I was recently listening to a Christian podcast about churches and the role of pastors. In the middle of the podcast, the host commented,
“The most important thing you can have is somebody feeding the word of God to you.”
I paused the podcast. I had to ask, Is that true? Think about it. We can all agree it sounds good and Bible-focused, but is it the case that “the most important thing a church can have is somebody feeding the word of God to you”? Is the “most important thing” a pastor can do is feed the word of God to his church?
Consider the various needs in a church. The church needs prayer, from its pastors and from one another. The church needs encouragement, because life is hard. The church needs wise counsel, in pastoral meetings and in friendship with one another. The church needs fellowship, a we’re-in-this-together partnership. And more.
Furthermore, consider the various ways God calls pastors to lead their churches. Pastors are called to lead the church to worship God. Pastors are called to lead God’s people to obedience. Pastors are called to lead the church to reach their community. Pastors are called to lead the church to evangelize. Pastors are called to lead the church in Christ’s global mission. And in all of this, there are important event and programs, plus ample organizing, administrating, vision-casting, and planning—or else none of it will happen.
In light of this all, it’s one thing to say that ministry of the word is up there as one of the most important aspects of the church. But should we put it in a category of it’s own, as the most important? Can we say that “the most important thing a congregation can have is somebody feeling the word of God to them”? Can we say that this teaching of the word of God is the pastor’s primary calling and role?
The answer to the question truly is a resounding Yes. Yes, the greatest need of the church is to have a pastor feeding them the word of God; the greatest calling of a pastor is to feed the word. In fact, logically and biblically, as we’ll see, this must be the answer.
Logically, the Word Must Be Primary
First, logic leads us to agree this is true.
Such a fact begins with recognizing the amazing truth that the Bible actually is the word of God. Let that sink it. This is not a mere phrase; it’s reality. It was Jesus himself who taught that the Bible is “God’s word” (Mark 7:13). He taught that it comes “from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). And, amazingly, he said that when you “read” the Bible you hear words that are “said to you by God” (Matthew 22:31).
What does this imply? That when we read and understand the Bible, we don’t just understand “truth,” we hear from God himself. The Jews believed this, the apostles believed this, the church has always believed this, and as just shown, Jesus himself believed this: The written Book is where we hear God’s very speech.
This is a world-changing fact. We humans can hear from our Creator when we read a certain Book. And this radically impacts how we do church, and how pastors lead their churches.
Ask yourself: What can a church need more than to hear from God? And I mean really hear from him. Not just some weak taking of texts and entertainingly applying them to the current context. We’re talking about really understanding God in the Bible, with all the Bible’s genres, complexities, seeming paradoxes, hard sentences and paragraphs and truths which might hard for us to hear. When a pastor lets his flock hear those Divine ideas in the pulpit and in Bible studies and in writings and in conversations, they are hearing from God.
What can a church need more? Nothing.
And the answer must be Nothing. We might wish to say we need God’s presence more, but he is present by his word. We might wish to say we need his grace more, but we receive his grace through his word. We might wish to say we need to feel loved more, or have more trust, or believe in him more, but we only get all of those things by his Spirit as we hear from him, our loving God, in his inspired word.
We could also say we need to evangelize, or do more outreach, or do more events, or have more obedience, or grow in numbers more, or pray more—and these would all be good ideas. But when these are done well and properly they are all results, not direct aims in themselves. They are all fruit—consequences of a radically transformed church, of lives that have been changed from the inside out. And how does this change happen? By beholding God’s glory through hearing from him in the written word. Or to say it more simply, this transformation happen by his Spirit as we have a genuine relationship with God—a relationship which must mainly include listening to him, which can only happen through the Bible.
In other words, logically God’s word must be of first and primary importance for a pastor and a church. Why? Because having a relationship with God is the focus, and we hear from God in the word.
Biblically, the Word Is (and Must Be) Primary
Biblically this primary importance for the word in the church is true, too. (A whole post could be devoted how word-focused the New Testament is, but a brief analysis here will suffice.) Jesus’s emphasis on the word is staggering. The office of deacon is established so that the apostles can devote themselves to “prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). The apostles exhort the churches over and over to grow in knowledge of God (something that can only come from hearing God talk about himself in his word), which, importantly, is the root then of all their Christian fruit (Colossians 1:9-14; Philippians 1:9-11; Ephesians 3:14-19; 2 Peter 3:18; Romans 12:1-2). Finally, as for pastors, the only characteristic that distinguishes them from deacons is their ability to teach the word, and when Paul is about to die and exhorts his protege Timothy, his main charge to him was to “preach the word” (2 Timothy 4:2) and “be a gospel-speaker” (2 Timothy 4:5; usually translated “evangelist,” but we often take evangelist to mean speak the gospel to unbelievers, when it technically doesn’t have that emphasis; it is merely a verb meaning “speak the gospel”).
Also biblically, we should notice how comparatively silent the epistles are about things which we as modern churches and pastors usually place of focus. For example:
- Never once does an apostle appeal for a church to grow in size in any of their letters (isn’t that surprising?). Besides the few mentions of the church increasing in number in the first few chapters of Acts, numerical church growth never comes up again in the New Testament.
- Never once does Paul, or Peter, or John exhort the church to engage in the politics of the day.
- Never once do they appeal to the church to do events or do more in their communities.
Why? The apostolic focus for the New Testament churches is God, his gospel, having a relationship with him which includes hearing from him in the word and prayer, and obedience—which means that these are still the focus today for churches and pastors.
To be clear, the reason this is the apostolic New Testament focus is not because we shouldn’t seek to reach the lost, grow in size, do events, or even change the politics of our country for good. The reason is because, once again, that is all fruit. The apostolic New Testament emphasis (which we must not lose) for churches and pastors is us being God’s people who hear from God in the word and then are transformed from the inside out and obey God in the world.
So, as a result of all of this, both logically and biblically the greatest thing a congregation can have is somebody feeding the word of God to them. This is a pastor’s primary, above-all calling.
Personally as a Pastor
Personally as a pastor, this is why I am beginning to have little shame in admitting that my main job and calling in life is to study deeply and explain clearly the Bible. Both logically and biblically, as shown above, this must be the main aspect of my calling and work.
But let’s be honest: Many hear that and think it sounds flimsy, that it’s not work. Even I myself feel sometimes that I have to give more specific details about what I “do.” Increasingly pastors are feeling that we should “do” more than primarily focus on teaching, or at least that we should make it clear to others that we “do” more. We’ve bought into the culture where we start to define our callings more by what we “do” (administration, event planning, emails, counseling, Bible studies, prayer meetings, planning, etc.) than by saying we primarily study and clearly explain God’s word.
This has a lot to do with the culture we’re in and because when people ask us what we “do”—either personally as pastors or what our church “does” as a whole—we like giving tangible things: we had this event; we had this many people; I had to do this administration; I called, counseled, and met with this person. But tragically, because of this, we can subtly start to think it is better to “do” these things, personally and as a church, than spend many hours studying a text and laboring how to teach it well to people. In such thinking, pragmatism sadly wins over both logic and the apostlic New Testament commands (as shown above). And in result, it can lead to subpar Bible studies, subpar sermons, and a church that is languishing, even in the midst of much “doing,” because they aren’t hearing deeply and clearly from their God, and so aren’t growing much and being gloriously transformed.
Listening, Loving, and Living: How the Church Has Always Flourished
Which leads to the final appeal I’d like to make (and honestly, I’m addressing myself here in the possible future when I could feel the pull to spend less time and energy on Bible study, teaching, and sermon preparation in my ministry): The sad irony is that such word-downplaying and “doing”-focus, for pastors and their churches, leads not only to less truly transformed individuals, but it also leads to a church as a whole doing less truly for Christ.
The Christian church has never flourished, reached the loss, and grown in obedience primarily through events, programs, or even fellowship times. There have been times of big crusades and events, but the true, lasting growth and reach has happened as God’s people have better know God, and then entered into and changed the world. This is how Christianity took over the world. Individual Christians in churches led by pastors grew in their knowledge and love for God (which always go hand in hand, see Philippians 1:9-11), through the word, and it’s radically changed their lives, their families, their workplaces, and their cultures. The church has always been God’s people listening to God, loving him, and then living as drastically changed people who live in the world and tell others about Jesus.
Of course this is important for all generations, but its especially pertinent for our pragmatic church culture today. We can forget that it’s only from this hearing-from-God-fueled transformation that the church actually does properly work such as evangelism, outreach, missions, fellowship, obedience, and worship. What I believe we’re seeing from the modern church movement—with much of its lack of true, lasting transformation—is what happens if a church or pastors downplay the rigorous study and application of the word. When this happens, the church and the pastors are skipping and downplaying hearing from God, and so we shouldn’t be surprised if we don’t grow much in depth, if the seeming fruit isn’t as lasting, if our outreach is less successful than we think, or if people are massively struggling with obedience. As God’s people, we must hear from God. Nothing logically or biblically is more important.
Feeding the church God’s word from the Bible, then, is the pastor’s calling and the greatest need in the church, no matter how many times our culture (even and especially our pragmatic church culture) tries to tell us otherwise. This is why I spend hours of my week studying the Bible, thinking about how to apply the Bible. This is why I look forward to the years in the future when my main priority and privilege will be to study what God has said and say it with depth and clarity to God’s people. And this—and this alone—is what will bring the church of God to be changed, reach the lost, and truly do more of the work of God for the glory of God in the world.
