Articles
What Preachers Need to Be
“I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” (2 Timothy 4:1-5)
“Preach the word!” I suppose that is an accurate and somewhat self-explanatory summary of what a preacher’s job is. But what does it mean to preach the word? Let’s explore this idea.
First of all, preaching the word means that we actually familiarize brethren with the Scripture. Paul elsewhere instructed Timothy, “Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching” (1 Tim 4:13). If he is going to familiarize brethren with the Scripture, it obviously helps for him to know it himself. It will not do to simply pick and choose those parts of the Scripture that are most “comfortable.” Paul told the elders of Ephesus that while he was there, he did not shrink back from declaring the whole purpose of God (Acts 20:27). Paul also told Timothy that “all Scripture” is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training (2 Tim 3:16-17). This means that there is no Scripture that is not profitable to teach, no Scripture that is not beneficial to the congregation.
A person doesn’t have to be a fancy orator or a stellar public speaker to proclaim the simple truths of the Scriptures. The most effective preachers are not those who are fancy with words and rhetoric, but rather those who get believers to walk away from the sermon with a better glimpse of God through his word. That is the kind of preaching that brethren should demand. The preacher should avoid fables, myths, speculations, needless controversies, and word-wranglings (1 Tim 1:3-7; 4:7; 6:3-5; 2 Tim 2:14-18). He should not spend his time waxing eloquent about a cute illustration he thought of whilst contorting the Scripture to fit it. Rather, the Scripture itself should be the foundation for his teaching. Preach “the word” means preaching God’s word, rather than preaching your own words with some scriptures peppered in for illusionary effect.
Secondly, preaching the word means that we don’t compromise on the truth! Paul warned Timothy that there would be brethren who wanted to have their ears “tickled” (2 Tim 4:3). Rather than hear things that make them uncomfortable, they will only want to hear what makes them feel good about themselves. They won’t want their toes stepped on. They won’t want to hear anything that suggests they are wrong.
Yet the Bible, by its nature, creates cognitive dissonance in the honest heart. At every page, we are confronted with our sin and with yet more ways in which we are falling short of God’s will for us in Christ Jesus. When the Scripture confronts us with a truth that contradicts our current mindset, how do we respond? Do we discredit the source? Reinterpret it to fit ourselves better? Refuse to change? Or do we accept and embrace the word of God as more authoritative than our experience and bias? The preacher of the gospel has the job of confronting people with such cognitive biases (never mind his responsibility to let the Scripture challenge his own thinking as well!)
On the one hand, it goes without saying that we need to preach the truth in love (Eph 4:15). On the other hand, we need to make sure that what we preach is actually the truth! (Else it is not loving!) The prophets of old never told Israel, “Oh, you guys are doing so great! You don’t need to change anything!” Instead, they rebuked people. They confronted them with sin. They said the hard things that made them unpopular. Sometimes, this behavior got them persecuted or locked up. Sometimes it got them killed. But the prophets didn’t view fear of death as a good reason to fudge the message of truth. And neither should we.
The cross of Jesus means that we are brought face-to-face with our sin and its cost. We can’t diminish that message just to make ourselves feel better. May God help us to understand better what preachers need to be, and to hold them to the standards in his word!
