Last month we considered Christ sending out ambassadors, those who preach the gospel. They speak in His name, “in Christ’s stead”, to their fellow sinners. In this article, we return to the subject.
Christ is altogether perfect; preachers are not; they are still sinners. Yet assuming they are actually trusting in the Saviour, they will yet be perfect – but that will be in the world to come, after their time of service in this world is over. Paul compares the gospel to treasure, and how precious the gospel should be to us! But his point is that “we [preachers] have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Cor 4:7) in vessels made from pottery, and therefore easily broken. No doubt Paul was thinking of physical weakness arising from preachers’ circumstances but also taking into account their vulnerability to temptation and the power of sin still remaining in them, even although that power is being subdued. But, in his comments on this verse, Charles Hodge notes that this “only renders the power of God the more conspicuous, not only in the success of [his] ministry, but in [his] preservation in the midst of dangers and sufferings which it seems impossible any man could either escape or bear”.
Only divine power can make the words spoken by a weak, fallible, sinful man effective – as an instrument in bringing spiritual good to others and, in particular, bringing about their salvation. Human beings are too feeble to achieve this, for in their preaching they are attacking Satan’s strongholds. What is their strength in comparison with that of Satan and his fellow devils? The answer lies in the words of Paul: “Our sufficiency is of God” (2 Cor 3:5). In himself he had no power even to think properly, but God was able to use his preaching to bring about extensive damage to Satan’s strongholds in the hearts of sinners, all the way from Damascus to Rome and perhaps beyond. And, in one degree or another, the Lord has used the preaching of weak, vulnerable human beings whom He has made His ambassadors to bring about His purposes to build up His Church, in every generation.
The solemn fact is: the preacher is still a sinner. That godly ambassador, the Apostle Paul, speaks of “the law of sin which is in my members” (Rom
7:23). The tendency of this principle of sin, says David Brown when commenting on this verse, is “to carnalise the entire man, to enslave us wholly to our own corruptions”. Yet in some, he points out, the principle of sin is very much subdued. Paul has already reached heaven, where “there shall be no more curse” (Rev 22:3), where therefore there is no more sin. Meanwhile God’s ambassadors must go on in their work, in dependence on the One who has sent them to engage in labour that, apart from His blessing, is altogether beyond their power – which is so much weakened by sin.
We might be tempted to think that it would be more appropriate for sinless beings such as holy angels to preach the gospel. Yet we should recognise that angels have neither experienced sin or deliverance from sin; they would require to speak of what they have never passed through themselves. But the fundamental point is that “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor 1:21). In infinite wisdom, He has chosen fallible, sinful men to be His ambassadors – to bring before their hearers the good news of salvation through a crucified Redeemer. But the good news is foolishness to those who reject the revelation God has given. Charles Hodge points out, in expounding this verse, that “God thus put to shame all human wisdom by making a doctrine, which the wise of this world regarded as absurd, the means of salvation”.
An important practical conclusion to draw from the imperfection of ministers, and the native tendency of unbelievers to reject the gospel, is the need to pray for preachers. So Paul exhorts the Thessalonians: “Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified” (2 Th 3:1). He is asking them to pray that the truth would spread and that God would be glorified through the success of the preaching, but this involves them praying for Paul personally – and correspondingly believers today are to intercede for the preachers of this generation.
Preachers are vulnerable to temptation; the devil has great power and he is subtle; so prayer should be offered to the Lord that preachers would be delivered from the wiles of the devil. They need to grow in grace and in knowledge, and therefore they need prayer so that the Lord would bless the books they read to their spiritual good – and especially the Scriptures. In particular, they need to understand the portion of truth they expect to preach from and also those other parts of the Bible they intend to refer to in their sermon; they need the Holy Spirit to give light in their understandings, so that they are not left merely to the power of their natural minds in their attempts to comprehend the teaching of God’s Word. Prayer is thus needed so that they may take from these passages what the Holy Spirit, who gave the Word, purposed to convey through them.
Especially, Christ’s ambassadors need the Holy Spirit to apply to their hearers the truths they proclaim. Apart from the Spirit’s accompanying power, their efforts will be in vain. So it is necessary to pray that the truth proclaimed by Christ’s ambassadors throughout the world would be powerfully applied by the Spirit in order that multitudes of unbelievers may come to faith in Christ and that believers may grow in grace.
These ambassadors must be careful not to depart from pure, scriptural doctrine as they preach. They ought to structure their material in an orderly way so that their hearers may more readily take in the truths presented to them. And they must speak clearly, so that their hearers will grasp exactly what truths it is that they wish to convey. All these matters, and many more, should be made subjects for prayer, including the physical needs of preachers and their family concerns.
But in asking for the Thessalonians’ prayers, Paul was also concerned that he and his fellow ambassadors “may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men”. These men may have been open persecutors, but the form taken by opposition to the gospel varies from age to age and from place to place. Some of us may be most conscious of the opposition to the truths of the Bible within the professing Church, for instance, or the belittling of Scripture morality in various sections of the media. But whatever form the opposition may take, Christ’s ambassadors are very limited in their capacity to resist it successfully – however appropriate their efforts may be. Yet God is not limited. Hence the appropriateness of prayer that individual ministers and particular parts of the Church – and indeed the whole Church of Christ – may be delivered from unbelieving opposition.
We read of the Old Testament priests that “they were not suffered to continue by reason of death” (Heb 7:23). One generation of them passed away and another generation served at the altar instead. So it is in the New Testament Church: one generation of faithful ambassadors is taken away to their eternal reward and another generation is raised up in their place to proclaim the same gospel. Yet often in the history of the Church, the ablest and most godly ministers are not replaced by men of the same calibre. And some of them may not be replaced at all, or replaced by men who were never called by the great Head of the Church to be ambassadors – or were not even converted. Clearly this results, especially when it takes place on a wide scale, in the Church becoming weaker. What need then to pray that God Himself would raise up large numbers of godly, competent men to act as ambassadors! We have the particular direction of the Saviour: “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He would send forth labourers into His harvest” (Lk 10:2).