The simple answer is to authenticate, by life, the preaching of the local church... but first we stand back....
The New Era of Internet Influence
We must all recognise that the days of real church leaders teaching real congregations are now over.
Or, rather, the era in which the predominant teaching influence on a church was through the local pulpit.
With the explosion of material available on the web there will be some saints who are more influenced by online teaching than inperson sermons.
The real possibility has now arisen that a church pastor/teacher/elders may not, by any stretch, be the main teacher(s) of the flock of God.
The Blessings of the Web
I once heard someone jest that www stood for World Wide Waste of time, but it need not be. If we are discerning there are reliable teachers we can benefit from.
And it seems incumbent upon church leaders these days to guide their members to reliable faithful websites. Here are just a few that are presently faithful (vigilance is needed because all human organizations - without any exceptions - are prone to doctrinal drift):
1 - Got Questions
3 - Desiring God
4 - FIEC
The Dangers of the Web
There are significant dangers surrounding web preaching we need to be aware of.
Danger 1 - False Teachers. The web is alive with false teachers and false teaching. Young believers particularly need to be on guard. Especially beware of those who boast of worldly qualifications / ecclesiological titles / subscriber numbers / etc - none of which are indicators of truth.
Danger 2 - IES (Itching Ear Syndrome). Anyone with a doctrinal bee in their bonnet can find websites that will keep that bee alive, buzzin' and breeding. The algorithms of the web will take a listener into ever narrower territory until every talk they hear reinforces previous biases.
Danger 3 - Truth by Numbers. "He must be right because he has a million subscribers." We can image many church conversations across the globe have taken the following form, if not the details, "But XYZ believes in dispensational mid-trib premillennialism and he has more subscribers than you!" We need a Christian doctrine of numbers which recognizes that numbers are no indicator of truth. In fact numbers may reveal just the opposite, for false teachers are far more alluring than truth tellers.
Even among evangelicals, numbers are no test of truth or value because some evangelicals (both dead and alive) have wealthy backers who pay big money to boost subscriber numbers. A teacher may be popular only because he/his backers are wealthy, not because he is truthful or helpful.
It is not pleasant to point out facts.
Danger 4 - Truth divorced from Life. High-profile evangelical fraudsters whose lives did not match their truth have arisen and deceived many. Which brings me to the topic of this blog...
...the only teachers we should truly trust are teachers known to us personally, because in Scripture truth and life are inseparably bound together.
Doctrine and Life are One
We see this supremely through the Incarnation, where the Word (Truth) became flesh to dwell among us.God did not send us only words, he sent us a Person. And the Person backed up his words with his Life.
We see this in the basic command of Christ to his disciples, "Follow me." Not learn abstract doctrine, but follow a living Person.
We see this in the Great Commission, where the command given to the church is to make disciples from the world - in exactly the same way that Jesus made his twelve disciples (that's what making disciples actually means), namely, to talk and walk with people.
We see this in the radical insistence of imitator of Christ, Paul, that people should follow his life as well as / as much as his doctrine. (1 Corinthians 4:16,17, 11:1-2; Philippians 3:17, 4:9; 1 Thessalonians 1:6).
Before we listen to preacher we should watch their life. They won't be perfect, of course, but they should be godly.
Here then is the internet problem: we have absolutely no idea what kind of life a web teacher is living. That's a pretty stark truth.
The greatest Christian internet guru may in point of life-fact be a fraudster.
You don't know.
At a distance you cannot possibly know.
Which leads us to Christian leaders and hospitality...
Christian leaders need to Show (as well as Tell)
Christian leaders must show hospitality - and for more than the reason behind this blog.
The Greek word behind hospitality means "friend-of-strangers" and gives us one clue as to why leaders must show hospitality. Christian leaders are to go out of their way to love the outsider, the lonely, the lost, and in this way to model the Friend of Sinners.
There's a second reason Christian leaders need to show hospitality. They need accountability for their own lives. Our homes reveal an awful lot about our lives and priorities. Having people into our homes regularly will help to curb the obsessions that can so easily take over our lives.
A family home that has few people over for hospitality can easily turn into a shrine to one idol or the other.
Hospitality gives life-style accountability to us all - and especially to Christian leaders.
But the third and main reason leaders must show hospitality - and the purpose of this blog - is to show by their lives the veracity and example of what is preached.
What does the Bible teach about marriage? The local church can preach from Ephesians 5, but visit a married leader's home and see how the teaching works itself out. (It won't be a perfect marriage but it should be loving and ordered.)
What does the Bible teach about parenting? A sermon from Ephesians 6 is one way to learn. But visit the home of a Christian leader with kids and see the preaching in practice.
What does a godly life style look like? Visit the home of a Christian leader.
Life and Word go together.
If a Christian leader does not welcome the flock into his home, we must ask why not? What has he got to hide?
In both 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 hospitality is a requirement for a church elder. For all the reasons above.
When we are looking for the next generation of elders we're not looking for men with lots of knowledge, but men who live godly lives - and their churches know it because they've seen those lives at close quarters.
And when we are seeking out teachers to instruct us we need to know about their lives as much as their words.
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