Less Preaching, Please!
Are you a Fundamentalist?
Fundamentalism is a movement that holds to the preeminence of the preaching of the Word of God.
Years ago a man who had been in the ministry for some years told me he was discontinuing the Sunday evening service at his church. He said that people were tired and that they needed fellowship. His change of focus flies in the face of God's revealed truth for it diminishes the importance of the preaching of the Word, and it denigrates the importance of the Lord's Day.
Now years have passed since that brief exchange. It is evident that the conversation I had with a long-time pastor was not an action undertaken by one pastor, but one example of an attitude that was prevalent at that time. An attitude--even a philosophy of ministry--that was casting off or diminishing the value the New Testament places on the preaching of the Word.
More recently, in just the past few months, a young woman asked my wife and I where we were headed one Sunday evening. I responded by saying, "To go hear the preaching of the Word. Where you should be going.” In turn she responded by saying, “I did go--this morning.” An error was espoused by a pastor hundreds of miles from her home many years ago. She could not have had any knowledge of the conversation I had had with that pastor. Yet the casual view of preaching expressed by that preacher has heavily influenced her and her generation. What is more her attitude was one of, "I already did that today. The rest of the day is to do what I want." Her practice has gone further than the philosophy stated and acted upon two generations earlier, for now the preaching is not all that important during the remaining service, and neither is the day.
I can hear the naysayers now.
I will be accused of making an undue accusation against a brother. "How can you say that? How can you know what is in his heart?" The response to the naysayers is found in what this man set forth. He said, People are tired, and people need fellowship. For him to do away with the evening service was to eliminate at least part of the preaching ministry and replace it with the opportunity for rest and fellowship. Now the preaching is not so important as it was. Of course it is important, but not as much as it used to be. Those words didn't have to be spoken for the practice of dropping the evening service to have its ruinous effects.
The naysayers will continue: The Bible doesn't say anything about having two services.
"The Sunday morning service and the Sunday evening service are merely traditions. If the tradition is changed, there is no harm done." I did not challenge the tradition. I challenged the lack of priority given to the preaching of the Word. The harm is done when the most effective influence on the people of God and the community as a whole--preaching--is replaced with that which is less effective—fellowship and rest—good enough things in themselves. They do not carry the emphasis or importance God places on the preaching of His Word for the influence of righteousness on a congregation or on a community.
The importance of preaching is paramount in the Word.
The ministry of John the Baptist was one of preaching. (Mark 1:4) The ministry of Jesus Christ was one of preaching. (Mark 1:14,15) The ministry of the apostles was one of preaching. (Acts 5:42)
These texts set the example and tenor for the rest of the New Testament.
The New Testament delineates the importance of the preaching for the church of God.
Paul, in writing to Titus, lays the groundwork in his epistle for the work of the ministry. “In the hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began: But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, . . .” Titus 1:2-3. The God who cannot lie and has promised eternal life has manifested-- made known, propagated, furthered--his Word through preaching.
Furthermore Titus is instructed to ordain elders who will hold “fast the faithful Word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers." That is the preaching ministry.
Paul continues, "For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake. Titus 1:9-11 The preaching of the Word is to exhort and to convince gainsayers and also to confront false teachers that houses, meeting places for Christians, not be subverted.
Paul lays a holy charge to Timothy, “Preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. II Tim 4:2-4
It is the preaching of the Word of God that is needed today. And we need it more, not less, for “. . . faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” Rom 10:17
And, "But without faith it is impossible to please God". Heb 11:6
"how shall they hear without a preacher?” Romans 10:14.
The naysayer answers "No big deal, Sunday night. Whatever. It is merely meaningless tradition that is being dropped." This laissez-faire attitude, however, does not take into account what great thing is lost. The present generation will not hear the Word preached as much as the previous generation. And so it has sadly come to pass that the value of preaching has been minimized in many churches .
What then is in store for generations to come?
I come back to the question, are you a true fundamentalist? Are you attending a church that has fallen or is falling for the error of a lessened preaching ministry? If this is the case, before this ruinous philosophy carries you even further away from God's ordained way, will you not come out and join with a people who, like the apostle Paul, were "separated unto the gospel of God", closely following the way God ordained to do God's work?
Mark Lauger
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