“Sure, to those who are not called, those without faith, we may look like a bunch of idiots rolling out of bed on Sunday morning to sit in a pew and listen to some guy preach. But there is something happening that they do not understand. We are receiving grace. We are being nourished by the very Word of God! We are blessed in Christ!”

My dad isn’t much of a fisherman, but he has his one fishing joke that I’ve heard him say more than once or twice: There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore looking like an idiot. Today I’m thinking of this same principle as it applies to sitting under the preached Word.

We were privileged to have Paul Wolfe, Associate Pastor at New Hope Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, VA, come fill in as a guest preacher this Sunday. Before he delivered a wonderful sermon, he pointed out something in our bulletin that pleased him. Right before the title and text of the sermon for the week, our bulletin says: The preaching of the Word is an ordinance of God for our salvation. Paul said that he had good reason to believe that this important line was in our bulletin every week. The reason why he could say that was because when he opened his hymn book to sing, he found last week’s bulletin tucked in there, and was able to find the same line.

After reading this line from our bulletin, Paul looked at us and asked, “Why are we doing this?” He asked it in a way that made us feel exposed. Why do we get up every Sunday morning and come sit together on these pews? What the heck were we doing there? Why did he drive over an hour to come fill in as a guest preacher? Why were we hanging on his every word?

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