Letting Christ Be Seen

Throughout all the times we’ve borrowed material from writer Kevin Rogers, I really hope some of you have taken the time to become subscribers to his blog, The Orphan Age. It’s one of the best sources that we use here, and through social media — including re-posts by online friends — I’m always reminded of his newest articles and often click through. Kevin is a pastor in southwest Ontario, Canada.

Clicking the header which follows will take you to today’s devotional. While it’s written for fellow-pastors, there is application here for everyone.

When Preachers Get Out Of The Way

I apologize for any time that I have preached in ways to make myself look good or have tried to convince you through logic alone that I had the truth. If I have lulled you to sleep with my soothing voice and my words had no effect on you, please forgive me for thinking that it was important that you somehow owed me an audience.

The idea that preachers should be elevated to celebrity status is a temptation for both the pastor and his greatest fans. Paul started a church in the city of Corinth, a place where professional communicators were in demand.

Here’s an example of the showbiz side of philosophy and rhetoric.

A speech by the orator Favorinus (c. a.d. 80–150), who came from Arles in the south of France, is preserved in the corpus of speeches by his teacher Dio Chrysostom. Although the speech was delivered sometime after Paul’s day and in a period when the colony was becoming more Greek, it provides detail about the way in which orators addressed their audiences. After talking about the colorful and eminent visitors who had visited the city—including Arion, who was saved by a dolphin, Solon, the great lawgiver of the city of Athens, and the historian Herodotus—Favorinus recalled this about his second visit to the city:

You were so glad to see me that you did your best to get me to stay with you, but seeing that to be impossible, you did have a likeness made of me, and you took this and set it up in your Library, a front row seat as it were, where you felt it would most effectively stimulate the youth to persevere in the same pursuits as myself.[1]

Still today, there’s no mania like ego mania. When rappers brag about their status, wealth, sexual prowess, or clever way with words, it is entertainment. When preachers brag about their ministry and authority, it falls short of what God is looking for.

1 Corinthians 2:

¹ And this was the way it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I didn’t come with fancy words or human wisdom. I preached to you the truth about God’s love. ² My goal while I was with you was to talk about only one thing. And that was Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. ³ When I came to you, I was weak and very afraid and trembling all over. ⁴ I didn’t preach my message with clever and compelling words. Instead, my preaching showed the Holy Spirit’s power. ⁵ This was so that your faith would be based on God’s power. Your faith would not be based on human wisdom. (NIrV)

When I have preached effectively in my estimation, it is because Holy Spirit was hovering over listeners and whispering truths that they needed to hear more than my words. I have often had people tell me a message was meaningful and when asked to elaborate, they will tell me things that weren’t fully developed or just given a passing mention in the sermon. They are most affected by the things that I did not say. This is God’s power at work, not mine.

Paul was undoubtedly referring to his first journey to Corinth when the local church was established. The letter he now writes will address his pastoral perspective on all of the ways that these Jesus followers were struggling. It would appear that these Christians were wanting their preachers to be brilliant orators. Paul will now address that.

His first mission to Corinth was very focused. He communicated with one aim. The truth about God’s love in Jesus was all he cared about. For them to understand who Jesus is and the importance of his scandalous death meant everything.

Why was Paul coming in fear and trembling? Was it some medical condition or mental stress? Was preaching a trigger event that reminded him of the time he had the crowd throwing rocks to kill him or being flogged for preaching the gospel? Paul had been on the side of the oppressor and injured many of the early Christians. Now he was one and perhaps the irony was not lost on him.

Paul reminded the Corinthians of his aim. He wanted them to trust in God and not in the messenger God had sent. If Paul had depended on human wisdom and presented the plan of salvation as a philosophical system, then the Corinthians would have put their trust in an explanation. Because Paul declared the Word of God in the power of God, his converts put their faith in an experience: They knew God’s power at work in their own lives.[2]

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[1] Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary of the New Testament ©2002

[2] NKJV Wiersbe Study Bible ©2021 by Thomas Nelson. All Rights Reserved

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Note to C201 readers: Today Kevin is using the NIrV, a simplified version of the NIV which uses shorter sentences and a more limited vocabulary; ideal for children, and those for whom English is not their first language.

Many, Many, Many Words

When I’m looking for articles to use here, I have to confess I do look for a certain length of each piece of writing. I don’t want to shortchange readers, and when I find something that’s only one- or two-hundred words, I usually dismiss it, no matter how insightful it might be. This isn’t Twitter, and I’m not composing memes here. I want to know that the writers put some effort into it.

I will admit that’s an incredibly superficial criterion.

There are people whose 200 word posts are formed out of the crucible of a life situation unimaginable to some of us. There’s a lot more to a devotional blog post than the words actually typed on a keyboard.

But I also want to give my readers good value for their money, even if Christianity 201 is always free!

A verse which came to mind was Matthew 6:7b

“…do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words…”
 (NIV)

God clearly isn’t interested in quantity.

(That brings us to 173 words so far… see the problem of being absorbed with numbers, data, stats?)

Contextually, Matthew 6:7 is about prayer, not the crafting of sermons, homilies, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. The first part, verse 7a reads,

“And when you pray…”

But I do see a general principle here. We don’t have to be wordy when we talk to God (especially falling into the repeated use of the word ‘just’ or the phrase ‘Father God,’ as if we might forget who we’re speaking to, or he might stop listening), so why should we be verbose when we speak about God?

You’ve heard people say, “God doesn’t want your ability he needs your availability.” To that we could add, God doesn’t want you eloquency. (For the record, that’s not an actual word, but it fits the pattern. The word is eloquence.)

The English Standard Version uses the phrase, “heaping up empty phrases.”

“And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.”

We do that. Especially in the Evangelical church where extemporaneous prayers are the norm, and more concise, crafted prayers are often looked down on, though that stereotype is changing, as many Evangelicals, Pentecostals and Charismatics are seeing the value of manuscripted prayers and classical prayers from previous centuries. (Again, for the record, there’s no such word as manuscripted, but hey, I was on a roll.)

Back in 2014, we quoted author Christopher Smith on this,

When he warns in the Sermon on the Mount against “heaping up empty phrases,” he’s specifically saying that we shouldn’t expect God to hear us and grant our requests based on how many words we’ve said—that is, how much time and energy we’ve put into saying long and repetitive prayers.  This is really a form of “works,” of trying to earn something from God by our own efforts.  Jesus directs us instead towards grace:  “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”  What we receive from God in prayer is an expression of His love and goodness towards us, not our efforts.

Again, remembering that the context is prayer, I still think Smith has hit the nail on the head when it comes to a possible wider context, namely that any attempt to try to meet a minimum number of words, or preach for a preset number of minutes, or have our book contain a certain number of pages is just allowing us to fall into a works category; of believing our standing our acceptance before God is going to based on the length of our dissertation or sermon or book, instead of the depth.

At the end of the day, perhaps the wisest thing, the best thing, the most fruitful thing, and the most God-honoring thing you can do today might be to create a 20-words-or-less meme and post it on social media; rather than believe that God is impressed with your verbosity. (Surprise, that one actually is a word!)

Furthermore, your eloquence may not compare to those who don’t have the gift of public speaking, or those for whom English is a second language.

In Luke 18, we see that a six-word prayer by a tax collector leaves its speaker “justified before God” and not the Pharisee who majored in public speaking. Again, the context is prayer, but I see a wider context.

^{NIV.Luke.18.10} “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

¹³ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

¹⁴ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

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For those who do write, preach, teach, podcast, etc., here’s a 2017 article from our sister blog on learning to be concise: The Essential Art of Concision. (Yes, that one’s an actual word also!)

Running from a God-Assignment

The mission given to me by the Anointed One is not about baptism, but about preaching good news. The point is not to impress others by spinning an eloquent, intellectual argument; that type of rhetorical showboating would only nullify the cross of the Anointed. – I Cor 1:17, The Voice

When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I didn’t come preaching God’s secrets to you like I was an expert in speech or wisdom.  I Cor 2:1, CEB

Once again we’re back with J. Lee Grady who blogs at Fire in My Bones. He was editor of Charisma Magazine for 11 years before he launched into full-time ministry in 2010. Today he directs The Mordecai Project, a Christian charitable organization that is taking the healing of Jesus to women and girls who suffer abuse and cultural oppression.

As this article is joined in progress, you are strongly encouraged to read the whole thing; click the title below to read this at source.

Are You Called to Speak? Don’t Run From Your Assignment

…When I tell friends that I stubbornly resisted the call of God to preach because of my lack of confidence, they act surprised. They think most people who stand in pulpits want to be there. Think again!

We assume God always chooses gifted orators. But true preaching is not a natural exercise, like any other form of public speaking. It is one of the most supernatural tasks anyone can ever be called to do. It requires an imperfect human vessel to yield himself (or herself) to speak the very words of God.

If we deliver our message in our own human ability, the results will be miserable; but if we wholly trust the power of the Holy Spirit, prophetic preaching unleashes supernatural anointing.

Most preachers in the Bible were reluctant. Moses made excuses about stuttering. Gideon tried to disqualify himself, blabbering on and on about his weaknesses. Jeremiah complained about the responsibility of carrying a prophetic burden. And Jonah bought a one-way ticket to the other side of the Mediterranean Sea so he wouldn’t have to give his unpopular sermon to the people of Nineveh.

As long as God has been anointing people to speak for Him, people have been running from their assignments—and giving God all kinds of creative excuses for their delinquency.

The apostle Paul, who was a silver-tongued Pharisee before he met Christ, was stripped of his eloquence before he preached the gospel throughout the Roman empire. He felt weak and totally incapable when he spoke.

He told the Corinthians:

I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God (1 Cor. 2:3-5).

Think about it: The premier apostle of the first century trembled as he spoke. Yet God used his words to spread the message of Jesus Christ throughout the known world.

Revivalist Arthur Katz, who died in 2007, wrote about the power of true preaching in his 1999 book Apostolic Foundations:

The only one qualified to preach … is the one who wants to run the other way, like Jonah. … The man who sighs and groans when called upon to speak, who does not want to be there, who feels terribly uncomfortable … is the man out of whose mouth the word of true preaching is most likely to come.

That is certainly not the way most of us view pulpit ministry today. We celebrate the smooth and the polished. We look for the cool, hipster delivery style. We measure the impact of a sermon not by whether hearts are slain by conviction but by how high the people jump when the preacher tells them what they want to hear.

That kind of carnal preaching may win the accolades of men, boost TV ratings and even build megachurches. But the kingdom is not built on smug self-confidence. We need God’s words. The church will live in spiritual famine until broken, reluctant, weak and trembling preachers allow His holy fire to come out of their mouths.

If you have a message from God, stop making excuses. Run instead to heaven’s altar, raise your hands in total surrender and let the Holy Spirit touch your mouth with a burning coal. Die to your fears, doubts and excuses, and let a holy anointing intensify within you until it becomes like fire shut up in your bones.