Who Can Preach the Gospel?

Click to expand transcript Who Can Preach the Gospel? [On-screen text graphic] Kristina Larsen: How can we tell if God is speaking to us through a pastor? Brother Bob Pellien: Thank you so much Kristina for that very insightful question. We say insightful because there might be some who have never been concerned with or even thought to wonder if their pastor, their priest, their bishop, their minister or whatever they call their preacher is actually preaching the true word of God to them. And of course on the flip side of that is the mentality, which is that well there doesn’t even need to be a preacher in order to hear the word of God.  Dear friends as we always do in this program and in every program produced by the Church Of Christ we will address these questions by reading the answers right here recorded in the Holy Bible. Kristina’s question of how can we tell if God is speaking to us through a pastor. [On-screen text graphic] Question: How can we tell if God is speaking to us through a pastor? Brother Bob: It’s actually perfectly aligned with the instruction to us from the apostles. And let’s read one of those in this recorded in 1 John chapter 4, verse 1: My dear friends, do not believe all who claim to have the Spirit, but test them to find out if the spirit they have comes from God. For many false prophets have gone out everywhere. [1 John 4:1 Good News Translation] False Preachers Brother Bob: According to what is written here, dear friends, we should not believe—were instructed not to believe just anyone who may be claiming to have the spirit or presents [themselves] as a messenger sent by God. Why? Because there are many false prophets according to the Apostle John, many false prophets who have gone out into the world. Therefore, Kristina you are on the right track or Kristina has the proper frame of mind to ask that question, how can I tell? How can we tell, dear friends, know even if the one is sent by God or not? [On-screen text graphic] Question: How can we tell if God is speaking to us through a pastor? Brother Bob: The Bible’s instruction was clear. He said test them to find out. So obviously the next question that we have to pose together is, what’s the test and how do we test those who would be presenting themselves as a preacher or a spokesperson of God, true preacher? [On-screen text graphic] Question: What’s the test? How do we test those who present themselves as a “preacher” or a “spokesperson” of God? Brother Bob: But before we delve into the Bible’s explanation of how to test the preacher to see if he’s really sent by God, let’s first understand, why is it so important to do that?  “How can they hear without a preacher?” Brother Bob: Why do we need to know that? Dear friends, because what would be the harm if one ended up listening to and following a preacher that is not sent by God? Maybe many would think that, “Well, they’re safe as long as they’re holding, as they’re reading from the Bible. That should be good enough.” But listen to the response of the Holy Scriptures, this time in the writings of Apostle Peter. Second Peter 3:16, he wrote: This is what he says in all his letters when he writes on the subject. There are some difficult things in his letters which ignorant and unstable people explain falsely, as they so with other passages of the Scriptures. So they bring on their own destruction. [2 Peter 3:16 Good News Translation] Brother Bob: So we can clearly see here, dear friends that there are people who are explaining the passages of the scriptures, but doing so falsely. And although all you know they might sound like they know what they are saying, what did the Bible call them? The Bible calls them ignorant and stated here that they are bringing on their own destruction. So consi