Occasionally I receive a bulletin called Preacher Talk written by Cecil May Jr. May is, I believe, the President of Faulkner University in Montgomery, AL, and a long time preacher among the institutional churches. He is a good writer, and wrote the following short article titled, Selective Preaching, in the May 2011 issue.
Some preachers omit any instruction opposing common religious error. They may be properly chided as failing to proclaim “the whole counsel of God.”
Others, in preaching against sin, focus primarily on sexual sins. That is important. The Bible strongly emphasizes chastity, monogamy and sexual purity, and our society continuously bombards us with the message that any kind of sex with any one at any time is acceptable. But the same biblical passages that condemn fornication and licentiousness also condemn strife, enmity, bitterness, backbiting, divisiveness, slander and reviling. These sins eat away at the brotherly love which should characterize Christ’s church and compromise our preaching of the gospel to our communities. Preachers who concentrate on sins of the flesh and ignore sins of the spirit are not preaching “the whole counsel of God.”
Some preachers expose denominational error and sinful sexual conduct but seem to commit sins of attitude and spirit even as they preach.
Advocates of the social gospel in the last century tried to turn the whole of Christian living into political advocacy for liberal social change. Some today, however, refuse to preach against racial discrimination, calling it “the social gospel.” The Bible calls it sin.
“Selective preaching” chooses some sins as worse than others and some as all right to ignore. We should preach “the whole counsel of God.”
Noting his associations, it is safe to suppose that Cecil May would have a problem with some of what I and other preachers proclaim about the issues that have divided brethren in the past half century. I am not sure if he was thinking of those issues when he wrote these words, or if his attention was elsewhere. However, his sentiment should be carefully considered, because it is true.
If we, while criticizing the unwillingness of others to deal with doctrinal and moral sins, also fail to declare the “whole counsel of God,” we do no better than they. If we consider any doctrinal error unworthy of mention, any sin too inconsequential to expose, any sinful attitude acceptable “under the circumstances” we fail in our duty before God.
Paul not only condemned in unsparing terms the judaizing teachers in Galatians 5:12, he also confronted Peter for his hypocrisy in dealing with the Gentiles (cf. Galatians 2:11-13). When he said that he had not failed “to declare to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), he spoke the truth. His example is one we should follow as we seek to speak “the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).
As always, the truth of God’s word, and the admonition that it contains, must first be directed to ourselves, rather than those without. “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5). Each of us must ask ourselves whether we are overlooking any matter of consequence in our service to the Master.
