PASTORS:
ORDINATION; PASTORAL MINISTRY: SIGNIFICANCE

But the aspiring prophet soon learns that a call from God is not sufficient; he must secure the approval of the senior prophets of the Presbytery before he can hope to make his voice heard in any Presbyterian pulpit in the land; and that approval is not an easy thing to obtain. The Presbyterian Church of that day had built a wall around its pulpit too high for any but the most heroic to leap over.…

After sitting in silence for several hours, during which time they were studiously ignored by the members of that August body, they are subjected to an examination that singes their pride and roots out any traces of conceit that might have survived that long siege of letting alone they had endured earlier in the day. The members of the examining board undoubtedly were one and all men of genuine Christian principles, and it is not hard to believe that they must have had good hearts about them somewhere, but this was no time to be soft, so they proceeded to take the boys apart piece by piece to see what made them run, and they examined the “parts” to see whether they were the stuff of which ministers are made.

We smile with sympathy for the country boy as he stands before his judges, and we could wish that they had been a bit less exacting in their demands, but in the light of the history of Protestant Christianity on the North American Continent over the last hundred years we cannot but admit the stern wisdom of their actions. If the men of that day erred it was on the side of right, and their error was inspired by a lofty conception of the sacredness and dignity of the Christian ministry. The wave of amateurism that swept over the American pulpit a generation ago with such tragic results would not have been possible if the Christian churches had maintained a higher standard of requirements for the ministers of the sanctuary.

1 Timothy 3:1–7; 1 Timothy 4:14–16; 1 Timothy 5:22; 2 Timothy 2:15

Wingspread: A. B. Simpson, A Study in Spiritual Altitude, 30, 31.