By Grace Thornton
The Alabama Baptist
John Thweatt says he remembers stepping into the pulpit at First Baptist Church, Boaz — the church where he grew up — and feeling the fingerprints where Pastor Earl Chumley had held onto the pulpit.
“He had Parkinson’s (disease), and he steadied himself with both hands on that pulpit for 20 years,” Thweatt said.
It was that pastor’s faithful preaching — even when he suffered — that impacted Thweatt and drew him into a life of ministry.
“God used his faithfulness in my life,” he said. “And we too stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us. We have a responsibility to preach the Word. If we’re going to be faithful we have to learn to preach the Word.”
That was Thweatt’s presidential message to those gathered at the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting Nov. 13 — preach the Word. To close out his time as convention president, Thweatt, pastor of First Baptist Church, Pell City, shared Paul’s challenge to Timothy from 2 Timothy 4.
“You and I are Kingdom citizens plucked from this world, called by God to proclaim His message,” Thweatt said. “We draw others in by preaching His word.”
He challenged pastors to be sober-minded — that is, not get pulled into watering down their message because people will no longer “endure sound teaching,” as verses 3–4 say.
‘Deeper river’
“Don’t let (their preferences) get you so intoxicated that you stop preaching the Word and start lessening what you do so that you can attract a crowd,” he said. “I believe a deeper river will sooner or later get wider, but a wider river might never have depth.”
Pastors are the “designated drivers” of their churches, soberly keeping them on course in the Word, Thweatt said.
That means exhorting people with Scripture, reproving them and rebuking them when necessary, he said. It means being ready to preach the Word at any time by constantly immersing yourself in the study of the Word and staying in prayer through the Holy Spirit, he said.
It also means persevering in the face of suffering, whether that means opposition in your church or opposition by the world, Thweatt said.
“Endure hardship. Do the work of an evangelist. Keep your focus, and don’t lose your passion,” he said. “At the end of my life, if they say nothing else about me, I hope they will say, ‘He gave me a steady diet of the Word of God.’”
Share with others: