“Comfort, comfort my people, says you’re God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” Isaiah 40:1-2
The role of a prophet is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. The role of a Pastor is to know his people so well, he knows which is needed most. Many spiritual influencers fancy themselves “prophets” these days, using both their pulpits and their social media feeds to blast believers, call out Christians and rake over the religious with piercing truth and stinging criticism. What may be construed as “speaking prophetically” is often nothing more than self-righteous virtue signaling. In truth, believers should spend far more time calling in the lost than calling out the saints.
There is a time to speak words of truth that “afflict the comfortable,” but that comes after we have “comforted the afflicted.”
Warren Mainard
More than prophets, what the church needs now is pastors. Instead of running to their megaphone to portend the problems of the 99, pastors ought run after the 1 who is wounded and separated from the flock. There is a time to speak words of truth that “afflict the comfortable,” but that comes after we have comforted the afflicted. Let us comfort God’s people, speaking tenderly, reminding one another that Jesus has won the war and that our sins have been forgiven and our death sentence has been pardoned.
The Scripture Feed 