Don’ts and do’s about texts - Chambers, Oswald

Dont be clever.

Do be  careful.

Dont be controversial. 

Do be consecrated.                                                

Dont be conceited.            

Do be concentrated.                                          

Dont be clever

Never choose a text, let the text choose you. Cleverness is the ability to do things better than anyone else. Always hide that light under a bushel. The holy ghost is never clever. In a child of god the holy spirit works as naturally as breathing, and the most unostentatious choices are his choices. Unless your personal life is hid with Christ in god, natural ability will continually lead you into chastisement from god. When a text has chosen you, the holy spirit will impress you with its inner meaning and cause you to labour to lead out that meaning for your congregation.

Do be careful

Nothing that has been discovered by anyone else is of any use to you until you re-discover it. Be careful to use your own mental eyes, and the eyes of those who can help you to see what you are looking at. Drum- mond10 said that ruskin taught him to see. Be careful to develop the power of perceiving what you look at, and never take an explanation from another mind unless you see it for yourself.

Dont be controversial

Never choose disputed texts; if you do, you are sure to cut yourself. The spirit that chooses disputed texts is the boldness born of impudence, not the fearlessness born of morality. Remember, god calls us to proclaim the gospel. A man may increase his intellectual vim by controversy, but only one in a thousand can maintain his spiritual life and controvert. Never denounce a thing about which you know nothing.

Do be consecrated

Never forget who you are, what you have been, and what you may be by the grace of god. When you try and re-state to yourself what you implicitly feel to be gods truth, you give god a chance to pass that truth on to someone else through you.

Dont be conceited

Conceit means my own point of view and i dont care what anyone else says. Be not wise in your own conceits, says Paul. Conceit makes the way god deals with me personally the binding standard for others. We are called to preach the truth, our lord Jesus Christ, and we get decentralised from him if we become specialists.

Do be concentrated

Strenuous mental effort to interpret the word of god will fag us out physically, whereas strenuous mental effort that lets the word of god talk to us will re-create us. We prefer the spiritual interpretation to the exegetical because it does not need any work. We are to be workmen for god, not take gods word to feed our- selves. The preacher has to concentrate on what gods word says; he is dealing with a written revelation, not an unwritten one. The reason we have no open vision is that in some domain we have disobeyed god. Immediately we obey, the word is opened up. The atmosphere of the christian is god himself, and in ordinary times as well as exceptional times he brings words to us. When he does not, never deceive yourself, something is wrong and needs curing, just as there would be some- thing wrong if you could not get your breath. Super- natural manifestations of guidance are exceptional. The normal way of the spirit of god is the way he worked in the life of Jesus Christ. Maintain your personal relationship with god at all costs. Never allow anything to come between your soul and god, and welcome anyone or anything that leads you to know him better.