The Master on the Ministry

Abstract

" "To see oursels as ithers see us" is at once the most difficult, and the most salutary, of all forms of self-criticism. When someone's chance remark, or uninhibited reaction, suddenly reveals what they really think of our preaching and our work, we get drastically cut down to size. Perhaps it is mercy, as much as pride, that insulates us from too much of this self-knowledge reflected in other people's attitudes, though It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An' foolish notion: What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, An' ev'n devotion! To see ourselves as the Master sees us is another matter again, hardly less disturbing, but infinitely more profitable. But is it possible?---other than by some kind of self-critical, devotional imagining of what He might say to us. It is not easy to find anything quite like a settled, professional, pastoral ministry within the New Testament, least of all in the Gospels. The nearest to it seems to be the work of the Scribes. They were well-trained and devoted men, and semi-professional in the sense that their income came directly through their position"