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The Acts of the Apostles
God would hold him accountable. “Whereof I am made a minister,” he
declared of the gospel, “according to the dispensation of God which
is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God; even the mystery
which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made
manifest to His saints: to whom God would make known what is the
riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ
in you, the hope of glory: whom we preach, warning every man, and
teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man
perfect in Christ Jesus: whereunto I also labor, striving according to
His working, which worketh in me mightily.”
Colossians 1:25-29
.
These words present before the worker for Christ a high attainment,
yet this attainment all can reach who, putting themselves under the
control of the Great Teacher, learn daily in the school of Christ. The
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power at God’s command is limitless, and the minister who in his great
need shuts himself in with the Lord may be assured that he will receive
that which will be to his hearers a savor of life unto life.
Paul’s writings show that the gospel minister should be an example
of the truths that he teaches, “giving no offense in anything, that the
ministry be not blamed.” Of his own work he has left us a picture in his
letter to the Corinthian believers: “In all things approving ourselves as
the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities,
in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in
watchings, in fastings; by pureness, by knowledge, by long suffering,
by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of
truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right
hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good
report: as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as
dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful,
yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich.”
2 Corinthians 6:3,
4-10
.
To Titus he wrote: “Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded.
In all things showing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine
showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech, that cannot
be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed,
having no evil thing to say of you.”
Titus 2:6-8
.
There is nothing more precious in the sight of God than His minis-
ters, who go forth into the waste places of the earth to sow the seeds
of truth, looking forward to the harvest. None but Christ can measure
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