Does God Need Preachers ?

Does God Need Preachers ?

“For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me, yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!â€1 Cor.9.16.
GOD is at work to finish the unfinished work of the great commission through preaching of His word so that people may get a knowledge of what He has been done on the cross to save the world.But modern society is very unfriendly to preaching because people are drugged by mass media.

Is there a need for preaching today?.
Preach the goodnews to every creature is the great commission of Jesus Christ.There are more than three billion people outside the gospel influence. How do we reach them?what is the destiny of all who never had a chance hear the gospel once in their life? What about all who reject the Gospel? After the 2000 years of Christian missionary enterprises, why have they not heard it yet?

The uniqueness of Christ calls us to present to every person the Biblical fact that apart from Jesus there is no salvation. Dr.Martin Lloyd Jones said,â€to me the work of preaching is the highest and the greatest and most glorious calling to which anyone can ever be calledâ€.But in our days ,the preaching became professionalperformance,entertainment and showmanship.
The right to preach the gospel is not only an obligation in obedience to the Great commission of Christ,but a constitutional right of every believer to propagate his or her faith under the freedom of religion,speech,and faith. The church must recognize its obligation with in the urgency of the time.John.9.4.And preaching also an very urgent need because the manifestation of the kingdom of God on the earth is linked with the global gospelization.Matt.24.14.This divine urgency and the sense obligation must grip every Christian believer to go and preach the Gospel.Matt.28.18-20 .

We, hear at Missions Asia,giving its very priority to gospel preaching from its very beginning.Because our nation.India,the world largest democracy with over one billion people, is our missions field with only 3% christain.The religious pluralism,multiethnic-cultural society, secularism, Hindu fundamentalism and all other issues facing our nation makes our missions crucial.
The basic question facing the church today is this:â€how shall they hear ? How shall they believe? How shall they preach, without going and sending “Rom.10.8.17.The mission history of church is not adequate to lead our world in the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in our time.We must not satisfied with past history of Christianity, but must move forward with a vision of a greater harvest of humanity to advance the kingdom of God globally .We must enlarge our borders, increase our faith, and increase our sacrifice to fulfill the great commission in our time.Is.54.2,Heb.12.1-2.
However,we know that gospel preaching is to bring people to an encounter with GOD and to bring people to reconciliation with GOD and men.Let us stand together to reach the gospel.In this endeavors, we warmly invited to you to join hand with us to GO or SEND TO PREACH THE GOSPEL..

Rev.JACOB.C.CHACKO
MISSIONS ASIA,.
 
Agreed. We are to continue preaching and spreading the Gospel to all nations through media, meetings and personal evangelism. God will surely bless you and your ministry for this.

Welcome to CFS, Rev. Jacob. :) Hope you have a good time.
God bless.
 
Modern society is very unfriendly to preaching not because they are "drugged by the mass media," but because the preaching done today is not the kind God demonstrates in Scripture.

Modern preachers:

1.) Substitute talk for action, speaking of God's Power, yet not being able to demonstrate it as much as they talk about it.

2.) Are arrogantly patronizing, condescending, and presumptuous, acting and speaking as if the "authority" they have in the knowledge of the Gospel makes them personally superior.

3.) Put out a sales pitch monologue when they "preach," never having the courtesy to field questions or accept quality input which they are not aware of.

4.) Think they must verbally describe what God "may" do, what He "can" do, and what He prophetically will do, as if any actions of God must be "preached" about before it can happen. Sheer preacher arrogance.

5.) Constantly ask for money, with all kinds of pressure on people to give. "Faith gifts," "Free will offerings," "Love offerings," "Financial partnership," "Prayerful support," "Participation in God's econmoy," and "Seed faith giving" all are used in the ears of gullible people to couch their unsatiated requirements for dollars.

If Jesus can truly fund His authentic Church outreaches, these should not be needed. The unsaved see right through it all.

6.) Are "professionally" smooth, well rehearsed, schooled, humanly certified, self justified, and well insulated from common life. All this puts them far out of the common culture of those whom they are "ministering" to.

7.) Make up and promote ideologies not found in Scripture, and speak to cause people to feel obligated to agree with them. They use "preacherese" to talk from behind a pulpit.

8.) Play upon the insecurities, fears, ignorance, gullibility, weak self images, and failures of people, calling their preaching a "ministry to the needs of people."

Naturally, "Professional Church Talkers" will heavily promote their own category of activities, even saying other believers must do it.

JoWilli.
 
*sigh* Why do you seem to hate the church so much? I've heard nothing from you but criticism for the church. Your arguments remind me of Shirley Phelps-Rope and the Westboro Baptist Church. I hear no message of hope or salvation, only discouragement and condemnation.

Of course there is corruption in the church, and the false teachers will be held accountable. But does that mean that we should burn the church to the ground and start over? I'm not interested in gereralizations like this because you can't fight generalizations. You can't change them. You can only correct them on an individual level. If a preacher is wrong, and is giving false teachings, then that preacher needs to be addressed. A general announcement to everyone about the corruption in the church only re-enforces our enemies and weakens our efforts to bring lost souls to Christ.

Let it go. He's just here looking for strife.

M Paul
 
In ignoring it, we are making a statement that we agree with it. Perhaps everyone else here does. But I do not. His words in this post and others have been contrary to my studies of the Bible. If he is correct in this and other statements, then not only am I NOT a Christian, but have been so cleverly and completely decieved that there is simply no hope for me or anyone else to ever find salvation. And if I am so fully deceived, then I have absolutely no means to ever find out the truth because I refuse to mock the work that Christ has done in my heart. I have to believe that I am not decieved and that it is the Holy Spirit that guides my walk and allow my convictions to guide me.
 
JoWilli, rather than us continously criticizing the Church and the modern ministry, we should take a more constructive approach of sharing the Gospel in the 'right' way and showing other Christians how such an approach can be more effective.

If I were to find fault with christian forums and criticise them, I am sure that the response would be negetive or members would just ignore me. But if I were to adopt a more constructive approach and build a christian forum that is perfect in my opinion, I would receive appreciation for my efforts and my message can be clearly heard.

Why use marketing techiques to preaching the gospel?

Paul reveals his way of sharing the gospel:
1 Corinthians 9:19-22
19 Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.
20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.
21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law.
22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.

As a business student, I would see this as a marketing strategy that Paul used to convey his message effectively during his time. Likewise, I beleive that we could adopt a modern day strategy to share the Gospel especially through media such as the television, radio, written articles and the internet. Some of these marketing techniques (as I would call it) would not seem right to a conventional believer. Ofcourse, I agree that everything should be in accordance to the Scripture.

Our efforts coupled with the power and grace of God can work miracles!
 
JoWilli, rather than us continously criticizing the Church and the modern ministry, we should take a more constructive approach of sharing the Gospel in the 'right' way and showing other Christians how such an approach can be more effective.

If I were to find fault with christian forums and criticise them, I am sure that the response would be negetive or members would just ignore me. But if I were to adopt a more constructive approach and build a christian forum that is perfect in my opinion, I would receive appreciation for my efforts and my message can be clearly heard.

Why use marketing techiques to preaching the gospel?

Paul reveals his way of sharing the gospel:
1 Corinthians 9:19-22
19 Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.
20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.
21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law.
22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.

As a business student, I would see this as a marketing strategy that Paul used to convey his message effectively during his time. Likewise, I beleive that we could adopt a modern day strategy to share the Gospel especially through media such as the television, radio, written articles and the internet. Some of these marketing techniques (as I would call it) would not seem right to a conventional believer. Ofcourse, I agree that everything should be in accordance to the Scripture.

Our efforts coupled with the power and grace of God can work miracles!

Do you respond this way to all negative comments posted in here?

JoWilli.
 
No JoWilli, I believe in encouraging rather than arguing. My point is that you could be more positive or courteous in your attitude. May be it would be a better learning experience if you could point out mistakes in others while maintaining a friendlier behaviour. This is just my opinion and since I've not been in a ministry, I cannot back this up with any experience (meaning I could be totally wrong). :blush02:
 
I generally approve of both methods of discussion, because it IS truely easy to get stuck in a rut and sometimes you need someone to come along and not sugar-coat the truth for you to understand. But, to base what seems an entire philosophy and ministry on negativity and hatred for the church simply makes me question motivation.

I'm no longer interested in arguing with him. It's pointless. It causes nothing but strife, and it is definitely not of God. Simply put, I just want to make it know that I do not agree with his methods or purpose based on what he has demonstrated here. I do not want those new to Christianity or those considering a walk with Christ to think that he speaks for all of us.

At first, I enjoyed the discussion, because he called to task things that I believe NEED to be questioned. We need to question our leaders. We need to question our teachers, and those we place in positions of trust. We need to avoid following ANY teaching or doctrine blindly. But to take it so much farther, to institutionalize hatred for preachers, for women, for music, for the church breeds strife and serves no greater purpose.
 
Just changing the direction a bit: It is the responsibility of every Christian to listen to The Word, as taught by the Ministers of God's Word, but it is also the responsibility of every Christian to "check up" on what is being taught to them. Blindly listening to sermon after semon without understanding is cheating yourself out of the Truth. Use the text resources that God has allowed His workers to supply to us and verify in your own mind and in your own studies that what you are being taught is scriptural from God's Original Word and not a tradition or fabrication of man. This all goes back to our other discussion here regarding false teachers and those who deliberately change God's Word to manipulate the masses. Independent thinkers will use a King James Version Bible and a Strong's Concordance to resolve any issues and questions about translations verses the Original Word usage. Preachers are only as good as their own in-depth studies allows them to be. Those preachers who are the victims of decades of false teachings themselves and who continue in those teachings to others, are deceiving their flock. Some of the largest denominations are guilty of this policy and those preachers who teach from within those denominations are mandated by administrative decree to not vary from the doctrines set forth by the administrators. The congregations are also in some cases not allowed to read the Bible themselves and are not taught the Bible chapter by chapter and verse by verse. The control that the large denominations have over their congregations, in some cases, is akin to brainwashing. Any preacher worth his or her salt will welcome the flock to check out what they are teaching.
 
I couldn't agree more. I've become friends with our Strong's. Its not always easy, but well worth it. And, I prefer that my brain-washing come directly from God. (Romans 12:2)
 
Back
Top