“The only thing we have to do with Christ Jesus crucified is just to lift him up and preach him. There is many a man who could only speak in a ploughman’s dialect, who will wear a bright and starry crown in heaven, because he lifted Christ up, and sinners saw and lived. And there is many a learned doctor, who spoke with the brogue of the Egyptian and, with the dark and mysterious language, he talked he knew not what, who, after having ended his course, shall enter heaven without a solitary star in his crown, never having lifted up Christ nor won crowns for his Master.

Let each of us who are called to the solemn work of the ministry remember that we are not called to lift up doctrine or church governments or particular denominations. Our business is to lift up Christ Jesus and to preach him fully. There may be times when church government is to be discussed and particular doctrines are to be vindicated. God forbid that we should silence any part of the truth. But the main work of the ministry — its every day work — is just exhibiting Christ and crying out to sinners, ‘Believe, believe, believe on him who is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Treasury of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1950), II:279.