If the pastor's primary job is to preach, your primary responsibility is to listen!
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2 Timothy 4 Summary
There's no shortage of advice for what pastors ought to be doing, and certainly much of this advice is good. But the Bible's primary command to pastors is:
Preach the Word - This is job #1, and nothing should get in the way of it.
Notice how Paul writes preach the word, not just the gospel or the good news or even just preach Christ. Certainly all of these things are necessary subsets of the Word, but none of these concepts really make sense unless they are presented in the context of the entire Bible.
We must remember that most people don't want to hear the Word preached. It's not that people don't want to hear about God or Jesus or love or things like that, but they want to reshape God's revealed truth to fit their own preconceived categories and definitions.
Paul reminds Pastor Timothy that there will always be righteous sounding empty suits eager to fill this market with vanity and nicely decorated lies.
Dig Deeper
We're a deeply independent type of people, which is often a really good thing. But one danger of being independent is that we develop what is referred to as a 'confirmation bias.' That means we believe and accept things that fit our preconceived notions, and reject things that don't. This becomes a big problem when we read the Bible with a confirmation bias. Our itching ears (v3) love to hear the parts of the Bible that fit our preferences, but reject or ignore the parts that don't.
Make sure you don't fall in that trap. Once again, we're reminded why we need to read all of God's Word in chapter sized chunks, so that we can see how our favorite verses fit into the larger message. Follow the advice that Paul gives to Pastor Timothy: keep your head in all situations... (v5).
Let God's Word guide your understanding instead of trying to guide God's Word to fit your understanding.
AAA Prayer:
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father and His Son, who will judge the living and the dead (v1)
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you will keep your head (v5) as you long for his appearing (v8)
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
