PASTOR or PREACHER?

And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you...”

1 Samuel 8:7-8

In today’s church culture, a troubling and unbiblical dichotomy has emerged: the distinction between "pastor" and "preacher." Many assume that one can be a preacher—an articulate and communicator of God’s Word—without being a pastor, and conversely, that one can be a pastor—a shepherd of God’s people—without faithfully preaching the full and accurate counsel of God. This distinction is not only absent from Scripture but is a cultural construct that undermines the integrity of biblical ministry.

Jesus Christ, the ultimate model for ministry, is revealed in Scripture as both The Good Shepherd (John 10:11) and The Word made flesh (John 1:14). His primary ministry was to reveal Himself as the Word, preaching the kingdom of God (Mark 1:14-15). King Jesus did this by fulfilling all of God's prophetic promises, thereby shepherding His disciples and calling them into deeper faithfulness. Preaching the Word was not merely an element of His ministry—it was integral to His shepherding.

Likewise, in Ephesians 4:11-12, Paul lists pastor-teachers (Greek: poimēn kai didaskalos) as a single role, reinforcing that shepherding and teaching are inseparable. Every pastor's primary means of shepherding (pastoring) is through the Word guiding, instructing, and guarding the flock from false teachings and doctrinal error. Paul exhorts Timothy: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2). This charge is not given to some separate office of “preacher” but to Timothy as a pastor—his preaching being the means by which he shepherds the church.

Modern church culture often expects pastors to fulfill nothing more than a therapeutic and managerial role while treating preaching as a secondary or even optional duty. This faulty mindset results in several dangerously toxic trends:

Preaching Viewed as a Performance Rather Than Shepherding – Many congregants judge preaching based on personal preference rather than biblical faithfulness. A preacher is expected to be engaging, entertaining, or affirming rather than simply being a faithful expositor who nourishes the flock via the Word of God.

Congregants Expect the Pastor to Cater – Rather than coming under the authority of God’s Word, many expect pastors to mold their preaching to align with cultural trends, personal opinions, or emotional needs. When this doesn't happen they simply take their "church business" elsewhere.

Pastors Are Expected to Be Everything Except Biblical Preachers – The pressure on pastors to be counselors, chaplains, business administrators, vision-casters, and event planners often drives them away from their primary calling: feeding the flock through the faithful exposition of Scripture.

Resistance to Truth Due to Hardened Hearts – As in Acts 17, we see two types of hearers: the Bereans, who first received the Word with eagerness and then searched the Scriptures, and the Thessalonians, who reacted with hostility and resistance. Many today act as the latter, rejecting sound biblical preaching because it confronts and rebukes preconceived notions rather than affirming them.

Rightly Receiving the Word: Paul commended the Bereans, not because they blindly accepted his teaching, but because they were open to hearing it and then examined the Scriptures to see if it was true (Acts 17:11). This is in stark contrast to the Thessalonians, who were hostile to correction and closed to truth (Acts 17:5-9). Any "Christian" who refuses to listen to the Word faithfully preached is not rejecting the preacher—they are rejecting Christ, the Word, Himself.

Suppose church members based their commitment to a local body on whether the pastor caters to their personal preferences rather than whether he faithfully expounds Scripture. In that case, they are demonstrating spiritual immaturity and hardness of heart. Faithful saints willingly grow and are discipled through the Word, not through self-affirmation.

The Word is Central to Shepherding: The primary means by which a pastor shepherds his flock is through faithful, exegetical preaching firmly rooted in biblical theology. A pastor who does not accurately and faithfully preach the full Word of God is not only failing miserably in his calling, but will be held accountable for such (James 3:1). Congregants who refuse to receive the Word are rejecting the primary means of their sanctification (John 17:17). The artificial division between “pastor” and “preacher” is an artificial modern construct without biblical foundation.

Since Christ, the Good Shepherd, revealed Himself through the Word, every pastor-teacher's primary role is to faithfully reveal Jesus through the preaching of the Word. If congregants refuse to listen and submit to the preaching of God’s Word, they must ask themselves: Am I acting as a noble-minded Berean, eager to receive and search the Scriptures, or more like the hard-hearted Thessalonians, unwilling to submit to the authority of Christ’s Word?

The Deadly Downward Spiral of This Trend: When congregants refuse to tolerate sound doctrine, they inevitably gather around them teachers who will tell them what their itching ears want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3-4). This creates an insatiable demand for ignorant, arrogant, and charismatic entertainers rather than godly men devoted to serving Christ as pastor-teachers. As a result, pulpits are increasingly filled with hired hands and false shepherds—the very ones King Jesus warned about in John 10:11-13, those who readily flee when adversity comes because they have no care for the flock.

Tragically, consumer-minded cultural "Christians" willingly give themselves over to such figures and then express shock and dismay when they are exposed as immoral scoundrels, hacks, frauds, and abusers. This is exactly what Paul warned against in Colossians 2:8: "Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental principles (stoicheia) of the world, rather than Christ."

Just as the nation of Israel demonstrated their rejection of God by rejecting Samuel, many churches and many "Christians" do the same in their rejection of sound biblical preaching. The erosion of sound doctrine begins with a rejection of faithful pastoral preaching and always ends in spiritual destruction (Pr 14:12). A church that trades theological depth for cultural relevance, or that seeks affirmation over transformation, is a church that exposes it has abandoned its first love (Revelation 2:4-5). When pastors cease to shepherd through the faithful preaching of the Word and congregants refuse to receive it, they're not merely making an unfortunate mistake—they're inviting divine judgment and wrath upon themselves. The only hope for renewal is repentance: a return to the authority of Christ’s Word and a renewed commitment to preaching it, hearing it, and doing it (James 1:22-25) to the glory of God Almighty!

Blessings and love,

Kevin M. Kelley

Senior Pastor

BigIslandChristianChurch.com