p. 11 | The Responsibility of Pew and Pulpit by P. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 26, 1910

The Responsibility of Pew and Pulpit

By P. M. W.

We hear much, but none too much, of the great responsibility of the gospel minister. He occupies a holy office, and as a teacher of sacred things should call his followers to a high standard of thought and living. But while a great responsibility rests upon the one who stands as teacher in the pulpit, those who occupy the pews are not wholly exempt. The relationship between preacher and people is active and retroactive. While he influences them, they in turn exert a wide influence on his thought and ministry.

The Scriptures emphasize the responsibility of the two classes. Repeatedly the people of God in past ages have set up teachers after their own hearts, and said to them, “Prophesy to us smooth things.” The apostle Paul tells us that “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”

It requires no far-seeing vision to recognize that this condition has been reached in Christendom to-day. Too many of those set for the defense of the gospel preach smooth things, and “my people love to have it so.”

Says the Lutheran Witness, regarding this situation:—

A pastor in Iowa calls our attention to an advertisement in a secular ‘paper which reads as follows: “WANTED.—Traveling man, religiously inclined, who spends Sundays in Des Moines, would like address of church in which he might hear a sermon and not a political discussion. Address, etc.” Such an advertisement is a sad commentary on the “sermons” that are delivered, Sunday after Sunday, from so-called Christian pulpits, the length and breadth of the land. Almost anything save the gospel of the forgiveness of sin in Christ Jesus is the burden of these discourses. The sad fact can not be ignored. But sadder still is the fact that while here and there a voice is heard in protest against this profanation of God’s institution for the proclamation of the Word, the hearers, in the great majority, ask for the kind of preaching which they get, and would be satisfied with nothing else. The preaching of the lodge chaplain, of the social and civic reformers, is far more to their liking than the preaching of the righteousness that comes through sincere repentance and faith in Christ Jesus. We have no apology to make for the preachers who are faithless to the trust reposed in them by their Lord. But we can not shut our eyes to the fact that if the pew did not support such preaching, the pulpits would soon be empty of all such misnamed gospel preachers.

While as a people we do not believe Seventh-day Adventists are guilty of these faults, it is, nevertheless, well for us to profit by others’ experiences.

Among us the preachers of the word should ever be true to their God-given trust, declaring faithfully the whole counsel of the Lord without fear or favor. As watchmen on the walls of Zion they should ever give the trumpet a certain sound, that the sinner may be warned, the faint-hearted encouraged, and the straying led to return to the fold. And those who listen, the lay members of the church, should loyally stand by and second the efforts of the faithful minister. This they can do, not by praise or flattery, but above all by living the principles of truth advocated. God has made us as a people the conservators of a great system of truth. May we be careful, whatever our position in the church, to preserve the truth in both faith and living, in all of its gospel purity and simplicity. In no other way can we expect to retain God’s blessing, and be led into greater fulness of spiritual power. P. M. W.