Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry

by John Piper

But we live in a day when, it seems to me, few pastors are falling off their horse on the side of excessive seriousness.

Quipping and jesting about God—or in an effort to point to God—simply means a person is oblivious to reality. The domestication of God is a curse on preaching in our day.

Flippancy in and around our preaching communicates to people that sin is not as serious as the Bible says it is.

Preaching has hell ever before the view because so many people are going there and because the Word of God saves from hell. This makes a preacher earnest. If it does not, he is simply out of touch with reality.

Virtually every benefit or hope we offer in preaching was obtained at this cost. How can any of it be trifled with?

Rather, every sermon is crucial and critical in sustaining the faith of the saints and so bringing them safely to glory.

The Bible-oriented preacher, on the other hand, does see himself that way—“I am God’s representative sent to God’s people to deliver a message from God.”

A sense of submission to the Bible and a sense that the Bible alone has words of true and lasting significance mark the Bible-oriented preacher but not the entertainment-oriented preacher.

Becoming a biblical theologian, which every pastor should be, means seeing more and more pieces fit together into a glorious mosaic of the divine design. And doing exegesis means querying the text about how its many pro-positions cohere in the author’s mind and, through that, in God’s mind.

But, in fact, there is no positive correlation at all between the quantity of pages read and the quality of insight gained. Just the reverse for most of us. Insight diminishes as we try to read more and more.

Take two hours to ask ten questions of Galatians 2:20, and you will gain one hundred times the insight you would have attained by quickly reading thirty pages of the New Testament or any other book. Slow down. Query. Ponder. Chew.

A third force that opposes the effort to ask questions of the Bible is this: Asking questions is the same as posing problems, and we have been discouraged all our lives from finding problems in God’s Holy Book.

We must train our people that it is not irreverent to see difficulties in the biblical text and to think hard about how they can be resolved. Preaching should model this for them week after week.

“The more a theologian detaches himself from the basic Hebrew and Greek text of Holy Scripture, the more he detaches himself from the source of real theology! And real theology is the foundation of a fruitful and blessed ministry.”1

First, the confidence of pastors to determine the precise meaning of biblical texts diminishes.

Second, the uncertainty of having to depend on differing translations—which always involve much interpretation—will tend to discourage careful textual analysis in sermon preparation.

Another result when pastors do not study the Bible in Greek and Hebrew is that they, and their churches with them, tend to become second-handers.

Weakness in Greek and Hebrew also gives rise to exegetical imprecision and carelessness. And exegetical imprecision is the mother of liberal theology.

We have, by and large, lost the biblical vision of a pastor as one who is mighty in the Scriptures, apt to teach, competent to confute opponents, and able to penetrate to the unity of the whole counsel of God. Is it healthy or biblical for the church to cultivate an eldership of pastors (weak in the Word) and an eldership of professors (strong in the Word)?

One of the greatest tragedies in the church today is the depreciation of the pastoral office.

In former times the fathers were frequently mistaken, because they were ignorant of the languages and in our days there are some who, like the Waldenses, do not think the languages of any use; but although their doctrine is good, they have often erred in the real meaning of the sacred text; they are without arms against error, and I fear much that their faith will not remain pure.7

This fellowship of the living and the dead is especially crucial for pastors. As leaders in the church, we are supposed to have vision for the future. We are supposed to declare prophetically where our church should be going. We are supposed to inspire people with great possibilities.

When I look at Calvin and Edwards and their output, it is hard for me to feel sorry for myself in my few burdens. These brothers inspire me to break out of mediocre plodding.

Has greatness emerged from anything but pressure? If greatness is to be the servant of all, must we not be under authority, under demand, pushed, pressed?”

Remember Hebrews 11. And read Christian-biography.18

Texts have meaning, and texts have tone. Consider the tonal difference between, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden” (Matt. 11:28), and “Woe to you, blind guides. . . . You blind fools!” (Matt. 23:16–17). The preacher should embody, not mute, these tones.

The grace of God in the gospel turns everything into hope for those who believe.

If there is a danger of not hearing the tone of gospel hope, emerging from the thunder and lightening of Scripture, there is also a danger of being so fixed on what we think hope sounds like, that we mute the emotional symphony of a thousand texts.

Tonal variation is determined in part by the nature and needs of the audience.

There is a call on preachers to think of cultural impact and not just personal impact.

I have found many times that God shows up while I am preaching to create a tone that I had not felt in my preparation. And woe to us if we try to manufacture tones for emotions we do not feel.

It does imply that one can be called a “brother” on the basis of appearances but in the end prove not to be a brother because of failing to persevere in faith.

We must remember this: there is no standing still in the Christian life. Either we are advancing toward salvation, or we are drifting away to destruction. Drifting is mortal danger.

I know for myself that in order to be a true shepherd and not a hireling, in order to grieve over the straying lambs, and in order to summon with tears the wild goats, I must believe in my heart certain terrible and wonderful things.

To whom can I return evil for evil as the Great Physician carries me from the crematorium of the universe into His intensive-care room alive, alive, alive? What disease will I be able to look on with scoffing? Where is the lowest sinner over whom I could feel one millimeter of superiority? Instead I become a brokenhearted leaper for joy. Tears for all my wickedness (yes, clean, middle-class, nice-boy wickedness of pride and unbelief and indifference and ingratitude and impurity of mind and worldliness of goals). Yet leaping with joy for the free and inexhaustible mercy of God.