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    A Word to Fellow Pastors and Other Christian Leaders: Things Every Minister of the Gospel Must Consider
    A Word to Fellow Pastors and Other Christian Leaders: Things Every Minister of the Gospel Must Consider
    A Word to Fellow Pastors and Other Christian Leaders: Things Every Minister of the Gospel Must Consider
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    A Word to Fellow Pastors and Other Christian Leaders: Things Every Minister of the Gospel Must Consider

    By Horatius Bonar

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    Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has placed you as bishops to feed the congregation of God, which he has purchased with his own blood. – Acts 20:28

    The objective of the Christian ministry is to convert sinners and to edify the body of Christ. No faithful minister can possibly rest short of this. Applause, fame, popularity, honor, and wealth – all these are vain. If souls are not won, and if saints are not matured, our ministry itself is futile.

    Questions we have to ask ourselves: Has it been the purpose of my ministry and the desire of my heart to save the lost and guide the saved? Is this my aim in every sermon I preach and in every visit I make? Is it under the influence of this feeling that I continually live and walk and speak? Do I pray and toil and fast and weep for this? Do I spend and am I spent for this, counting it, next to the salvation of my own soul, my greatest joy to be the instrument of saving others? Is it for this that I exist? To accomplish this, would I gladly die? Have I seen the pleasure of the Lord prospering in my hand? Have I seen souls converted under my ministry? Have God’s people found refreshment from my lips and gone on their way rejoicing, or have I seen no fruit of my labors? Am I content to remain fruitless? Am I satisfied to preach without knowing of one saving impression I made or one sinner awakened?

    Opinions are not what man needs; he needs truth. Not theology, but God. Not religion, but Christ. Not literature and science, but the knowledge of the free love of God in the gift of His only begotten Son.

    Table of Contents
    Ch. 1: The Importance of Being Hot for Christ
    Ch. 2: The Importance of Being Right with God Ourselves
    Ch. 3: The Danger of Unfruitful Ministry
    Ch. 4: The Importance of Eliminating Our Faults
    Ch. 5: The Need of Revival in Ministry

    Former Title: Words to Winners of Souls

    About the Author
    In 1808, Horatius Bonar was born into a family of several generations of ministers of the gospel. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh and was ordained in 1838. As a young pastor at North Parish, Kelso, he preached in villages and farmhouses, proving himself to be a comforter and guide. In 1843, he joined 450 other pastors to form the Free Church of Scotland after the “Disruption.” Horatius Bonar wrote numerous books, tracts, periodicals, and more than 600 hymns. He believed that people needed truth, not opinions; God, not theology; and Christ, not religion. From his first sermon to his last, he ended with “In such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAneko Press
    Release dateApr 1, 2019
    ISBN9781622456208
    Author

    Horatius Bonar

    In 1808, Horatius Bonar was born into a family of several generations of ministers of the gospel. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh and was ordained in 1838. As a young pastor at North Parish, Kelso, he preached in villages and farmhouses, proving himself to be a comforter and guide. In 1843, he joined 450 other pastors to form the Free Church of Scotland after the “Disruption.” Horatius Bonar wrote numerous books, tracts, periodicals, and more than 600 hymns. He believed that people needed truth, not opinions; God, not theology; and Christ, not religion. From his first sermon to his last, he ended with “In such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.”

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      Book preview

      A Word to Fellow Pastors and Other Christian Leaders - Horatius Bonar

      A_Word_to_Fellow_Pastors_and_Other_Christian_Leaders_-_Front_Web.jpg

      A Word to Fellow Pastors

      and Other Christian Leaders

      Things Every Minister of the Gospel Must Consider

      Horatius Bonar

      Contents

      Preface

      Ch. 1: The Importance of Being Hot for Christ

      Ch. 2: The Importance of Being Right with God Ourselves

      Ch. 3: The Danger of Unfruitful Ministry

      Ch. 4: The Importance of Eliminating Our Faults

      Ch. 5: The Need of Revival in Ministry

      Horatius Bonar – A Brief Biography

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      Preface

      It is not difficult to write a preface to this classic treasure of the Christian ministry, written by a Scottish Presbyterian theologian who was born in Edinburgh on December 19, 1808, and died there on July 31, 1889. He belongs to a previous generation, but his little manual is timeless, for it meets the needs of our day almost as accurately as it met the needs of the parish of Kelso in 1866 and later in Edinburgh.

      Horatius Bonar was first of all a winner of souls, although he was also a great preacher and a writer of some of our best hymns. He became moderator of the General Assembly of his church.

      When we read his manual on how to win men for Christ, we are reminded, page after page, of his three best hymns, although he was the author of many. He could say, I heard the voice of Jesus say, and therefore he could write the hymn beginning with those words.

      How many have been led to Christ by this invitation to accept Him as their Savior? And how many Christians have rededicated themselves to their Lord and Master and recalled the day when they first loved Him, when they sang, Here, O My Lord, I See Thee Face to Face at Holy Communion?

      Not only are his counsels to the winners of souls spiritual, divine, and searching, but the keynote of it all is that of urgency, as he expressed in his third great hymn, Go, Labor On, Spend and Be Spent. The third stanza of that hymn ought to be written as a motto on the desk of every pastor:

      Go, labor on while it is day,

      The world’s dark night is hastening on.

      Speed, speed thy work, cast sloth away,

      It is not thus that souls are won.

      This is a book for winners of souls, not for loiterers on the highway or for slothful servants of our Master. It is a heart-searching book but also one that gives new courage to continue the daily task. Reprinted again and again by the American Tract Society, it is now issued by request in slightly abridged form.

      There are two books that tell the story of Horatius Bonar’s life in detail. One is entitled Horatius Bonar: a Memorial, published in 1889, and the other is Memories of Dr. Horatius Bonar, by Relatives and Public Men (Edinburgh, 1909). Both have a portrait as a front-page illustration.

      As a boy, I recall one little book that used to lie on my father’s desk – that is sixty years ago – in his pastoral study in Michigan. It was his constant companion and was marked almost on every page. This little volume, bound in leather with gilt edges, had Words to Winners of Souls on the cover.

      Samuel M. Zwemer, D.D., 1867-1952

      New York City, March 3, 1950

      ’Tis not for us to trifle! Life is brief,

      And sin is here.

      Our age is but the falling of a leaf,

      A dropping tear.

      We have no time to sport away the hours,

      All must be earnest in a world like ours.

      Not many lives, but only one have we—

      One; only one;—

      How sacred should that one life ever be—

      That narrow span!

      Day after day, filled up with blessed toil;

      Hour after hour, still bringing in new spoil.

      – Dr. Horatius Bonar

      Chapter 1

      The Importance of Being Hot for Christ

      How much more would a few good and fervent men effect in the ministry than a multitude of lukewarm ones!" said Oecolampadius, the German Reformer – a man who had been taught by experience and who has recorded that experience for the benefit of other churches and other days.

      The mere multiplying of men calling themselves ministers of Christ will help little. They may only be cumberers of the ground, hindrances to the work. They may be like Achan, troubling the camp; or perhaps like Jonah, raising the tempest. Even when sound in the faith, their unbelief, lukewarmness, and slothful formality may do irreparable injury to the cause of Christ, freezing and withering up all spiritual life around them. The lukewarm ministry of one who is theoretically orthodox is often more extensively and fatally ruinous to souls than that of one grossly inconsistent or flagrantly heretical. What man on earth is so pernicious a drone [parasitic loafer] as an idle minister? said Richard Cecil.¹ And John Fletcher remarked well that lukewarm pastors made careless Christians.²

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