Regarding the spirit and labour of a Student.

Here is an excellent quote.  I believe preachers must be students of the Word of God primarily, but also of other related subjects.  Being a student requires study, which is hard work.  I began realing a book and came across this paragraph, so, I thought I would share it.

Quote:  George N. Peters (Prebyterian-b. 1825; d. 1909), The Theocratic Kingdom, vol. 1, pg. 22.

“We are reminded of Henry More’s sarcastic remark of smatterers in theology, who are ‘parrot-like prattlers, boasting their wonderful insight to holy truth, when as they have indeed scarce licked the outside of the glasse wherein it lies.’  Human nature always produces a class who think that what they do not know is not worth knowing, or who suppose that, from the knowledge professed they are eminently qualified to judge of those things never examined or studied.  The latter are illustrated by the professor of Church history (mentioned, Blackwood’s Magazine, June 1873, in article on Dr. Arnold), who, when questioned as to the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, and the Apologists of the second century, replied, that he knew nothing of these writings, but ‘what with the Bible on the one hand, and the human consciousness on the other, he knew very well what must have happened in that century.’  Bishop Berkeley’s saying is still true: ‘In the present age thinking is more talked of but less practiced than in ancient times.’  In ancient times the thinkers were the instructors; nowadays nearly every one sets himself up for a teacher.  The tendency now is to despise laborious research and to substitute tinsel; scholarship must give place to beautiful writing; depth must be sacrificed for a vast range of graceful figures of speech.  The Bishop of Exeter (The Intellectual Life, p. 46) has well said, confirmed as it is by experience, ‘of all work that produces results, nine tenths must be drudgery’—‘there is nothing which so truly repays itself as this very perseverance against weariness.’  The discriminating, the scholarly, the wise, will over against the large majority, give due credit to evidenced study and labor, even is unable to accept of all its results.”

Food for thought.