Admonition to Minister

Jude 1:20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,

Jude 1:21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Jude 1:22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:

Jude 1:23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

Being a Bible believing bishop today means that we know that the only hope our people have is that the promises of God through Jesus Christ be manifest in their lives.

We know that God ordained the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. We know that wherever a gap exists between any of our people and God, we must stand in that gap and plead for God.

We know that no outward conformity can substitute for the inward grace and understanding given to those who believe.

Therefore, we labor with each individual or family as far as the Lord will allow to make them able to hear the preaching.

Each individual and family represent a unique set of circumstances that often need to be overcome in order for them to become sensitive to the work of the Comforter as outlined by Jesus Christ in John 16:7-11.

The extraordinary circumstances of our society with its general depth of unbelief and casual indifference to sin have wounded most of those with whom we labor.

Such people are only dimly aware of a need for deliverance from the wrath of God. Their chief desire is a deliverance from the pain of sin which they often confound as psychological torment or depression.

A bishop today will find himself under a constant labor to watch over and to care for such a people as various circumstances arise to distract them from their duty to listen to the claims of God as delivered to the holy apostles and are now preached by those who have believed through their word.

A man of God who expects quick and easy victories in this labor will quickly realize that this is a long and arduous work. There may be an occasional oasis of rest, and there are intermittent joys along the way, but to see Christ fully formed in any life is neither quick nor easy.

It is God and God alone who can quicken such a people. He will never cheapen the means of grace. He will always require repentance towards God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

The bishop who stays mindful of this will labor among such people as the Lord sends his way. He will endeavor to plant the seed of truth in each and every heart. He will labor ceaselessly to prepare the soil of the human heart by preaching away the weeds that choke and the rocks which hinder.

On top of all this, he must remain mindful of the snares that seek to cripple his own walk with God. He must labor to keep a holy relationship with God through obedience to the word of God as directed by God in a personal relationship with God which he keeps fresh through a relationship with the the word of God, which in the English speaking world is a King James Bible.