Minister Thelton Hutson III's Page

A pastor is to preach the Word no matter whether the congregation is saying amen or sitting and glaring…

With today’s increased emphasis on “praise and worship” in the church, one of the things we have to be careful of is that the declaration of God’s Word doesn’t become devalued. With all the talented worship teams and catchy worship choruses the modern church has, it might be “convenient” for a pastor just to read a verse or two and offer a few thoughts at the end of service and send the people home. But the church is not a performance center; it is a guardian of the truth…!!

Human nature is such that people will get itchy ears and begin to gravitate toward teachers who will only say what they want to hear. If all you care about is attracting a crowd, start a “doughnut” church whose primary goal is to make people feel good and be happy about themselves. In a church like this people can get any kind of doughnut they want, with as much glaze over the truth as they want, and it will all taste sweet. But the result will be a group of people on a temporary “sugar high” who will stumble and falter someday for lack of solid spiritual nourishment.

We need to hear the parts of the Word that we may not prefer because the Holy Spirit uses them to “meddle” in our lives. But if we don’t get the truth in church, God help us, we aren’t going to get it in the world. The world can’t digest healthy doctrine, and there are plenty of teachers out there ready to sugarcoat the truth, even in the name of God…

There will always be things in the Word of God that go against what we would like to believe, or what we have been taught. There may be something we want to do, and would do too, if it weren’t for the Word standing there saying, “Thou shalt not.” People with ears itching for what they want to hear and what agrees with their prejudices can always find a teacher willing to scratch the itch, to make the Word fit conveniently into their plans and their ideas…

But the nature of truth is that it doesn’t matter whether you agree or what you think. Truth doesn’t change, so the church’s job is to help people keep their ears turned toward the truth.