The Pastor: His Qualifications and DutiesHarvey, H. (Hezekiah)
Religion
The Pastor: His Qualifications and Duties
Harvey, H. (Hezekiah)
Pastoral theology
1. The relation of the evangelist to the pastor, in special religious
services, is always one of great delicacy. The most frank understanding
and cordial co-operation between them is of the highest moment. Much
care, therefore, should be taken not to encroach on the prerogatives of
the pastoral office, or to lessen the estimation in which the pastor is
held by the people. There is sometimes danger of this. The sermons of
the evangelist, limited as they are in number and frequently repeated,
not only have the attraction of novelty to the people, but are often
spiced with a fulness of anecdote and delivered with a freedom and
force which the pastor's cannot possess, by reason of the different and
wider range of subjects which he must discuss and the far heavier and
more extended draft made on his resources. The less thoughtful hearers
will contrast what seems to them to be the comparative dullness of the
pastor with the freshness and spice of the evangelist, and the pastor
unjustly suffers. Among the converts also there is often a special
attraction to him who had been the immediate agent in their conversion,
while the long and patient toil of him who had probably prepared the
way for that final step is overlooked or disparaged. Plainly, it is the
duty of the evangelist to recognize and hold in check these tendencies,
and to strengthen in every possible way the pastor's position in the
convictions and affections of the people. He may thus render his work a
permanent blessing in the churches by making it the means of cementing
the relation of pastor and people.
2. A young pastor will naturally defer in the arrangements for the
meetings to the judgment and experience of the evangelist, but it is
doubtful whether, under any circumstances, an evangelist should seek
the control of them, or a pastor should concede it to him. Especially
should the pastor maintain the control of those meetings in which
candidates for admission to the church are examined; for here the
pastor, apart from the official duty Christ has laid on him in this
vital matter, has by his acquaintance with the people much better
qualifications for judging character, and is far less likely to mistake
than a stranger. Indeed, the temptation to seek the _éclat_ of a large
accession of converts may enter as an unconscious influence in the case
of both evangelist and pastor, leading to undue haste and neglect of
just discrimination in the admission of members, and resulting in great
ultimate injury to the church. No point, therefore, needs to be more
carefully guarded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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