When I came to you, brothers, announcing the testimony of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom. For I didn’t think it was a good idea to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a powerful demonstration by the Spirit, so that your faith might not be based on men’s wisdom but on God’s power. – 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
The faithful Christian minister at the pulpit, on the streets, and in the marketplace knows from Whom all power, all strength, all wisdom, and all words of life that he may ever speak come from.
The same faithful Christian knows he has been entrusted with the most important, most sacred work to be done in the universe by those blessed to be disciples and ministers of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Knowing the stakes these ministers speak and engage this world from two incredible paradoxical extremes – in full boldness and confidence as messengers sent by God for this very purpose while speaking in fear and trembling for the most precious soul-saving work to be done for and through God.
In this world we can find pastors that have been so pounded by unbelief in culture and even their own lost congregants that they can utterly collapse on how and even what to preach. They are tied in knots of cultural context seminars and flat-out fear of man that their days at the pulpit are at risk for being wasted.
Our pounded pastors seek elegant, inoffensive words, the ‘right’ tone, and Scripture denying ‘context’ to ‘persuade’ a listener. They may offer the pitch that believing in Jesus would be a good way to improve their life, be part of ‘something bigger’ than themselves, or as some type of spiritual therapeutic for their marriage, jobs, or investments.
The apostles who serve our God show us no such example. Boldness to preach Christ and Him crucified declaring the power of God to save and redeem all who would believe is the way of God-sent apostles.
Christ came to save the woman in the street, the guy in the cubicle, as well as the weekly congregants in the pews from the fires of hell that await them if not moved by love and belief in the sacrifice of the Lamb of God on the cross.
To distance, nuance, and contextualize the blood of Christ to our families, our neighbors, or our congregations is a grievous offense to our Maker and Redeemer.
Lord, we are weak. Lord God, make us bold.
Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. – Ephesians 6:19
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