The difference between an entertainment-oriented preacher and a Bible-oriented preacher

By: Steve Huston

A few thoughts for this morning

As God gave us a vision for the building that we, by God’s grace and power, were able to purchase debt free in 2007, we believed that in addition to using it for our day-to-day operations for the full-time ministry of American Decency Association, we were to use the auditorium (sanctuary) for the preaching of God’s authoritative Word. We believed that with prayerfulness God would lead us to a Bible believing and preaching denomination that would desire to use the facility for the establishment of a new church start.

God has answered our prayers. Our ministry continues throughout the week and God is using the building on Sundays for the preaching and teaching of His Word.

The gathering of believers has recently been recognized as a mission station for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
See:
www.opc.org

The OPC was actually a church with roots back to J. Grescham Machen in 1936. Liberalism was creeping its way into the Presbyterian church in the early twentieth century. Machen and others opposed liberalism. Machen was booted out of Princeton Seminary where he had been a highly regarded professor.
http://opc.org/machen.html

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church was formed in 1936 as a result.

As we have moved forward since our simple beginnings in April of this year, we have moved to Sunday services both morning and night and a Thursday night Bible study.

We have been under the preaching of the Word of God! It has been a delight.

In the evening we have been going through the book of Genesis. Our pastor pointed out that some view the first 11 chapters as mythology, instead of what they are – the very words of God.

As the pastor stated Sunday evening: “This is history. Chapter 1 all the way through. This is history that you can trust. That you can count on because the author of that history is God Himself. But it’s not secular history. It’s not the kind of history you might experience in a classroom. This is historical redemptive theology. This is God at work laying out His plan of salvation already here back in early Genesis in the earliest time. And God has that plan and of course it’s going to culminate in Jesus Christ.”

God’s desire for His people is holiness. Knowing Him. Trusting in His word and by His grace obeying our Lord and Savior. This, indeed, is God’s great plan and desire for us his people.

How helpful it is to be sitting under a preacher who is under the very authority of God’s Holy Word.

Pastor John Piper (pastor out of Minneapolis) writes about this in a recent email that he sent to his congregation and friends:

In Honor of Tethered Preaching
John Calvin and the Entertaining Pastor

” …The difference between an entertainment-oriented preacher and a Bible-oriented preacher is the manifest connection of the preacher’s words to the Bible as what authorizes what he says.

The entertainment-oriented preacher gives the impression that he is not tethered to an authoritative book in what he says. What he says doesn’t seem to be shaped and constrained by an authority outside himself. He gives the impression that what he says has significance for reasons other than that it manifestly expresses the meaning and significance of the Bible. So he seems untethered to objective authority.

The entertainment-oriented preacher seems to be at ease talking about many things that are not drawn out of the Bible. In his message, he seems to enjoy more talking about other things than what the Bible teaches. His words seem to have a self-standing worth as interesting or fun. They are entertaining. But they don’t give the impression that this man stands as the representative of God before God’s people to deliver God’s message.

The Bible-oriented preacher, on the other hand, does see himself that way—“I am God’s representative sent to God’s people to deliver a message from God.” He knows that the only way a man can dare to assume such a position is with a trembling sense of unworthy servanthood under the authority of the Bible. He knows that the only way he can deliver God’s message to God’s people is by rooting it in and saturating it with God’s own revelation in the Bible.

The Bible-oriented preacher wants the congregation to know that his words, if they have any abiding worth, are in accord with God’s words. He wants this to be obvious to them. That is part of his humility and his authority. Therefore, he constantly tries to show the people that his ideas are coming from the Bible. He is hesitant to go too far toward points that are not demonstrable from the Bible.

His stories and illustrations are constrained and reined in by his hesitancy to lead the consciousness of his hearers away from the sense that this message is based on and expressive of what the Bible says. A sense of submission to the Bible and a sense that the Bible alone has words of true and lasting significance for our people mark the Bible-oriented preacher, but not the entertainment-oriented preacher.

People leave the preaching of the Bible-oriented preacher with a sense that the Bible is supremely authoritative and important and wonderfully good news. They feel less entertained than struck at the greatness of God and the weighty power of his word.

[Prayer]
Lord, tether us to your mighty word. Cause me and all preachers to show the people that our word is powerless and insignificant in comparison with yours. Grant us to stand before our people as messengers sent with God’s message to God’s people in God’s name by God’s Spirit. Grant us to tremble at this responsibility. Protect us from trifling with this holy moment before your people.

Pastor John Piper
click here

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American Decency Association
Bill Johnson, President
P.O. Box 202
Fremont, MI 49412
ph: 231-924-4050
https://americandecency.org

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