The Spirit Can Qualify You to Preach

QUESTION: Being filled with the Spirit and entirely sanctified, though without education, except the ability to read, I feel called to preach. Cannot the Holy Ghost qualify me for this work?

ANSWER: Yes, he can bless your attempts at a thorough mastery of the Word of God and the art of speaking. God sometimes takes "the weak things of the world to confound the mighty," as in the cases of Benjamin Abbott and Bud Robinson, whose experiences you should read. God helps those who help themselves. A knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and a heart experience of  Christ's saving power are two cardinal elements of success. In this age of brain-worship and excessive leaning on education God likes to skip the universities and endow an ungrammatical Moody with the power to reach and save the multitudes. Such an act shows the church that her power lies not in the dead languages but in the living Christ. If the whole world is to be speedily evangelized the whole church must become preachers by precept and example. Our streets are becoming full of people whose only Gospel is the Sunday newspaper. The harvest is truly great and the laborers — wholly consecrated — are few. Hence I feel like encouraging every saved person to consecrate his or her gift of speech to the salvation of all for whom Christ died. Don't wait for a license, but begin now from the tail of a plow or cart and from the side of the washtub or sewing machine. Tell everybody of Christ's great salvation, backing up the message with your own experience. This was the way in which Christianity triumphed over all its persecutors and mounted the throne of the Caesars in 300 years.

— From Steele's Answers pp. 33, 34.