When a pastor
preaches, he’s talking to the spirit (the heart/‘Man’); when he teaches, he’s
talking to the mind (the head/‘woman’). But if you look around, you’ll observe
that the Church today does more of Preaching than Teaching. In other words, it
ministers more to the ‘Man’ than to his ‘wife’.
This hasn’t always
been the case. While on earth, our Lord both taught and preached to the people
(Mt 4:23; 9:35; 11:1), the Believers in
Acts were teachers and
preachers (Act 5:42; 15:35), and Paul's ministry was characterised by both
preaching and teaching (Act 28:31;
Col 1:28; 1Ti 2:7; 2Ti 1:11).
Yet today, especially
in Pentecostal/Charismatic circles, teaching has been consigned to the
background; delegated – if at all – to Sunday School. Why?
1-Because Teaching is not glamorous: for a
young minister looking for a title, “Teacher” just does not sound Man of God-ish. All the superstar men of
God today are either “Apostle”, “Evangelist”, “Prophet” “Pastor”, etc. “Let’s welcome Teacher Jimmy” sounds lame.
2-Because It’s Harder to Prepare: Teaching
requires long, clear, outlines that would probably need to be printed for the
congregation. A preacher doesn’t have to worry about that; there’re no such
things as “Preaching Slides”.
3-Because it Requires Greater Skill: It takes
greater skilfulness to make Teaching stimulating to a congregation than
Preaching.
4- It Exposes the Speaker to More Scrutiny: Teaching,
by its very nature, requires the audience to critically assess what’s been
said, therefore, a teacher won’t be able to get away with some things that a
preacher can; (the HEAD is not as forgiving as the HEART, you see).
5-Because Teaching Topics are Unpalatable:
Unfortunately, the kinds of topics that require teaching are the difficult and
unexciting ones.
6-Because Spiritual Babes Prefer Preaching: It’s only
mature Believers that ask questions and want to go beneath the surface of
scriptures and doctrine.
7-The List goes on.
The Man may be the
head of the family, but it’s the wife that influences the child’s behaviour.
Therefore the Church can’t spend January to December ministering only to the
‘Man’ and then complain that the ‘child’ part of its members are “misbehaving”.
SELAH.
More Blessings await
you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.
GREG ELKAN
No comments:
Post a Comment