Required reading
Lectures to my students by Charles Spurgeon (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 13 (To workers with slender apparatus).
My summary
Today Spurgeon gives counsel on what ministers are to do if they have few books and little or no means wherewith to purchase more.
Spurgeon advises:
(i) mastering those books you have;
(ii) engaging in a little judicious borrowing;
(iii) having your Bible;
(iv) making up for it by much thought;
(v) keeping your eyes open;
(vi) studying yourself;
(vii) reading other men;
(viii) learning from experienced saints;
(ix) gathering from the inquirer;
(x) being much at death-beds.
What grabbed me
If Spurgeon had lived to see the internet he may not have written this chapter. No minister with an internet connection can claim to have a slender apparatus!
I did appreciate the encouragement to study the Scriptures: 'A man who has learned not merely the letter of the Bible, but its inner spirit, will be no mean man, whatever deficiencies he may labor under.You know the old proverb, “Cave ab homine unius libri” — Beware of the man of one book. He is a terrible antagonist. A man who has his Bible at his fingers’ ends and in his heart’s core is a champion in our Israel; you cannot compete with him: you may have an armory of weapons, but his Scriptural knowledge will overcome you; for it is a sword like that of Goliath, of which David said, “There is none like it.” The gracious William Romaine, I believe, in the latter part of his life, put away all his books and read nothing at all but his Bible. He was a scholarly man, yet he was monopolized by the one Book, and was made mighty by it. '
As long as we have a Bible, we are well equipped for the ministry.
Next week's reading
Read Chapter 1 (The Holy Spirit in connection with our ministry).
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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