Sunday Morning T.V. Preaching Blues

I have been under the weather the past few days and I've vegetated on the couch for two straight days, and as a consequence, I was able to watch several different television preachers do their thing. There was the Atlanta megachurch and a preacher who hopped around the Bible in search of support of his point which I think was that even though we all are saved there may be a different reward at judgement day for those who don't use that salvic grace to do God's will.

And then there was the Charlotte contemporary church and its blue jean clad preacher from Monks Corner SC who came out with a few choice quotes of his own but was much less concerned with scriptural citations. Here are three good ones,

"The holy spirit is the operating system and not the app."

"Some people say there was a lot of spirit in Williams Brice Stadium last night. Let me tell you, the spirit of God ain't been to that place since it was built."

"Ask somebody next to you. 'Are you full of it?'" (the Spirit).

And there were the obligatory DVD offers and invitations to come back next week for more.
It is also clear that if you give somebody a stage and a microphone for 30 minutes, they will mess up somewhere.

I wonder if I could get the networks to sponser a reality show where different preachers are pitted against each other in a preach-off.

While I have no doubt that the preaching is not all there is to these ministries, and I do know that such styles of preaching may be effective means of spreading the Gospel of Christ, I worry that too much emphasis is placed on the preacher himself rather than the reading, study, and worship that we all have as our individual duties, alone and in groups.

Today, I was reading the Sunday lectionary readings, and the Epistle reminds me to turn my eyes away from the high priests of television.

Furthermore, the former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues for ever. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests those who are subject to weakness, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect for ever. Hebrews 7:23-28
 

Thanks be to God!

And thanks be to God for chicken soup and chamomile tea!