The Wanderer

In The Hidden Life of Prayer (Westminster/Amazon.co.uk/.com), David McIntyre quotes Dr Alexander Somerville as follows:

The greatest, the most successful servants that Christ ever had divided their functions into two departments – ‘We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.’ What would be thought of dividing the twelve hours of our day by giving six hours to prayer for the Gospel and six to the ministry of the Word? Had all Christ’s servants acted thus, could anyone estimate how mighty the results on the world would be today?

The ministry of the Word tends to be a more public function, and the private labour of the study is therefore somewhat readily justified. But wrestling with God is almost entirely a private function, and it is easy to maintain the veneer of public usefulness while skimping on the private labours of intercession. I am not suggesting that giving oneself to prayer and to the ministry of the Word demands an absolutely equal division of labour, but what is the testimony of their relative importance of each one as judged by the proportion of time and energy given to the one compared to the other in the day of a gospel minister? And how much more effective might ministers be if we kept more closely to the apostolic model?