J.C. Ryle on Our View of Ministers of Christ

"What do you think of the minister of Christ? Strange as that question may seem, I verily believe that the kind of answer a man would give to it, if he speaks honestly, is very often a fair test of the state of his heart.

"Observe, I am not asking what you think of an idle, worldly, inconsistent clergyman, a sleeping watchman and faithless shepherd. No! I ask what you think of the faithful minister of Christ, who honestly exposes sin, and pricks your conscience? Mind how you answer that question. Too many nowadays like only those ministers who prophesy smooth things and let their sins alone, who flatter their pride and amuse their intellectual taste, but who never sound an alarm, and never tell them of a wrath to come. When Ahab saw Elijah, said, 'Have you found me, O mine enemy?' (1 Kings 21:20). When Micaiah was named to Ahab, he cried, 'I hate him because he doesn't prophesy good of me, but evil' (1 Kings 22:8). Alas, there are many like Ahab in the nineteenth century! They like a ministry which does not make them uncomfortable, and send them home ill at ease. How is it with you? Oh, believe me, he is the best friend who tells you the most truth! It is an evil sign in the church when Christ's witnesses are silenced, or persecuted, and men hate him who reproves (Isa. 29:21). It was a solemn saying of the prophet to Amazia, 'Now I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this, and not hearkened to my counsel' (2 Chron. 25:16)" (J.C. Ryle, Holiness).

J.C. Ryle: Pray for the Ministers of Christ

"Let me [give] an earnest request that all who pray will never forget to make supplications and prayers and intercession for the ministers of Christ, that they're never may be wanting a due supply of them at home and in the mission field, that they may be kept sound in the faith and holy in their lives, and that they may take heed to themselves as well as to the doctrine (1 Tim. 4:16).

"Oh, remember that while our office is honorable, useful and scriptural, it is also one of deep and painful responsibility!  We watch for souls as those who must give account at the judgment day (Heb. 13:17).  If souls are lost through our unfaithfulness, their blood will be required at our hands.  If we had only to read services and administer sacraments, to wear a peculiar dress and go through a round of ceremonies and bodily exercise and gestures and postures, our position would be comparatively light.  But this is not all.  We have got to deliver our Master's message, to keep back nothing that is profitable, to declare all the counsel of God.  If we tell our congregations less than the truth or more than the truth, we may ruin forever souls.  Life and death are in the power of the preacher's tongue.  'Woe is unto us if we preach not the gospel!' (1 Cor. 9:16).

"Once more I say, pray for us.  Who is sufficient for these things?  Remember the old saying of the fathers: 'None are in more spiritual danger than ministers.'  It is easy to criticize and find fault with us.  We have a treasure in earthen vessels.  We are men of like passions with yourselves, and not infallible.  Pray for us in these trying, tempting, controversial days, that our church may never lack bishops, priests, and deacons who are sound in the faith, bold as lions, 'wise as serpents, and yet harmless as doves.' (Matt. 10:16).  The very man who said, 'Grace is given me to preach,' is the same man who said, in another place, 'Pray for us, that the Word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified . . . and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men for all men have not faith.' (2 Thess. 3:1-2)."

J.C. Ryle: The Honor of the Ministerial Office

"Let us settle it firmly in our minds that the ministerial office is an honorable privilege.  It is an honor to be the ambassador of a king.  The very person of such an officer of state is respected and called legally sacred.  It is an honor to bear the tidings of a victory such as Trafalgar and Waterloo before the invention of telegraphs.  It was a highly coveted distinction.  But how much greater honor is it to be the ambassador of the King of kings, and to proclaim the good news of the conquest achieved on Calvary!  To serve directly such a Master, to carry such a message, to know that the results of our work, if God shall bless it, are eternal, this is indeed a privilege.  Other laborers may work for a corruptible crown, but the minister of Christ for an incorruptible.  Never is a land in worse condition than when the ministers of religion have caused their office to be ridiculed and despised.  It is a tremendous word in Malachi: 'I have made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as you have not kept my ways' (Mal. 2:9).  But, whether men will hear or forbear, the office of a faithful ambassador is honorable.  It was a fine saying of an old missionary on his deathbed, who died at the age of ninety-six: 'The very best thing that a man can do is to preach the gospel.'"  (J.C. Ryle, Holiness)

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).