Paul Preached Unto Them

by  Beresford Job

Today most church sermons, messages, or preaching consists of monologue. But the apostle Paul's preaching style at Troas involved interactive dialogue.

For over one thousand years Christian church practice has been largely based on sources other than the Word of God. This has left us with a legacy that desperately needs to be corrected. Part of that legacy is that we have departed quite drastically from the way Bible teaching and corporate instruction was done in the early church. By far the most serious departure in this regard is the virtually universal practice of focusing the gathering of the church on the Lord’s Day around preaching and teaching, usually by one person.

In the New Testament, however, we see something rather different. We find there churches meeting on Sundays, in people’s houses, and with a twofold purpose. First, they had completely open, participatory and spontaneous sharing together and worship which, by definition, wasn’t led from the front in any way. Second, they ate the Lord’s Supper together as their main meal of the day. Given such a set up, and it is indeed how the apostles universally set churches up to be like, then certain things would subsequently, and quite logically, find no place.

. . . The apostles set churches up in such a way that when they came together on the Lord’s Day the rule was strictly, “each one has . . . for you may all prophesy one by one” (1Co 14:26, 31). They set churches up in such a way that would positively encourage all those gathered to participate, and therefore brought about a situation where the Lord would be free to move by His Spirit through each part of His body. Any idea of the Lord’s Day gathering of the church revolving around the ministry of any one individual flies completely in the face of scripture and contradicts it outright.

This is not to say, however, that there isn’t a place for the type of teaching amongst God’s people whereby one person predominates in giving it. The Lord does indeed provide people in churches who are gifted in this very thing, and the New Testament makes it clear that teaching is a calling and gift of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, in the church of which I am a part we meet for Bible Study on Tuesday evenings, and we work very hard at furthering our understanding of God‘s Word. But in the New Testament the coming together of a church on Sundays was not the time when such gifts were exercised in that particular way, and the push was always for mutual participation; for lots of people to share something, including a short teaching, rather than for one person to predominate or lead in any way.

And this helps us to at last take the emphasis away from leadership, and from our inclination to just revolve around those who are gifted in teaching and public speaking ability and to consequently make big men of them. It helps to keep us safe from the evil of the whole clergy/laity divide thing, and from the completely unbiblical two-tier system of leaders and led which creates hierarchy. Hierarchy is something no church should ever have, and the only hierarchy found in the pages of the New Testament, pertaining to church life, is simply Jesus and everyone else. Even elders - for that is what a biblically based church will either have or be moving towards, a plurality of co-equal, male elders who have been raised up from among those they serve - are strictly in the everyone else category.

Moreover, this biblical way of doing things creates a set up in which people feel free to question whatever is being taught in order to test and understand it more fully. It also makes those who teach realise that the onus is on them to do so in such a way as to persuade people that what they are saying is actually biblical. It helps minimise the danger of those who are taught being expected to just passively accept things because it’s what the leaders teach, or because of some daft idea of ‘accepted church policy’ or something. It brings about a situation wherein people are much more likely to actively and questioningly understand rather than merely passively accept things as being the case and just agree. It creates, in short, what many leaders in many churches fear most, people with open Bibles and free-thinking minds who don’t accept things merely on the authority of a leader’s say-so, but who question and challenge until they are persuaded that something is or isn’t biblical. It further releases the corporate insight and wisdom of all in the church, and engenders an atmosphere of humility and the willingness for everyone to learn from anyone. It recognises the vitally important fact that the Lord is in all His people, and can therefore speak through any of those in the church and not just some chosen and verbally gifted elite.

But I must deal now with what might, in some people’s minds, be perceived as a real and biblically-based objection to what I’m saying here: Paul’s preaching. Take a look at a particular Sunday that Paul the Apostle spent with the church in Troas : “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight ” (Ac 20:7).

Here we have the believers in Troas coming together for their main weekly gathering, and we can note certain things. (By the way, no Bible scholar would disagree with any of the following observations I am going to make. They are a simple matter of textual fact.)

• The church is gathering on the first day of the week, on Sunday.
• They were gathering together in someone’s house.
• The Greek text here conveys that the main purpose given for their coming together was for the breaking of bread.
• The phrase breaking of breadrefers to eating a full meal, here the Lord’s Supper.

Now the thing I want to focus on here is that Paul “spoke to the people” and “kept on talking until midnight .” That certainly makes it sound as if Paul is doing the talking and that everyone else is just listening. So if that is the case then there isn’t much open, un-led participatory stuff going on here as we might expect to see, assuming of course that what I‘ve written so far isn‘t complete nonsense. But there’s worse to come, because in some translations of the Bible this verse actually reads, “Paul preached unto them . . . and continued his speech until midnight.”

That doesn’t just sound like a Sunday sermon, that sounds like the very mother and father of all Sunday sermons either before or since! Paul, if this verse is to believed, not only preached to the church, but continued to do so until midnight . What on earth can I say to that in the light of the burden of this article? Well, it’s actually very simple. The original Greek doesn’t say here quite what the English translation conveys. Luke doesn’t use any of the various Greek words for preach at all. He rather describes what Paul was doing here until midnight with the word dialogemai. And dialogemai, as any Greek scholar will tell you, means to converse, todiscuss, toreason or dispute with. It denotes a two-way verbal trafficking between different parties and is actually the Greek word from which we get the English word dialogue.

Preaching is a monologue, and in certain settings of church life that may well be fine. Midweek Bible studies, for example, may very well be conducted at times by one person doing a monologue followed by questions. But in the New Testament, when the Lord’s people come together on Sundays as a church, it’s strictly dialogue that goes on, and this is precisely what Paul is doing here. He is most certainly teaching the church, and it goes on most of the night because they wanted to learn all they could from him, but it was a discussion-type format and not a monologue of some kind. It was participatory and interactive, and therefore completely in keeping with the way the apostles set up Sunday gatherings of churches to be like. In short, Paul was simply conversing with them. It was a dialogue, and he and the assembled church were reasoning together. It was two-way mutual communication. It was question and answer, point and counterpoint, objection and explanation! Paul isn’t here standing on some raised platform with everyone sitting silently just listening to him speaking to them. No, he is rather sitting on the sofa in the lounge talking with them.

There is of course a time, as I have already said, for something of a more formal lecture type format, but even then let it be clear that whoever is teaching must be completely and fully open to questions concerning their subject matter. I don’t by that necessarily mean in the middle of the teaching, but when the speaker has finished then let the questions and comeback flow. Let it be clear as well that whoever does do teaching, and the more brothers amongst whom this task is shared out the better, is just one of the brothers, and is not special or spiritually elevated just because they are gifted in a particular way. (At our Tuesday night Bible Studies at the church of which I am a part we also do lots of discussion and interactive type teaching sessions as well, and use the lecture type format as just one of various approaches.)

Let me end by making clear that I am not in the slightest down playing Bible teaching in the life of Christian churches. Far from it! Indeed, none of us would be going on about any of these things in the first place were it not for the fact we are into good solid Bible teaching ourselves, and keen to both receive it and to pass it on to others. No, we are simply saying that we have got to start doing things biblically. We must in this, as with everything else, get back in line with what the Word of God teaches rather than just sticking with age-old, yet completely unbiblical, traditions.

Among the many gifts Christ gives to his people, some are gifted as teachers (Ep 4:11 ). James says, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (3:1). Paul says, “if a person’s gift is teaching, let him teach” (Ro12:6-7). And in 1 Corinthians 12:28 -29 Paul underscores the fact that Christ never intended for everybody to have the same gifting by asking, “Are all teachers?” On the other hand, the writer to the Hebrews chides all the brethren for their lack of growth by saying, “though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again” (5:12). So while it is clear that only some are gifted as teachers, all of Christ’s people are to be “teachers” in the broad sense of contributing to the overall edification of the body according to their spiritual gifts.
Obviously, groups of believers will vary greatly in their giftedness, but if the Lord has brought them together, they can be sure that “in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be” (1Co12:18). Some assemblies will have several gifted at teaching, some will have one person, and others may feel that they have none. The central thing to keep in mind is that all believers have the Holy Spirit (the “anointing”) and are capable of some level of sharing Christ, of manifesting discernment, of caring for one another, and of understanding the Scriptures. When they come together in His name, they have every reason to expect Christ’s presence (Mt 18:20 ). In a body meeting, each person present has the responsibility to make sure they do not dominate and thereby stifle others. If there are multiple teachers, none should dominate. If there appears to be only one teacher, care should be taken that that gift should not end up being in the limelight. If there appear to be none gifted as teachers, then the body must work hard at trusting the Lord for edifying multiple participation. We are so used to the artificial thinking that assumes that teachers must have a background in a Bible School or seminary. This is not a Scriptural mindset. We must neither succumb to the cult of the expert, nor mute any eminent gifts in the body.

In Acts 20:7 we are specifically told that the purpose of the saints’ gathering was to “break bread,” not to hear teaching. However, in the course of that particular meeting – which was to be Paul’s last appearance in their city — the apostle “dialogued” with them for a long time. What Paul had to say was the meat of the meeting, but it was not a monologue. It was discourse with interaction. This shows that while the raison d’etre of the meeting was to eat (the Lord’s Supper), it was still possible for teaching to take place.

The Corinthians evidently felt that everybody should speak in tongues. They were focusing on certain visible manifestations of the Spirit. Paul corrects this in 1 Corinthians 12-14. In chapter 14, he wants the spontaneity and multiple participation to continue, but in all of this he desires for prophecy to be central, and for everything to be done for edification. Prophecy by “all” results in strengthening, encouragement, comfort and instruction (14:3, 31). In verse 26, Paul mentions a few of many possible contributions that the saints can make to the meeting, and one of them is “a teaching.” So, just as we should not forbid tongues (if there is interpretation), neither should we forbid teaching!

One thing that would help assemblies in all these issues surrounding “teaching” is if they would learn how to study the Bible together with a view toward discerning the Lord’s mind and acting upon it. Since there is so much false teaching floating around, it is vital for the ekklesia to search the Scriptures to see what is actually so. For example, on a host of topics — prayer, angels, body-life, humility, and love — it is certainly possible for a group of believers to photocopy from a concordance or print out from a computer a selection of verses to go over together in discussion and prayer. In the early church apostolic epistles were read to the assembly. That is something congregations should do with regularity. It must be stressed that any handling of God’s word by an ekklesia should not be approached as a stale, intellectual, academic exercise. Our goal must be to exalt Jesus Christ together and obey what he reveals in his word.
Congregations will have their strengths and weaknesses. Some will be grounded in sound teaching, but weak in prayer. Some will excel in mutual caring, but be weak in some gospel truths. The general trend I have seen is that churches tend to be all doctrine with little body-life, or focused on subjective experience with little sound teaching. Why do we sever what God has joined together? We should strive to be caring, practical fellowships who, as Paul exhorted, wish to hold fast to healthy teaching. Therefore, brethren should always be evaluating their life together in light of a summary text like Acts 2:42 , and openly discuss areas they need to grow in.

James 1:19 exhorts all of us to be “quick to hear and slow to speak.” In any group of saints there will be those who tend to talk a lot, those who are reticent, and others inbetween. Those who are always ready to speak must be cautious and be sure they do not stifle the input of others. They must be careful not to dominate or to intimidate by a dogmatic tone that shuts down discussion. Those who are very hesitant to speak need an atmosphere of acceptance and love where they can be encouraged to share as the Lord leads them. If our meetings are truly open, then we must be sensitive to the direction of the Spirit’s leading. We must each be willing to defer to the needs of others. For example, if a body has new converts, or people who have just come out of a cult, or people who just experienced a major life-altering trauma, it will be necessary to focus on their special needs.

A big issue for all of us is the ability to listen carefully to the concerns of others in the body. If we really love each other, we will want to process the issues on other people’s hearts. We may think their question or concern is misplaced, irrelevant, or a non-issue to us, but if we value them we will take their every word seriously. Thus, if you find yourself internalizing thoughts like, “this place is becoming like an arid seminary,” “I can’t keep up with the fine theological points that are being made,” “all we talk about are people’s experiences and we never get into the Word,” “we study the Bible a lot but do not pray much,” “we go through pretty much the same rut every week,” “I’m feeling depressed and not encouraged when I leave the meeting,” “So-and-so seems to dominate the meeting every week,” “I sense a doctrinal imbalance is taking place,” etc., you need to talk with the brothers and sisters. The problem may be you and your wrong perceptions, but when people have concerns they must be openly addressed. That is why is appears wise for an assembly to periodically discuss how their life together is going, so imbalances can be nipped in the bud.