In our days of trainers and mules it may well be the case that most of my readers have never come across a last. It belongs to the days when shoes were made by individuals who had their place in a cottage industry, along with smiths who hammered anvils, potters who set their wheels spinning and weavers who worked their own looms. The last was a metal article, difficult to describe, that had a three-dimensional function. It served as a mount for a cobbler hammering and stitching a shoe or repairing one.
As a familiar object around the house in days when shoes or boots were repaired rather than replaced, the last had a place among the proverbs. A cobbler should stick to his last, people said. He should do what he was good at. He should practise his trade. And he should not imagine that because he knew his job well, he was proficient at anything else. The blacksmith, for his part, should stay in his forge just as the potter should stay by his kiln and the weaver by his loom.
In short, the common wisdom was that we are all better off if we enjoy the fruits of specialisation. Society was well advised to rely on farriers, sail-makers, engine-drivers, tinkers, thatchers, horse-copers and printers to go about their business in their own way without interference and with appropriate payment for the jobs they did.
One whole variety of occupations was found within the Church. Monks copied and illuminated ancient manuscripts. Monks and lesser orders polished their reading and writing capabilities so that they could explain the Scriptures. They needed Latin to do that and the vernacular when English Bibles became available. Pardoners, as their name suggested, collected money for the Church by tickling the ears of gullible parishioners. Friars provided a peripatetic service for those who looked for more acceptable attention than the parish clergy could provide.
So how stands the proverb today? Should we be content to leave serious Bible study to the vicar and his team, while the rest of us get on with the jobs we do for the benefit of all? We have to be sensible about this. Potential vicars spend years on serious study of the Bible. The resulting expertise is put to good effect when congregations gain a measure of understanding as a consequence. We can expect our pastors to be able to deal with the questions we put to them. And there is a responsibility on the hearers to be able to put good questions to the preachers. We have an ordered ministry. We must derive all the benefit we can from it.
See Colossians 4.4 and Colossians 2.18. We are to benefit from the ministry of the Word and we are to be discriminating in giving attention to those who exercise that ministry.
‘THE FINEST SIGHT’
For some decades it was believed that what held the Anglican Communion together was the Book of Common Prayer. In his day Charles Simeon put it well when he said: ‘The finest sight short of heaven would be a whole congregation using the prayers of the Liturgy in the true spirit of them.’
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