Right now I'm at this interesting place with regards to my faith. For the past two and a half months, I've had more thrown at me in such a short amount of time than ever before, and they have raised in my head numerous issues that I had never considered before.
To be clear to anyone reading before I continue, this is by no means a crisis of faith. Quite to the contrary, this is the most exciting part of my Christian walk that I've ever experienced before.
You see, with regards to the fundamentals of the faith, I have never been more secure. You can't go to a place like where I'm going, and be surrounded by the type of people that I'm surrounded by, and not come away with a stronger faith (well, I guess you conceivably could, but it seems highly unlikely).
What I've been trying to digest and process, rather, are some of the other issues of Christianity. For example, the Trinity. I had never really thought about the Trinity before; I had just accepted it and moved on. But the concept of the Trinity is exceedingly complex. I find my mind rolling around these types of issues to see if I can even get a grasp on it, and what it means to my faith.
In addition to the big theological things that I have been contemplating, I have also spent a considerable amount of time--especially in recent weeks--thinking about my future career, and in light of what I'm learning, what type of Pastor I'm going to be.
A big part of this relates directly to the Word, to the Bible. I have always felt called to preaching, but to tell you the truth, I haven't given much thought to what type of preacher I was going to be, and the implications of preaching the Word of God. Having had the oppotunity to attend a vast number of churches over the years, I have seen all different styles of preaching. And from all of those experiences, I have kind of come away with the impression that preaching isn't that big of a deal. All it takes is a good idea, a couple of easy to understand principles you can teach on a particular subject ("5 Tips to Battling Boredom," with extra points given if each principle starts with the same letter, in this case preferably "B"), and then pulling out a couple of verses that seem to fit what you want to say and to give it that Biblical flavor. And voila, you're done.
Now, of course, that is just one style; you can also choose to go through a book at a time, but even then, from what I've witnessed in churches, that isn't that big of a deal. Just pull out a few verses at a time, stand up there and say what it means to you and give some general "Life Applications" (usually tacked on at the end of the message, in your notes handout taking the form of sentences with a word missing, so that you can fill in the blank, and taking the form of such universal principles that you could probably get them out of any text of scripture: "Life Application 1: Remember that God is God and _____ are not!") and there you have another sermon.
It seems like you could bang out writing a fairly decent sermon following one of the the above two models in 2 hours, 3 hours tops (if you want to make it really good).
But after thinking about this concept of preaching God's Word more, and reading some books and hearing what other people have to say about it, as I define what type preacher I'm going to be, I have come to the conclusion that there are serious problems with how preaching is often treated in modern-day churches.
You see, I have been taught to believe that the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God. And the more I read and learn about the Bible, the more convicted I am in that truth: that the Bible is God's word and His revelation to us humans. And, I believe, it is His only revelation to us, and will be so until He returns. The Bible is the tool by which God has revealed Himself to us on earth.
If I truly believe that, then, that inevitably has profound implications on whatever teaching ministry God might bless me with. Viewed from the perspective that the Scriptures is God's revelation to us, then the Bible ceases to become the catch-all self-help book that many churches today like to treat it as. Rather, it is a holy and sacred text that contains the truth of the almighty God.
Therefore, anytime that I stand behind a pulpit, and preach from the Bible, it is my responsibility to present the Word of God accurately and precisely. Gone is the image of the preacher as motivational speaker, or psychologist, as has become so popular today. Instead, the preacher serves as the spokesperson for God. What an awesome responsibility.
And therefore, if my logic and reasoning is correct, preaching from scripture then requires that I give the particular text that I am studying my complete devotion. It means that I spend countless hours studying the scriputres, to discover, with the Spirit's help, the original meaning the author intended, and therefore the truth that God is conveying in each passage. It does not mean that I stand up in the pulpit and give the message that I want to give, pulling random scripture from all over the place, completely out of context, to support my views and to sound more "Biblical." Now, it would seem to me OK to do to give, perhaps, only a single verse as support of something if the particular scripture I am referring to actually means what I say it means. But if I'm just pulling a verse out because it happens to have the word "boredom" in it in one of the 50 different translations of that verse, then it seems it would mean that I am perverting the Word of God. And it is my gut reaction that doing something like that would carry with it pretty grave consequences. Maybe that is what James means when he says, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness" (James 3:1). But to be honest with you, I don't know. I haven't studied it enough to accurately say that.
Preaching would seem to be, then, no light affair. But instead, it appears to be a task that carries with it a supreme sense of obligation and duty. So much so, that it would almost seem easier to forget the whole thing altogether and just hold a "self-help" seminar every Sunday morning, void of Bible references.
But there is something amazing that happens when the Word of God is taught accurately and precisely: it cuts to the heart of a person unlike anything else. I know that in the few sermons I have prepared, when the Spirit begins to clearly illuminate a passage of scripture for me, through my studying, my heart is opened up, and it speaks to my soul, to the core of my being--so much so that I let out a soft groan as the truth speaks resonates within me("mmph"). The writer of Hebrews observed that same thing. "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).
Of course, that type of preaching is not always popular. People want sermons that are immediately relevant--sermons that they can hear on Sunday and use on Monday. And teaching from the pulpit about the headship of Christ in the church on Sunday morning isn't something they can exactly use at the office come Monday. But as preachers, the Bible clearly says that we are not called to please men, but God (see Galatians 1:10). And God has called preachers not to preach what is necessarily popular, but to preach the Word. People might want something else, but it is not a preacher's responsibility to give them what they want. It is a preacher's responsibility to preach the truth.
Again, I'm still sorting all of this out. And I haven't reached a conclusion. But unless someone comes up with a convincing argument for how anything but this could be the case, then this might very well be an issue that, for me, is decided. If that is the case, then I need to stop writing and get back to studying the Word of God. I think this might be a good passage with which to start:
I 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, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accmulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. ~ 2 Timothy 4:1-5
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