“What’s it prefer to work simply in the future per week?” Whereas many pastors discover themselves on the receiving finish of such questions, the fact is that as Gospel staff, pastors know their jobs are by no means actually completed. As Alistair Begg notes in his sermon “Pastoral Tasks,” Paul’s directions to his protégé Timothy clarify that the church is all the time in want of pastors who will research God’s Phrase diligently to allow them to remind their congregations of the necessities of the religion and current themselves to God as ones authorised:
The distinguishing characteristic, you’ll discover, of the authorised workman is the way wherein he handles the Scriptures: “Do your greatest to current your self to God as one authorised, a employee who has no have to be ashamed, rightly dealing with the phrase of reality.” So there have to be a proper manner and a improper solution to deal with the Bible, proper? We all know that when it comes to exposition. A few of us use the Bible as a trampoline: We get a few verses, and we bounce up and down on them for so long as anyone can bear, after which we go on our manner. And the individual sitting within the pew says to his spouse, “What was that about?” And his spouse says, “Nothing.” And he says, “I assumed so.” “Rightly dealing with the phrase of reality”—not tampering with it, not diluting it, not distorting it, not fidgeting with it, not looking for to press it like a Plasticine nostril right into a form that we would like, however reasonably the servants of the Phrase.
The unashamed workman doesn’t got down to impress however to instruct, to not bamboozle however to make clear. And regardless of how good you might be or I could also be with phrases, there isn’t any manner that our phrases can pierce the hearts of women and men. We could stir, we could excite, we could annoy, we could intrigue, however we will’t save.
