God has confronted me with Romans 12:7 on the spiritual gift of teaching. Specifically, if a person is gifted (as well as called and trained) to teach and preach, let him preach. The Apostle Paul also says if a person is gifted to serve, let him serve, and so forth with other gifts. By implication, it means if someone is not endowed with the grace to preach, then let him exercise his appropriate spiritual gifting accordingly and stop preaching.
Every aspiring preacher I know has struggled. Aspiring preachers become discouraged, rejected, or ruined by pride. Most people preach poorly in their first few (hundred!) sermons. But eventually, with training, encouragement, and prayer, they become competent. So my role as an equipper has been to encourage, train, and pray for newer preachers (including myself).
But now I have entered into a new season of life and ministry. I realize that part of my equipper role includes telling someone who wants to preach that I do not think they are gifted to preach. I don’t know why I have never thought of that implication before. Maybe I just wanted to encourage people in a difficult ministry. Maybe I realize that if no one encouraged me in my preaching, I would probably not be preaching today. Maybe I accepted the fact that while many people are gifted to preach, only a few will be considered “good” by listeners. But I think that last reason is flawed. Perhaps the reason why many preachers struggle to keep the attention of their hearers is because they are not gifted nor called to preach. Maybe there so few “good” preachers because most of the “not good” ones should not be preaching! If after training, opportunity, and encouragement a man does not become competent in preaching, he should consider exploring other gifts and ministries. But if I encourage such a person to continue to preach, I do a disservice to both the person and his hearers.
Martin Luther’s comments on this passage struck me, perhaps because they are out of another time and culture. Luther is not concerned with contemporary politeness or convention. Luther is frank and reasonable. He sounds harsh at times, but says the hard truth that some people just should not preach. Luther is concerned for the preaching of God’s Word in the Church. God has used his counsel to convict me.
“Against this there offend first of all those ambitious persons, who, because they despise their own office, desire to teach, though they lack not only the (necessary) indoctrination, a thing that might yet be borne, but also the gift of teaching. For it is not sufficient for men to be learned and intelligent, but they must also have God’s gracious gift (of teaching) to make them truly called by God for teaching… Therefore they should be satisfied with their office who do not know how to preach, or who are not even called, even if they should have the ability.
“It is strange how much (harm) the good intention does which makes persons believe that by preaching they produce ever so much more fruit, even if they are without the necessary special training, without the call, and without the gracious gift. When God calls (persons to preach), He calls either those who have this gift, or with the call He grants the gift. Without such grace men either beat the air (1 Cor. 9:26), or the fruit of which they boast exists only in their foolish imagination. I will not mention the stupid and altogether incompetent persons who here and there are put into the pulpit by bishops and abbots…
“Many have the gift of teaching though they do not possess great learning. Others have both, and these are the best teachers… Whoever does not use such gifts, but concerns himself with other matters, sins against that which the Apostle, indeed, which God commands.”
Luther than summarizes the importance and implications of knowing if one is called and gifted to preach or not to preach. “The Apostle here speaks above all of those who are (divinely) called. In the same way he, in all his letters, always emphasizes his call, because without the divine call neither the office nor the preaching can prospel. Thus it happens through the working of Satan that as some (who are not called) presume to preach, conversely teachers flee from teaching so that the Word of God is hindered in both ways. (Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans, translated by J. Theodore Mueller, Kregel Publishing, 1976, pp.170-1)
In the coming days I suspect I will have some difficult conversations. But in the days after, hopefully those persons will joyfully begin to employ their greater gifts for the greater benefit of God’s people.