Last November, the students and faculty of Princeton Seminary were privileged to have Dr. Billy Graham as a guest speaker. In introducing his thirty-minute talk, Dr. Graham stated that the Church finds itself today in a “period of world Christian revolution.” He said there is much talk of renewal in the Church because Christians are failing to make a profound spiritual impact on society: we are beginning to lose power over the conscience and tone of America. Addressing us as seminary students preparing for the ministry, he sketched six areas in which the Church needs renewal, and the relation of the ministry to these areas.
First, we need “a renewal of authoritative proclamation.” Our seminaries are turning out men who are good at counseling and administration, but they are failing to turn out men who can preach, which is still the “major job of the preacher.” In a country full of people crying out to hear what the Bible has to say—people hungry for expository preaching—we are preaching over the heads of those in the pews. In our search for a new terminology (which may really disguise an attempt to impress each other), we are creating a vocabulary more difficult for the laymen to understand than the Bible itself. The thing that we do not realize is that “God will take his own Word and apply it by the Holy Spirit far more effectively than our own weak logic.” Dr. Graham observed that we have much clever preaching these days (of the kind that Paul deliberately turned away from—cf. 1 Cor. 1:17–25), and yet we forget that even the illiterate people understood Jesus.
Secondly, we need a “renewal of experimental faith,” an emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit. The new emphasis on daily living with the Holy Spirit, the Bible study and prayer groups that are springing up all over the country—these are suggesting to the Church that there is much of the depth of Christian life that we have not yet experienced. The apostles were witnesses to what they had seen and what they had heard, “but we haven’t seen and heard very much sometimes.” How can we expect to introduce people to Jesus Christ in a way in which we ourselves have not met him? It is tragic that many ministers themselves do not know Christ personally. We must make our own “soul commitment” to him, so that Christ becomes a reality in our hearts and not just in our minds.
The third area in which there is a need for renewal is that of “disciplined living.” We are fond of referring to our fear of “legalism,” but perhaps we should be even more afraid of no discipline at all. The minister needs discipline in prayer and study. Also, we need discipline in the Church. Everyone would like very much to see a Christian, but sometimes it is easier to join a church than it is to join the local country club. Furthermore, once “you get in, there’s no way out of the church unless you die.”
Fourthly, the Church needs a renewed sense of “spiritual expectancy and excitement.” Dr. Graham said that we of the older denominations definitely have something to learn from the Pentecostal-type groups—“we need to catch some fire.” On the Day of Pentecost, observers thought the apostles were drunk. (At this point Dr. Graham quipped: “How many Presbyterian churches have you been in lately where you thought the people were drunk?”) The Communists sound like the early Church when they say, “We’re going to change the world”—and they mean it! Yet often our people are accused of over-emotionalism if they shed tears or laugh in church services.
Turning to a theological need, Dr. Graham suggested as his fifth point that there is a need for “a renewal of an eschatological emphasis.” The hope of history is the return of Christ to earth, and we need to proclaim it. Again, the Communists say that they are going to build a kingdom on earth; they have an eschatological purpose for history, a plan. Naturally this has great appeal for people. Dr. Graham believes that our prayer “Thy kingdom come” will some day be fully answered. We need to proclaim God’s intervention in history in Christ as past, present, and future.
Finally, Dr. Graham said that the Church is in desperate need of men of courage. We are often as guilty of conformity as those to whom we preach. The Church has need of men “who will courageously give their message and let the chips fall where they may.”
In trying to analyze the response to Dr. Graham’s talk, I do not pretend to speak for the seminary, or for any group within the seminary, but rather will make some observations of my own. The general response seems to have been quite favorable. A number of students, including myself, feel that Dr. Graham struck at the very heart of the needs of the ministry in the modern Church.
Among those critical of Dr. Graham’s presentation, the question most often asked was whether he is not reducing preaching to a far too simple “telling of the story of Jesus.” In this view, the critics claim that Dr. Graham is not taking into consideration the problems of relating the ambiguities of the New Testament to the complexities of modern society. However, I wonder if this same criticism would not also be leveled at the crude fisherman whom Christ named Peter. Peter saw his primary task as a proclamation of the Christ whom he had come to know, not as some sort of “demythologizing” of Christ so that he could be “fitted in” to the complexities of life.
Perhaps the New Testament witnesses had learned something we need to know, that God is perfectly capable of making his Son relevant to anyone through the operation of the Holy Spirit—if those who preach in his name will allow him to do so. This does not mean that we should stop earnestly grappling with the deep meanings of the Bible or the deep problems of our civilization—far from it. Rather, let us not lose sight of the source of everything we do in the ministry: the power of God operating in us and through us.
Those of us whom God has called to positions of responsibility among his people must realize that the success of a ministry does not depend on how well we exercise all the human “tools of the trade”; it depends upon how open a channel we are for the operation of God’s grace. The Church is built, not by man’s hands, but by the power of Jesus Christ. Sometimes we need to be gently reminded that Peter and James and John did not have the benefit of a seminary education, yet the situation in the average congregation is a far cry from the exuberance, vitality, and wonder-working power about which we read in the New Testament.
Perhaps Dr. Graham has discovered that the proper focus for our attention is not the theological intricacies of Scripture but the person of Christ. Is it not possible that the most important thing Dr. Graham has to teach ministers in this age is that God has called us, not to make Christ relevant, but to be the channels through whom God himself will make Christ relevant?
Peter Marshall, who holds the B.A. from Yale University, is a senior at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he is president of the student body. He is the son of Dr. Peter Marshall, the late pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church of Washington, D.C.
Jephthah’s Daughter
Tomorrow ends the measured mourning time
My father Jephthah has allotted me.
Once more, my maidens, let us wander forth
To gaze once more upon these hills I love.
The rocky paths, the gleaming sun, the winds
That whisper softly to the listening trees,
All these I leave.
Nay, maidens, weep no more—
Or weep for him, my father, who will live
Now childless through his own rash vow,
Yea, weep for him. The years have bruised his heart
With pelting stones of sorrow and disgrace.
Conceived in wickedness, a harlot’s son,
He knew from earliest breath the taunt, the sneer,
The poisoned barb of malice, hurled in hate.
Has he not told me how his father’s sons
Thrust him with loathing from their common hearth
And how he skulked in Tob with outcast men,
Himself more outcast than them all? Yea, weep
For scorn-fed Jephthah—and for every man
Who feeds on hatred’s meal he did not cook
Nor cause.
Tomorrow, maidens, must I die.
Incredulous, I touch that fact again
On every side, but fingers glide along
Its sloping sides, still uninformed. To die:
What can it mean?
Nay, maidens, speak no more
Of the virginity we have bewailed
For these two solemn months. I shall not know
Husband’s embrace, nor nestling infant arms,
Nor shall I see tall sons beside my chair
Nor in a daughter’s face renew my own.
But look, my life is now Jehovah God’s.
Bride am I, bride of great Omnipotence.
I cannot mourn—could any Hebrew maid?—
That my life is the fee our Israel pays
For victory over Ammon, Israel’s foe.
Come, maidens, let us walk a little higher
Above that nearer clump of olive trees.
Here in the heights I utter yet a word
Before the sacrificial knife shall still my voice
Tomorrow from your ears: to me is given
(Through Jephthah’s heedless vow) to be a lamb
Slain for my people, like another Lamb
Whom one day God will send. Nay, ask me not,
For all His meaning is obscure to me.
Perchance tomorrow I shall understand.
ELVA McALLASTER
