Who is your favorite preacher? Maybe it was the pulpit minister in the congregation where you grew up, the campus minister where you attended college, or someone whose sermons on TV are just so easy to understand. It could be the minister who baptized you, officiated your wedding, or spoke at your parent’s funeral. Maybe your favorite isn’t even a “professional” preacher but a brother you get excited to see filling in when the usual guy is away. As you think back over your life in the church, some preachers probably stand out.
Different men bring different things to the table. In the New Testament, Peter and John stood out as ordinary guys who spoke boldly (cf. Acts 4:13). Barnabas knew how to encourage (cf. Acts 11:22-24). Apollos spoke with eloquence and scriptural competence (cf. Acts 18:24-28). One brother was “famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel”, though his identity is ironically lost to history (2 Cor. 8:18). Paul apparently was a much stronger writer than speaker (cf. 2 Cor. 11:6). Despite these stylistic differences, they all had one thing in common: beautiful feet. “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’” (Rom. 10:14-15). What matters most to God isn’t the man or method: the message makes them beautiful.
If you are a human with a pulse, though, you have preferences. Paul tried hard to accommodate these: “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Cor. 9:22). Yet, some became so carried away with pursuing their preferences that they divided the church (cf. 1 Cor. 1:10-17). That never happens today, does it? We need to hear from Paul’s weighty and strong letters as much as they did: such “jealousy and strife” is “of the flesh” and “merely human” (1 Cor. 3:1-4, cf. 2 Cor. 10:10). Christ deserves better.
It is appropriate to esteem “very highly in love” those who labor among us in the Lord, and it is only natural that we gravitate toward certain people (1 Thes. 5:12-13). Yet, our focus must stay on Jesus. “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” Paul said (1 Cor. 2:2). The power is in the gospel, not the preacher: regardless of anything else, we can rejoice when Christ is proclaimed (cf. Rom. 1:16-17, Php. 1:18).
Jesus didn’t just preach the most famous sermon of all time: He practiced it every day of His life. That is what He wants for us, too. Learn to Practice What You Preach with us.