“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). The ultimate sign of a failure in leadership is the failure to teach, live, and apply the Word of God. God pinpoints the reason for a nation’s decline: lack of knowledge. There is a neglect of preaching and teaching of the Word of God. The priests and prophets of Israel were guilty for not instructing the people in the Scriptures. Many pastors are responsible for the lack of sound Bible teaching in the churches today. How might pastors neglect the Word?
1. We are more concerned about “tickling the ears” of people than cutting their heart with the Word.
2. We entertain the goats instead of feeding the sheep.
3. We do not teach through the Bible systematically or expositorily so that we end up only preaching on our favorite passages of the Bible.
4. We preach and teach morals or purpose without preaching Christ.
5. We might place a theological system above a personal relationship with Christ.
6. We turn the Bible into a law to obey instead of pointing people to the grace and love of God in Christ, which gives us power to obey.
7. We water down the hard doctrines of the Bible and try to reinterpret it to say that the Bible really doesn’t say what it obviously says.
8. We fail to preach the majesty and greatness of the triune God.
9. We do not apply the Word practically to everyday situations in life.
10. We confuse preaching long with preaching to feed the people.
11. We have the right teaching and position on Scripture without having the right disposition and attitude of love and gentleness.
12. We are imbalanced in our emphasis in Scripture. We often over focus on a pet doctrine or pet passage of Scripture to the neglect of the full counsel of God’s Word.
13. We do not emphasize the need for conversion (a new heart with a Spirit-filled life) in order to live out the Scriptures.
14. We fail to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified and risen from every text of Scripture.