What are the qualifications to be a "Man of God" a minister, pastor, evangelist...preacher? Are there any?
First of all it depends to whom you are speaking. Are there qualifications? Is there a manual or hand book? It there training?
Our country has many "preachers". That's a general term for someone who is in the business of telling the Gospel story.
Yes, we do have a rule book, it's called a Bible. However here is the first point of compromise with some. The only sure authorized text we have today, the standard bearer, is the King James Bible. The King James Bible is inspired by God, preserved, purified and proven. It was the Bible that was brought over to the "new world" on the Mayflower, and is still the Bible God blesses today.
However we have some today that don't agree with the authorized text. Simple, change it to make it more desirable to your way of thinking. Thus we have many "translations" on the market today.
The result of this: women who are "called" to preach. Yet the King James Bible flatly prohibits that, I Timothy 3:2.
Some being "called" to preach moments after they got saved. I Timothy 3:6
Some deciding they want a different wife, so they divorce the old one and get a new one, I Timothy 3:2, notice it says here the "husband of one wife", it doesn't just say, he should be married.
On and on I could go but you get my point, I think. I believe we all come up with our own set of rules.....don't we?
The church is in a mess today because frankly, I don't believe the average preacher cares about Biblical qualifications or commands from God. I truly believe the average evangelist and some pastors desire today is to have notoriety, live comfortably, and have a big following.
I was told by one "pastor" he preaches 52 meetings a year. An "evangelist" told me, he will go any place they will have him. One evangelist told me while discussing his divorce and remarriage to another mans wife, that he will punch me in the mouth the next time he sees me. I am really looking forward to that!
I am old enough to remember some great men of God that went home years ago. Some of these men I didn't agree with 100% but they did adhere to Biblical qualifications to preach.
Men like Oliver Green, Bob Jones, John R. Rice, John Rawlings, M R Dehann, Leman Strauss, Robert Ketcham, and many others. These were men of God who took a stand against apostasy. These men believed what Paul wrote to Timothy in II Timothy 4. They believed what Jude wrote and stood unashamedly against the compromise in their day with men like Bishop Pike, Norman Vincent Peal, Billy Graham and others.
Have we turned a corner with the new age of evangelism? Are we making our own rules? Has God changed His views on compromise? Is Big better?
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the "church" today is losing it's power. Yet we have more fellows graduating from Bible colleges then ever before. The Independent Fundamental Baptist movement of which I affiliate myself with is now weaker than the Southern Baptist Association was when John R Rice, Jack Hyles and others left it.
Where do we go from here?
