Power of the Pulpit - Spring - XVIII - Chapters 22 (Prayer for ministers) and 23 (The consideration due to the Christian ministry)

Required reading
The Power of the Pulpit by Gardiner Spring (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapters 22 (Prayer for ministers) and 23 (The consideration due to the Christian ministry).

My summary
This week we read two shorter chapters.

Firstly in Chapter 22 Spring speaks of the importance of congregations praying for their ministers.

Secondly in Chapter 23 Spring discusses the respect that the Christian ministry is owed from fellow-men.  He reflects, somewhat sadly, that this is often not the case.

What grabbed me
I loved the chapter on prayer for preachers: 'We entreat the churches to regard with a more deliberate and devout mind the great work itself to which their ministers are devoted. To explain the doctrines and enforce the duties of genuine Christianity ; to defend the truth against all the subtlety and versatility of error ; to sustain within their own minds that sense of God's presence, and of those moral sanctions which are revealed in his word, and that deep and tender impression of the things that are unseen and eternal, that are necessary to give earnestness, and that consistent life and deportment that are necessary to give effect to their preaching; to do this in a way that shall adapt itself to times, places, occasions and characters, and without being disheartened by difficulties, appalled by enemies, and weary of the yoke which they have taken upon them, is no ordinary work If a people are looking for rich discourses from their minister, their prayers must supply him with matter; if for faithful discourses, their prayers must urge him, by a full and uncompromising manifestation of the truth, to commend himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God ; if for powerful and successful discourses, their prayers must make him a blessing to the souls of men. Would they have him come to them in the fulness of the blessings of the Gospel of peace, with a heaving bosom, a kindled eye, and a glowing tongue, and with discourses bathed in tears and elaborate with prayer; their prayers must urge him to pray, and their tears inspire his thrilling heart with the strong yearnings of Christian affection. It is in their own closets that the people of God most effectually charge upon the soul of their beloved ministers, to take heed to the ministry they have received of the Lord Jesus.'

If you want much out of a minister, you must pray much for him!

Next week's reading
Read Chapter 24 (The responsibility of enjoying the Christian ministry).

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.