CALLING
BY THE THROAT

Topics: Calling; Experiencing God; Gospel; Ministry; Preaching; Scripture; Service; Spiritual Perception

References: Jeremiah 1:5–10; Acts 9:9–19; Romans 1:16; Philippians 3:7–8

Several denominational leaders were visiting the campus where I teach. In one meeting with faculty, we asked this diverse group about their call to the ministry. Some of them had extraordinary experiences. For others, their calling had been a fairly cerebral thing.

But as I listened to each response, I found one thing each had in common. Each person cited a text that had just leaped off the page, grabbed the person by the throat, and wouldn’t let go. Underlying that was a profound, unswerving, immutable passionate belief that the gospel is so central in all of human life that nothing short of its proclamation is worth doing.

God calls some Christians to be chemists and others to be garbage collectors. But those who are called to proclaim God’s message have a profound sense of the sheer nonnegotiable value of the gospel.

—Don Carson, “Preachers in the Hands of a Holy God,” Preaching Today Audio no. 205