Today I ended up working 12 hours in concrete, but it's Monday. The preacher in me can't rest on a Monday when I don't have a good head start on Sunday's sermon. This evening as I started to think about Sunday's message, I began to think through the topic I plan to talk on, and I thought about the needs of the folks I preach to...
And then it kind of hit me. How arrogant it must seem, to have someone tell you how to live, how to serve God, to tell you what the Bible says about X,Y,Z. The very act of preaching assumes that people need some sort of course correction on their journey through life towards eternity, and we who stand in the gap have the answers.
Thankfully, in my over 20 years of preaching, I've realized I don't have all the answers. Thankfully, I don't feel like the Bible Answer Man, and I don't feel like an expert. And thankfully, I see preaching as a calling, a role that God established not to build up the preacher, but to build up His people.
While I've had seasons of life where I was an arrogant preacher (a much younger time in life...), I don't see the role of preaching as arrogance. Instead, the danger of arrogance and the task of sharing God's Word has become humbling, even intimidating for me.
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