Not with Lofty Speech

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5 ESV)

During one period of time in my life, my family and I attended gatherings of a group of people of a particular church denomination which were a little more formal, in practice, than the kind of gatherings I had grown up attending. The people were all really kind to us there and our Sunday school class and teacher were great, and I was in a ladies’ Bible study that was very good, too, and I did some volunteer work in the church office. And my husband and I sang in the church choir, and we made some good friends.

There were two pastors at these gatherings, and neither one of them were very good at public speaking or at presenting the gospel truth. So we really got the meat of the word in our Sunday School class, and I did in my ladies’ Bible study. But the assistant Pastor, when he talked, put on what we called a “preacher voice” which was not his natural speaking voice. I guess it was just how he was taught to preach, but it sounded fake, for that is not how he talked in person, face to face. And it didn’t make him a better preacher.

So, that is what I think of when I read this about “lofty speech.” And I have heard many preachers over the years use voices and vocal expressions which were not their normal speaking voices, but because they were trained to talk like that if they were preaching. Or some of them will follow a particular pattern of preaching that they learned, probably in seminary. Like some preachers (of a particular denomination) begin with a joke, then they preach, and then they end with a sappy story to get you all emotional.

Then there are those who begin speaking softly, but gradually they pump up the volume until the point to where they begin yelling (I hate yelling), and they get all emotional and may even begin jumping up and down and changing how they talk by adding certain inflections in their voices. But this style also appears to coincide with a particular church denomination, so it appears that these preachers are being trained by these denominations to use what can appear as manipulative techniques to get what they want.

And I am certainly not saying that if the Holy Spirit is upon you (the real Holy Spirit) and so you are speaking in the power of the Spirit, according to the teachings of the Scriptures, that you must always maintain a calm and quiet demeanor and never raise your voice. I believe that when we talk on certain subjects that it may call for us to raise our voices some for the point of emphasis of the seriousness of the subject at hand, but it should not be a routine we follow, but it should be natural for us to speak that way.

Nothing that we do in the name of the Lord and in the name of the gospel should be “put on” or acted out as some sort of routine dramatic event. And we should be the same people when we are proclaiming the truth of the gospel as we are when we are not proclaiming the Word of God. We shouldn’t have our “religious” voice or mannerisms versus our natural voice, or a “religious” routine versus our natural routines. We should be the same people no matter where we are or who we are with or what we are doing. 

I really like what Paul said here in this passage of Scripture. For what he was describing is what I am talking about. He wasn’t fake. He wasn’t following some man-made routine taught him in some seminary. He didn’t use manipulative techniques to control his audience, either, to get them emotionally stirred up so that he could manipulate them into making some kind of decision. He was who he was no matter who he was with or what he was doing. And he spoke in the power of the Spirit, not of man.

And you may be aware that his type of character seems to be in the minority these days. For we have so many charlatans and “wolves in sheep’s clothing” among us who are following techniques for manipulating and persuading people that they learned in college or seminary or at church planting or church growth seminars. For so many are following business models for how to “grow their churches,” by altering what they do in order to “draw in large crowds of people from the world.” And that just isn’t biblical.

For the church is the body of Christ, the body of believers in Jesus Christ who have been crucified with Christ in death to sin, and who have been raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness. And we are those who have left our sins behind us to follow our Lord Jesus in obedience to his commands, and who are being made to be like Jesus in character, by the Spirit of God. And so obedience to our Lord is what we practice.

But that doesn’t make us perfect people. It just means that our faith in Jesus Christ is genuine faith and that our lives are committed to obeying our Lord in practice and to no longer living in deliberate and habitual sin against our Lord. And collectively we are the church. And we meet together any day of the week, anywhere, at any time of day, for the purpose to encourage one another in our walks of faith and obedience to our Lord and so that none of us will be led astray by the deceitfulness of sin and fall from the faith.

And then, when we have been uplifted and strengthened in our walks of faith and obedience to our Lord in holy living, we are to go out into the world to share the truth of the gospel with the people of the world. And when any of them believe in Jesus Christ via dying with him to sin and being raised with him to walk now in obedience to his commands, they become members of the body of Christ, his church. And there is only one universal church, but we just meet in different locations and at different times and days.

And our gatherings don’t have to be in buildings called “churches,” nor do they have to be of a particular “church denomination,” for all that is of man, not of God. The important thing is that we are gathering with other believers in Christ for the purpose to encourage one another and to help one another to grow to maturity in Christ in holy living and in walks of obedience to our Lord and not in sin. And if this can’t be done in person, then we can do it via phone calls, or text messaging, or via the internet, or via writing. 

But we need to be sharing with one another the truth of the gospel and the truth of what the Scriptures teach, in context, so that our faith rests in the Lord and in the truth of his word and not in the wisdom of men, and not in humanistic philosophy and altered and diluted gospel messages which are intended to appeal to human flesh and to worldly and fleshly desires. For our faith needs to rely on the Lord and on what his word teaches (IN CONTEXT) and not on the wisdom of human beings which is not in the power of God.

[Matt 7:21-23; Matt 5:13-16; Matt 28:18-20; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 4:31-38; Jn 13:13-17; Jn 14:12; Acts 1:8; Acts 2:14-18; Acts 26:18; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 10:14-15; Rom 12:1-8; Rom 15:14; 1 Co 12:1-31; 1 Co 14:1-5; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:1-32; Eph 5:11-27; Php 2:1-8; Col 3:16; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 3:13; Heb 10:23-25; 1 Pet 2:9,21; 1 Jn 2:6]   

As the Deer 

By Martin J. Nystrom

Based off Psalm 42:1

As the deer panteth for the water

 So my soul longeth after You

 You alone are my heart's desire

 And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield

 To You alone may my spirit yield

 You alone are my heart's desire

 And I long to worship You

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZv3jzOTE70

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