The Preacher's Pitfalls
Many of these have been mentioned incidentally already, but some of these, and some others, are set out here for ready and repeated reference. We who have compiled them know from the experience of our own failings how insistently they appear before us and how often we have stumbled into them, and earnestly desire that others may be spared their failures by this warning.

(i) Self-Concern. If we allow ourselves to think in terms of " I," or " My reputation," we lose sight of our purpose.
We must not speak to earn praise, nor to tickle the appreciation of our brethren. It is natural and healthy to like encouragement and be glad in the knowledge that we have done something well; it is spiritual and far healthier to be unconcerned with the praise of men, and rejoice that God has chosen us for His good work. With such a spirit we shall know how to dislike and discard the misguided flattery of kindly-intentioned friends, while we shall be glad at the sober approval and encouragement of an incorruptible helper. We shall know how to refrain from resentment at criticism which is unjust, while we shall humbly receive reproof we have deserved and profit from our chastening.

(ii) Originality for its Own Sake. Unusual approaches can be good and useful. An unchanging message in a new guise may stimulate the preacher and the believer and better enlighten the enquirer, and there is no merit in copying archaisms which have ceased to grip. But novelty for our own ends, " stunts " to call attention to our cleverness and win applause, are thoroughly bad and insincere.

(iii) Pride in Appointments. A diary is an aid to a bad memory, and no god. When we detect ourselves " adding up dates " and listing the Ecclesias where we " speak," when we look for our names in Ecclesial " Intelligence " and greet a visitor with "I'm glad to be at home-for once-to hear you ": we shall know that we are sickening with a deadly pride. An immediate application of 1 Corinthians 13 is the prescription.

(iv) Respect of Places. In the course of routine " lecturing," we shall certainly find some places we like to visit, and others where only a sense of duty can take us. That sense o of duty must be tended and nourished. We can invent remarkably convincing reasons why we serve better by visiting a distant ecclesia of many members than by visiting a nearer with few. Our private friendships may encroach insistently on our choice. The complaint needs drastic and early treatment. If we are only interested in preaching before large and appreciative audiences of our brethren, we should remember that Jesus said of such self-advertisers, " They have their reward."51 If we find that our invitations outstrip our vacancies, let us adopt at once a rigorous rationing system, and if it shows any bias at all, let it be weighted towards those ecclesias whom others might neglect.

(v) Excuses for Avoiding Unpleasant Tasks. Satan is accomplished at appearing as an angel of light.52 How easy is it for us to exclaim, when faced with a distasteful variation from the respectable routine of ecclesial appointments, " Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine."53 This may be a proper restraint for a real forgetfulness of the dignity of the Gospel, but it must not be used to sanctify neglect of study. The subtlety of the flesh has only to make " swine " comprehensive enough to refine preaching out of effective existence. Before the passage is used at all, we should do well to look through the Gospels and Epistles to see what classes of people they were who heard gladly the word of Jesus and hearkened to the call of the Apostles, and who they were who trampled them under their feet.64

(vi) Carelessness and Glibness. Over-anxiety from wrong motives (or even from right ones) to fill a list of appointments, will inevitably give rise to inadequate preparation, to the flogging of a little material and a limited " repertoire " until even we are bored, and to ultimate staleness. Simple laziness will do the same, and the brother with a retentive memory and a ready tongue may suffer more deeply from the disease (and with less recognition of it) than the less gifted preacher whose faults discover him sooner. It has been well written of preaching enterprises that " only effort, and even drudgery, can prevent them from falling consistently below their appointed limits, and that effort, if our understanding of the significance of preaching be not false, it is almost blasphemy to withhold."55

(vii) Envy and Jealousy. We are not, as preachers, automatically immune from this terribly destructive sin. We can find ourselves resenting the praise of another, and find ourselves speaking-ostensibly from the best of motives-to his detriment, and hating what we think of as his " rise to prominence." We may even strive (though we will never confess it) to speak better than he, preaching of contention. And we must not. Our spirit, of service, humility and love, must lead us where it led Moses: " Would to God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them."56

(viii) Sunday Goodness. " Abhor the thought of being clockwork ministers who are not alive by abiding grace within, but are wound up by temporary influences; men who are only ministers for the time being . . . True ministers are always ministers."57 Our ordinary speech must be as graceful and earnest as our lectures, for '' out of the overflowing of the heart the mouth speaketh."58 Our private prayers must be as full of true pleading as we would have our public prayers appear.