Tag: Preacher

Why Can’t You Hurry a Good Pot of Pinto Beans?

I MAKE NO secret of it.

My favorite meal consists of fried potatoes, fried cornbread and home-cooked pinto beans.

Oh yeah, and a slice or two of white onion.

Having become something of a connoisseur of pintos over the years, I’ve made a significant discovery – beans cooked quickly aren’t fit to eat.

It’s true.

Good beans have to soak overnight in salt water, then be boiled, then be left to simmer slowly in a pot on the stove.

We’re talking hours.

That’s why I’m unwilling to eat store bought, canned beans.

Canned bean aren’t worth the aluminum can and paper label that encases them.

Now that I think about it, that’s pretty much what they taste like – aluminum and paper.

Food processing factories leave out the most important ingredient in good beans.

Time.

You can’t hurry a good pot of pinto beans.

Gospel sermons are a lot like good beans because they require time.

They need several hours of mental industry and preparation.

A preacher can’t cook up a lesson late Saturday night before he goes to bed any more than you can microwave a bag of beans.

If a congregation expects a regular diet of well-balanced spiritual meals (John 6:27), then the preacher has to devote large blocks of time to his studies each week.

Sound, Bible-based sermons have to soak, then be boiled, and be allowed to simmer slowly in the recesses of his heart and mind.

Passages have to be explored.

Greek and Hebrew languages have to be researched.

Commentator insights have to be considered.

Relevant illustrations have to be chosen.

Thoughts have to be organized.

Immediate and remote contexts have to be deliberated.

Ancient cultures have to be brought to bear.

And I haven’t even mentioned prayer yet!

Brethren who sometimes maintain that their preacher spends too much time in his study fail to appreciate the true nature of his work.

A preacher is first and foremost of all a thinker.

He has to chew on and digest the Word himself before he can bring it to the table of the Lord (cf. Ezek. 3:1ff) on Sunday.

Paul told Timothy, “Give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine…meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them…take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you” (1 Tim. 4:13b, 15a, 16).

Are you hungry for real food (1 Pet. 2:2)?

Do you want to be nourished spiritually (1 Tim. 4:6).

Is your diet prompting growth and maturity in the inner man (Heb. 5:12-14)?

Canned beans aren’t fit to eat.

Neither are canned sermons.

Encourage your preacher in his studies.

Insist that he be a diligent student.

Make sure that he has sufficient time behind his desk, with his Bible, books, and computer.

When he’s able to cook for long periods of time, then you’re able to eat well.

“Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart…” (Jer. 15:16).

How Does A Congregation Pick Its Preacher?

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Calvin Miller’s book, “The Empowered Leader” addresses ten keys to what he calls “servant leadership.”  In chapter one (pp. 11-12), he addresses our general propensity to select men (i.e., preachers) based upon faulty, yes – even worldly, structures.

I’ve taken the liberty of amending a few paragraphs in his book to help us see how many times congregations in the Lord’s church tend to pick their preacher(s) by superficial first impressions and appearances.

You might not agree with everything he says, but there are a few helpful mustard seeds to be gleaned here.  Give Miller’s work a few minutes of your prayerful thought and consideration:

“WE OFTEN ARRIVE at preacher selection by imitating the actions of the prophet Samuel (1 Sam. 16).

Samuel went to Bethlehem to look for an evangelist.  Jesse of Bethlehem presented Samuel an all-star line up of preacher candidates.  His applicants appeared to be rugged, minister types.

But in the process of sorting though their appearances, Samuel saw a need to read their resumes more closely.

How unlike Samuel we are when we choose.  All too often we “line up” our potential perspective preachers, eyeball their credentials, and vote them in or out on their appearance after a Bible class and a couple of sermons.

The mistake of Jesse is a universal fault.  He called Samuel in to begin his search with Abinadab.  Jesse’s most impressive preacher candidate seemed the place to begin.

But the Bible holds a vital lesson on preacher selection.

Each time a congregation plays this image roulette, they opt for leadership by relativism.  Relativism is the way a congregation and eldership compares resumes to arrive at the most ideal.

Every congregation has its pecking order.  But selecting a preacher of God’s Word is not simply a matter of comparing the best virtues of all the assembled contenders.

The old prophet discovered a faulty system.  The right candidate was not even present – the contest was not inclusive enough.

God’s chosen man is sometimes not even in the line-up.  In this case, David was out tending sheep and serving in another capacity in another location.

It’s often that way.

We’re not altogether sure when leadership is present, but we are always sure when it is absent.

When England needed a king, there was a sword in a stone.  Excalibur was the magic sword that belonged to the leader in that day.

We often ballot our choices for preachers, picking and choosing in our relativistic way.  But history repeatedly teaches us that running through stack of resumes is often a faulty way to look for a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Only the real king can wrest the sword from the stone.

The holder of the title preacher sometimes comes from the shadows of obscurity.

On such unsuspected persons the mantle falls.

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).

“God loves you and I love you and that’s the way it’s gonna be!”–Mike