Herein is Love: A Study of the Biblical Doctrine of Love in Its Bearing on Personality, Parenthood, Teaching, and All Other Human Relationships.Howe, Reuel L.
Religion
Herein is Love: A Study of the Biblical Doctrine of Love in Its Bearing on Personality, Parenthood, Teaching, and All Other Human Relationships.
Howe, Reuel L.
Love -- Religious aspects -- Christianity
Third, ministers, therefore, need to be dialogists rather than
monologists. This might turn out to be the appropriate concept of their
role for this day. As representatives of the gospel, which was born of
the full meeting and full interchange between God and man in Christ, the
minister must learn to engage in dialogue with his people, and to
participate in that dialogue with God which goes on in their living. The
great questions of the church and the ministry are not going to be
solved by the ordained ministers alone, but by the clergy and the laity
accepting communication with each other as a part of their common
ministry, and together bringing the gospel into dialogue with the world.
It is imperative that ministers and people talk to each other deeply,
not about the housekeeping of the church, but about the church and its
message, about its place in and relation to the world, and about its
ministry, including the respective roles of clergy and laity. This kind
of persistent, continuing talk is imperative for two reasons: first, it
brings out and correlates the truth that is in man about these matters;
and, second, the Holy Spirit reveals the truth of Christ to and through
men who give themselves to each other in earnest search for the truth.
_The Church and the World in Dialogue_
We may conclude, therefore, that the problems of the ordained ministry
in the world today are the problems of the church. Members of the
church, including the clergy, must take the risks of communication,
which are the risks of creativity, and talk with one another about their
concerns. We must do this with the expectation that God will speak and
act through our dialogue together, so that it will become our dialogue
with Him. Out of this will come new insights and concepts for our
respective roles, with a new awareness of our task for Christ in the
world. It would seem, then, that our most effective starting point for a
new and relevant image of ourselves for our task today is that of men
who are in dialogue with God through their dialogue with their people.
The spirit of this dialogue, however, must be the Spirit of Christ. The
form of the ministry needs to be rethought in each age, but it must be
formed by a double focus on Christ's ministry and the need of the world
today.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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