Afraid of being called 'woke' or 'conservative'? Preach the Whole Counsel of God - Wisdom on this issue from John Piper

 

2 Timothy 4:1-5 (NIV) In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

Acts 20:25-31 (NIV)“Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. 26 Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. 27 For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. 28 Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. 29 I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.

At times it seems I'm writing a lot more, 'watch out for this craziness', and a lot less, 'amen to that brother/sister'.  The pessimist would say that there's more crazy floating around right now than wisdom, what choice have I?  The optimist would be sad that the crazy floats to the top and gets more visibility.  So when a story or article comes up that deserves our attention for speaking the truth, I'm happy to both read it for myself and comment upon it for others.

In recent years I have taken John Piper to task when he whitewashed the slave owning of Jonathan Edwards {The troubling whitewashing of Jonathan Edwards' ownership of slaves by John Piper} or when the President of his seminary went after Empathy as a Sin with Piper's support {The folly of the "Sin of Empathy" - A self-inflicted wound to Christian Fundamentalism}, and I cannot walk with him on his road of strict Complementarianism, although I was raised with this view and understand its argumentation.  However, the conviction offered up on this short interview is both timely, powerful, and biblical.

I've been preaching and leading Bible studies this way my whole life for good reason.  The pastor who mentored me as I grew up in his church, Pastor James Frank of Galilee Baptist Church in Saranac, Michigan, was a verse-by-verse exegetical preacher.  Uncomfortable verses?  Can't skip them when you're working your way through the text one phrase and sentence at a time.  Selective topic choices?  That's not in your hands, when you preach this way you speak on each topic as often as the Word of God chooses to do so.

John Piper Chides Pastors Who Ignore Biblical Topics So They Won't Be Called 'Woke' or 'Conservative' - by Michael Foust, Christian Headlines

Pastor and author John Piper says too many of today's pastors are ignoring certain texts and topics within Scripture out of fear of being given a political label they reject.

Piper, the former pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis and the founder of DesiringGod.org, urged pastors at the Together for the Gospel conference in Louisville, Ky., this month to be "radically committed" to preaching all of Scripture, no matter the subject.

There are plenty of uncomfortable passages depending upon the church that you as a pastor have been called to serve.  And in case you're wondering, there are uncomfortable passages depending upon the failures and temptations that have, or still do, cause you particular grief as a sinner saved by grace called to shepherd God's people.  Avoid the hard ones?  Skip the ones that might make things difficult?  If you're the one choosing a topic each week and choosing the scripture you want to use to support it, the opportunity to pick/choose looms large.  I know that some people preach powerfully and biblically using a topical model, I myself believe that working your way verse-by-verse through the Scriptures offers a discipline and a guardrail that benefits both preacher and hearer alike.

I sympathize entirely with men and women in vocational ministry who fear for their job and worry about their family should things go sour.  As an American Baptist minister my employment is at-will.  The church's members of churches like mine could (by-laws vary on the fraction needed: 2/3, 3/4) vote at any point to end our season at the church and send us packing.  For many of my brothers and sisters serving in this employment model, that can become a heavy weight to carry.

My wife and I spent the first half of our marriage (to this point) living paycheck to paycheck, putting things on a credit card so we could pay the electricity and the mortgage.  Now that I'm a father, with a daughter who loves her hometown, her school, and her friends, I can't imagine how I'd explain that we have to leave Franklin because dad told the congregation something they didn't want to hear and they voted him out.  It is because my congregation has given me no reason to believe in my 10+ years here that they want honey dripped in their ears that I can write freely about my brothers and sisters in ministry who tread upon thin ice.  If a congregation won't listen to the Word of God, they need to be challenged by it, if they reject it from the one called to shepherd them, they need to be broken by a spirit of repentance.  To skirt the issues and hope for the best is not a solution.  Healthy churches don't function this way.  For the sake of long-term ministry viability, some pastors are better off preaching the Truth, getting fired, and moving on to a church that is more concerned with what God has to say that hearing what they already believe reinforced.

Before continuing to interact with Piper's words, a reminder: There's a right way and a wrong way to approach any topic in preaching and teaching.  Discernment, humility, patience, and the like can go a long way toward bridging a gap between a preacher and his/her congregation on a topic, and tactlessness, arrogance, and a hot temper can turn even a minor difficulty into a full-blown crisis.  In other words, if you're being a jerk it may not be God's Word they've got a problem with. 

"Some pastors are so fearful of being labeled conservative, or fundamentalist, or progressive, or woke – or whatever the circles you care about [and] would look down upon – that they're going to avoid any kind of biblical command that would put them in some camp that they don't want to be part of," Piper said.

He then provided examples.

Given the climate you can see why numerous pastors are afraid.  The faculty of Grove City College just learned how dangerous even an anonymous charge (that turned out to have no real evidence) of being 'woke' can do, and how people they trusted can turn on them when such a politically charged bomb is being thrown.

I know that some pastors embrace being on the Red Team or the Blue Team, they proudly wave that flag.  Yet, as Pastor Piper is reminding us here, those who thump their chest the most about which team they are on would be the most fearful of having people think that they, gasp, have switched sides.  That pastors shouldn't be on political teams in the first place is a topic I've hammered at (going against the tide) for years, this is another danger that reminds us why: it corrupts your ability to offer Truth when your team embraces a lie. {The Myth of a Christian Nation - by Gregory Boyd: a summary and response or for a whole lot of depth, my six hour seminar: The Church and Politics}

"[They're] just not going to deal with racial discrimination, because they're going to get called 'woke,'" he said. "They're not going to deal with modesty or nudity in movies because they're going to get called 'fundamentalist.' They're not going to deal with the fact that we are citizens of heaven before we're citizens of America because they're going to get called 'unpatriotic.'"

Pastors should never be held "bondage to the opinions of others," Piper said. Instead, they should follow the model of Jesus, who did not care about anybody's opinion, Piper added.

In 2020 I was told (from outside my own congregation) that writing about racial reconciliation and the need for COVID-19 precautions was damaging my reputation/witness.  Except both of these truths were based upon the combination of factual evidence and biblical principles.  I love the people who offered to me that advice, because they thought they were saving me from myself, but I cannot agree with the assessment.  I may have on occasion not articulated myself in the best manner, but how could I pretend that God's Word offered nothing on either topic when our whole nation was talking of little else?  To offer truth without being political about it was no small task {since pundits have a $ interest in making everything political}, and I did my best with that self-imposed limitation, but my congregation and community needed leadership in both areas, if not for things such as this, why am I here?

I would add that in addition to not avoiding political hot button topics, a pastor must also be aware of his/her own biases and work to ensure that the way in which difficult topics are addressed reflects the text of scripture not our own personal beliefs on the subjects.  If you preach the 'whole counsel of God' but only from a Libertarian, Socialist, Fundamentalist, or Progressive viewpoint, thus explaining away or twisting the portions of Scripture that contradict and refute those viewpoints {And believe me, every human created political or philosophical viewpoint is in conflict with Scripture at some point, often many points}, you haven't given your congregation the Word of God, you've given them what you think the Word of God should say, a BIG difference.

James 3:1 (NIV) Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

"Don't you want to be free like that?" Piper asked.

This is the part of what Piper has to say that warms my heart.  There is tremendous freedom when you open God's Word and ask it to mold and shape you rather than trying to wrangle it to fit your desires.  For one thing, wrestling against God is a fools errand, you're not going to win.  For another, it elevates us above the petty, personal, transitory, and self-interested positions and policies that infect contemporary discussions of the issues.  Having a historical perspective is another big help, but nothing can compare with being able to say to yourself, "God wrote this, it has served the Church for two thousand years, my task is to simply walk the path laid before me."  

Additionally, pastors should be "so radically committed" to "all that the Bible teaches" that "just when people think they have you pegged, and in some camp, you bring something out of your Bible treasure that just throws them totally off balance."

I've surprised people over the years.  A number of those who knew the teenage version of me shake their heads when they hear or read what the version of me that God has been working on since has to say.  That hurts, I'm not going to pretend it doesn't, but my oath is to follow where God is leading, even if it puts distance between myself and friends, colleagues, even family.  Several years ago I wrote on a difficult topic, one that upset someone here in Franklin that up until that point thought, "I really like what this guy has to say", and while I always reserve the right to have been in error about something, I was writing according to my best understanding of what God's Word has to say on the subject.  Thankfully, after some productive back and forth, and even a few edits for clarity after talking to people about how my initial wording was received, we came to an understanding and were able to move forward knowing that we're both serving the Kingdom of God as best we are able.  Not every 'confrontation' with a congregant, community member, or especially social media commentor, on a difficult topic will end well, in fact most probably won't.  The call to speak the Truth in Love remains. 

"You've got to displease everybody sometimes, or you're probably not getting it right," Piper said. "... Bible people will love you for that. Partisan people who are more Republican or more Democrat than Christian, they won't love you for that. [But] you don't want them to love you. You want them to be converted."

Amen to that.

Sermon Video: Intelligible words in the Church - 1 Corinthians 14:13-19

Having established the priority of building up the Church when ranking the desirability of spiritual gifts, the Apostle Paul continues the theme by explaining that even 10,000 words given in a language unknown to the hearer(s) are worth less than 5 intelligible words whose meaning can be grasped.  In stating this, Paul asserts that our minds needs to be engaged in prayer and worship, not just our emotions, and that our end goal, edification, requires understanding (on the part of the recipient) in order to be fruitful.  Illustrations utilized: the Western Church's use of the Latin Mass (a barrier to understanding), the dense verbiage of Martin Buber's I and Thou (verses the accessibility of Max Lucado's Just like Jesus), and the unnecessary barrier of teaching English to non-speakers envisioned by Sam Gipp's KJV Only position.  In the end, it is incumbent upon us that we make a serious effort, in both evangelism and apologetics, to share, explain, and defend God's Word with both intelligibility and clarity.

To watch the video, click on the link below:  As a bonus, the introduction features the story of my preaching in Guatemala in 1997 through an interpreter, as well as my fumbling my way through a lesson in Spanish (not a pretty picture).

Systematic expository preaching: What 7 years worth has wrought

I was raised under exceptional expository preaching.  From my earliest years until well into my adult years, Pastor James Frank preached systematically through portions of Scripture using an expository style.  Given that, I was predisposed to prefer that style when I sought to enter into the ministry.  Now, having been at First Baptist Church of Palo, MI for five years, and here at First Baptist of Franklin, PA for seven years, I can step back and see what choosing to work verse by verse through books of the Bible has accomplished.  And while I could go through my old sermons to figure out what I preached at Palo in five years (and that would take a while), I don't have to do that here at Franklin because I began keeping records when I started here.  Thus I can report that in seven years I have:

Preached the entirety of 10 books of the Bible: Ruth, Jonah, Malachi, Luke, Acts, Philippians, Titus, Philemon, Colossians, and James.

In addition, I've done substantial portions, but not yet finished with: Genesis (chapters 37-46), Joshua (chapters 1-7), 2 Chronicles (chapters 10-36),1 Corinthians (chapter 1-8), as well as individual passage here and there chosen for Christmas, Easter, and other special occasions.

That, in a nutshell, is what you get from about 350 systematic expository sermons over 7 years.  I don't expect anyone to remember what I said, after all half the people of the church we're here when I started anyway, but there is a method to my madness.

Why systematic?  So I don't/can't skip the hard or uncomfortable passages. {Acts 20:27  (NIV) For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.}  I prefer to keep the focus on one thought from the author (that's how I decide how long the text needs to be for a sermon; typically it will be one thought in length which could be half a sentence or a whole paragraph) and not allow other passages, however relevant they might be, to distract us from what this particular text is trying to say to God's people.

Why expository?  So it is more likely to be the Word of God speaking than me.  While I know there are some phenomenal topical preachers who each week decide the topic and then search for a corresponding text(s) (and some lousy expository ones; preaching style doesn't equate to quality), for my own ministry it just makes sense to take the weekly topical choice out of my hands and let the text decide.  Yes, I know that one can shape Scripture, bending and twisting it, to suit a variety of ends, that danger remains no matter what style of preaching one adheres to.

So, here I sit, at my computer, with this week's sermon ready to go, the last for the book of Acts, considering where we will turn next.  Back to one of the series that have been begun but not yet finished, or somewhere else?  Wherever we end up, it'll be one verse, one thought, at a time until we've finished.

** Update**  I've figured it out: 2 messages for Obadiah, and 3 for Haggai (minus one week for being in MI for Alumni basketball) brings us to Palm Sunday.

Paul: A truly Christian evangelical preacher

While preparing for this week's sermon on Acts 20:13-24, I came across this quote from Matthew Henry's commentary regarding the preaching of the Apostle Paul, although it was written centuries ago, the wisdom of Henry's words remains.

"Ministers must preach the gospel with impartiality; for they are ministers of Christ for the universal church.  He was a truly Christian evangelical preacher.  He did not preach philosophical notions, or matters of doubtful disputation, nor did he preach politics, or intermeddle at all with affairs of state or the civil government; but he preached faith and repentance, the two great gospel graces, the nature and necessity of them; these he urged upon all occasions."

How much more effective would the Church in the world today be if 100% of its ministers followed this advice?  Focus on the Gospel, return to the themes of faith and repentance again and again, let others worry about the affairs of this world, you have been called by God to shepherd his flock, your priority is the sheep.

Five years of preaching, how far have I gotten?

While planning out my sermons up through Easter (I normally only plan that far ahead in advance of Christmas and Easter, so as to ensure that my sermon focus lines up with those holidays), I took the time to look back on the past five years here at First Baptist of Franklin to see how much of the text of the Bible I have preached, verse by verse.  This tally doesn't include the five years prior at First Baptist of Palo, as that was a different audience, thus any repeated texts from then don't enter into it.

The results were interesting, to me at least.  I've completed preaching through six books of the Bible, verse by verse, start to finish: Ruth, Jonah, the Gospel of Luke, Philippians, Titus, and James.  I've also completed chapters 1-18 of Acts, and chapters 10-32 of II Chronicles.  Throw in five messages out of Isaiah (one of the Lenten series), and a couple out of Matthew (an Advent series), plus a half dozen Psalms, the sections of 1 Samuel covering Hannah and Samuel, and the first three chapters of 1 Corinthians (my current sermon thread), and that about covers it.  The stack of yellow legal paper I write my sermons upon is now impressively high.

Which makes me wonder: If, Lord willing, I continue on here at 1st Baptist of Franklin for, say 20 more years, to pick a round number, how close to preaching through the whole Bible will I be able to come?  The Bible contains sixty-six books, of varying length, Luke is the only one of substantial length I've finished thus far, but Acts and II Chronicles will be finished in a year or two.  In theory, after 25 years, I might be halfway to preaching through the whole Bible.  What would it take to get the whole way through, and has anyone really accomplished that goal while still doing justice to each phrase, sentence, and verse?  I don't think I have the additional 50 years of preaching in me that it might take for me to finish, but who knows, after all, I am training for the Oil Creek 50k again this year.

The danger of the preacher as a party man

"He who preaches salvation to all should never make himself a party man; otherwise he loses the confidence, and consequently the opportunity of doing good to the party against whom he decides."  Those are the words of Adam Clark from the 18th Century commenting on Luke 12:14.  In that passage, Jesus declines to involves himself in a family dispute over an inheritance, instead he preaches a parable on the danger of greed and materialism.  It is always a potential minefield when a man of God chooses to interject his own opinion on a matter such as a family squabble, local issue, or politics.  What of those against whom you weigh in?  How will your opinion on the issue in question affect their willingness or ability to listen to and hear you on matters of faith?  Even if the particular opinion seems to be on solid ground, even if you end up being 100% right about it, what of the cost of to the losing side if they no longer consider the man of God to be approachable?
These are not matters to be taken lightly, I know that many preachers brush off such concerns and readily offer their opinion on anything and everything, but to do so is to put the lives of the Lost at risk.  Better to be thought of as timid and keep your door open to people who don't think like you than to make your every thought known and be applauded by those who already agree with you.  I will preach the Gospel, in season and out of season, with truth and with love.  Is this not task enough, is the weight of responsibility not great enough already?  Let us first be servants of the Word, let us shepherd the people of God, that is care enough for me.

Sermon Video: "instruction in sound doctrine" - Titus 1:5-9

Following his greeting, Paul recounts the mission that he left with Titus when he departed the island of Crete: the appointing of elders in each of the churches.  In this passage, Paul interchangeably uses two Greek nouns when speaking about the leaders that Titus needs to appoint.  Paul's ambiguity has helped contribute to the arguments and fights that have erupted over how church leadership structure is constructed.  In this passage, however, the qualities needed by those to be appointed would apply to anyone and everyone in church leadership no matter whether he/she be called a pastor, elder, priest, vicar, preacher, bishop, rector, brother, reverend, or something else.  The overall task is the same regardless of the title, shepherding the Church of Jesus Christ.
The qualifications demanded by Paul are strict, he requires that candidates have a stable home life, that they have self-control, especially in interpersonal interactions, and that they exemplify Christ-likeness by living righteously.  It is indeed a daunting list for anyone contemplating entering the ministry, one that reminds us that this too is a task of grace by faith.  It is not supermen who will live up to this high calling, only Spirit-filled men.
Lastly, Paul speaks of the need to encourage with sound doctrine, and refute those who oppose it.  I've often found that too many preachers spend the bulk of their time attempting to refute false teachings outside of their own congregation and too little time encouraging the flock they've been entrusted with.  The basis of that sound doctrine is defined by Paul as the "trustworthy message as it has been taught".  The Gospel, plain and simple, following the example of the Apostles, no more no less.  When we, as ministers, stick to the hard to liberating truth of the Gospel, we will indeed by an encouragement to the people of God.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video

The lust of humanity for gold that glitters

There's a line in The Lord of the Rings that reads, "all that is gold does not glitter" which is Tolkien's rearranging of the well known proverb from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, "all that glitters is not gold".  Tolkien was trying to emphasize that not all things of value shine on the outside, whereas Shakespeare's point is that not everything that looks good on the outside is worth it on the inside, but both metaphors utilize the fact that gold has a hold on the imagination of humanity.  It has been sought after, fought after, killed and died for, for as far back as we have records.  I just finished watching "Klondike" on the History Channel last night, a mini-series based on the actual experiences of miners who went to Dawson City in the Yukon during the gold rush that lasted from 1896 to 1899.  In those few years, an estimated 100,000 people headed for the Yukon with only about 30-40,000 surviving the journey and only about 4,000 of them finding any gold.  After Dawson City the gold craze moved on, just as it had before from California and before that North Dakota; the list goes on and on back into history.  The craze for gold continues to this day, it actually has intrinsic value now in the electronics industry beyond its age-old use for currency and jewellery.  The show "Gold Rush" on the Discovery Channel chronicles the lives of would-be gold miners, some of whom work like professionals and some of whom appear to be still amateurs.  The human stories behind the quest for gold are interesting, but the question of why man has been so fascinated with this substance remains.
Gold isn't the only rare thing that has caused empires to rise and fall in history, but it does seem to rise above more practical commodities and has certainly been a part of some of the worst crimes of humanity against itself from the horrid working conditions of the South American mines of the Spanish Empire to the gold extracted from the teeth of Jews killed by the Nazis.  The insatiable quest for gold over thousands of years has yielded roughly 377 million pounds of gold; surprisingly, that amount would only be a cube of 68 ft. on each side.  All that risk, all that killing and death, for a pool sized cube of metal?
If gold didn't exist, humanity would be fixated on something else.  Gold isn't the cause of the sickness that is associated with it, simply the window through which the human soul is illuminated.  The same attributes and potential terrors can be ascribed to the pieces of colored paper that replaced gold as the currency of humanity, or even the electronic money that doesn't even exist apart from the computers that keep track of it.
Which topic does the Bible spend the most time talking about?  Which human vice fills more pages of God's Word than any other?  To hear many preachers and Christian lay people talk, you think it would be sexual sin, whether that be pre-marital or extra-marital sex, pornography, homosexuality, or abortion.  We certainly have great troubles in society connected to our misuse of God's gift of sex, but it isn't the number one vice discussed in the Bible.  The Bible spends more time talking about the proper use of, and abuse of, money than anything else (over 800 times) except love.  So why are we so reluctant to talk about money?  Perhaps it is because we as Americans have so much of it.  Perhaps it is because we do such a lousy job of utilizing our money for the good of the kingdom of God and such a great job spending it on ourselves. 
How often do I preach about money?  I haven't analyzed each of my sermons over last seven years to have stats, but since I normally preach verse by verse through a book on the Bible once I start, I'm guessing that its pretty often.  Do yourself a favor, don't skip over the next part of the Bible you read about money, actually take some time and figure out if you're doing what the Bible says you should be doing with the money that you've earned through the blessings of work, life, and health that God has given you. 

Lost in the translation

Nicole and I attended an information/fundraising banquet for Wycliffe Associates, the Bible translation missions agency whose goal is to have started translating the Bible in the remaining 2,000 languages that don't have any portion of Scripture translated into them by the year 2025.  First Baptist Church supports a Wycliffe Missions team, Dave and Joyce Briley, who have been working for almost 30 years in Papau to first learn, and then translate the Bible into, the language of the local people.  The extraordinary men and women who do this work are a rare breed, deserving of honor, that now thankfully are being assisted by technology to do the work faster than ever.  What once took a team a whole lifetime to accomplish, can now be done much faster.  The goal of having the Bible available in every language on Earth is indeed viable.
At the banquet, Jack Popjes, a translator who along with his wife spent about 30 years in the Amazon bringing God's Word to an isolated Indian tribe, spoke about the biggest hurdle he faced in the actual translation process (apart from other factors like health, governmental interference, isolation, etc.).  The people of the Amazon have no sheep.  The Bible contains a lot of sheep related metaphors that need to somehow be rendered understandable to the people.  When it came to translating in Matthew 9:36 Jesus' comment that the people of Israel were "like sheep without a shepherd", Jack was able to use a concept that they did understand, "like chicks without their mother hen".  The purpose of the metaphor remains the same, the Indians who knew about chickens but not sheep understood; problem solved.  However, when it came to John the Baptist's exclamation in John 1:29, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" Jack was stumped.  There didn't seem to be any local example that could explain the metaphor of God taking our punishment for us.  This problem persisted for ten years, other parts of the Bible were translated, the work continued, but this key concept of understanding WHY Jesus died remained beyond the grasp of the translation process.  Eventually, in God's providence, Jack returned to the tribe after a long absence (due to the government of Brazil) only to arrive in the middle of a cultural ceremony in which trouble making youths were being punished by a tribal elder.  In this ceremony, Jack witnessed for the first time, teen girls stepping forward to take the punishment for a boy with whom they had a special friend relationship.  Jack, his wife, his kids, all had these "friend" relationships in the tribal society, it was a something he was well aware of, but for the first time the connection between the Lamb of God and the tribal friend who can take your place struck Jack like thunder.  When he substituted this word for "Lamb of God" and told them the proclamation of John the Baptist, the whole tribe suddenly understood the Gospel in a whole new light.  God is good, he looks after his servants.

So, why do I tell this story that I heard from Jack?  One reason would be to encourage you to support the work of Bible translators, another would be to remind Christians here in America that even if we are all speaking English to each other, that there are people we interact with for whom our Bible-speak might as well be a foreign language.  If you've never been to Church before, the lingo we use on Sunday morning will be as incomprehensible as the techno-babble about computers, cars, or finances that so often befuddle those who don't understand it.  How is someone who doesn't even know who Jesus is, or what he did, supposed to know what we mean we we talk about justification?  The list of theological words that are difficult to grasp is long: propitiation, consubstantiation, transubstantiation, sanctification, providence, etc.  Not to mention the terms we use in ways that seem odd to those who don't understand them, like born-again and saved.  What can we do about it?  An easy enough answer is for pastors to teach and preach in a way that is mindful of those who may not understand the deep theological point you might want to make.  We need to be willing to return to the basics on a regular basis and we need to be unafraid to slow down and explain things.  What we really need is humility.  We know all we know about God because he reveled it to us.  We didn't climb a mountain to discover God, he came down from Heaven to pull us up out of the depths.  Jesus spoke about sheep, fishing, and farming to his audience because it was what they understood; we need to do the same.  "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world", what an amazing and wonderful truth, let's make sure we share it in a way that everyone can understand.

The privelage and peril of preaching

Those of you who have listened to my sermons know I'm not one for alliteration (starting each point with the same letter), but that title just slipped out.  Preaching is certainly a privilege, being able to stand before God's people and proclaim what his Word is telling them is a rare honor.  At the same time, preaching is a path full of potential perils (yikes, 4 more "p" words, I can't stop it now!)  There are numerous errors that a preacher can make, lots of mistakes that can creep in, some mostly harmless and some downright frightening.  I recently re-read one of my college texts, D.A. Carson's Exegetical Fallacies.  Carson's book explains a whole host of fallacies (errors) that can be made when interpreting Scripture, among them: word-study, grammatical, logical, presuppositional and historical.  The book is excellent, full of helpful reminders, but certainly a challenge to anyone not familiar with English grammar (as a former English teacher, I would say that would be 90% of Americans or more) and those who don't have a minimal knowledge of Greek and Hebrew.
So, what is the person in the pew to do, how can they know that their minister is "rightly diving the word of truth"? (II Timothy 2:15, the AWANA key verse)  At the heart of Carson's warnings is the notion that we need to let the Bible speak to us instead of seeking to find in the Bible that which we already think.  One of the best ways for a preacher to keep the Word speaking through him instead of the other way around is to honor and respect the context of Scripture.  Each and every message brought by a preacher of God's Word needs to be faithful to the text it was taken from, and it needs to be faithful to the message of the Bible as a whole.  We have all seen the damage that can be done when politicians take the words of their opponent out of context, far be it from us to do the same damage with God's Word by not properly representing what the original intent of the Scripture was to it's first audience.  When we understand what God's Word meant then (or at least have a reasonable inference about what it meant), we can begin to understand what God's Word means for us now.
To help keep myself from error is one of the reasons why I choose to preach through passages of Scripture rather than topically.  If I wanted to preach a message about poverty (for example), I would have huge chunks of the Bible to choose from, but isn't the act of choosing itself going to influence my eventual conclusions, won't I be tempted to ignore the passages or verses that aren't on point in favor of ones that seem to be (especially out of context)?  Instead, if I let the Scripture speak by working my way through the entire Sermon on the Mount (for example), I will have to explain everything that Jesus said and not just the things that fit the message I wanted to bring.  Along those same lines, I don't typically write my sermon introduction until I'm finished with the message for the simple reason that I usually don't know exactly what I'm going to be saying about the next passage of Scripture until I actually write it.
I know that a lot of preachers out there always preach topically, citing verse after verse to support their point that are often scattered throughout Scripture; it isn't for me.  The next time you listen to that type of message, jot down each of the references, look up the passages, and see if the verses were used properly based upon their context or not.  There are plenty of Exegetical Fallacies that a preacher can make, that's one I'd rather avoid.