Brothers, We Are Not Professionals

Brothers, We Are Not Professionals
A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry

by John Piper
John Piper pleads with fellow pastors to abandon the secularization of the pastorate and pursue the prophetic call of the Bible for radical ministry.

We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry. The mentality of the professional is not the mentality of the prophet. It is not the mentality of the slave of Christ. Professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and the heart of the Christian ministry. The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake. For there is no professional childlikeness, there is no professional tenderheartedness, there is no professional panting after God.

Brothers, we are not professionals. We are outcasts. We are aliens and exiles in the world. Our citizenship is in Heaven, and we wait with eager expectation for the Lord (Phil. 3:20). You cannot professionalize the love for His appearing without killing it. And it is being killed. The world sets the agenda of the professional man; God sets the agenda of the spiritual man. The strong wine of Jesus Christ explodes the wineskins of professionalism.
Named among the “10 Best Books Every Preacher Should Read” in the January/February issue of Preaching Magazine.

“We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry . . . The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake.”

I think this explains it well Scriptually-Marion Williams:

1 Corinthians 2:1-16 KJV
(1)  And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
(2)  For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
(3)  And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
(4)  And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
(5)  That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
(6)  Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
(7)  But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
(8)  Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
(9)  But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
(10)  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
(11)  For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
(12)  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
(13)  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
(14)  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
(15)  But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
(16)  For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.