Learning To Preach

2 Timothy 4:2 – Proclaim the message; persist in it whether convenient or not; rebuke, correct, and encourage with great patience and teaching.

When one spends time around people who do a particular thing well, whether it is building or banking, teaching or twirling, it is hoped that some of the expertise will rub off and one’s abilities will become more proficient.

At a recent seminar sponsored by Georgetown College, I heard a few of the “most effective preachers in the English speaking world” as they spoke in various environments, and sat at the feet of a homilitician who is, in my opinion, nearly without peer. During hours of reading from a multitude of commentaries and hearing a master expositor wax eloquent, I was reminded again and again of the high calling that is the life of those God has chosen to proclaim Truth.

The most difficult factor to accept is that there appears to be fewer and fewer in our society who are anxious to invest the time and energy required to learn the Truth, develop the discipline of inculcating the Word into a teachable mind and ultimately disseminate that authority into the lives of God’s children by means of a supernatural gifting from our Sovereign Lord. Rather, pulpits are populated by a life-coach with a Bible.

There follows the struggle of accepting the fact that many, if not most, of God’s people are unwilling to enthusiastically embrace the reception process, and those who are not rightly related to God are so confused by the innumerable competing philosophies and dogmas they are clueless as to what is true.

To resolve the dilemma those who speak must make hard choices. One choice is to “dumb” down the conversation to the lowest common denominator. Move toward what is most acceptable to everyone and refuse to be bullied by the outcome. Another choice is to remain faithful to studied exposition, accurately dispensing God’s revelation of Himself to willing hearers and “doers.” Every day God’s people and those who have yet to come to faith will make a choice for their own mind and heart. Every day we move closer to an accounting of that choice either individually or collectively.

God is patient, unwilling that any should perish through lack of faith, continuing to tarry in His return for the Bride without spot or blemish. Those who are changed least at the last will be those who are changed most at the present by the power of the Word spoken into lives by God’s Spirit (see Romans 12:1-2). Paul the Apostle knew the right word for the young Timothy. Persist! And don’t forget the patience.