A visiting preacher found these words written on the top of the pulpit: “What in the world are you trying to do to these people?” Good question. What is the right answer? In a valley of dry bones, Ezekiel might have answered, “Bring them to life.”
In the first century, some “peddled the word of God for profit” (2 Cor 2:17). Not Paul, though. The bottom line was not the bottom line for him. He was not trying to get rich by preaching. Someone said, “Never trust a minister who is suddenly wealthy.” Sounds right to me.
So why did Paul preach? He envisioned his ministry as a letter written by the Spirit of God on tablets of human hearts. The Corinthians’ lives were the record of Paul’s work there. When preachers minister well, the result is spiritual life.
Honestly, after twenty-four years here in Houston and forty-one years as a pastor preaching nearly every Sunday, this is a sobering thought. Is our proclamation and our ministry life-giving or life-stealing? God knows. So we preach and serve for an audience of One. What does he say? What does he see?
Mirroring the words of the Greeks who came to Jesus’ disciples in John, another church wisely engraved on their pulpit, “Sir, we would see Jesus!” As my friend John Adams says to preachers, “Give them Jesus.” If we give Jesus to others, we know we are giving life.
