Should Preachers Be Told What to Preach?

 September 21, 2024

Saturday

This question was brought to me yesterday. My first reaction was , "|Absolutely not!" I have had some time to think about this since then.

Many of the things that preachers are presenting to the people today are heresy. This is especially true when there is no recognized and authorized authority in the church to correct these preachers. As I have stated in early blogs, people think that using the name of Jesus and reading a passage out of the Bible must always be followed with correct preaching. We can see from these heresies that these actions will not necessarily bring solid doctrine.

Remember what happened with Apollos:

Acts 18:24-26 (NASB) ²⁴  Now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus; and he was mighty in the Scriptures. ²⁵  This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John; ²⁶  and he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

Priscilla and Aquila corrected Apollos' preaching. They told him what to preach. It was effective because it made Apollos' messages much more powerful and correct. So, when a preacher begins to leave solid doctrine to find "new" teaching, someone must be there to correct him. That is seldom found among a populace of Christians who attend church irregularly and certainly do not study their Bibles. It must come from the mature.

Many denominations have an ecclesiastical structure that could oversee this. However, these heresies will often be preached for a good while before they come to the attention of these authorities. The church itself must have some who are noted as mature in the faith. These people are generally Elders in most church who have passed the requirements and can refute heresy. 

I ask: Who is qualified in your church to stop heresy from being preached? Most churches want a full building with money coming out the wahzoo and will approve heresy if that what it takes to get these things. They will say, "You can't argue with results!" O yes, you can! In fact, sometimes you should. You can't go the wrong road and end up at the right place. Someone needs to stop this before it gets out of hand.

So, yes, when a preacher preaches or teaches inaccurate or outright heresy, he needs to be told that he is wrong. That is, indeed, telling him what to preach. And if he is truly a godly person, he will welcome it.