Next to the Bible comes a vast and growing field of professional material dealing with the work of the ministry. This the minister must take into account. If the physician, the lawyer, the teacher, the business man, or the farmer can continue to be a success only by keeping abreast of the newest thought and discovery in his field, certainly the minister is in no position to claim exemption from the rule. Occasionally we hear a minister boast that he knows nothing about Theology. Some even seem to regard such a claim as a qualification for the most serious and important work on earth. For a minister to make such a boast is exactly as intelligent as it would be for a lawyer to advertise that he is handling cases involving property and human rights without knowing the principles of his work, or for a physician to say that he is taking into his hands the life and happiness of human beings without a knowledge of drugs or surgery. If a minister really knows nothing about Theology, it is wisest to conceal the fact, if possible, until he learns something about it. A community soon spots a man who does not know his business. A minister must find some way to gain a wide general information and culture. The person who said that he must know everything was not far wrong. This is true not only because he is preaching to an increasingly well-informed people, but also because he must interpret God to all of these people in the terms with which they are familiar. Each of his hearers lives and works in a limited field and can get on with a knowledge of that field alone, but the field with which the minister needs to be familiar is unlimited because it touches all the others. No minister can afford to neglect good fiction. It often tells more truth than fact does. Upton Sinclair’s _The Jungle_ did. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ did. The parables of Jesus did. Aside from its entertainment value, fiction cultivates the imagination, and without that, no man can be a powerful public speaker. If one will speak in pictures, the people will hear and understand. One of the reasons why the common people heard Jesus gladly was the fact that His words always appealed to the imagination. A minister needs all kinds of books, including those which make one laugh. Let us not be victims of the idea that holiness excludes the sunshine. The man who loses the song and laughter out of his life is unfit for the ministry until he gets them back. Clean and genuine humor should be on the minister’s bookshelf and in his heart.