I have had the privilege and even pleasure to attend many ministry seminars throughout the years of my ministry life. However, in all of them that I have ever experienced, I have never been bumped with the information that I find in Paul’s second epistle to the Corinthians. And unless I miss the point of Paul’s second epistle; it is all about ministry.
These seminars may attempt to defend themselves on the basis of wanting to explore and promote what they may term practical and useful means and methods, however, I wonder if it doesn’t rather expose a very twisted view of ministry. If means and methods were all that important, then why doesn’t the Holy Spirit direct us in the use of means? I believe it is because means are rather unimportant as related to the underlying necessity of the believer’s life and testimony. Ministry flows out of the life and testimony of the believer. Means are something that flow out of the particular traits, talents and personality of the believer. They certainly are essential but the life and testimony of the believer are foundational. Notice this one quote from 2 Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 6:3-12
Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things. O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels.
Ministry is far more characterized by what we are rather than by what we do. What we are is where ministry begins.
