The Necessary Ingredients

“It is living fellowship with a living Savior which, transforming us into his image, fits us for being able and successful ministers of the gospel. Without this nothing else will avail. Neither orthodoxy, nor learning, nor eloquence, nor power of argument, nor zeal, nor fervor, will accomplish naught without this. It is this that gives power to our words and persuasiveness to our arguments, making them either as the balm of Gilead to the wounded spirit or as sharp arrows of the might to the conscience of the stouthearted rebel . . . Nearness to Christ, intimacy with him, assimilation to his character—these are the elements of a minsitry with power.” — Horatius Bonar, Words to Winners of Souls