To preach God’s Word is one of the best privileges a Christian can get from Him. In a world where lots of empty philosophies and fool messages scream their speech all over, being amongst the few who still preserve and propagates God’s sayings is such a great honor that any preacher can hardly find the words to thank his Lord for untrusting himself with such a sublime task.

However, even having such a noble function, many preachers are disloyal. The disloyal preacher is the one who alters the message and starts proclaiming his own ideas or the ideas of men who never committed themselves to the Lord. They are the propagators of vain philosophies, false beliefs, and creations born of their own imagination. Some of them pass by as intellectuals, announcing concepts proposed by great philosophers of this world. Others pass by as great super-prophets, proclaiming lies they say have been given by the Lord Himself.

Regardless the size of their audience, all of these men are failed preachers, for instead of faithfully accomplishing the spokesman task, they consider themselves the speaker itself, conveying what they think, what they prefer, what they make up.

All of that leads to the conclusion that, not to be a failure, one must simply proclaim exactly the oracles of God. In fact, the good preacher is the one who draws his message from the Bible text instead of other sources. He tries to find out what the authors of Scriptures really wanted to day, reading reviews, studying the passage in its original language and hearing other heralds of God who exposed those same texts on different occasions. I dare say this work ensures 80% of a preacher’s success, which is not measured by the applause of men, but by God’s approval.

What about the other 20%? What else do preachers need in order to have full success? I believe preachers must not only preach the truth in order to be successful. They must also preach it wholeheartedly, such as the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles. They have to pray “full of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 4:8) in a way that their message goes through the educated mind then through the heart ignited by the Spirit and, finally, through bold lips that make truth go out hard, dragging listeners into a flood of joy, knowledge, hope, repentance, love, emotion, but also fear, hatred, anger and rejection.

If such is true, what a poor success have we got. How many failures I have had myself! Lord, what a shame! Forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness!

Pray for the heralds of God. Pray that they are filled with all divine entirety. Pray they are not only transmitters of deep exegetical conclusions, but also keepers of living words, inflamed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Pray for their success – not in the terms the world sees it, but the success of a loyal ambassador who delivers the King’s sayings with strength, love and enthusiasm.

Pr. Marcos Granconato

Strength and faith

Soli Deo gloria