Ministers must take seriously the preparation part of their ministry and do the work necessary to not only maintain competence, but desiring to use their time in their study to feed their people with the full measure of faith in offer in the Bible. Here we see why the Directory of Public Worship encourages men to know Hebrew and Greek as well as spend time in prayer working for God in the heart of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of making Jesus Christ known to all. If a pastor cannot give his heart to his most central labor then he has no business standing before the sheep.

The apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans tells us that the ordinary way that men and women come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is through the preaching of the word. What sermons are and what they are supposed to do can be confusing. We all may go to conferences or attend workshops where people are telling us how to do better at our jobs, or even learning more about particular hobbies, etc… The act of having someone stand behind a mic and talk is not very odd nor is it something even non-believers would find weird about what we do on a Sunday morning.

However, as we will discover in the next several weeks there is a big difference in what a minister does in worship on a Lord’s Day morning and evening compared to what a Ted Talk speaker seeks to accomplish in his work. The first thing is who is allowed to preach. Really anyone with knowledge and experience can help you get better at business or gardening or coding, but when it comes to learning of Jesus there is an authority there that does not belong to the person talking in front of you in the house of God on His Sabbath day. No matter the ability or content there is only a few granted the right to speak for the Lord of glory to His people. More on this below.

Often at this point in our conservative circles someone will tell you that according to the Bible only men are allowed to pastors, and that is true (1 Tim. 2:11-12, 1 Tim. 3:2, 1 Cor. 14:34, Mark 3:13-19, etc..). But gender is not the real marker that separates those given to this office and those who are not. It is those who are called by the Holy Spirit do this work, and have that call confirmed by the church. Not every man is given the gifts. We need to be careful at looking at the wrong details in favor of others. The requirements of Titus 1 include “. . . hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled.” These attributes are especially important to keep in mind going forward. The proclamation of salvation to the lost and the comforting of sheep must be done with each of these traits in mind, for the goal here, unlike with a conversation about sales, is that there is an eternal formation in the power of the Holy Spirit for the soul which cannot be done in any other way. 
Read More