Preach the Word

In his blogging through 2 Timothy, Kirk Wellum reminds Christians of the call to preach the word:

We must admit with sorrow that some of what is called preaching is a travesty. It is too full of the preacher. His wit and wisdom is on display. His personality dominates. He is self-assured and self-confident. He enjoys the spotlight and loves to be the center of attention. He uses the sacred desk as a place to tell his stories and spin his tales and tell his silly jokes. His goal is to make people feel good and in the process make them think well of him. This kind of egocentric display is sickening and explains why we see so little of the Spirit's work in our day in spite of our carefully honed prose and technological gadgets! God will never share his glory with such pompous, self-absorbed hypocrites. He still looks for those who are humble and contrite in heart and who tremble at his word!

But what so often passes for "preaching" in our day is not what Paul has in mind at all. He tells Timothy to, "Preach the word. To be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction". Notice that it is the "word" that Timothy is to preach. Too often this is forgotten. We are to preach the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as they are interpreted in light of Jesus Christ. Nothing else will do.

Amen. Kirk's next post, about the allure of false teachers, is pretty strong, too.