Preaching the Word

Preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.

2 Timothy 4:2,3

As Christians we are all charged with spreading the Word of God, in many ways, whether by example or word, but some have a greater degree of responsibility. Timothy was a young leader in the early church, and the Apostle Paul was his mentor and example. Paul wanted to make sure Timothy was in no doubt about his responsibility as a pastor and leader. His first and prime goal was to ‘Preach the Word’. Everything else took a lesser place, and he was to do this whether he felt like doing it or not. He was called by God, as is the case today. Pastors and ministers do not follow a job or a career, but are called to a mission. That mission is to preach, so that others will hear, and be converted to Christ.

Church attendances are falling across the country, and across all denominations. I accept that belief in God is falling, and we are becoming a nation of atheists and agnostics, but is there another reason for God believing people deserting our places of worship? Over recent years some churches and leaders have hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Abuses of position involving parishioners do nothing to foster trust in God, church, or ministers and priests. I think the root may go deeper, and be closer to home.

What do we do when numbers fall? What or who suffers? If numbers decline, there is less money to do important things like keep the grounds neat, maintain the interior and all the various rooms, and perhaps most importantly, pay the minister or pastor. There is one reaction. We could become like the people we want to attract. That way, we can hopefully  improve income and at the same time minister to more people. There is one major problem with that approach. It doesn’t work, and it never has. Don’t you think Paul and Timothy came across this problem in their ministries? I’m sure they did, but look again at Paul’s advice to his young charge.

A heavy responsibility rests on our various church ministers and pastors. A responsibility like no other. So when numbers fall, it is a sure sign that the Gospel is no longer in first place and being preached faithfully from the lectern and pulpit. The aim of the church after all is to preach the Gospel, and by doing so, producing a change in the hearts and minds of men and women. Then and only then are homes changed, society improved, and communities made safer. All achieved by the faithful preaching of the Word, undiluted and true. While we dither around making our churches more like the world, we haemorrhage people. It has never been more important that we preach the full Gospel of the Word of God from the pulpit, and see growth.

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? Romans 10:14

(NB.. This post was written on 22 July 2016, awaiting publication)

God's Word?

Our Christian faith stands or falls on what we do with the Word of God. In the 1600s it was only the learned church priests who had the authority to read and explain the Bible to ordinary men and women, and then along came two things which changed everything for ever. The Reformation movement believed that God’s Holy Word could and should be made available to all, and just about the same time the printing press was invented. Then it became possible to print the Bible in mass numbers, and place them into the hands of the ordinary population in England who could read. The Roman Catholic church of the day protested and even became violent because they believed this was a book which could not be trusted in the hands of uneducated people, even if they could read. However, almost overnight, the Bible was accepted by a hungry people, and the Word of God was read, and acted on. The nation was in the throes of a revival, and all because the Bible was freely available.

We have moved on since then, but we still have the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, and is still held in high esteem by these same Reformed Churches, right? Well, maybe not so much. After all, we can read, but we can also ‘read-into’ the pages of the Word now, so some church leaders, professors and Bible colleges are open to liberal thinking which says that maybe Adam and Eve were not real people. Maybe the Garden of Eden is an allegory. Then there’s Noah’s Ark. Did it really exist? Could all those living animals get onto a boat and in pairs? And what about Jonah? Surely a big fish couldn’t have swallowed him and spat him out after He accepted God’s command to preach? I mean, really?? Of course, the virgin birth, and later resurrection of Jesus is a bit far fetched, and ‘way too unscientific! Ah ha...maybe that’s the problem, we have become  scientific now, in fact evolution is waiting in the wings to be accepted in place of creation, at least in part, of most seriously minded, thinking Christians. By that definition then, anyone who accepts the Bible as the inerrant and literal Word of God, is not to be taken seriously.

If we go back to the 1600s, where the Roman Catholic Church of the day was the stumbling block to ordinary people receiving the truth of the Bible, would it be true to say that in today’s world, it is the turn of the Reformed Church leaders and academia to convince us that we cannot take the whole Bible as inerrant? We have redefined sin, and reinvented the plain words of Scripture to suit ourselves, and so it appears that the Word of God can only be trusted (once again) in the hands of those very learned professors of major Colleges and Churches who can translate it properly for us. If you have read this far, well done, but you are probably saying it doesn’t apply to ‘my Church’ anyway. Oh really? Are you sure? Have you checked lately? Just saying.