J.C. Ryle
1 Timothy IV. 12.
“Be thou an example of the believers in word.”
Brethren,
The subject on which I am requested to address you today, is entitled—“The minister an example to believers in word.” I open it under a deep sense of my own inability to do it justice, and with deep regret that it has not fallen into better hands.
The text on which the subject is founded, contains an expression which requires an explanatory remark. I consider the expression, “word,” in this sentence, to mean, not “the word of God,” but “talking,” “speech,” or to use a common phrase, “conversation.” I believe that the expression, “Logos,” is never applied to the Scriptures, or to the gospel-message, in the New Testament without the accompaniment of the article. “Word” must, therefore, be taken here in the same sense as in Coloss. iii. 17, “Whatsoever ye do in word or deed.” It means simply speech, in contradistinction to action.
I need hardly point out to my brethren the extreme delicacy and difficulty of the subject in this point of view. I can only assure the, that if I speak of faults, it is not because I feel myself free from them; and if I direct their attention to excellences of speech, it is not because I feel I have attained to them.
Something I would first say about the immense importance of the subject. I need hardly remind you of the testimony of Scripture on this point. The Apostle James, in the third chapter of his Epistle, says,—“If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.” He calls the tongue—“a fire, a world of iniquity,—an unruly evil full of deadly poison.” He says that “no man can tame” it. The Lord Jesus Christ tells us that “for every idle word men speak they shall give account in the day of judgement,—and that by our words we shall be justified, and that by our words we shall be condemned.” (Matt. xii. 36.) By conversation and speech sin first came into the world. It began by the passage of words between Satan and Eve. By the tongue the Gospel was first proclaimed to the world. It was preached by living men, and heard long before it was read. The wisest of men might well say, “death and life are in the power of the tongue.” (Prov. xviii. 21.)
These are important considerations for all professing Christians. All ought to take heed to their ways, that they offend not in their tongues. But there are none, surely, to whom carefulness about words is so seriously important as the ministers of the Gospel. Ministers are men watched by the world. The higher their standard of godliness, the more narrowly they will be watched. They are like a city set upon a hill. It behoves them to be doubly watchful over their tongues, and doubly careful not to injure the cause they have to defend, by erring in word. In word, as well as in deed, they must strive to be examples.
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