It could be that your pastor is a very good
communicator. His voice is easy on your ears. In fact, you’re quite happy for
him to speak for an extra 5–10 minutes each sermon. He’s funny, keeps your interest,
and leaves you feeling encouraged and enthusiastic about the week ahead. But
the more you’ve listened to his sermons you wonder if he has a good grasp of
the passage he’s supposed to be expounding. No matter what Bible text he’s
preaching from, he’s repetitive and seems to hark back to the same few moral
lessons every time. You find yourself asking, “Where did he get that from?”
When you get home and reread the sermon passage, you realize that the message
was not derived from the text and almost all of your questions about the Bible
passage and its application remain unanswered. What do you do in this
situation?
As sermon-listeners, we have a
responsibility to expect solid Bible teaching from our pastors. If they’re not
committed to exposing the Scripture to our view, then they ought not be our
preacher. You should carefully evaluate the pulpit ministry in your church. Is Bible
preaching and teaching a priority for the pastor, the elders, and the
congregation? Does the reading, explanation, and implications of Scripture set
the trajectory of the church? Is the change-agent in the church the living,
active, powerful Word of God? Is the Bible the sole authority in determining
God’s will for the members of the body?
If you have answered, “No,” to these
questions, you’ll need to investigate some personal heart issues before you
tackle the problem of biblically inadequate sermons.
First, ask yourself: Am I listening to my
pastor’s sermons with a critical spirit? Am I waiting in the wings, hoping for
the chance to pounce on him and “catch him in something he might say” (Luke
11:54)? There were some people in Jesus’ day who acted just like that. They
were called Pharisees. They were such sticklers for every little detail of the
Law and their system of applying it,
that they couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Their understanding of God,
faith, the coming Messiah, and the gospel Jesus proclaimed was clouded by their
self-determined idea of what was true righteousness. As a result, they couldn’t
listen with open minds. They closed their minds to the truth the Master
Preacher offered. And they developed a critical spirit towards Him because He
didn’t preach the way they thought He should. So evaluate your heart. Are you
being too critical?
Second, ask yourself: Do I expect my pastor
to agree with absolutely everything I already believe? Do I think that his
thirty-page doctrinal statement must be an exact match to mine? Do I believe
that every area of my Bible knowledge is complete?—“I have arrived at a perfect
understanding of all theological debate, and anyone who disagrees with me is
just plain wrong.”
In both cases, you’ll need to reevaluate
which doctrines are central to the Christian faith and which are not. You’ll
also need to consider which doctrines steer core church practices and which are
not so significant in the big picture. In addition, you might consider putting
your prideful disposition to rest and realize that no preacher gets the less
important details right all the time—not even you (Jas 3:2).
Now, do not swing the pendulum too far in
other direction either. Don’t have such low expectations for your pastor that
he can regularly misuse Scripture, miss the point of the passage, show contempt
for sound exegesis, fail to apply accepted hermeneutical practice, and get away
with it, unchecked. Remember, community sermon-listening involves mutual
accountability. You cannot afford to be so gullible and credulous that the
content of the sermon doesn’t matter as long as the pastor makes you feel
accepted and loved.
Of the three kinds of bad sermons (dull,
biblically inadequate, and heretical), the biblically inadequate sermon is the
toughest to diagnose and treat properly. Much wisdom is required. Every case
will be quite different. Often your solution for this problem comes down to
what options you have before you. If your church is teaching a doctrine or
practice that you do not believe is biblically justified, and there is another
church in your area which offers an alternative more closely aligned with your
understanding of Scripture, then you should switch to that church. But be
careful because there are many areas of practice and teaching that ought to be
weighed and your decision will be based on many factors. There is a big
difference between theological pickiness and standing up for essential sound
doctrine and praxis. You don’t want to end up like A. W. Pink who in his last
years would not fellowship with any Christian and resorted to an
exclusive-styled worship service that involved just him and his wife. On the
other hand, you don’t want to follow the masses of naïve churchgoers who attend
shallow church services without any concern for sound doctrine.
If there is no other church in your area
and you believe that the teaching in question is sufficiently serious so as to
impact many people and is doing serious harm to the spiritual growth of many,
then you might need to consider a direct approach. The responsibility of the
preacher is to preach the Word. If he
consistently misrepresents the authorial intent of the passage, then he is
doing God an injustice. David Schlafer suggests:
“You may need, at last, to confront the preacher, gently but firmly,
privately or with the support of duly constituted lay leadership. Preaching is,
after all, a primary pastoral responsibility. An intervention of sorts, leading
to clarified expectations and accountability, may be appropriate. Perhaps such
a confrontation may even lead to changes in other pastoral responsibilities in
order to make more time for preaching.”[1]
If you and your elders undertake such a
process and the preacher agrees that his messages have been falling short of
biblically informed content, you have won him over. Pray that he would make the
necessary changes to his preaching practices. If he doesn’t agree, your elders
will need to decide what to do next. If the elders believe the situation is
serious and have the conviction to follow through, they may dismiss the pastor
and replace him with a man who desires to cut the Word of God straight. If your
elders come to the conclusion that the pastor’s teaching is just fine, then you
should go back and check your own motives one more time—is it you who is being
too critical? Or are your concerns biblically valid? If it’s the latter, and if
you have a viable alternative, then it’s best for you to transfer your
membership to another local church. If there is no other Bible-teaching church
in the area, keeping reading this blog. We will deal with that problem in the
next two weeks.
[1] David J. Schlafer, Surviving the Sermon: A Guide to Preaching
for Those Who Have to Listen (Boston, MA: Cowley Publications, 1992), 116.
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