Foreword - Chambers, Oswald

“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a work-man that needeth not to be ashamed” (2 Timothy2:15), makes a big demand upon a worker for God,and these God-given messages, spoken to the stu-dents at the Bible Training College, London, by the Principal, the late Oswald Chambers, help us to meet that Divine requirement. One clear note in them is “that the servant of God has to go through the expe-rience of things before he is allowed to go through a study of them.” So the worker is required to enter voluntarily into that discipline of his life that will bring him into line with God’s way for him. Here there is as much insistence upon spiritual fitness as right mentality, and upon intellectual discipline as upon spiritual well-being. The worker for God is a unity, spirit, soul and body, and needs to be broughtby God’s grace and by personal choice and concen-tration into a harmoniously working whole. Mere intellectualism can be a great snare and mere pietism is not enough. The man of God to be thoroughly fur-
nished unto every good work must accept the spiri- tual discipline of reproof and correction and training in righteousness that the Scriptures convey, and also the mental discipline which a right understanding of the Scripture demands. These Talks in a striking manner put us in the way of becoming competent servants of Jesus Christ, spiritually fit, and mentally fitted, for the great task entrusted to us. Do not read this book unless you mean business, but if you do you will find wisdom and understanding on every page.

David Lambert