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Fried Preacher
Early Personal Considerations
When I was a child, growing up in an independent Baptist church, I thought God dropped pastors down from heaven, at least something like that. Even when I was in high school and college, I regarded these men with reverence. God was infinitely higher and greater to me, of course, but they topped everyone else. As I became a pastor myself, despite still highly regarding the office, I held lower estimation of the men in the office.
For one, when I became a pastor, I knew for sure pastors weren’t dropped from heaven. I knew I wasn’t. Then spending more time with several other pastors in closer relations, I had to reevaluate my lofty estimation. I don’t write this to engender any disrespect for the man or his office. I still love pastors and have a better understanding how difficult the job. Many pastors are friends.
Pastor As Sunday Afternoon Meal
The idea of fried preacher relates to a Sunday afternoon meal. In the spirit of fried chicken, a church family after church instead serves up a delectable main entre of “fried preacher.” I read someone explain: “My mother would always say we were having fried preacher for dinner.”
If you grew up in church, maybe you fried your preacher sometimes for Sunday afternoon dinner. My parents never did. I never heard one foul word about a preacher in my home from my parents. It amazes me, because my parents had negative things to say about people. Their preacher was never one of them. It happens though.
The Apostle Paul himself became fried preacher by the Athenians in Acts 17:18:
Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.
They called Paul a “babbler.” This portends a great pastime of criticizing a preacher and his preaching. I don’t think Paul was bad. Maybe no better preacher ever existed.
Pastors Say and Do Wrong Things
Prove All Things Preached
People might say true things about a preacher and his preaching. They are sometimes right about him. He did things and said things wrong. Preachers also sin.
When someone hears preaching, he should consider whether it is true. To do that, he judges it. Paul commands this practice in 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22:
21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. 22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.
What To Do with Error
When someone tests or proves the preaching and finds something bad, what does he do next? Does he criticize the preaching to others, maybe at home at Sunday dinner? No. Scripture reveals a certain way to deal with the error of someone else. The goal is restoration or reconciliation (Galatians 6:1). You help someone get it right, when he’s wrong. That’s God’s will.
If bad preaching becomes the pattern, this necessitates a stronger reaction. The deficient preaching should be obvious. Very bad preaching occurs all over today. Probably more bad preaching exists than good. When I say good, I’m talking about when in general the preaching is good with a small minority of duds or awful preaching mixed in.
Dealing with Bad Behavior
Every preacher will also behave badly. Hopefully that’s not normal for him. 1 Corinthians 13:7 says love “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things.” You hope the best. The goal isn’t to let a preacher get away with doing something wrong, but it is to believe the best about him. That approach doesn’t tend toward frying the preacher. Fried preacher doesn’t sound like love, does it?
It is hard to talk to certain pastors. Like many other men, they don’t take it very well. They could go further than that and say it’s mutiny, worthy of church discipline, heresy, or dishonor. Some might try to destroy the critic, like Diotrephes, cast him out of the church, even without any due process.
Preachers Frying Preachers
Conference Cuisine
Preachers are also notorious for fried preacher. No one can fry a preacher like another preacher. Maybe the experience of frying prepares him to fry so well. Preachers conferences can provide a kind of industrial sized instrument of frying.
I know another preacher who in recent days attended a preaching conference. When he returned, he reported to another preacher friend of mine that the conference was a major and constant frying session of a non-attending man. It was long, high temperature frying of this third party. They disintegrated him — “for the Lord.”‘ This kind of gang-style muckraking, one could even call, ganging up on someone. Fifteen to twenty on one pouncing on him in a dark alley.
In Absentia
The crispified pastor wasn’t there to enjoy the benefits of this “helpful” criticism. It was all out of his presence. His critic preachers sat at meals doing so, identifying him by name. It was all very fun and entertaining. Sinful, but at the same time, in public they gave the impression they were in special alignment with God.
The conference attendees didn’t say anything to the preacher. I know the preacher they fried. He had no opportunity for self-defense. He wasn’t there. Fried preacher only occurs with the preacher gone. Every preacher knows that.
The Prayer Request
In the fried preacher recipe book, the best chefs call fried preacher a prayer request. Pray for preacher so and so, because he’s blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. “Help me with my prayers. What else can you say about him?” Nothing to see here, they’re just praying for the guy. Nothing to smell like fried foods. You can smell that aroma from three blocks away.
Getting Caught
Fried preacher is a whole lot of fun in a conference setting. The closer proximity brings a bonding among the participants, what some call a benefit. If you can’t find doctrinal or practical unity, you could find a common enemy to bring everyone together. It take just one person to report in order to cool the fry temperature. Everything just turns soggy then. Maybe you try to find out who reported to make the subject of your next gathering.
Accuser of the Brethren
One might wonder if anyone needed to say anything negative about someone who wasn’t present. Scripture says a lot about the habit of this. Everyone does it at some point. Sometimes, people need to talk about a problem with another person. When it spreads to an all-out gossip convention, this requires a commercial kitchen for such a fry fest. This cannot, is not right. Ever. It requires at least a food service license in most states.
Revelation 12:10 says:
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven,, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
Who is the “accuser of our brethren”? God doesn’t need any “help” from the accuser. This is Satan obviously. Satan is the master chef of fried preachers. To mix my metaphors, nothing is gained by backing up the dumpster and practicing demo-day on an absent fellow brother, stripping him down to the studs.
What Is Fried Preacher?
What is “fried preacher”? About one hundred percent of this cuisine is personal aggrandizement. It accomplishes lowering of the one fried and the supposed elevation of the fry chef. Psalm 52:4 says, “Thou lovest all devouring words.” Words are the oil in which a fried preacher fries.
The nature of the flesh, it loves hearing the scoop about someone when he isn’t there. The flesh of someone loves gossip, except when it’s about him. Then it’s something insidious or evil.
Is it ever wrong to say anything critical or negative about a preacher? People must say the truth at times in a certain setting and in a particular way. It usually starts with trying to help the man with whatever they think worthy of frying him. Warning of the danger of a man or his teaching could come if a man is dangerous. He should have heard about the kind of danger he is, first, at least from someone.
Men can expose false teaching in a public presentation. They review the material and point out the error. So then it becomes two people with public positions, who both interacted in public. Both are now open for review, which includes criticism. No one is anonymous. This isn’t fried preacher.
For talk to be gossip, it must be without the target of the gossip present. If he’s there, then it isn’t gossip. That would be something akin to admonishment or exhortation. Also, saying nice things about someone isn’t gossip. Only disparaging comments about a missing person fit into the definition, even if they’re true. That’s Fried Preacher.
Paul Stands Against Peter and the Subject of Authority (Part Three)
Authority of Scripture
To obey God and His Word, one must first believe in His authority and the authority of His Word. I believe in God’s authority and the authority of His Word. True New Testament churches submit to the Bible as their final authority. God and His Word also function through a hierarchy of authority. He uses men. In the first century, God spoke and ruled through apostolic authority. Peter and Paul were uniquely God’s instruments.
The Pharisees and Sadducees opposed the authority of Jesus. Jesus also attacked their faux authority. The Pharisaical view of circumcision and eating with Gentiles arose from their traditions, not from God’s Word. Jesus said, They “teach for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:7). Their teaching was devoid of God’s authority.
In spite of their insubordination to scripture, Jesus did not debunk the office of the Pharisees, just the opposite in Matthew 23:2: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.” According to Jesus, the Pharisees still sat in Moses’ seat. They held the office. They lost authority, however, by not obeying the Word of God, including that written by Moses.
In Galatians, the gang of false teachers, who traveled to Antioch from Jerusalem and said they associated with James, borrowed from the Pharisee’s tradition. These men mixed certain rituals and traditions with a true gospel to concoct their false one. The Apostle Paul writes against them in Galatians 2. They had no authority, either scriptural or ecclesiological, to overturn the doctrine and practice of the Jerusalem and Antioch churches. They looked out for themselves, not for God’s will or pleasure.
Pastoral Authority
God gives pastoral authority. Pastors need it for fulfilling the important God-ordained task of overseeing a church. God instructs members to obey pastors, assuming in scriptural and even non-scriptural matters. Pastors shouldn’t expect obedience to something unscriptural. Someone in a church may view a practice of the church to be unscriptural.
Our church did fundraising for our school. A church member challenged a method we used. He thought it was unscriptural. Our principal didn’t think so. I wasn’t sure. We dropped the method and lost money. It was the right thing to do.
When a pastor says, “I want everyone there at 9am,” that is a non-scriptural matter, but he has authority in it. 9am then means 9am. A member should take that seriously. If he wants everyone there at 9am, everyone should put their selves under that authority, the idea of “submit.” This unifies a body, all the body parts working together. Defying the authority as a pattern fits the definition of factious, even for not showing up on time.
Some of what I’m addressing relates to a pastor dealing with a pattern of disobedience. He wants to help someone. To do so, he comforts, exhorts, instructs, intreats, warns, and admonishes, the approach depending on the person and his response.
To deal with a matter well, a pastor must listen. He must hear a matter before he answers it (Proverbs 18:13). And even then, he wants to edify, correct, strengthen, and restore. Jesus said, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth,” praying to God the Father. The goal is to rely on God’s Word.
Forum for Challenge
Proving Everything
Depending on the Word of God does not mean depending on an opinion about the Word of God. “A pastor thinks this, so it is true.” It might be. I hope it is. However, scripture also says (1 Thess 5:21-22):
21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. 22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.
Paul also wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:31-32:
31 For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted. 32 And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.
The spirits of the prophets were subject to the prophets. A forum for challenge exists in a church. The Bible is the final authority.
Helping People Change
Room to Grow
Certain times I led toward a change of position in our church. Just because I took a new position, I knew that didn’t mean that everyone would believe it. It might take time for everyone to come along. Unity also matters in those occasions. Our church had taken a different position for awhile. I wanted everyone to change, but I didn’t require everyone to change. The bottom line during those times was not causing “divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine” (Romans 16:17).
Opinions and what Paul calls doubtful disputations (Rom 14:1) necessitate sorting. Not everyone applies scripture exactly the same. Sanctification occurs and tweaks viewpoints. Every disagreement is not a threat to or defiance of authority. It’s not rebellion. When it takes even pastors years to change on something, they can’t turn around and expect someone else to change in days or hours.
Harmful Approaches
Through many years, I have listened to numbers of various positions of pastors. We almost never agree on everything. Nevertheless, pastors will talk with great confidence and authority when they state their positions. Pastors might treat an issue like they’re Teddy Roosevelt after just climbing San Juan Hill. They’re raising the flag at the top of Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima. Bluster and bravado or a stern countenance don’t equate with authority.
I may hear a man mock my position in his preaching, sometimes setting up straw man arguments. I might smile at the audaciousness of it, but mockery is not especially convincing. Calling people a liar definitely doesn’t persuade. Neither does characterizing the difference in an extreme or insulting manner.
Sometimes someone says God gave him peace. He may add, “I prayed about it.” Or, “I fasted over it.” If you disagree, somehow you oppose answers to prayer and the practice of fasting. A man expresses a feeling of peace. Scripture nowhere uses a feeling as a harbinger of truth.
Pastors can find many various means to provoke change. Someone might notice a modulation in the tone of voice. Cheeriness is missing. It isn’t friendly now. The eyelids are half mast. A pastor can send a message in the spirit of mean girl syndrome. Someone in is now out. If a person was a fish, he can’t swim in the small pond anymore. He’s relegated to the smaller adjacent puddle until he apprehends the message sent.
Longsuffering and Patience
“God is longsuffering toward usward” (2 Peter 3:9). “Charity suffereth long” (1 Corinthians 13:4). I think of the fellowservant in Jesus’ story in Matthew 18:29, who cried, “Have patience with me!” I don’t see a biblical pattern of cutting off people with a different position, cancelling them with little to no due process.
A kind of political cancellation and making phone calls, applying social and economic pressure, is not the method of pastoral authority. People will have difficulty seeing Jesus in an environment of possible expectation of punishment. Scriptural conviction can motivate loving service that will please the Lord.
God gives and uses authority. Romans 13:1 says, “For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” At the same time, “My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation” (James 3:1). Especially church leaders should know that the final judgment of Jesus Christ, that’s what matters. “Ye masters,” forbear “threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven” (Eph 6:9).
Everyone of us will give an account to God (Romans 14:10). And God says, “destroy not him for whom Christ died” (Romans 14:15). Christ didn’t give authority to take His place as Lord or destroy the people He died for.
More to Come
35th Anniversary of the Church I Planted in California, pt. 2
Every true church starts by the grace of God and under the headship of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul wrote and I echo his belief in 1 Corinthians 15:10:
But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
He described in part his planting of the church at Corinth, a New Testament church under the authority of Jesus Christ.
My first church was a Baptist church, First Baptist Church of Covington, Indiana. As a 12 year old, I joined Maranatha Baptist Church in Covington. Later that year, I gave a public testimony of salvation to become a member of Calvary Baptist Church in Watertown, Wisconsin. For three months after my last year of graduate school, I became a part of Lehigh Valley Baptist Church in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. I came back to Calvary in Watertown for two years before joining Emmanuel Baptist Church in Elkhorn, WI.
One of my college professors, the late Richard Weeks, allegedly had the largest personal Baptist history library in the world. He accumulated a huge collection of old, out-of-print Baptist books available for his students to read. The bookstore sold Baptist books, required for outside reading. My college reprinted the two volume A History of Baptists by Thomas Armitage. The textbook for Baptist History was John T. Christian‘s, A History of Baptists. We read books by Roy Mason, S. E. Anderson, Chester Tulga, J. M. Carroll, and B. H. Carroll.
I was and am a Baptist. I believe that there have been true churches in perpetuity since the first church in Jerusalem, known by different names. They began calling those churches, Baptist churches. Certain distinctives characterize those churches, the first of which is the Bible is their sole authority for faith and practice. They are also separatist, separated personally and ecclesiastically. True Baptist churches are the Lord’s churches.
Three different summers I traveled to 70-80 churches out West. I witnessed firsthand the dearth of true, biblical churches in the San Francisco Bay Area. Both the teaching of Romans 15:20 and the obvious need to preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15) worked on me toward the idea of starting a church in the San Francisco Bay Area, Romans 15:20 reading:
Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man’s foundation.
It was not my desire to go somewhere where I believed the gospel was already being preached. With 40 million people in California and 7.75 million people in the San Francisco Bay Area, in my lifetime I would not run out of the opportunity to preach to people who had not heard, no matter how hard I worked. The Bay Area is also a transient society with a huge turnover. Every 5-10 years, new people or families occupy the same apartments or houses. Even if most didn’t listen or were hostile to the gospel, some would.
From my own observation, professing Christians were not bumping into each other and scrambling all over the Bay Area, like ants on an anthill, to preach the gospel to those who haven’t heard. I didn’t know how they would react, but I was optimistic. I theorized that the Bay Area was so bad, as bad as people think or worse, because not much preaching occurred there. Before fire fell like Sodom and Gomorrah, someone should make a greater attempt at preaching to it.
As I went to college in the early eighties, I heard very little exposition of scripture, except on the radio. I became convinced of exposition as superior or even God’s will for preaching and dedicated myself to its practice. Exposition became my belief for or philosophy of preaching. It was not until graduate school that I planned in the sense of preparing to preach exposition. Zooming forward to right now, I preached or taught through every word of the Bible over the thirty three years. Nothing had a greater impact toward success than the Word of God in its context.
I had decided that I would start the church with raising only limited support. I determined not to spend any extra time doing so. Instead, I would receive some money from churches and work a job. I had not heard the term, bivocational, but I did know the word, tentmaking. Rather than spend months waiting, I wanted to get going right away.
In May 1987, I knew the San Francisco Bay Area, but I wasn’t sure the exact location where I would begin. I drove out to California in a Dodge Omni my parents gave me, stopping in churches on the way. Once I arrived, I started scouting. I did that for one week. There was no internet. I couldn’t go online to find out about cities, towns, and other churches. Using paper maps, I went from one town to another, stopping at a phone booth to look for what churches were there in the yellow pages of phone books and took notes at each stop. I called churches at pay phones and talked to their leaders. I had a goal of finding towns with no Baptist church at all.
To Be Continued
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