For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake (2 Corinthians 4:5 RSV).

I love to hear people talk about the great preachers of our generation. It's amazing to hear the same names come up over and over. Everyone can identify the preachers at the mega-churches, or the best selling authors, or the widely known televangelists. And lots of those preachers are great preachers and great people. But we seem to identify greatness by the obvious things that man sees: numbers, money, and fame.

However, I am not sure any of the famous preachers are really the greatest preachers. I met one of the great preachers of this age and I met him in Malawi, Africa. I was there on a preaching campaign for the Herald of Truth and he was an evangelist for the church of Christ working just outside the capital city of Lilongwe. He had volunteered his time to serve as a spiritual counselor.

He just wants to be a minister of the Gospel for Jesus.

What impressed me first of all was that he receives no money to preach. He farms full-time to support himself. And he doesn't just serve one congregation, but ministers to six churches. He preaches, evangelizes, counsels, marries and buries. Not only does he maintain a workload that would exhaust most of us, but he does it at the age of 65. I would love to tell you his name, but I am not sure I ever learned to pronounce it correctly (and I certainly cannot spell it). He would not care if you knew it anyway. It doesn't matter to him. He just wants to be a minister of the Gospel for Jesus. The last time I saw him he was sitting on the ground with his Bible open, surrounded by teenagers, and he was sharing the Good News of Jesus.

Working for the Herald of Truth sometimes puts me a little too close to those men described at the beginning of this article. I suspect Jesus would have me be a little more like my brother in Africa. Ministry in this world is not about us, but always about Jesus. Let me know if I can be of assistance to you in getting to better know Jesus — He is what it is all about anyway!

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© 2007 Herald of Truth Ministries

Title: "What a Great Preacher!"
Author: Steve Ridgell
Publication Date: March 07, 2007

See the Morning by Chris Tomlin Award-winning artist Tomlin offers a whole new set of soul-inspiring easy-to-sing songs about God's faithfulness.

Steve Ridgell serves as the Director of Ministry for Herald of Truth Ministries in Abilene, Texas and writes for Hopeforlife.org. You can reach him by writing to sridgell@heraldoftruth.org.

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