A Short Word For Preachers

Preaching and its preparation are hard. At least they ought to be. As the years pile up and my understanding of the Word and its proper handling grows, I feel ever more keenly the powerful authority of the Bible and the humility I should have in approaching it. I'm grateful for this, because I think it must mean that the Lord is getting through to me, changing me.

In The Priority of Preaching, Christopher Ash shares:

"As a preacher friend of mine put it, we lay ourselves on the anvil and come out of our preparation and our preaching hurting, as our own sin is exposed; we ourselves are moved afresh to repentance and faith, as we feel the pain of a rebellious, dying world....Those who just relish quiet time in the study and think preparation is an enjoyable experience have missed the point; there is a kind of study and preparation that can just be self-indulgent. Year after year I grieve at how slow, how dim, how spiritually obtuse I am, and therefore how long it takes for God to get His word through my calloused skin and deep into my heart."