J.C. Ryle: The Office of the Minister

"Let us take notice of what Paul says of his ministerial office.

"There is a grand simplicity in the apostle's words about this subject.  He says, 'Grace is given unto me that I should preach.'  The meaning of the sentence is plain: 'To me is granted the privilege of being a messenger of good news.  I have been commissioned to be a herald of glad tidings.'  Of course we cannot doubt that Paul's conception of the minister's office included the administration of the sacraments, and the doing all other things needful for the edifying of the body of Christ.  But here, as in other places, it is evident that the leading idea continually before his mind was, that the chief business of a minister of the New Testament is to be a preacher, an evangelist, God's ambassador, God's messenger and the proclaimer of God's good news to a fallen world.  He says in another place, 'Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel' (1 Cor. 1:17).

"I fail to see that Paul ever supports the favorite theory, that there was intended to be a sacerdotal ministry, a sacrificing priesthood in the church of Christ.  There is not a word in the Acts or in his Epistles to the churches to warrant such a notion.  It is nowhere written 'God has set some in the church, first apostles, then priests' (1 Cor. 12:28).  There is a conspicuous absence of the theory in the Pastoral Epistles to Timothy and Titus, where, if anywhere, we might have expected to find it.  On the contrary, in these very Epistles, we read such expressions as these: 'God has manifested His Word through preaching;' 'I am appointed a preacher.' 'I am ordained a preacher.' 'That by me the preaching might be fully known,' (Titus 1:3; 2 Tim. 1:11; 1 Tim. 2:7; 2 Tim. 4:17).  And, to crown all, one of his last injunctions to his friend Timothy, when he leaves him in charge of an organized church, is this pithy sentence, 'Preach the Word,' (2 Tim. 4:2).  In short, I believe Paul would have us understand that, however various the works for which the Christian minister is set apart, his first, foremost and principal work is to be the preacher and proclaimer of God's Word" (Holiness, J.C. Ryle).