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Christian Leadership Training Course

By J.C. Choate

Lesson 4

Preachers in the Church

Up to now we have talked about the work of elders and deacons in the church. We have noted their qualifications, that each congregation must have a plurality of elders and deacons to serve, and we have considered the specific jobs of each office. These positions of leadership should be filled only by those who desire to serve. Men must never be appointed against their will.

Let us now consider the preacher and his work and how he fits into the local congregation. It should be noted that God does not authorize him to be the boss over the church with which he works, or to be the pastor of it. A pastor can be a preacher but not all preaches are pastors. A pastor is an elder, an overseer, a shepherd. As related to the local congregation, he can be one of the pastors or elders, provided the congregation has other elders. But where there is a congregation with qualified elders, then the preacher, as well as all of the members of that congregation, must serve under the direction of the elders.

God has always used preachers in His work. In the Old Testament they were generally referred to as prophets, and in the days of Christ there were the apostles, but all of them were messengers of God or preachers and teachers who proclaimed the word of the Lord to those who were around them.

We know there were some great preachers in those early days. We recall how John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness and asking the people to repent, for the kingdom of heaven was at hand, which was the same as saying that the church was close by (Matthew 3:1,2). Peter and Paul, in particular, were great preachers in their time, along with so many others. This was true not only then but there continues to be good men up to our present day who give their lives to declaring the whole counsel of God.

After the Lord’s death, burial, and resurrection, He called the apostles together and said to them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20). Mark recorded it like this: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15,16). You can see by these statements that the Lord wanted these men to convey His will to the world through the medium of preaching. It was not His plan to reveal His teaching to man through some miraculous manner, to speak to man from heaven, or to give each person special revelation. In spite of that, you can still hear people even today talking about how God spoke to them, how He revealed His will to them in some way, how He told them what they should do, etc. These people are wrong. God has not spoken to them in these days separate and apart from His word. To do that would be contrary to His teaching. Also, to speak to one in this manner, and not speak to all like that, would make Him a respecter of persons. So God uses His written word, and those who would faithfully proclaim it, to make known His will to one and all.

Read through the book of Acts, and especially pay close attention to all of the conversions. If you will do that, you will observe that there was always a gospel preacher on hand to reveal God’s will to the hearers. Even with the Holy Spirit guiding the apostles, and on the occasion when the angel or Spirit of the Lord spoke to Philip, or when Peter saw a vision, in all of these cases it was the man himself who was directed to go to someone and preach the gospel to them (Acts 8; Acts 10). The preaching was not done through some supernatural person or revelation.

The Hebrew writer says that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6), but how does faith come? Paul tells us, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). Concerning Jesus and all of the things He did, John wrote, “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:30,31).

Paul said to the young preacher, Timothy, “I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:1,2). Someone has said that all of this means that the preacher must preach the word when the people like it and when they don’t like it. In other words, the truth must be preached for the good of mankind.

It is a serious thing to preach the word of God. The messenger must preach it without adding to it or subtracting from it (Revelation 22:18,19). Paul said concerning preaching the gospel, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8,9). Paul was saying that the one, true, and pure gospel had been preached to the Galatians. And to emphasize the importance of that gospel, he said that if he should now come and preach yet another gospel, or something different than that which had already been preached, or even if an angel came down from heaven and did that, such a false messenger would stand condemned by God. If that be true of Paul, then would it not likewise be true with us?

There is a lot involved in preaching. One should preach because he is a Christian, he loves the church and the souls of men, and he wants to preach. He should not preach just to have something to do or for a way to make a living. It is not always easy to be a preacher. There are many sacrifices to be made. But, also, many blessings come to the faithful preacher of God’s word.