ࡱ>   bjbj (oo KKKKK_...8.lG/L_3/////n0n0n0J3L3L3L3L3L3L3757LL3Kn0n0n0n0r0L32KK//a3222v0K/K/J32n0J322KK2|fh.r2234w3032%82%822K2n0n0n0__D.__. :   LECTURE 1.1 THE PASTORS PREPARATION Question: What life events have prepared you for Gospel ministry? 1. PARENTAL PREPARATION 1.1 Every man is to a great extent the product of his inheritance. The most formative influence on each of us has been our parentage and our home. Hence good biographies never begin with their subject but with his parents and probably his grandparents as well. (4/22) 1.2 How much my father's prayers at this time impressed me I can never explain, nor could any stranger understand. When, on his knees and all of us kneeling around him in Family Worship, he poured out his whole soul with tears for the conversion of the Heathen World to the service of Jesus, and for every personal and domestic need, we all felt as if in the presence of the living Saviour, and learned to know and love Him as our Divine Friend. As we rose from our knees, I used to look at the light on my father's face, and wish I were like him in spirit, hoping that, in answer to his prayers, I might be privileged and prepared to carry the blessed Gospel to some portion of the Heathen World. (6/21) 1.3 All four of Billy Graham's grandparents were descended from the Scots-Irish pioneers who settled in the Carolinas before the Revolution. His mother's father, Ben Coffey, had fair hair and blue eyes (like his grandson) and the tall, clean-limbed, strong-jawed physique immortalized in the North Carolina monument at Gettysburg, where he fell badly wounded. A one-legged, one-eyed veteran, he was a farmer of intelligence, spirit, and sterling honesty, with a tenacious memory and a love for Scripture and literature, which he imparted to his daughters. (11/13) 1.4 Billy never thought of his parents as particularly religious. Then, when he was about fifteen, his mother joined a Bible class at the urging of her sister. Her husband remained indifferent. His energies were absorbed by the farm, especially since he had recently lost his savings in the bank failures of 1933. Three weeks after she joined the Bible class, Frank Graham's head was smashed by a piece of wood that shot out from the mechanical saw. The surgeons believed he would die. Mrs. Graham, after calling her Christian friends to pray, went up to her bedroom to pray. When she finished, she had the assurance that God heard her prayer. Both the Grahams believed that the Lord really spoke to them in Frank's accident and full recovery. They spent more time in Bible study and prayer, and Mrs. Graham read devotional books to the children. The adolescent Billy thought it was all "hogwash." He was in a mild rebellion, though his chief wildness was to borrow his father's car and drive it as fast as it could go, turning curves on two wheels, and racing other boys on the near-empty roads of North Carolina. (11/15-16) 1.5 By temperament Henry Lloyd-Jones was an optimist and the soul of honour and uprightness. Elizabeth, his mother was strong minded. Many years later Martyn was to speak of his father as the best natural man Ive ever known and the kindest character Ive ever met. His first memories of his mother were of her charm, her activity and her friendliness. In character she was very impulsive, generous, and open hearted. She delighted in entertaining visitors, whether invited or uninvited. On some points her judgment was fixed; she remained a churchwoman and a Tory; on others she relied on her not inconsiderably intuition. I would say that my mother was highly intelligent but not intellectual, she did not read; she was a very quick thinker and could take up a point at once. She was more intelligent than my father. (9/1,2,6) During the years the family was growing up, and throughout the early years of Tom's [Carsons] ministry, his father John was not a Christian. John became a believer a few months before he died, at a time when I, one of his grandchildren, was old enough to observe the difference. But Tom's mother Ethel was a faithful Christian woman who ensured that her children were exposed to the gospel through the ministry of Calvary Baptist Church in Ottawa. Tom became a firm Christian during his high school years. (1/27) At this stage, Packer had no real interest in religious matters, and the name of Whitefield meant little to him. His mother had been brought up in circles which had been influenced by the Anglo-Catholic revival of the nineteenth century, but made no attempt to force Packer to attend Sunday school. (7/7) 2. PERSONALITY PREPARATION 2.1 I [Brainerd] was from my youth somewhat sober, and inclined rather to melancholy than the contrary extreme; but do not remember anything of conviction of sin, worth of remark, till I was, I believe, about seven or eight years of age. Then I became concerned for my soul, and terrified of the thoughts of death, and was driven to the performance of duties: but it appeared a melancholy business that destroyed my eagerness for play. (10/57) 3. SCHOOL PREPARATION 3.1 Around this time, Packer began to play chess at school with Brian Bone, the son of a local Unitarian minister. Between their games of chess, Bone attempted to convert Packer to Unitarianism. Packer found Bone's arguments unconvincing, not least on account of the Unitarian understanding of Jesus purely as a religious or ethical teacher; nevertheless, their debates raised in his mind the whole question of truth in Christianity. This interest was heightened still further through one of the English masters, who found himself in charge of Packer's sixth-form year during one of their weekly periods. Looking for a book which might stimulate discussion among his students, he settled on a recently-published title which had attracted a lot of attention. The book? C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. (7/8) G. M. Jackson, the second master, was a classicist who also taught modern languages: in collaboration with Major Letts he had written a Latin primer which was used in the school. Remember how much our view of our early teachers influences our appreciate of the subjects they teach, perhaps the foundations he laid can be seen in Johns degree course and double First. (4/55) The greatest influence upon Martyn in the school was undoubtedly S. M. Powell who first awakened his interest in history. As well as being an able teacher, Powell had a shrewd ability at setting the pupils on making their own discoveries.But I would be willing to challenge the world that there were never two such teachers together in the same school as G. T. Lewis, the headmaster, and S. M. Powell, his chief assistant. Mr. Lewis would sometimes break out into a sermon in Welsh and that might happen halfway through a geometry lesson. S. M. Powell was famous for his pioneering work in the field of drama he wrote many plays himself and was a born actor. (9/22-23) 3.2 Meanwhile, in the middle of Johns time at Oakley Hall, E. J. H. Nash, a school chaplain in his early thirties, was joining the staff of the Scripture Union.He graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge and did his theological training at Ridley Hall. From there, after serving two curacies, he was appointed chaplain at Wrekin School. His zeal to evangelize, which he could neither conceal nor restrain, clashed with his duty to instruct and caused uneasiness. Conversion was a dangerous word, as indeed it still is. There was an agreement that he should apply his gifts elsewhere. In 1932 he was appointed by the Scripture Union to work among public schoolboys. His brief experience in a public school had shown him the field in which his work was to lie. It had also shown him the peculiar difficulties of this branch of Christian work.Eric Nash Bash as he was universally known was to become a crucial figure in John Stotts life before many years had passed. Conversion may indeed be a dangerous indeed a revolutionary word, but to the end of his life, John Stott would say that he owed his conversion, under God, to this one man. (4/68) 3.3 He [Scholte] knows no Latin or Greek, but has learned the carpenter's trade and is engaged in his father's box factory. (8/22) But by May 23, 1828, be had a diploma recommending him for theological studies as a gifted young man. All this was accomplished without the usual course at gymnasium, and seemingly with the greatest ease and speed. (8/28) Billy Graham's early education was almost as poor as Abraham Lincoln's, a primary reason being the low level of teaching. Yet even if the teaching had been better, he would have made little use of it. By the age of eleven, he thought "horse sense" was enough education for a farmer, an attitude slightly encouraged by his father and stoutly resisted by his mother. (11/15) David Brainerd had no formal education until aged 19: About the latter end of April, 1737, being full nineteen years of age, I removed to Durham, to work on my farm, and so continued about one year, frequently longing, from a natural inclination after a liberal education. (10/58) 4. SOCIETAL PREPARATION 4.1 The Villagers of my early days - the agricultural servants, or occasional labourers, the tradesmen, the small farmers - were, generally speaking, a very industrious and thoroughly independent race of people. Hard workers they had to be, else they would starve; yet they were keen debaters on all affairs both in Church and State, and sometimes in the "smiddy" or the "kiln," sometimes in a happy knot on the" village green" or on the road to the" kirk" or the" market," the questions that were tearing the mighty world beyond were fought over again by secluded peasants with amazing passion and bright intelligence. (6/5) 5. VOCATIONAL PREPARATION 5.1 Though still under twelve years of age, I started to learn my father's trade, in which I made surprising progress. We wrought from six in the morning till ten at night, with an hour at dinner-time and half an hour at breakfast and again at supper. These spare moments every day I devoutly spent on my books, chiefly in the rudiments of Latin and Greek; for I had given my soul to God, and was resolved to aim at being a Missionary of the Cross, or a Minister of the Gospel. Yet I gladly testify that what I learned of the stocking frame was not thrown away; the facility of using tools, and of watching and keeping the machinery in order, came to be of great value to me in the Foreign Mission field. (6/21) This experience [working in flower and garden plot], too, came to be valuable to me, when, in long-after days, and far other lands, Mission buildings had to be erected, and garden and field cropped and cultivated without the aid of a single European hand. (6/24) 6. FRIEND PREPARATION 6.1 Nevertheless, one of Packer's schoolboy friends proved to have a major influence on him during his final year at school He found himself bewildered by Taylor's interest in justification by faith. In particular, he was puzzled by Taylor's emphasis on a 'saving faith' a faith which Taylor clearly believed Packer to lack. (7/11) 7. DELIVERING PREPARATION 7.1 Martyns childhood in Llangeitho was comparatively uneventful until a night in January 1910 which was to influence the life of the whole family. Early in that month Henry Lloyd-Jones had sent out bills to a number of farmers who came to pay them in old sovereigns and half-sovereigns on the evening of Wednesday, January 19. The business was done in the clothing section of the shop where the men stood, talking and smoking. Mrs Lloyd- Jones and eldest boys, Harold, happened to be away from home. About 1 a.m. the next morning, long after everyone had retired for the night, Martyn and Vincent, who shared a room, where half-aroused from their sleep by the smell of fumes, but sensing no danger they merely pulled the blankets higher over their heads. It seems that tobacco ash which had fallen to the floor of the store below, amidst millinery goods, had smouldered and then ignited. Once the building itself caught alight, the wind blowing that winters night fanned the fire almost immediately into the terrific blaze. Just in time, the cries of the familys maid and milliner, and their banging fists, awakened the father a heavy sleeper who was able to reach the boys bedroom. I was thrown recalled Martyn by my father from one of the upstairs windows into the arms of three men who were standing in their nightshirts in the road. Then they got hold of a ladder so that my father and brother could climb down. They were scarcely out when the floor collapsed behind them and everything went up in flames. (9/16-17) 8. AFFLICTION PREPARATION 8.1 It was 19 September 1933. A new school year had begun in England. A seven-year-old boy had just started to attend the National School in the English cathedral city of Gloucester. He was shy and uncertain of himself in his new surroundings. He was already being bullied. Another boy chased him out of the school grounds on to the busy London Road outside. A passing bread van could not avoid hitting him. He was thrown to the ground with a major head injury. The young boy was taken to the Gloucester Royal Infirmary and rushed into an operating theatre. He was discovered to have a depressed compound fracture of the frontal bone on the right-hand side of his forehead, with injury to the frontal lobe of the brain. It was potentially very serious. The resident surgeon at the hospital immediately performed an operation known as 'refining and elevation'. This can be thought of as extracting fragments of bone from inside the skull, and repairing the damage as much as possible. As it happened, the surgeon in question had just returned from Vienna after an extended period during which he had specialized in this type of surgery. The boy was left with a small hole in his right forehead, about two centimetres in diameter. The injury would remain clearly visible for the rest of his life. Looking back, this near-fatal accident can be seen to have had a major impact on the life of James I. Packer. As we shall see, it is directly linked to his love of reading and his remarkable ability to write. (7/1) From then until he went to university, Packer had to wear a protective aluminium plate over his injury, making it impossible for him to join in normal schoolboy games. This reinforced his natural tendency to be a loner. He tended to be on the outside of things at school. He was subjected to bullying. He never joined the schoolboy gangs which were a routine part of school life. He was known to be clever, and would be asked to help others out with their homework. He would find solace in solitary things, particularly reading. (7/4) Since then, Packer has freely admitted that he is 'something of a bookworm'. There can be little doubt that one of his many strengths has been the way in which he has read the spiritual classics of earlier generations, particularly of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, realized their relevance for today, and campaigned vigorously for their continued use. It is not unreasonable to suggest that Packer's enforced period of convalescence may have contributed significantly to this aspect of his future ministry. (7/5) By Friday evening, the week's work was usually not complete. Reluctant to make his colleagues work additional hours, Packer's father was in the habit of returning to his office on Saturday, sometimes in the afternoon, and finishing off the work by himself. Packer, who did not have school on Saturday afternoons, would often accompany his father to work. There were two typewriters in the office. Packer's father would use one for his work, and allow his son to play around with the other. Packer now aged eight found using a typewriter immensely satisfying, and soon taught himself how to type. He would painstakingly type out poems such as Longfellow's 'Hiawatha', Southey's 'The Inchcape Rock' and other items. (7/5) Usually around the age of eleven, at the point when a schoolboy would enter senior school, parents would mark their son's 'coming of age' by giving him a bicycle as a birthday present. Packer dropped heavy hints that he expected to receive a cycle, like all his friends. However, his parents knew that they could not yet allow their son to have a bicycle. If he were to have any kind of accident, the earlier injury could lead to something much more serious, and potentially fatal. But what could they give their son instead? On the morning of his eleventh birthday, in 1937, Packer wandered down from his bedroom to see what present awaited him. The family had a tradition of placing birthday presents in the dining room of the house. He expected to find a bicycle. Instead, he found an old Oliver typewriter, which seemed to him to weigh half a ton. Although it was old, it was nevertheless in excellent condition. It was not what Packer had asked for; nevertheless, it proved to be what he needed. Surprise gave way to delight, as he realized what he could do with this unexpected gift. It was not more than a minute before he had put paper into the machine, and started to type. It proved to be his best present and the most treasured possession of his boyhood. (7/6) 8.2 Scholtes ministry was greatly impacted by death of loved ones: But now comes death. It takes not one or two, but all away. First to go is Father. Jan Hendrik, just turned thirty-eight, died Oct. 11, 1821. On Nov. 6, 1822, old Grandfather, once H. P. Schultzen now Scholte, was called home. The widow carries on with her two sons. For a little there is quiet. Then tragedy strikes again. Two blows come in quick succession. On March 21, 1827, it is Mother, followed on Aug. 10 by seventeen-year-old Jan Andries." H. P. Scholte is alone. Death has sealed the records of childhood. It has precipitated conversion. An exceptional earnestness, as of one who stands too near to death, has settled upon him. As yet there is no thought of the ministry. A heavy heart is now ripening for this suggestion. God, by these abundant deaths, has strangely freed him. Death has loosened whatever roots he may have had. He is now free to leave the business, free to desert his church, free to go to school, and for Life, free to he a "fool" before all the world without a worry of what Father or Mother will say. What is more, he is free with a pocket full of money (Of many a young man in his position, we might add, free to go to ruin.) (8/22) Nor did the Lord spare him other sorrows. Death, which had taken his parents, continued to visit his home and circle. In July of 1836 the Scholtes lost their second, and Feb. 1838, the third of their five daughters. Brother Van Hall was taken home in August of the same year. The great grief came when his "faithful fellow traveler on the way to glory" outran him. After twelve years of cheerful participation in her husband's strife and sufferings, she left him the wintry night of Jan. 23, 1844, in the firm conviction of going to Jesus. Six days after her 38th birthday she went, soon to be joined by her dear friend Mrs. A. C. M. Van Hall," who followed her in death by less than a week. On Jan. 11, 1833, she had written a last will, perhaps suspecting that she would not outlive her husband." In this crisis the widower felt "the narrowness and oppressiveness of our little day."(8/131) David Brainerd was the third son of his parents. Mrs. Dorothy Brainerd having lived about five years as a widow, died when her son, of whose life I am about give an account, was about fourteen years of age; so that in his youth he was left both fatherless and motherless. What account he has given of himself and his own life may be seen in what follows. (10/54) 9. ACADEMIC PREPARATION 9.1 Packer was determined not to waste the time at his disposal. He wanted to get to know more about George Whitefield. He had attended the same school as Whitefield, and had been converted in the same city and university. Whitefield had been a student at Pembroke College, next door to St Aldate's church, where Packer himself had come to faith. Although the name of Whitefield had meant nothing to Packer while at school, he determined to find out more about him. He went to the city library, and borrowed the two volumes of Tyerman's 1876 biography of Whitefield. As it happened, Packer found himself with more time to read Tyerman than he had anticipated; he came down with bronchitis, and was confined to bed. Even in the midst of his wheezing and coughing, he found himself totally absorbed in what he was reading. The narrative of Whitefield's conversion and ministry excited and challenged him. It was like an 'unction from God', a 'milestone' in his spiritual journey (7/22) 9.2 When Packer could not figure out how he was a Christian yet stilling sinning, he came across a pile of old books that a now-blind pastor had dumped in an Oxford Christian Union basement room: As Packer sorted through the dusty piles of old books in the basement of the North Gate Hall, he came across an uncut set of the edition of the writings of the Puritan divine John Owen Intrigued, Packer began to cut the pages of Owen's writings, and to read what he found. Immediately, he found himself challenged by the realism of Owen's analysis both of the problems arising from 'indwelling sin' and of the means of dealing with it (referred to by Owen as 'mortification') (7/25) 10. PASTORAL MODEL PREPARATION 10.1 We [Richard Baxter] lived in a country that had but little preaching at all. In the village that I was born, there were four readers successfully, in six years time, ignorant men, and two of them immoral in their lives, who were all my schoolmasters. In the village where my father lived, there was a reader of about 80 years of age that never preached and had two churches, about twenty miles distant. (2/3) Our [MLJ] minister was a moral, legalistic man an old schoolmaster. I do not remember that he ever preached the Gospel, and none of us had any idea of the Gospel. He and the head deacon, John Rowlands, looked upon themselves as scholars. Neither had any sympathy for the Revival of 1904-05, and both of them were not only opposed to any spiritual stress or emphasis, but were equally opposed to every popular innovation. Those who came home for their holidays from Glamoragnshire, who spoke of their having been saved, were regarded as hot-heads and madmen from the South. We did not have annual preaching meetings in our chapel and the eminent preachers of the day were never invited (9/36-37, 60-61). 10.2 There was much about the minister at Charing Cross, the reverend Peter Hughes Griffiths, which appealed to Martyn. For one thing he was an original character and an individualist. He certainly did not wear such things out of deference to Londons higher circles, for respect for the establishment was an attitude from which the minister of Charing Cross was wholly free. When Martyn, thirty years later, wrote a tribute to his former minister it is clear he had a certain approval for Griffiths independency. He hated anything purely mechanical and abominated rules and regulations, and to be stereotyped was to him to be of necessity useless. He liked spontaneity and freshness. The ordinary way of doing anything was obviously a poor way, and when planners and organisers would try to force that way upon all, whether in education, in church government or anything else he literally saw red. He was convinced that genius and originality were being throttled and strangled by the mechanical ideas governing church and state and he constantly protested against them. (9/36-37, 60-61) Early in 1923 Dr Lloyd-Jones began to hear sermons which though not distinctly evangelical, added something to his under-standing. A Scot by the name of Dr. John A. Hutton, who was due to begin his pastorate on the following Sunday. Huttons preaching was uneven in effect. He was not expository, and his best efforts were occasional rather than regular; but he added something more to Lloyd-Jones thinking. He impressed me with the power of God to change mens lives; He believed in rebirth and regeneration. Huttons young medical hearer already knew that God plans and purposes, he was now becoming aware that He also acts and intervenes. At Westminster Chapel he was aware of a sense of spiritual reality which he missed at Charing Cross. (9/36-37, 60-61) 10.3 Look for good preaching models Packer went down to London for several weekends during this year, and went along both to tea parties at All Souls, and subsequently to hear Lloyd-Jones at Westminster Chapel. It took little in the way of persuasion for him to become a regular and appreciative member of the congregation of Westminster Chapel on Sunday evenings during his year at Oak Hill. He admired Lloyd-Jones's preaching style, and began to base his own style on that modeled by the great Welsh orator. (7/38) 11. CONVERSION PREPARATION 11.1 Packer listened to a pastors testimony and suddenly and traumatically, as he recalls realized that he was not a Christian. Though not a person given to thinking in images, he found a picture arising from within his mind. The picture was that of someone looking from outside through a window into a room where some people were having a party. Inside the room, people were enjoying themselves by playing games. The person outside could understand the games that they were playing. He knew the rules of the games. But he was outside; they were inside. He needed to come in. He had never come in. His mind focused on the thought: 'I need to come in.' (7/17-18) At the beginning of the meeting, Packer was a gentle sceptic; at its end, he was convinced that the Bible was the Word of God. Something had happened to bring him to a conscious realization that Scripture was not human instruction or wisdom about God, but was in fact God's own instruction about himself. Later, having studied Calvin, Packer realized that he had experienced in his own life what Calvin referred to as 'the inward witness of the Holy Spirit'. (7/19) As Billy [Graham] recalls, "It was not just the technique of walking forward (altar call) in a Southern revival meeting. It was Christ. I was conscious of him." (11/19) Toward the close of his period of study at St. Georges something awakened Samuel [Davies] "to solemn thoughtfulness, and anxious concern about his eternal state . . . and the direful effects of divine displeasure against sin." (13/7) I [Brainerd] read Mr. Stoddards Guide to Christ (which I trust was, in the hand of God, the happy means of my conversion,) and my heart rose against the author; for though he told me my very heart all along under convictions, and seemed to be very beneficial to me in his directions; yet here he failed, he did not tell me anything I could do that would bring me to Christ, but left me as it were with a great gulf between, without any direction to get through. For I was not yet effectually and experimentally taught, that there could be no way prescribed, whereby a natural man could, of his own strength, obtain that which is supernatural, and which the highest angel cannot give. (10/65) Being sensible of the necessity of a deep humiliation in order to a saving close with Christ, I [Brainerd] used to set myself to work in my own heart those convictions that were requisite in such a humiliation; as, a conviction that God would be just, if he cast me off for ever; that if ever God should bestow mercy on me, it would be mere grace, though I should be in distress many years first, and be never so much engaged in duty; that God was not in the least obliged to pity me the more for all past duties, cries and tears &tc. I at once saw that all my contrivances and projects to effect or procure deliverance and salvation for myself, were utterly in vain; I was brought quite to a stand as finding myself totally lost. (10/67-68) 12. PRAYER PREPARATION 12.1 Samuel Davies traced his greatest blessings to his mothers prayers: "I am a son of prayer, like my name-sake Samuel the prophet; and my mother called me Samuel because, she said, I have asked him of the LORD. . . . This early dedication to GOD has always been a strong inducement to me to devote myself to Him by my own personal act; and the most important blessings of my life I have looked upon as immediate answers to the prayers of a pious mother." (13/5) During that day of prayer on the Graham land, their leader (of a group of businessmen praying for revival and evangelism) prayed that Out of Charlotte the Lord would raise up someone to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth." (11/17-18) 13. WIFE PREPARATION 13.1 More than anyone, Ruth broadened Billy's mind. She had no need to polish his manners or graces, as D. L. Moody's were polished by his wife, but she was cultured, traveled, with a love of art and literature. She saved his seriousness from degenerating into stuffy solemnity, and preserved from extinction the light touch, the slice of small boy. Moreover, Ruth and her family, loyal Presbyterians, eased Billy Graham from his unspoken conviction that a vigorous scriptural faith could not dwell within the great denominations, and underlined Wheaton's lesson that a strong evangelical should focus his vision on the entire horizon of Christianity. (11/30) 14. HOBBY PREPARATION 14.1 But long before that at quite an early age, Arnold had been more successful in enthusing his son with aspects of the world of nature. Living not far from the London Zoo, they would pay occasional delightful visits. But it was on walks together in the country that John first began to acquire an interest in natural history. Shut your mouth and open your eyes and ears his father would say to him; and would teach him where and how to look, the names of plants and butterflies and birds and the interdependence of the natural order. It was these early lessons in observation that led to butterfly collecting, and then to bird watching. There are photographs of John Stott with a butterfly net from a very early age; it was part of his luggage when he was sent off to boarding school at the age of eight. 15. CONCLUSION 15.1 This God is not the heavenly clockmaker of the Deists, who creates a world, winds it up, and leaves it alone. I ie is the God who communicates, who continues to address the highest of his earthly creatures. He instructs and warns promises and encourages. God is not only the God who speaks but also the God who saves. When man disobeyed and fell, God came in redeeming grace to deliver from ruin and to restore to life and wholeness. And human beings were not left to guess at what his saving acts might be. God declared what he was going to do, set it in context, and showed its implications. This God who speaks and saves is behind the institution of the gospel ministry, and it had a glorious beginning in Gen. 3:15, when the Lord God said to the serpent, 'I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.' (16/9) For God has chosen to mediate his ministry in the world through his people, to work through the body of Christ and, in a special way, through those whom we call ministers. Their ministry is, in fact, his ministry. We find, for example, identical terms being used about God and his ministers. God is often called the 'shepherd of Israel' (e.g., Ps. 80:1), 'For we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture' (Ps. 100:3). Yet, when Moses is about to die, he prays, 'Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation... who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep that have no shepherd' (Num. 27:16). The Lord replies, 'Take Joshua.' God is the shepherd and Joshua is the shepherd. Again, we find both God and men being spoken of as engaged in the same work. In Exod. 3:8 God says, in effect, 'I will bring my people out of Egypt.' Two verses later he says to Moses, 'I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people... out of Egypt' (Exod. 3:10). Who is going to bring the people out of Egypt, God or Moses? God is going to do it through Moses. (16/17) 15.2 Imagine! 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