Don’t Worry About the Preacher!

In the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Philippian church, Paul deals with some serious issues. Among them was his response to the report that there were those preaching the gospel outside of the recognized leadership. Paul’s followers were extremely concerned about this and inquired of Paul what should be done. Paul’s response was something that we should heed to today:

¹⁵ It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry. But others preach about Christ with pure motives. ¹⁶ They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News. ¹⁷ Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me. ¹⁸ But that doesn’t matter. Whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached either way, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice.  Philippians 1:15-18 (NLT)

While Paul recognized that there were those who had personal ulterior motives for preaching Christ, Paul also realized that when someone heard the gospel that they would not see the motive, rather they would only hear the gospel. Our Father has a marvelous translation ability to take a message about Jesus and fit it to the ear of the individual hearer. So one message going out into a crowd of people will be instantly translated to the needs of each individual, for God knows what each one of us need.

I confess that I get disturbed about some of the strange interpretation of the gospel going out over the airwaves. Charlatans dressed up in robes of the cloth are daily putting forth strange doctrine in the name of Jesus. Yet, I must remember what my first pastor told me long ago, Jesus can meet the needs of a hungry hearer. If someone is genuinely seeking God and all His fullness, the Holy Spirit may even use a charlatan to get them to a point of confession, but that same Holy Spirit will lead them to all truth. Thus our hope is in Christ, not in the bearer of the message about Christ, for after all:

⁷ But we have this precious treasure [the good news about salvation] in [unworthy] earthen vessels [of human frailty], so that the grandeur and surpassing greatness of the power will be [shown to be] from God [His sufficiency] and not from ourselves. 2 Corinthians 4:7 (AMP)

Amen!

Maria