Malachi 2:5-7 My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear with which he feared me, and was afraid before my name.… Here the degenerate ministers of Malachi's time are reminded of the bright ideal of the priesthood in an older time. They had left the path of Divine communion. But Levi had walked with God. The whole passage refers to the teaching side of the Jewish priest's office. We may therefore safely use it with reference to the Christian ministry. In Bunyans allegory, this passage is nobly adapted to form the portrait of a minister of the Gospel. In the House of the Interpreter, the pilgrim sees a picture hung against the wall; "and this was the fashion of it. It had eyes lifted up to heaven; the best of books was in its hands, the law of truth was upon its lips, and it stood as if it pleaded with men." "He walked with Me." Here is a gift that can never come amiss. No circumstances, no temperament, no path of duty or trial, in the case of a Christian pastor, can ever dispense with this — the personal walk with God. None will forget the other side of the pastor's call — that he must walk with men. Times there have been in the history of the Christian Church when it was needful to enforce it; but, it is hardly so now. The danger is, that the pastor should mistake his commonplace activities for the main power, as well as the main work, of his ministry. It is a grievous danger. God connects two things: "He walked with Me"; "He did turn many from iniquity." As I read these words, a fair and beautiful ideal rises up before me, a vision at once delightful and saddening. It is an ideal blent of the elements of real lives. Saints and servants of the Lord, in the ministry of our Church, pastors whom I have seen and known, combine to form it. Men in whose shelves and surroundings there were countless differences, but who were all alike in carrying with them this indefinable impression, that they walked with God. Men I mean of very various ages at the time of observation, some crowned with blessed old age, that evening with no night to follow; some in the full vigour of ripe experience; others young, and in the first efforts of their life. But all were alike in a pure and chastened cheerfulness, most open and natural, yet never out of time with the peace of God. And all were alike in this, that it needed no long acquaintance to make it known that their dearest friend was their Master; their truest happiness, His work; and their deepest study, His Word. Surely, if we will to walk with God, the Lord will not be absent from our right hand. Point out two ways in which such a walk will tell on a pastor's work, apart from its duty and joy for himself. 1. It will give him width and calmness of view, and reach of hope, better than any other means. The pastor who walks with God will, on the one side, be as keenly alive as possible to the reality of evil in himself and those around him; on the other side, he will be able to trust mystery and failure in the eternal hand, in a way that otherwise could not be — without moral laxity. 2. This walk with God will give the pastor a power to influence others which he cannot otherwise have. Such a ministry, whether in the pulpit or in the study, in the cottage or in the mansion, in the room of sickness or of death, or in the scene of health, will surely be the likeliest to be the means of turning many from this present evil world to serve the living God, and to wait for His Son from heaven. May our brethren have this bright characteristic written on their ministry to the end. (H. C. G. Moule, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. |
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