“My favorite preacher has fallen, what now?” How many times has that happened to you? It seems like almost every few weeks, another well-known preacher bites the dust. Mark Driscoll, Tullian Tchividjan, James McDonald, Ravi Zacharias, Bill Hybels, and on and on it goes.
It’s perplexing and confusing isn’t it? They preached sound sermons and wrote good books. Do I now discount and deny all the benefit I got from them over the years? Do I stop listening to their sermons and reading their books? Can I separate their words from the one who spoke or wrote them?
Maybe it’s not that our favorite preacher has fallen, but they are falling in our estimation. We’re beginning to see things that concern us. Maybe it’s their lifestyle, their wealth, their vanity, their ambition, their self-promotion.
Or perhaps it’s their competitiveness and their love of controversy. They seem to enjoy putting down other preachers and pointing out all their faults, which usually makes themselves look far superior.
We’re uneasy and concerned but they seem to preach Christ still and are faithful expositors of God’s Word. What do we do with that? How do we relate to fallen (or falling) preachers? Let’s see how Paul answered that question in Philippians 1:15-18.
Listen here.