Can I start off by saying that I’m not Jesus? There are things people expect of preachers that sometimes border on the impossible. There are times people expect us to know when they are sick; I don’t truly ever have time off, and, when my phone rings at odd hours of the night, I’m expected to answer. I don’t have “regular hours,” and, though I try to set boundaries, making sure that my wife and kids are my priority (my first ministry is in my home, it’s scriptural!), I often have set down my dinner to counsel someone over the phone, I’ve left in the middle of the night to pick someone up, I’ve missed family things for the sake of ministry. And, often, it’s a lonely road.
Some people expect me to be everything to everyone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (one man came to my door and said “I didn’t think that preachers got time off”). At times, I’m treated as if I’m not allowed grace when I make mistakes (which I do more often than I like), I must always be prepared to serve someone’s needs, no matter what they are, and if I fail then I am a wicked, evil person (I’ve been told I’m not allowed to have the benefit of the doubt, or even to be able to defend myself when I’ve offended someone). I’ve been told who I should be, and when I confront it with “is that your opinion, or a scriptural position,” I was scoffed at and belittled. I’ve been hurt, abandoned, betrayed and stabbed in the back more than I care to admit. I don’t have very many friends, and often, friends hold me to standards in our friendship that they themselves don’t hold themselves to. Some people have used me as an excuse as to why they do not attend church services in regularity. What is more, and this is what irks me most, sometimes people quote me more than they quote Jesus!
I didn’t write this to gripe or gain sympathy. And I want you to know, these are not the entire experience! There are many people who love us, who help us, who comfort in our times of need and who we genuinely feel the love from. But these are the experiences many preachers go through throughout their ministries. This is what they did to Jesus, Peter, Paul, and Christian leaders since the Church was founded. They did it to the Prophets and righteous before them. I knew all of this before I said “yes” to my calling.
Here’s the thing: The Father is God, Jesus is God, the Holy Spirit is God; Peter, Paul, and the rest of us are not! We follow Christ. We’re to walk in humility and love. PLEASE don’t put me or any other Church leader on a pedestal. We need accountability to the word of God, not the standards of men. We need friends, and helpers in the mission that God has granted us. And, while we SHOULD be held to a high standard, we’re not perfect. Our purpose and goal is to draw men to Christ, not to sit in His place. Loved ones, the end goal is to be like and get to be with Jesus. At the end of it all, if you’re seeking to be like Christ, to be and make disciples of Christ, then this is what we work for.
1 Corinthians 1
Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
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