“What’s it like to work just one day a week?” While many pastors find themselves on the receiving end of such questions, the reality is that as Gospel workers, pastors know their jobs are never really finished. As Alistair Begg notes in his sermon “Pastoral Responsibilities,” Paul’s instructions to his protégé Timothy make clear that the church is always in need of pastors who will study God’s Word diligently so they can remind their congregations of the essentials of the faith and present themselves to God as ones approved:
The distinguishing feature, you will notice, of the approved workman is the manner in which he handles the Scriptures: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” So there must be a right way and a wrong way to handle the Bible, right? We know that in terms of exposition. Some of us use the Bible as a trampoline: We get a couple of verses, and we bounce up and down on them for as long as anybody can bear, and then we go on our way. And the person sitting in the pew says to his wife, “What was that about?” And his wife says, “Nothing.” And he says, “I thought so.” “Rightly handling the word of truth”—not tampering with it, not diluting it, not distorting it, not fiddling with it, not seeking to press it like a Plasticine nose into a shape that we want, but rather the servants of the Word.
The unashamed workman doesn’t set out to impress but to instruct, not to bamboozle but to clarify. And no matter how good you may be or I may be with words, there is no way that our words can pierce the hearts of men and women. We may stir, we may excite, we may annoy, we may intrigue, but we can’t save.