The Laborers' Podcast- The Preaching in a Healthy Church

Good evening, welcome to the Laborer's Podcast. We've got some new things to introduce to you this evening. This is the newly named Laborer's Podcast, formerly the Pastor's Panel Podcast, but we wanted to broaden our horizons and be taught by other men who may not be holding a pastor position or be ordained, but are well-versed in scripture and God has given them wisdom.

And we want them to share that with us and teach us. So we are glad, we're glad to change the name to, for whatever purposes, for the better purposes of reaching people with the gospel and with the truth of God's word.

I'm thankful to have Tyler with us. Tyler is new to the podcast and we're thankful that he is here and hopefully he will continue to join us in the future. We've got Claude with us and we've got Dan with us.

I'm so thankful for these men and what they bring to the table and what they share. Another new thing that I wanted to share with you guys, I think I'm probably gonna have to take this overlay off, but we have a new website.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to take it off real quick. There's our new website. If you would like to go visit our website, it tells about who Truth and Love is, how you can, when you can join us, how you can contact us, speaking.

And then there's our laborers podcast, abolishing abortion information on that. Churches and ministries that I, all the other guys, they may not, this doesn't reflect them. This is my personal website and ministry.

So you can check out those that I recommend and suggest. We've got, Dan, how do you say your church's name?

Oneonta.

Oneonta.

Oneonta.

Oneonta.

There you go.

I recently put Oneonta on there. We've got Here I Stand Theology podcast on there. And we've got Bread of the Word on the ministry list. So I'm proud to have those guys on the ministry list. And then the eschatology series that we did recently, those YouTube videos are on there.

So check out our website if you get a chance. We'd really appreciate it and appreciate your input, your feedback.

What is the address?

Yes, the address. Thank you, Claude. Truthinlovenetwork .com. And you can do the www .truthinlovenetwork .com. Check it out and give us some feedback. Now, without further ado, I told Claude that I had something for him.

And I wanted to bring this up before we get into our topic this evening. Claude does a podcast called Here I Stand Theology podcast. And if you've watched it before or if you've listened to anything that Claude does, every now and then, Claude will bring up this question to his guest, which he hasn't done here yet, which is okay.

But he brings up this question, he poses it between this gentleman and this gentleman, who would win in an arm wrestling contest? And so I wanted to pose the question, where did that come from? And why did you start asking that question?

Honestly, as an icebreaker, because I was so nervous starting out the first game. We gotta do something to break the ice. Otherwise, I'll just lean over and throw up in the garbage can. But it's just something fun, especially when you talk to the bigger name guys, because they're so...

And by the way, I'm gonna be put together since you said that. I had Wilson on a while back, Doug Wilson. And it was the day before his debate with James White. And I asked him, so if you and James White had arm wrestle, who would win?

Right?

So, it was the normal fun stuff that went back and forth there. But have you got to watch that debate yet?

I did.

Have you watched it, Dan?

I watched the first two thirds of it.

So you've watched the Jared Longshore's introduction, right?

With the two men?

How about you, Tyler? I keep wanting to call you David, my brother-in-law. How about that?

I have not caught that yet, no.

So, did you think back to this? If not, go back to it. Jared Longshore, when he says, now, it was decided back in the back, who would go first by an arm wrestling match.

Yep.

I'd ask Doug Wilson if he'd send me a picture or something. He said, I'll do what I can. And I think that was a veiled reference to what I asked him.

I called it when I heard it. And you're the first person that I thought of. So, your name's getting out there. And they know who Claude Ranch is.

Oh my, I doubt that, I doubt that. I don't think Doug Wilson remembered it after the fact, so.

Well, I'm going to carry your challenge over to this podcast. And I thought maybe behind the question, I thought, well, Claude, he's trying to bring some manliness back. He's trying to bring masculinity back.

That's true too.

To Christianity. And so, here's my pullover from the Here I Stand Theology podcast. I'm laying down a challenge. So, I'm challenging anybody that wants to in the podcast world. I'm up for arm wrestling contest.

So, there's my challenge. If anybody wants to answer, they can contact us.

All right.

I'll send you some pics when we're done here. I'll text all of them to you. I'll text them to all y 'all.

Why Preaching Belongs in a Healthy Church

Well, we're going to begin tonight, a new series on what a healthy church looks like, what we should, healthy aspects of a church, things that we should be looking for in our church, working towards our church, that of course we're going to be pulling from scripture because that's where we get our cue.

That's where we get how God wants us to do things. And so, how we know we have a healthy church is if we are pulling what we do from scripture and letting scripture be our guide. Tonight's topic in the beginning of this series is going to be preaching.

And if you've only been to one church your whole life, you may think that there's only one form, one style of preaching. That may be harder to believe now that media has gotten so big and it's so easily accessible that you've got preachers on the internet everywhere.

And you can listen to podcasts, you can listen to sermons, videos, and sermons are everywhere. But there was a point in time where you went to your church and that's the only style, that's the only person that you heard your whole life.

And I can say that was in our lifetime. The internet come along, I think while me and Claude and Dan were growing up and alive, we were pre-internet and post-internet.

You must have run out of that one, didn't you?

No.

So we've seen the progression, but it's, I believe from scripture, so preaching is vital and it's important. And not just that, it's how God wants us to preach. So we're just gonna ask some simple questions and we would like to ask you, those of you who are watching, to ask these questions along with us.

Listen to our answers as we try to pull from scripture what we believe the Bible says about preaching, what kind of preaching we should be listening for in our churches, and then move forward with that information.

So here's the first question that I wanna pose to you. And you guys just jump in there. If you feel like somebody's finished and you have something to say, just jump right in and answer the question and give us your insights.

So the first question is, why do we hear preaching in church every Sunday? I know that there's expectations of certain things being in church. You know that we're gonna sing, you know that we're going to take up an offering.

At some point, we're going to have communion or the Lord's Supper. There's just certain expectations that you have when you go to church. And one of those things is, you know, one of the staples is that you're gonna hear some preaching of somebody talking about God's word and standing in front of you and preaching.

Why is it that that's one of the staples, one of the things that you can expect every Sunday in church?

Well, I mean, I'll start.

That'd be good.

So the Belgic confession, article 29 gives us the marks of the true church, right? So we see that listed out in the Belgic confession. We believe that we ought to discern diligently and very carefully by the word of God, what is the true church?

So first of all, it's important for us to understand, you know, what is the church, right? And the Belgic confession lays this out very plainly for us that we're separate, that we're unique from all other sects in the world today, S-E-C-T-S.

So, you know, we were talking, we've already stuck our foot in their mouth about inclusiveness and deconstruction. And now here we are talking about sex on the podcast. S-E-C-T-S, sex groups in the world today, right?

So they are very clear in this article, in the confession. We're not speaking of the company of hypocrites who are mixed with the good in the church and who nonetheless are part of it. Even though they're physically there, they go on, the true church can be recognized if it has the following marks.

The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel. That is the first identifying characteristic of a biblical church. So why do we, why do we, to stop short here, why do we expect to hear preaching every Sunday in church?

Because that is the defining characteristic of the church. It's every organization and every group is proclaiming a message. They're proclaiming a message, no matter how you look at it, long or short.

They're proclaiming a message and the responsibility of the church of Jesus Christ is to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and to proclaim the word of God according to and measured by the word of God itself.

Jump on in there, Tala.

Well, you mentioned the Belgic Confession. I'm not too familiar with that one, but I am a huge fan of the Westminster documents and I love the way that the shorter catechism starts. What is the chief end of man?

Meaning what is our greatest purpose? It is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And second question kind of builds on that principle and asks what rule has God given us to glorify him and enjoy him?

And that the only rule that he has given us, it states, is the scriptures contained in the Old and New Testaments. And the bottom line is the God of the Bible is a God of words. We are, by nature, we're visual people.

We think in pictures and movies and stuff, but God has revealed himself to us in words. And sometimes that's strange. Sometimes that's difficult. It takes a different level of work because we want the pictures, we want the movies and the visual representations, but God speaks to us in words.

And you're kind of talking about general revelation versus specific revelation.

Correct.

And so we can know God visually. Even scripture says that through creation, it speaks of his existence. But then this specific revelation, God, in his kindness, which he didn't have to do in his kindness, he gives us, through what Tyler was saying, through words, who he is.

And that's how we can have a personal relationship with him. And that's how the Holy Spirit, that's the means of the Holy Spirit of growing us in holiness is through his words.

Amen.

And so I think you're absolutely right. God has got up words and that's how we know him and that's how we grow. I totally agree. Dan, you have anything to add on that one?

Not really. They did a pretty good job on it. The other thing I would say is that one of the reasons why we do, or at least should, because I've been in churches before where you didn't hear preaching every Sunday.

Usually on a Sunday where you think there would be preaching, like Easter or Christmas, and they have a cantata instead. But yeah, anyway. But why we should hear preaching every Sunday is because God commands it.

He commands that one of the things that we do in worship is to proclaim his word, to read, explain, and apply the scriptures to our lives. It's a part of, not the whole thing, but it's a part of what discipleship is.

It's a discipleship as a corporate structure. What do we, as the people of God, how do we act? How do we do? What do we believe? What shouldn't we believe? It comes all from the word of God. And then we take that as a body, apply it individually, and then encourage one another towards those things, either towards right belief or staying away from an error or like practice or staying away from a practice.

That's in Timothy somewhere. Correction, reproof, or I forget.

The word of God is profitable for doctrine, for proof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work.

How many?

Every.

Every, all right.

Every, uh-oh, was that preaching? Was we preaching?

We're getting there. Oh my.

Yeah, I mean, you know, again, of course the scripture teaches us this, but this is another reason. This question here is another reason, just going along with what the other guys have said here, is why it's important for churches to be confessional.

It's important for churches to hold to a robust, rich, theologically sound confession of faith because it helps the church members to understand and to know the importance of biblical doctrines in a systematized fashion.

I wanna go back to something else that was brought up, and I think it's okay that we talk about it, but since you just said that, talking about the importance of the church being confessional, expound on that just a little bit more because a lot of times, and this is just from my experience, that, you know, this isn't, I don't mean to paint with a broad brush and point out everyone.

I'm speaking from personal experience, things that I've seen along the way. So some of the things that I've seen is, you'll talk to a pastor, you'll talk to church members and say, you know, what do you believe?

What's your statement of faith or whatever? But it seems like, you know, figuratively, we'll say it's in the filing cabinet. And we don't really, especially the regular attenders, the church members, you know, have no clue what our confessions are, what our doctrines are.

So expound on what you mean by that and how important it is for every member to be aware.

So the importance here is this, is number one, we're called, again, going back to the scriptures, to be able to give a reasoned defense of our faith, why we believe what we believe. So we, of course, we must start with what we believe.

That, you know, that's been an unspoken, but the why we believe what we believe, that's been largely just cast aside and thrown down. And the thing about a confession, a biblically sound, theologically rich confession, is really, it's no different than the preacher getting up and preaching a message on Sunday.

If he is studied in the word, right? And he's comparing scripture with scripture. A confession is just simply a restatement of what the scriptures say. And people will say, well, I will never be able to memorize scripture like so-and-so, like this person or that person, right?

But at the same time, when they've got a confession, they've got something that they can kind of set side by side with the scripture and say, well, this is what the scripture says. And by the way, the preaching that we hear every Sunday in church, that's exactly what the church members should be doing.

They should be taking what they've heard preached and setting it right up beside the scripture. They need to be backtracking and looking at every scripture reference that the preacher gives. They need to be going home and reading the chapter before, the chapter of, and the chapter after to test making sure what he was saying, his application, is what the Bible says.

So that's what a confession does. It just simply restates what the scripture says.

So, Tyler, if you have somebody that says, you know, we don't need a confession because people have a tendency to hold it up, you know, on equal level of scripture or higher than scripture, or we just have the Bible.

What would you say to those folks who kind of push the confession aside? And by confession, you know, you, Claude mentioned the Belgian confession of faith. Tyler mentioned the Westminster, confession of faith.

Some people may be more familiar with the Baptist faith and message, 2000, 1689 London Baptist confession. So you've got multiple different confessions out there. So what would you say to somebody, Tyler, that, you know, feels like there's a temptation to elevate a confession equally with scripture?

That's definitely a valid concern. I can understand the logic there. I've actually been there personally. And I would certainly be the first to say that the Westminster standards are not scripture. They're certainly not on par with scripture.

At the end of the day, this is just another tool. It's something that takes the big concepts of the Bible and breaks it down into smaller statements that we can easier wrap our heads around. I've been in churches where we didn't have the Westminster confession of faith, but we had bracelets that said, what would Jesus do?

We had these little simple statements and kind of ideas that we could try and trace back to the scriptures. And we can argue over different examples and stuff. But the point being that what would Jesus do is like a basic question that builds off of what we know from scripture.

And I would say that in a sense, that is like the confessions and the catechisms and those statements of faith.

And two, would you agree with this? One of the ways that I view a confession is like gutter guards at a bowling alley or boundaries that kind of keep us in line so we don't get off the railings theologically.

Would you agree with that?

I love that illustration.

Thank you. Dan, let me go back to you on a different question, something that kind of was brought up earlier, but I think it's okay for us to talk about. It can be, I'm not afraid of hitting touchy subjects because I've been in situations where a pastor has had to make decisions with the music director.

Are we just gonna have a song service today and forego the preaching? Or the preacher even gets up and he says, the Lord laid on my heart that we just need to have a song service today. So I've just picked out some hymns and we forego preaching.

And I think we can talk about this without hurting feelings, but these are one of the conversations that I've seen people get their feelings hurt over, but I think it's theologically, I think it's a good conversation to have.

So Dan, why is it important not to forego preaching and just have a song service or why is it important not to neglect the preaching of the word?

Well, there's a lot of different reasons. I'll start off by pointing this back to the story in John six, where Jesus is talking to a whole bunch of folks and he takes them off and they leave. And then at the end, he's looking at Peter.

He says, Peter, are you gonna go too? He goes, why, why would I go? No, you are the one who has the words of life. That's why, that's the importance behind why we preach every Sunday is because who else would have the words of life.

Now we can go back and look through the history of the church all the way back into the old Testament. You look at the command for them to the psalm assembly, stand, read the scriptures, explain them to the people.

After they'd lost the scriptures and then gone away into exile, they came back and Ezra and Nehemiah did the same thing. They stood there, exposited the word of God to folks. Paul's exhortation to Timothy.

He says, I think it was Timothy, maybe it was Titus. Either way, it was good advice. Until he comes, read and explain the scriptures to the people. Then like the verse that Brother Claude read earlier that scripture is sufficient for everything through life and practice.

So one of the aspects of worship is recognizing God's place as supreme and who he is. He's creator, he's sovereign, he's Lord, he's God, he's all the things wrapped up into one. So to hear his words proclaimed by someone every Sunday it's life-giving as long as the preacher's preaching properly, otherwise it can get very dangerous very quick.

That's why it's important to preach each and every Sunday. I'd also make the same argument for the Lord's Supper but we're not talking about that right now. No, if you're gonna sing every week and you're gonna preach every week, then yeah.

It's a good conversation.

It is.

Let's jump on to the next question. And Claude, I'm gonna address this one to you because of the audio that you just played. The next question is what is the difference between preaching and teaching?

I know culturally, most of us, even people outside of the church, they have an idea or a thought of what preaching sounds like. And I think hence the audio button that we just played with the organ music because culturally we have an idea.

This is what I think or this is what I associate with preaching. So biblically, what is the difference between preaching and teaching?

I would say the best, simplest statement that I've ever heard is a quote from Martin Lloyd-Jones, preaching is logic on fire, right? Teaching can be, again, it can be any information. It can be how to change your oil, right?

It can be how to do this, how to beat the crowds at Walmart, how to go on, whatever the case may be. Teaching is not unique to Christianity, okay? Neither is preaching, again, when they're separated. But the heart and the soul of the gospel, like Tyler said, is the written word.

Dan quoted that passage from John, right? Everybody went away. Jesus said, will you also go away? Peter said, to whom shall we go for you have the words of life, right? So there's nowhere else for us to go.

But if we wanted to make a distinction, I would say that it is the fervency, the passion with which one communicates the scriptures, right? I posted something on Facebook the other day about people preaching casually, right?

And had a church member actually text me and say, so what do you mean by that, right? Because again, it goes to, one of your other questions, that really goes into the styles of preaching. Some people think if you ain't getting loud, you ain't preaching, right?

Some people think you ain't communicating the truth and then on the opposite end, other folks say you're not communicating the truth effectively if you're just, or if you are getting excited. Amen, Jonathan.

If you're not getting excited, but there really is a balance because just like with the keys, right? Folks really and truly what they're looking for when they're looking at a church nowadays or for the past, I don't know, as long as we've been alive, we can't speak for anything else, but really they're looking, is that preacher gonna move me?

Does the tone of his voice fit what I like to hear, right? Or does the, is he all bark and no bite? I mean, because really you've got, again, yeah, I know these are country terms, but you've got extremes on both sides.

You've got preachers that are all bark and no bite. You've got preachers that are all bite and no bark, right? They're the snap and pops, but they ain't a stick of dynamite. There's in that balance as a pastor personally, I think really has to be carefully had, right?

There is nothing wrong with tears. We ought to shed tears. We ought to be broken. We ought to be grateful and thankful for what the Lord's done, but we don't have to have those tears for it to be a demonstration of the spirit and of the power of God.

That is done and accomplished by the word alone.

So Tyler and Dan, if you could give two more adjectives, I believe I heard Claude tell us, or use the adjectives urgency, fervency. So Tyler, what are two more adjectives that you would describe preaching or how you could describe preaching?

Well, as I was thinking on that, that's kind of a big question. I found myself in the book of Jonah because I try to dig into some of the languages and ask questions with that. And I found myself in Jonah three when he was preaching in Nineveh.

And that word that's usually gets translated as preached in Hebrew is qara, which is a little hard to render. It's basically QR. The best way we can plug that in is qara. And qara basically means to cry.

It's a very intense emotional word. It means to cry out aloud. It's a roar. It's a very, there's a lot of passion built into that word.

Wow.

So I would say passion.

When you say qara, the picture that came in my mind was Claude with the nunchucks. I was thinking qaraqtaq. Dan, what other adjectives would you give to describe preaching?

I would say reverence and unction. Reverence first, because you should be about half ready to throw up when you climb into the pulpit to preach. And I've done a bunch of it, but every single time, like as I'm walking to the pulpit, it's like, ah, I can just, like, there's the door.

I can just like scoot on out real quick.

And everything will be all right.

Like every single time you go to church, you realize like, because of the seriousness of what we were talking about before, you're the one who's standing and proclaiming the words of God. So now you being in that situation, you say something that's wrong or you encourage people in a wrong way, or you just blaspheme God on accident.

You're the one who's there to encourage his church. Like that's scary. And unction, I don't even know how to define that one, but like Jeremiah 20 verse nine says that if he said he wasn't gonna speak in the word of the Lord anymore, I think it's 20 verse nine, it may not be.

If he said he wasn't gonna speak in the word of the Lord anymore, but it was like a fire caught up in his bones.

He couldn't stop from speaking.

He had to get it out. And so there's a, I think unction kind of takes reverence, respect, the idea of God being holy, a fervor, passion, and understanding a sense of urgency. It takes it all and kind of rolls it up into one.

Because if you have any one of those adjectives without the others, you're missing something. And really you can't do any of that rightly without the power of the Holy Spirit. So reverence, humility, and unction.

Before we go any further, and we're just two questions in, I'm gaining an even greater sense of the importance of preaching within the church and preaching every Sunday. I'm seeing the picture of how important preaching is.

And so let me pose this question to you and whoever wants to answer it is free to answer it. There's criteria. When we go to look for a church that we want to attend, there's criteria that we look for.

And a lot of times you'll hear, well, they have something for my children. That's probably the number one that I hear most of all. Where should preaching, and I'm prefacing the next few questions with this question because we're gonna be talking about purpose and style next.

But where should preaching fit on that list of criteria when you're looking for a church?

It needs to be close to the top. I don't know if you'd want to put it one above the other, but you wanna have about, I don't know, we look for about three things. And if those things aren't there, then we don't consider it.

Is there a proper church government there? Are the elders and pastors, are they qualified? And how do they preach? Like, do they preach the word of God? So if you have the basic structure is okay, and they believe in the word of God, obviously it would be top up there.

And then if they preach well, man, just stick it out if you got to. I mean, there may be issues, but I mean, that's kind of rare nowadays. So I don't know, I would look for all that, but I don't know, I'd put all of them kind of on the same, if you're missing any one of those things, I don't know, best you can.

Sometimes circumstances dictate otherwise, but yeah.

What if we get that backwards? This particular church has something for my children. They have children's programs and preaching is on the back burner or it may be not even on the list at all. What's the negative effect when our criteria list priority is prioritized wrongly?

Well, do they actually have something for your children then?

That, hey, that answer

Hey, slow down, we don't have covered everything.

I mean, that's probably the best answer that I could have gotten right there. I wholeheartedly agree.

And so, but was what it was at the root of your question when folks are looking for all these other things, children's ministry, youth ministry, whatever, was that this at the heart of your question? Was it that they're seeking these things above the truth of the scripture that makes it out of whack?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

And preaching is just not maybe even on their radar.

You're right. And I would say children's ministry and the music are the top two things that I've seen over the years and I think is a trend really. And I would, let me just look right in the camera. I would say, if you're looking for a church that's got good music and the preaching is slack, you need to check yourself.

If you're looking for a church that's got something for your kids above the preaching of the gospel, you need to check yourself because as a Christian, again, it goes back to the proper foundation, the proper instruction being given.

And that comes from the classroom and the pulpit. That comes from there. Now, the music should be theologically sound, but that goes into your styles, really. You've got your preaching styles. Everybody's got a preference, right?

They want this or they want that. When we were the three of us, with the exception of Tyler, because he's just a young man, we're saying the three of us here, yeah, right? We grew up where we saw churches where they actually had wars and came down to a reconciliation and agreement where, you know what?

We'll have a traditional service at eight o 'clock in the morning and then we'll have a contemporary service at 1030 and we'll make everybody happy. But that's the problem. Church is not meant to make everybody happy.

Church is not meant to be shaped and fashioned and we're not to cater to customers who are seeking to have their own will, have their own self-seeking pleasure fulfilled. The church of Jesus Christ is about proclaiming the message of God's word to God's people so that God's people can be enriched and edified so that God's people can know him.

I apologize if I seem serious here, but so that God's people can know him and know him more because it's in knowing him better that we love him more, that we're able to rightly worship him, that we're able to rightly reverence and honor and respect his holy name.

And I'm gonna try to stick what Tyler said right in that noggin. If you're looking for a church that has something for your children, then preaching is gonna be at the top of the list. It's gonna be at the top of the list.

And then not just children, but all the other things that Claude mentioned as well. So good, such good stuff. Thank you guys. So let's jump to the next question. What are the different purposes of preaching?

Tyler, you wanna jump in there?

Absolutely. I think one great example of what we ought to be aiming to do in preaching, we find in Ezekiel chapter three. Ezekiel's an interesting book. There's a lot of, a lot of it's these really vivid visions that you kind of have to think about a little bit, but I was pretty captivated with the first couple of verses in chapter three and God says to Ezekiel to eat the scroll.

Yeah.

And then go and preach because Ezekiel had the scroll in his possession, but it wasn't within him. And so for him to go out and proclaim, thus sayeth the Lord, he had to internalize the scroll. And I think that one of the key purposes of preaching as opposed to teaching, is teaching puts the scroll in front of us, in our possession, but preaching aims to put it within us.

Amen.

That's fantastic.

Dan, what would you add to that? What are the purposes of preaching?

I've always thought of it to be about four of them, to encourage, warn, rebuke, or remind or instruct people of the scriptures. If you go through the preaching event and you've accomplished that, while obviously holding close to the scriptures and telling people about Christ, just keep on with it.

Amen.

Paul, do you have anything to add to that, purposes?

I'm just saying amen. I'm saying amen and amen and amen.

Me too. That's the truth.

By the way, that's biblical too. For folks that are watching this and that you're a member of a local church, when the word is preached, the proper response is to say amen. And it could be that you can't say amen because you don't know.