Guidelines for Selecting Missionaries, Part 3

The point: Understand the biblical rationale behind sending promising younger men to work under older, more experienced men in missions.

Martin contrasts earning stature in spiritual leadership with the unearned grace of salvation, explaining that while salvation is pure grace, leadership credibility must be earned, not forced by titles or degrees.

Timothy was well reported of by all the brethren, he was a promising young man, should be chosen to work under older and more experienced men, Paul and Barnabas, in order to gain helpful experience and earned stature as a spiritual leader. Now, anytime you use the word earn in a system of grace, you better have good reason to use it. Because the whole scheme of salvation, salvation in Jesus Christ, utterly cuts across any concept of earning anything. It is a system of pure, unmixed grace.

15:01 - 15:45 Read in full sermon

The point: Understand the biblical rationale behind sending promising younger men to work under older, more experienced men in missions.

He uses the analogy of earned credibility being 'filtered down' from older, experienced men to younger men, who then earn their own under scrutiny in real ministry labor.

It is something that must be earned. And how much better to earn it in a, in a context where men who have already earned it, as it were filtered down their earned credibility to younger men who earn it under their scrutiny in the real labor of the ministry. Notice when Paul says to Timothy how his life was shaped and formed, he says, you fully followed not just my doctrine as I taught you in an academy or a seminary or a Bible school. He says, you have fully known, you fully followed, absorbed my teaching,

16:29 - 17:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Insist that the training of men for ministry, whether at home or abroad, be carried on by working pastors who can model doctrine and life.

Martin uses the metaphor of pastors in an 'ivory tower' who 'dump a lecture' on students, contrasting it with working pastors who can genuinely say their students 'fully followed' their doctrine and life, to emphasize the importance of practical, lived-out training.

renewed conviction why we insist that the training of men for the work of the ministry whether at home or abroad be carried on by working pastors we need to be able to say to the men upon whom we lay our hands you did fully follow our doctrine our faith our love our patience and to be able to make it stick not to have them say well where did you ever show patience with the sheep you hold up there in your ivory tower with your books and you drop down three times a week to dump a lecture on us in a classroom and up to your ivory tower you go i'm sorry i don't know what you're talking

21:56 - 22:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Insist that the training of men for ministry, whether at home or abroad, be carried on by working pastors who can model doctrine and life.

He uses the metaphor of 'following our nose wherever it leads us' to illustrate the danger of not adhering to biblical principles in ministry, implying it leads to disorder and error.

about when the time comes for us to lay hands upon jonathan with all of our faults and sins we will yet be able to say jonathan you have fully known our doctrine our faith our patience our manner of life you see what i'm trying to say you see what i'm trying to say you see what i'm trying to say you see what i'm trying to say you see what i'm trying to say you see what i'm trying to say you see what i'm trying to say you see what i'm trying to say you see what i'm trying to say there is a biblical rationale behind what we're doing we're not just following our nose wherever it leads us some of ...

22:39 - 23:19 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin articulates the principle: while operating by ordinary biblical principles, the church must be prepared to acknowledge God's obvious working in abnormal situations. He…

The example of disciples being first called 'Christians' (little Christs) at Antioch illustrates how the church's speech, life, doctrine, and worship, full of Christ, led to this distinctive identification, showing the fruit of orderly ministry.

brought Saul, and they continued together, team teaching for the space of a year. And much people was added to the Lord. And so did God own their teaching in the maturation of the church, that in a Latinized word, the Christians or the disciples were first called Christianos, Christians there at Antioch, little Christs. Their speech, their pattern of life, their doctrine, their doctrine, their doctrine, their doctrine, their doctrine, their doctrine, their worship, everything was so full of Christ that they were called Christ ones, little Christs. They were called little Christs there at Antio...

33:03 - 33:40 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin addresses a question about the unusual circumstances of the Antioch preachers and shares a personal anecdote about his own irregular call to ministry under older…

Martin shares a personal anecdote about his own irregular call to ministry, where two older, white-haired men recognized God's hand on him and other young men after they were 'booted out of evangelical churches,' channeling their zeal into street preaching, illustrating how God can work through abnormal situations.

There were some older men who recognized the work of God's spirit in a few of us young men and took us under their wing and said, you boys need to get out in the street corner and preach. God's put fire in your bones. And it was under the tutelage of two older men in a mission. Now, it wasn't a duly constituted, biblically organized church, but it was under the tutelage of some literally white-haired men who for years had been praying for an outpouring of the spirit of God in that town up in Connecticut.

39:24 - 39:52 Read in full sermon

The point: Be stirred afresh to cry to God to make and to send forth laborers, recognizing that the need is for spirit-wrought prayer, not carnal recruiting.

Martin quotes James Henley Thornwell, who reviews an article by Breckinridge, to argue against 'carnal recruiting' and 'urging' men into ministry, emphasizing that God calls and sends laborers, and the church's duty is to pray for them.

And just this past week, I was reminded of this so forcefully in preparing for my lectures in the academy. I had occasion to read and re-read sections in James Henley Thornwell's works, volume four, in which he is reviewing an article of another godly man with respect to the problem of raising up enough men for the Southern Presbyterian Church in the mid-1800s. And this is what this man Breckinridge says, whose article he's reviewing, and then Thornwell says, Breckinridge wrote, It is easy for us to multiply ministers of the gospel, but it is easy, impossible for us to multiply such as are cal...

42:04 - 42:48 Read in full sermon