When the prophets preached against certain sins in the church and nation, they did not leave the people wonder to whom it was he was referring. In Jeremiah's case, he said quite bluntly, "I'm preaching against you, O Kings; I'm preaching against you, O Priests; I'm preaching against you, O Prophets." Nobody was in any doubt as to who was being targeted by his preaching.
Today, there is little or no application of the message to those present. Sometimes you hear sermons that are applied to third parties somewhere, but seldom are they preached to the people in from of the pulpit. That explains why after church, some worshippers ask, "Who was he getting at today?" The fact that this question is asked at all demonstrates how far off the mark the sermon actually was!
Jeremiah named those to whom he was against. I can remember as a young inexperienced preached actually naming the late TV presenter, Eamonn Andrews, host of "This is Your Life." He had allowed something on one of his programmes that I denounced from the pulpit - and it was not appreciated by my senior colleague.
On another more recent occasion, I denounced from the pulpit those evangelicals ministers and their supporters who criticised every other denomination for providing very significant funding for a Gay pride march through Belfast. I wasn't invited back to that church!
Do we need to get back to that kind of preaching again? Has the day of the fearless prophet of the Lord gone?
1 comment:
"Do we need to get back to that kind of preaching again? Has the day of the fearless prophet of the Lord gone?"
Indeed no! in both cases. Once again Hazlett you assume that the answer to the evident malaise in the churches is to engage in yet more (or better) "preaching".
It is noteworthy that in the NT there is frequent reference to the gift of 'prophecy', but not the gift of preaching.
Even assuming for a moment the legitimacy of preaching directed at Christians and that it may to some degree be edifying - is that sufficient justification for its regular practive to the exclusion of many other vital elements Paul identifies as necessary for the maturing of the body of Christ?
At best the "preacher" is only one part of the corporate body gathered, but in Paul's thinking in 1 Cor 12 ALL members of the body must needs function.
The 'body' then has many parts. How is it right that we concentrate almost entirely on one part only? Is not this in direct contradiction of Paul's expressed teaching of the necessity of every part - or is 1 Cor 12-14 merely extraneous theory which can be safely ignored?
If your answer to these questions is a reiteration of the status quo, then in effect we have a closed system in which the Spirit of God has little opportunity to speak through others in the body.
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