What is the Best Book of Illustrations for a Preacher?

QUESTION: What is the best book of illustrations for the pulpit?

ANSWER: The best three are: (1) the Bible, (2) Nature and (3) experience. A thorough study of those will furnish you with abundant illustrations pertinent and instructive. Cultivate the habit of seeing spiritual truths in the natural world and in the events of daily life. As for cyclopedias of illustration, the less you use them the better for your sermons and your self-respect. In my youthful ministry I cumbered my library with them, but I got rid of them so long ago that I have forgotten the names of their compilers. Become your own cyclopedia. Jesus often said, "The kingdom of heaven is like." Keep on the lookout for likes. If you wish to know what attractiveness they give to a sermon when the preacher is the discoverer of the likeness, read a volume of Rev. Louis Albert Banks, as a modern instance.

— Steele's Answers pp. 102, 103.

Preachers Condemning Other Preachers

QUESTION: Is it for the advancement of holiness for a preacher professing this grace to scandalize in his own pulpit a minister of the Gospel because he occasionally takes his open air recreation by playing lawn tennis?

ANSWER: "Love suffereth long and is kind, hopeth all things and thinketh no evil." We advise this preacher, who thinks he is appointed a judge over his fellow laborers in the Lord's vineyard, to make a thorough study of Paul's eulogy of love, the 13th chapter of I Corinthians. Uncharitableness does not promote any good cause, especially Christian holiness.

— Steele's Answers p. 271.

Should a Preacher Have a Fixed Salary?

QUESTION: Should a preacher have a fixed salary?

ANSWER: Yes, but not so fixed as to be incapable of increase when the cost of living is rapidly increasing, as in these days. Read I Cor. 9:4-16, in which Paul says, "They that wait upon the altar have their portion with the altar * * * they that proclaim the Gospel should live of the Gospel." The word "portion" seems to imply a fixed amount. The preacher should, as far as possible, be relieved of anxiety about material things that he may give all his time and strength to the spiritual interests of his flock. By the law of compensation the pastor, the soldier, the vintner, the shepherd, and the very oxen are entitled to their recompense.

— Steele's Answers p. 239.

Marrying Unbelievers

QUESTION: (1) Has a Christian a right to marry a sinners (2) Has a minister a right to celebrate such a marriage?

ANSWER: There is no human law against it, nor any prohibition in the Decalogue, but an inspired apostle forbids it, "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers" (II Cor. 6:14-17). "The apostle," says Wesley, "speaks especially of marriage and gives three arguments against it in the context." Many a Christian has made a shipwreck by violating this prohibition, thinking that conversion would be effected by home missionary work. But instead of that the unbelieving husband often perverts the Christian wife by urging her to go with him to the theater, the dance, the card party, and the Sunday excursion. (2) We have always admired the refusal of Spurgeon to celebrate the marriage of any member of his church with an unbeliever, though I have not always followed his example. He illustrates the delusion of the expectation of conversion after marriage on this wise: "It is like one standing on a table trying to lift them up to his level. The one below will almost certainly pull the other down." History proves this. Professedly Christian parents, who prefer for their daughter a rich sinner to a poor saint will have much to answer for in the day of judgment, and. often in this life sorrows follow such a marriage in the shape of divorce, or wicked, sons-in-law or ungodly grandchildren.

— Steele's Answers pp. 189, 190.

Should People Be Compelled to Do Right?

QUESTION: Is  it in accord with a sanctified life to compel people in a public place to do right, when they are not willing to do right otherwise?

ANSWER: True virtue must be free; it cannot be compelled. But decent behavior in a public meeting may be righteously required by calling on the police in the last resort, and both the preacher and the police who collars the disturber may be entirely sanctified.

— Steele's Answers p. 139, 140.

Why Do Pastors Stand to Pray?

QUESTION: Why is it that so many preachers stand when they pray?

ANSWER: Some are of "the standing order," having been educated to pray in that posture, as were the ancient Jews and the modern Calvinists. It is said that the Puritans caught cold on Plymouth Rock and it settled in their knees. But this does not account for the stiff-kneed Methodist preachers. Some of them stand because, like Zaccheus, they are too short to be seen by the people, if they kneel behind the pulpit; others are embarrassed by having to stoop down to adjust the kneeling stool, and others think the pos­ture of the body is indifferent so long as they tell God that they come to him on the bended knees of their souls, "as though souls have knees!"

— Steele's Answers p. 138.

Should a Preacher Wear a Ring?

QUESTION: Is it right for a minister of the Gospel to wear a ring on his finger?

ANSWER: It is certainly not in good taste, nor does it seem to be Pauline for a man if it is forbidden to a woman. If it is a superfluity for a lady it is a super-superfluity for a gentleman, especially while pleading for money to feed the starving or to evangelize the heathen. It would not be right for me to be flourishing rings in the pulpit. The Lord has not "appointed me to be judge of my brother's conscience in this matter.

— Steele's Answers p. 138.

The High Calling of the Preacher

The humblest pulpit is higher than the dome of any state house in our country, yea, higher than the Federal Capitol itself. "He that winneth souls is wise. They that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as stars for ever and ever."

Robert Hall once said that if two angels were sent down from heaven, one to sweep the streets of London and the other to be its lord mayor, they would not debate on the way the question, Which is the greater honor? All men are to be equally honored who equally fulfill their duty, whether to rock a cradle or to command the army at Gettysburg.

But to do as the God-man did when he preached up and down Galilee and Judea seems to be the most exalted occupation to which mortals can aspire. "I paint for immortality" was the reply of an artist who was asked why he lingered so long over one picture. The preacher who sways souls from sin to holiness preaches for eternity. His theme is the cross of Christ, the central point of human history. Scientific men may sneer at such a preacher as narrow because he confines himself to one theme, Christ crucified, not considering that this theme touches all human interests. It gives the amplest scope to mental, moral and spiritual development. The preacher may apply elevating and transforming truth to every state of society and to every subject of human thought. In God's ancient temple the layman could enter no farther than the court of the Jews, but the high priest could enter every apartment. The preacher is God's high priest in the temple of Christian truth to apply truth to all human transactions from the king on the throne to the beggar on the dunghill.

— Jesus Exultant Chapter 5.

Every Christian Should Consider the Call to the Ministry

Our contention is that every disciple of Christ, male or female, should covet the Christian ministry and in this attitude of mind sit down to examine the question of a personal call. Thus Christian parents in prayer and consecration should offer their sons and daughters to the Head of the church for the best possible service in the establishment of his universal kingdom. Should one in every Christian family be accepted the world would not be overstocked with ministers of various kinds, pastors, evangelists, teachers and deaconesses proclaiming saving truth to all nations, peoples and tribes. Such is the present disproportion between the harvest and the laborers. Timothy was well prepared to be the successor to St. Paul in the care of the churches, because his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois had diligently instructed him in Christian truth and dedicated him to the ministry of the gospel. Thousands have been trained in the theological seminary of a pious home. Bishop Simpson says that when an eminent preacher is needed the Lord first calls some praying mother, some Hannah to train her Samuel for the service of his holy temple. Others who have toiled all their lives in small churches in obscure places, unknown to fame, and others who have become world-renowned preachers, have come into the Christian ministry through the gateway of a mother's faith in God and careful spiritual training of her offspring.

It may not be an unpardonable infraction of the canons of sacred rhetoric for the writer of these lines to give this public expression of his gratitude to God for leading him into this sacred vocation through such a portal. In many instances the stars which are supposed to belong to the minister's crown rightfully belong to his faithful mother, some Monica wrestling with God for the conversion of her wayward Augustine, or some Susannah Wesley closeted weekly with each of her children in prayer and spiritual counsel. It is no wonder that from the nest which she builded and brooded in the humble Epworth manse there flew upward two eaglets till they were seen first by all England, then by all the world; the one "the greatest ecclesiastical organizer of a thousand years," and the other the writer of hymns for all the coming generations. If there were more of this offering children to God in the closet instead of sacrificing to the Moloch of fashion or of mammon, there would be fewer downfalls in the slippery paths of youth, and no scarcity of reapers in the ever-widening harvest field of the church of Christ.

— edited from Jesus Exultant (1899) Chapter 5.

Should a Preacher Become a Lecturer?

QUESTION: What do you think of a Gospel preacher's entering the lecture field?

ANSWER: When Henry Ward Beecher visited Boston for the last time, the students of the School of Theology of Boston University invited him to address them. He gave them a rousing offhand speech and then invited the students to ask any questions. One asked if he would advise the preacher to prepare a few lectures. As quick as a flash of lightning, Beecher replied: "What do you want two nozzles to your hydrant for, when you have water enough for only one?"

— Steele's Answers p. 102.

The Measure of the Usefulness of a Preacher

The chief effect of Spirit-baptism is to secure strength of impulse and continuity of effort in the worker himself. Love makes all toil for its object a delight, and furnishes a motive for constant activity in behalf of others.

We have recently heard a venerable bishop quoted as saying that "a revival may occur at any place where are God and a Methodist preacher." We understand by this that every preacher, who is as holy and as believing as he ought to be, may at will, at any time and in any place, see the simultaneous conversion of sinners. The necessary inference is, that all who do not constantly witness this are living in a cold and semi-backslidden state. This inference is afflicting thousands of Christian ministers who enjoy the fullness of the abiding Comforter. Both the inference and the assertion from which it is drawn are untrue.