Something pastors cannot do and we should quit asking

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Those of us who counsel pastors and teach future preachers are known to caution them to “study the Bible for itself, just to receive the Word into your heart, and not to prepare sermons.”

We might as well tell Sherlock Holmes to enjoy crime scenes for the beauty of the occasion and stop looking for criminals, tell Mike Trout not to worry about actually striking at the baseball crossing the plate but to relax and take in the inspiration of the moment, or tell Hollywood beauty queens to forsake plastic surgery.

Some things you do because this is who you are.

When a pastor comes across a great insight in the Scriptural text, does anyone think for one minute that he is going to file that away in a personal-edification file, never to be shared in sermons?

Yes, he is blessed by it, and certainly it enriches his own soul. But if it does feed his spirit and call him to realign his priorities, you can bet that he will be off and running to trace out similar teachings in the Word with a view to sharing the results with his flock.

That’s how it ought to be. It’s not an aberration at all. He’s doing what he does, what God called him for.

At some point in a Sherlock Holmes story, someone complimented the sleuth on his brilliant deduction. He said simply, “Of course. It’s what I do.”

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The two-faced church. Both sides are accurate.

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“…a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27).

Anyone can criticize the church. It’s the most vulnerable institution in the world, the most victimized, and the most vilified.

Criticizing the church is like clubbing baby seals.  It has no way of fighting back, but just lays there and takes what you dish out. The difference is that, after the beating, the church stands to her feet and goes on about her business, while you the critic walk away beaming as though you have done something heroic.

You haven’t. You have picked on the easiest target in the world.

In this morning’s newspaper, some (ahem) rocket scientist wrote a letter to the editor taking on the church for the Spanish  Inquisition of the Middle Ages and before that the Crusades.  I assume he just discovered these.

No institution on earth has been so targeted for villainy as has the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

–Satan and his legions persecute it and when that doesn’t work, they imitate it in order to make people think the wickedness they’re perpetrating is actually done by the people of God.

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How to tell whether you are a leader

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Woe unto you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets. (Luke 6:26)

Let’s just come right out and say it up front:  Unless someone is not constantly on your case, mad at you, irritated, and upset with you all the time, you are probably not a leader.

The would-be leader who fails to recognize this will be constantly bewildered by the reactions of the people he has been sent to serve.

A pastor comes into a church with a divine mandate. (This is not pious talk. He has been called by God into the ministry and sent by Him to this church. If that’s not a divine mandate, nothing is.) He proceeds to take the reins and lead out. To his utter amazement, many of the very people he expected to welcome his ministry, to support his vision, to affirm his godliness, to volunteer their service–those very people–stand back and carp and criticize and find fault.  (Want to see it in Scripture?  Numbers 16.)

This was the last thing the pastor expected.

Because he’s human, he begins to wonder many things: Did I make a mistake in coming here? Am I doing something wrong? Are these people not God’s children? Should I stay? Should I leave?

My answer: You’re doing just fine, preacher. Stay the course.

Salt is an irritant. We have been sent into this world as its salt (Matthew 5:13).

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When we cut hell out of the conversation

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Over the last few years, some of the best-selling religious books have been about heaven.

Write one about how you died for a few minutes while experiencing a momentary jolt of nirvana beyond anything you ever imagined and publishers will line up outside your door ready to buy your story. They know the book-buying public is eager to get a glimpse through that scary curtain called death…so long as what’s on the other side meets with their preconceptions.

Ross Douthat is a columnist for the New York Times. A few years back he wrote a column titled “Hell’s grip on religious imagination weakens.”  He said, Even in our supposedly disenchanted age, large majorities of Americans believe in God and heaven, miracles and prayer. But belief in hell lags well behind, and the fear of damnation seems to have evaporated.

Douthat says near-death stores are quick to sell. “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven” tells of a child’s return from paradise. However, “you’ll search in vain for ‘The Investment Banker Who Came Back From Hell.”

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Why aren’t you praying?

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You have not because you ask not. –James 4:2

The enemy does not want you praying.

He knows something you do not.  He knows the power of your praying.

He will do anything he can to stop your praying, to sabotage your prayers, to throw a monkey wrench in the works of your prayers.

And some of us are cooperating with him, so that his work is done before he gets star

Think of what we do…

One.  “My prayers don’t amount to much.”

Ever say that?  I’ll bet you have.  And I am here to tell you that is rank unbelief.  Because you have mistakenly thought your praying was all about yourself–your faith, your maturity, your understanding, your something.  But it’s not.  Our praying is about our obedience.

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A loving God would not let anyone suffer. Say what?

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Some guy in Alabama ticked me off.

I was driving back home from two weeks of ministry in Tennessee and Kentucky when I bought a Birmingham News in Tuscaloosa. At a rest stop in Mississippi, I scanned it and was snagged by a letter to the editor from an outspoken agnostic.

After reading it and fuming a little, I tossed the paper in the trash. Later, wished I’d kept it just for reference here. So I’m going by memory.

The writer wanted the world to know that recent tornadoes in Alabama proved beyond doubt either that there is no God or if there is, He is a tyrant who delights in doing cruel things.

He was clearly proud of his great letter. I’m betting he clipped it and displayed it somewhere prominent in his house.

I have no idea whether anyone responded to his letter. Probably not. The Bible cautions against answering fools, and this guy surely fits that category.

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Little things that delight a weary preacher

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Humor refreshes me.  You too? 

I like finding signs with misprints. The sign in front of a local neighborhood center announced: “A DULT DANCE — Thursday 7 pm.” It was repeated just like that on the other side.

I read that and wondered, “What is a dult? And why are they invited to the dance and no one else?”

In a book, this misprint gave me a chuckle: “They are up there hugging one anther.” Someone had written underneath, “I’ll hug an anther. Show me one.”

This brings to mind a bit of graffiti observed on a New York subway. Someone had scrawled on a poster, “I love grils.” Underneath, another had written: “I love girls.” And beneath that, a third person had penned: “What about us grils?”

In Reform, Alabama, after the Sunday morning church service, we were in line for lunch in the fellowship hall when a man gave me one of the best cartoon lines ever. He remarked to a friend, “I told my wife, ‘I’m coming back this afternoon and see if I want to sleep on this pew as bad as I think I do!’”

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Odds and ends from a hoarding preacher

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Pastor, scan through these offerings and see if you find anything of use as illustrations for sermons. Or, just as good, perhaps they will spark an idea inside you.

UNREQUITED LOVE

Want a great love story, one that will inspire every heart listening to you?  This ain’t it!

In 1964, a hitchhiker was picked up on the highway and given a ride by an 18- year-old woman. They chatted, she dropped him off, and they each went on their way. Within minutes, the man decided that he was in love with her. I mean, seriously, head over heels, a real goner.

The problem was that he had no way to contact her. She was gone. But he never forgot her.

Thirty-one years later, he came across her name in the newspaper in the obituary of her mother. So he sent her 5 dozen roses–alongwith all the letters he had written her over 31 years.

Thirty-one years of letters.

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The little epistle of Jude: Three different takes

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Wellington, a pastor friend, and I were having lunch.  I asked what he was preaching the following Sunday.

“Jude,” he said, “and it’s worrying me to death!”

I laughed. “Why?”

He said, “I’m doing a series through some of the shortest–and most overlooked–books of the Bible. I’ve done Philemon and II and III John, and so, locked myself in to do Jude this Sunday. I’m really having trouble finding a hold on it.”

Since I had not read Jude lately, my memory of what that book-of-one-chapter contained was fuzzy, so I had little assistance to offer him. What I said was, “As I recall, Jude quotes from the Apocrypha.”

Wellington said, “That’s what’s got me. I don’t know what to do with that.”

The Apocrypha is the name given to the books between the Old Testament and the New Testament in the Catholic Bible.  Protestants do not consider these writings as authoritative primarily because the Jews didn’t either.

In vs. 9, Jude refers to a small book titled “The Assumption of Moses.” In vs. 14 he does the same from the apocryphal book of I Enoch.

Now, referring to these books is not the same as endorsing them. The Protestant world agrees that these do not belong in the New Testament.

I said to him, “When I get back to the office, I’ll read through Jude and let you know if I have anything worth sharing.”

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Rescuing the sermon from dead outlines

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Skeletons in the pulpit and cadavers in the pews.  –Warren Wiersbe

Have you ever read something and all the bells went off inside you? The author has been reading your thoughts.

That happened to me.

Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s  book Preaching and Teaching with Imagination is autographed to me, but I have no memory of the occasion when that happened. Mostly, I wonder why I delayed reading this incredible book.

Briefly, what he told was this:

Grandma Thatcher sits in church with a number of hurts and spiritual needs. Although she’s lovingly known throughout the congregation as a saint, she gets nothing but harassment and trials at home for her faith. When she gets to church, she needs a word from God.

On this particular morning, the pastor stood at the pulpit and preached from Genesis chapter 9, the main thrust of which was his outline, with all the points beginning with the same letters. The outline — pastors take note! — was excellent, as those things go:

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