacked. You and I are called upon, with every fiber of our being, to be loyal to the Word of God, to refuse to lower the flag either in the area of doctrine or in the area of ethics, one centimeter. And yet, it is our job to remember that the beloved apostle Paul when writing to babes in Christ in Thessalonica said, “but we were gentle among you even as a nurse cherisheth her children.” This is what I call spiritual balance. You and I must contend for the faith delivered once for all. Yet at the same time, in the Spirit of God, we must cultivate the spirit of love, of tenderness, of kindness. TH E MOOD And now verse 8: “So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.” First the message, then the meth od, the motive, the manner, and now the mood. The fruit of the Spirit is love. May God grant that every one of us may really love the souls of people for whom Christ died. May we sometimes at night feel our pillows wet with tears when during the day we have learned of some one who rejected the Son of God. May we really be affectionately desirous of the beloved peo ple to whom we minister. THE MAN I call your attention to verse 10: “Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe.” Item six is the man himself, Paul. How careful every worker for God must be to make sure that he himself is living a pure and holy life. The man himself: this is crucial. What a challenge! Wherever we labor, our ministry will be effective if we meet these conditions. *From a message delivered, at the Congress of Missions in Chicago, III. included in the book, “Facing the Unfinished Task,” compiled by J. O. Percy. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michi gan. 9
Do you believe in academic liberty? Of course you do. Academic liberty relates to pedagogy, it relates to system, it relates to methodology, it relates to the man ner in which we get things across. Every teacher in every evangelical institution around the world should remember that while he has academic liberty, at the same time he is in bondage. He is in bondage to the Word of God. In 1920 Martin Luther wrote three inflammatory treatises. They got him into trouble. One of them had to do with the freedom of the Christian man. The Chris tian is the freest of all men. Why? Because he is the bondslave of One alone, Jesus Christ. Why do I mention this? Because every faithful minister of God, every faithful missionary, gets his orders from the Word of God. His motivation is directed by his desire to please the Almighty. The method of pleasing the Almighty is found in the Scriptures. And if he is pleasing thé Al mighty on- the basis of the Word of God, unquestionably there will be occasions when he displeases men. THE MANNER “But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children” (I Thess. 2 :7 ). This is an amaz- ing text, a strange text. In the background of this tre mendous Christian theologian, Paul, there were three distinct cultures -— Hellenistic, Hebraic, and Roman. Never man wrote theology under the inspiration of the Spirit of God as did the apostle Paul. He sometimes uses theological jet planes and takes us into the theological stratosphere. But then suddenly this tremendous theo logian brings us right down to where people live. “We were gentle among you even as a nurse . . Here is the man who upon occasion withstood others to the face (Galatians 2). And yet “I was gentle among you as a nurse . . .” This is marvelous. When I was a missionary in the French Cameroon, we had no doctor within eighty-five miles. We had one American nurse. I used to call her “M.D.” That meant “Minus a Doctor.” I used to watch her at work. Can you visualize the apostle Paul taking the spiritual temperature of these Thessalonians? Can you imagine him sticking a spiritual thermometer into their mouths to see how they were doing, and then feeling their pulse? You and I are living in days of heated theological controversy. It is my reasoned opinion FEBRUARY, 1962
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