What is a pulpit?

This public reading was a great occasion, and it furnishes us with some valuable instruction, particularly for those who minister the word in a public way. Ezra stood upon a pulpit, so that both he and the book out of which he read, were in full view of the people, and others helped to make the meaning plain to all who listened. If any of our readers engage in the public preaching of the Gospel or the ministry of the word to believers, we would ask them to read verse 8, and carefully note three words in it.

We have seen many instances of this liberating power of the truth. We remember on one occasion when an ecclesiastical building had been completed, with its coloured glass windows, and well-furnished benches, tables of the ten commandments, pulpit, font, a powerful musical instrument, etc., the clergyman. and his friends then had serious questions as to its being consecrated. The more they searched the directions of scripture to the church of God, the more they became convinced that such consecration was not Christian but Jewish in its origin, and suited only to God's earthly people Israel, who were outside the veil of Solomon's temple. The more clearly they perceived the heavenly and spiritual character of believers who, through grace, enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, the more convinced they became that consecrating any building on earth now, and calling it the house of God, is wholly opposed to Christianity, and a going back to what was carnal, legal, and Jewish; that it was returning to the weak and beggarly elements against which the Galatians were so solemnly warned. They, therefore, abandoned the idea of consecration. Being faithful to God in this one point, further light from scripture dawned upon their waiting souls. Holding fast what they received from the word of God, they rejoiced in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free. When they saw that the time now is when true worshippers should worship the Father in spirit and in truth, they had the musical instrument removed. When they learned from scripture that they were "not under law but under grace," and that Christ's example, and not the commandments of Moses, was the Christian's rule of life, the two tables of the law were taken down, and carried away. The clergyman himself ere long saw that his position as such was unsanctioned by scripture, and that he was only one member of the body of Christ among many, and responsible to the Lord for any "gift" he had received from Him; consequently his linen garments (to resemble Aaron's), as well as his black ones to distinguish him as belonging to a peculiar class were soon laid aside, and turned to useful purposes. It was also found that the baptismal font was no longer required. The pulpit was pared down to a temporary desk, and used only when preaching the gospel to many hearers. Some of those among the over-flowing congregation who knew the Lord, were taught by the word of God that the Lord Jesus Christ was "in the midst" of those who were "gathered together in his name," and that it was their sweet privilege, when thus gathered, to remember Him and show His death till He come, as members of one body, of which He was Head, as well as to own the presence of the Holy Ghost in us, and in the assembly, as the power of all service, worship, and ministry, etc.

312 "In each place of worship there stands the pulpit - a visible symbol of the monopoly of teaching - a fixed memento to the Church that it is to one individual they have to look for all those declarations, illustrations, and enforcements of the word of God, by which their minds are to be informed, their consciences stirred or comforted, or their hearts impressed and improved. From that spot, sacred to ministerial occupation, the devotions of the people are to be led by the same man who preaches the word every time the Church assembles year after year. The most seraphic piety, combined with the most splendid talents, can hardly, on this plan, prevent both devotion and instruction from becoming invested with an air of formality deeply injurious to freshness of religious feeling. The service insensibly slides into a performance which the assembly try to witness with becoming emotion, instead of participating in and adopting as their own. It is as if the voice which addresses them came from an isolated and inaccessible quarter representative of authority, instead of issuing from their very midst, conversant with their own thoughts, and warm with their own emotions. The occupant of that pulpit, who alone has right to interpret God's will and minister to His saints, and plead with unbelievers, cannot be thoroughly identified as one with ourselves; and not a little of that sympathy, with which we should otherwise listen to his statements or exhortations, is chilled and paralysed by the sensible contact into which it comes with the insulating lines of office. Oh! those pulpits - and all the influences they infer! Would that no such professional conveniences had been invented! Would that some change of feeling or even of fashion amongst us could sweep them clean away! How much they themselves, and the notion of which they are the visible expression, have done to repress the manifestations of spiritual life and energy in our churches it is impossible to calculate.

The gifts of ministry exist in the assembly, not properly in an assembly; and we may exercise them individually, and either evangelize or teach in our individual capacity, or as meeting in the assembly of the saints. In this last a pulpit is out of place. In a pulpit one is no longer with the saints. But when I teach as an individual (and as a servant of Christ I may do so), I am not with the saints, but teaching them according to the gift given me. The positions are different, and yet both scriptural and right. With this remark I give the quotations. They are from Mr. E. Miall's "British Churches in Relation to the British People," 2nd edition, p. 172.

Well do I remember the exceeding goodness of God in leading me, many years ago, to know the blessed reality of what I now write. I had in some measure felt the sinfulness of sectarianism. I knew a great deal about what was wrong, but really had no knowledge of what was right. In this state I was led to witness a few Christians met together in the name of the Lord Jesus, to break bread, on the first day of the week; and against whom I had, in my ignorance, felt bitterly opposed. I entered the room where they had just assembled, and were in solemn silence, waiting on God in worship. Naturally I looked for the pulpit, and the man of the pulpit. There was no pulpit, and no pulpit man. I then looked for the president. There was no president to be seen. Never shall I forget the deep solemnity that fell on my soul, when I felt these people were gathered in reality to meet the Lord Himself. Never before had I thus felt the presence of God. The Holy Ghost had not gathered them to peculiar doctrines, or to some man; but to Jesus, the holy and the true; realizing the all-sufficiency of the Spirit to take of the things of Christ and to show them to them. It is impossible to express in words the unspeakable reality of this rest of the soul in the presence of God. Let not my reader suppose that those whom the Lord has thus blessed think themselves better than others. Where all is known to be grace, the thought of betterness is an absurdity.

I had heard that Captain W. and a few other Christians met on the first day of the week to break bread, like the disciples, in Acts 20. One Lord’s day morning, I went to see what this could mean. I found them gathered in an upper room, in Wellington Street, Sheffield. I sat behind, and naturally looked for the pulpit. There was no pulpit, but a table spread, or covered with a white cloth, and on it the bread and wine, in commemoration of the death of the Lord Jesus. I then looked for the minister, or president; there was no such person. All the believers gathered were seated around the table of the Lord. A deep, solemn impression fell upon me: “These people have come to meet the Lord Himself.” I have no doubt it was the Spirit of God that thus spake to me. It is impossible to describe the sense I had, for the first time, of being in the immediate presence of the Lord Jesus, according to that word, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” I could scarcely notice what was done, I was so overwhelmed with the presence of the Lord. No one can have any idea what this is, unless really gathered to His name. What a contrast to everything I had seen before, and yet how simple! It was like going back to that which was in the beginning of Christianity, before any priest was heard of to offer in the church a sacrifice for the living and the dead. I was much surprised to find, strange as this gathering together of Christians to break bread appeared to me, that it was exactly what we find in scripture. Instead of even a minister at the Lord’s Table, I found the same simple liberty as described in 1 Corinthians 14:29-37. I was greatly struck with each worshipping before the Lord, in dependence on the Holy Ghost. I felt that was my place, deeply unworthy as I was of it. Well do I remember the thought, “This is my place, if even it were to be a door mat, for these Christians to wipe their feet on me.”

migdal. Some temporary platform on which Ezra stood, Neh. 8:4; probably the same as that called 'the stairs' in Neh. 9:4. The Hebrew word is often translated 'tower.'

"I confine myself then to saying here that the sermon is as heavy as false, as dull as the black gown with which people dress themselves out to preach it; that it ought, in short, to be given up, in order to speak, in a style intelligible to all the world, things not only fundamentally true, but true in the means which serve to establish them. I would that people mounted the pulpit, not to set themselves up above the audience, but solely in order to be better heard by it … I would … alas! many other things, which neither I, nor others, do."*

"2. The paramount importance of preaching is another glory of our church. Our church does not depend upon gorgeous ceremonies, or prescribed liturgies, or a lordly hierarchy for its influence over the people, but upon its office of preaching - the exercise of scriptural instruction. This was the great feature of the apostolical Church. The founder of Christianity was a preacher. Its first apostles went everywhere preaching the word. Christianity owes its greatest social influence to the pulpit. … Our church has recognized this apostolic view - the dependence of the people upon the preacher, and has sought to provide able ministers of the word of God to expound saving truth to their congregations. If we have not preachers of ability, we cannot keep our people. There are no other adventitious aids by which congregations will be sustained. They depend upon the minister alike for the public prayer as for the sermon, and therefore require men of high spiritual character, and of intellectual gifts and popular adaptation. It has ever been a glory of our Zion to possess an educated ministry.

324 "The pulpit of our time is in different circumstances from those it has ever before experienced. The press has been gaining while the pulpit has been losing popular power. This has not been because the press has usurped the place of the pulpit, for it rarely writes on religion, but because it has sustained its work with more ability, with better adaptation to the wants of the people, and with more equitable rewards for the talent enlisted in its service. Accustomed to read well-written, intellectual, and instructive papers, periodicals, and books, whose style captivates, whose themes interest, and whose thoughts enlighten and elevate, people cease to admire and listen to preachers of feeble mind or of listless manner. It is also not to be denied that much of the preaching is too academic and dry, and too weak and coarse. Clerical education has lacked an element which brings the religious teacher into sympathy with the common people, and has paid too little attention to the art of speaking, which is ever an effective aid to popular instruction. People complain that they hear only good men, who do not command their attention or stimulate their thought … The pulpit needs higher intellect. The theme with which it is occupied is worthy of the noblest thought - has the loftiest elevation and the most extensive range, and grasps the two eternities of the past and the future with the grand area that lies between them … But preaching must also be adapted to the age and to the circumstances of the people," pp. 310.

Every godly evangelical clergyman or minister believes that he may and ought to expect the help of the Holy Spirit in preaching and in preparing for the pulpit, even if it be in the matter of writing a sermon. He asks in prayer for, and according to the measure and simplicity of his faith expects to obtain, divine guidance and help. I can speak for myself that, during fifteen years' experience in preaching the gospel, I cannot recall an instance of my standing up to preach, or setting myself to prepare for it without seeking for, and in some measure counting on, such aid; apart from such belief I should never have entered a pulpit at all, and I feel quite certain that in this I was no exception. It used to be pressed upon the students at the seminary where I studied theology, and is, I feel sure, the practice and belief of thousands, as I know it to be of many. It is this that originally lay at the bottom of the familiar Scottish horror of "the paper" in the pulpit; the thought that such preparation was a hindrance to the spontaneous action of the Spirit. I am satisfied that such expectations of divine help are right and well-founded, and are always met by the Lord according to the measure of faith; and if that faith went further, and basing itself on God's divinely-given warrant, expected His aid up to the promised measure, it would be met.