Do Pastors Pray Nowadays? --from John Calvin
Therefore,
pastors must not think that they have so done their duty that they need to do
no more when they have daily spent some time in teaching. There is another
manner of study, another manner of zeal, another manner of continuance required, that they may indeed boast that they are
wholly given to that thing. They adjoin thereunto prayer, not that they alone
ought to pray, (for that is an exercise common to all the godly,) but because
they have peculiar causes to pray above all others.
There
is no man which ought not to be careful for the common salvation of the Church.
How much more, then, ought the pastor, who hath that function
enjoined him by name to labor carefully [anxiously] for it? So
Moses did indeed exhort others unto prayer, but he went before them as the
ringleader (Exodus 17:11.) And it is not without cause that Paul doth so
often make mention of his prayers, (Romans 1:10.) Again, we must always
remember that, that we shall lose all our labor bestowed upon plowing, sowing,
and watering, unless the increase come from heaven, (1 Corinthians 3:7.)
Therefore,
it shall not suffice to take great pains in teaching, unless we require the
blessing at the hands of the Lord, that our labor may
not be in vain and unfruitful. Hereby it appeareth that the exercise of prayer
is not in vain commended unto the ministers of the word. John Calvin on
Acts 6:4
