I\u00a0worship at a\u00a0church of Christ\u00a0and have a concern about the preaching there. The sermons are really for show rather than substance. The preacher seems very pleased with his oratory style raising and lowering his voice and parading up and down in front of the congregation. I have mentioned this to one elder and had a meeting with all of the elders. Their stance was that the preacher was part of the leadership and as long as he was not preaching anything unscriptural, they did not see a reason to intervene. They did agree that some of the sermons were a little light. I know for a fact that several families have left because of the sermons. We have visited several congregations and this one is the closest scripturally that we can find. Is there any scripture that I can make known to the elders about their responsibility to the preaching and teaching in the congregations they oversee?<\/p>\n
I really enjoy your web site, especially the questions and answers.<\/p>\n\t
Your question reminded me of an article that I posted not long ago from an old magazine. It was titled, “Alexander Campbell as a Preacher<\/a>.” I posted it more for a historical perspective, but what I found interesting was the repeated mention of the strength of Campbell’s deliveries even though they lacked the typical theatrics of orators. It reminds me of Paul’s self-description, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God<\/em>” (I Corinthians 2:1-5).<\/p>\n Sadly, more people see preaching as a form of entertainment. That is why Paul warned, “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables<\/em>” (II Timothy 4:2-4). To say that a sermon is light but at least wasn’t unscriptural tells a lot about the attitude regarding what preaching is about — and it isn’t good. Sound churches only develop when they are fed with sound doctrine<\/a>.\u00a0Toned down sermons<\/a>\u00a0will produce toned down churches.<\/p>\n There is a place for preaching which rebukes the listener, “hard preaching<\/a>” if you will. As our country continues its decline into immorality, we will need more preaching like\u00a0Jeremiah<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Paul<\/a>. Sometimes when I hear someone claim\u00a0that a preacher offended them<\/a>\u00a0by what he taught, knowing that it was truth I’m tempted to say “It was about time.”\u00a0Hard hearts<\/a>\u00a0need hard preaching to penetrate.<\/p>\n Every lesson doesn’t need to be deep; there are times lessons need to be presented for those who are new in their faith. Every lesson doesn’t need to be hard; preaching is a balance of rebukes and encouragements. But a constant diet of soft preaching will lead to a congregation’s decline. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil<\/em>” (Hebrews 5:12-14).<\/p>\n Hopefully this and the articles I linked to in this reply will give you some ideas to encourage everyone to seek more from the lessons presented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: I\u00a0worship at a\u00a0church of Christ\u00a0and have a concern about the preaching there. The sermons are really for show rather than substance. The preacher seems very pleased with his oratory style raising and lowering his voice and parading up and down in front of the congregation. I have mentioned this to one elder and had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[536],"class_list":["post-20232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-preaching"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":58093,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/mcgarvey-as-a-preacher-and-teacher\/","url_meta":{"origin":20232,"position":0},"title":"McGarvey as a Preacher and Teacher","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Henry S. Ficklin via\u00a0Gospel Guardian, Vol. 10, No. 39, Feb. 5, 1959 In 1902, when I began as a student at Transylvania University, in Lexington, Kentucky, McGarvey was President of the College Of The Bible. These two institutions were on the same campus, but they were separately organized. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":55526,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/so-whats-a-good-sermon\/","url_meta":{"origin":20232,"position":1},"title":"So, What\u2019s a Good Sermon?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 5, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jefferson David Tant Out of all the thousands of sermons preachers have delivered and to which people have listened, how would we determine which sermons are good, which are bad, or which are so-so? I would suppose that even preachers evaluate themselves from time to time, and on occasion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Bible-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":58802,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/preaching-the-gospel-without-mentioning-baptism\/","url_meta":{"origin":20232,"position":2},"title":"Preaching the Gospel … Without Mentioning Baptism","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 7, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"by Foy E. Wallace, Jr. Number One Gospel Sermons, page 180 (A series of gospel sermons preached at Nashville Road Church of Christ in the NUMBER ONE Community between Nashville and Gallatin, Tennessee, February 5 to 26, 1967. By Foy E. Wallace, Jr. In the sermon on February, 26: The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":67775,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-work-of-preaching\/","url_meta":{"origin":20232,"position":3},"title":"The Work of Preaching","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 25, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer Over time, a typical preacher will have preached hundreds of times (thousands once you figure in decades). He will have taught even more classes, again into the thousands. Don't judge a preacher or teacher by one or two sermons or lessons. There is no way to cover\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20246,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/hard-preaching\/","url_meta":{"origin":20232,"position":4},"title":"Hard Preaching","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Guy F. Hester Recently someone told me that I am a hard preacher. This could be either good or bad, depending on what is meant by hard preaching. In the context of the conversation, I took it as a compliment to my firm stance for my convictions. Many people\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/hammer-and-rock-300x300.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":68556,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/preaching-to-be-paid-or-being-paid-so-you-can-preach\/","url_meta":{"origin":20232,"position":5},"title":"Preaching to Be Paid or Being Paid So You Can Preach?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 27, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Perry Hall Men should not preach to get paid; men should be paid so they can preach. There is a fundamental difference in that statement: If someone preaches to get paid, the emphasis is on the preacher wanting to receive money from the congregation for the time that he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}