“My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.” (James 3:1)
Standing behind the pulpit can be quite a lucrative career for the one who can manipulate the emotions of those who sit in the pews, the intellect needs rarely to be touched, the reality of Christ never truly needs to be expounded on in a personal way towards the poor lost sinner. Make them feel any emotion, love, anger, pride in the form of being a set apart unit, a group righteous unto themselves.
Most who have a piece of paper or two hanging framed on the wall of their church office went to pastor school, most commonly called a Seminary, filled with notions of bringing many to Christ, filled with an emotional desire to feed the flock of God. I question the motives of anyone who moves forward in their life, especially their, in some cases, supposed walk with Christ, when the main driving force of that desire is based contextually in emotions. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9)
How many pastors sit in their offices concerned with how they are going to pay off that large school loan debt they have incurred because they thought they were being called to the ministry. If indeed they were called, would not Proverbs 22:7 rise into their thoughts continually before they signed that paper. “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” It is beyond comprehension to me to believe that the Lord would command a young man to go and learn how to serve well in regard to the pastorate by telling him that the first thing he must do is go deeply into financial debt.
Men of God who are truly called by God wait on God to provide that which they need to serve God as He would have them to.
Not all, but many who follow the prescribed path, the way of the world to stand behind that pulpit envision large crowds raptly listening to every word they say, attending to the truths that they believe the Lord has given them, they serve not those who sit in the pews, though they believe they do, but instead serve that which they believe they are to be, an expounder of the Scriptures. It is subtle, these slight of hand deceptions, and the more people in those pews, the greater that deception is emboldened in their minds.
They have been trained not only in how to present the Word, and that training itself can indeed be brought into question in many cases, but also taught how to elicit a response from the crowd, the emotional context necessary to stir up the hearts of men. Logical deductive reasoning skills in interpreting the Word of God properly by the Holy Spirit is not Seminary class 101, so to speak.
These young emotionally charged men are taught the proper words to say at a funeral, a wedding, at a baptism, they are instructed in church finance, in building and code regulations, in how to apply and receive the proper paperwork from local governmental agencies for tax exemption, even the proper intonation and language of how to sway the hearts of men. But they cannot be taught to love the Lord Jesus Christ, they cannot be taught to submit to the will of God in every aspect of their lives, they cannot be taught how to be crucified with Christ.
They can be shown the places in the Scriptures where these truths can be found, but only the Holy Spirit can build a fire in a man for the glory of God that cannot be quenched. Few there are that stand behind the pulpits today that have truly been called by the Almighty to feed His flock, but nearly every one of them believes they have been, that framed certificate on their wall is sadly for most of them all the proof they need.
