TOO MANY PHARMACISTS AND NOT ENOUGH SURGEONS

by Todd Tillinghast

we usually approach the human dilemma as something that needs to be cured.  Sure there’s a problem in the world but it’s not man.  Man does many foolish and unhealthy things, that we readily admit but he can change and do many great things if he is just shown the way, just given the right formula, just taught how.  So many of our churches are led by pharmacists.  Pastors and bible teachers who treat man’s problem as a sickness or a malady that can be cured by exercise and the right kinds of prescriptions.  So by necessity they treat the word of God like an encyclopedia of medications for all of life’s maladies.  But when we treat the Bible, God’s living word, His redemption narrative, His holy revealed oracle to us today as nothing more than an encyclopedia meant to be leafed through to find the answers or the prescriptions for a better life we necessarily do violence to the Scriptures.  Now prescriptions by nature are simple little concepts.  They are characterized by phrases like:  

• Take two of these and call me in the morning
• Take this with food
• Take one in the morning and one at night

Prescriptions aren’t meant to be complicated they are meant to be easy solutions to problems.  So, in order to create the prescriptions that give us the quick answers that we want and think we need we have created a devotional culture in the church.  We read our Psalm and proverb for the day or we read someone Else's devotional in a devotion book and we say our little prayer and off we go living a better life by the minute.  

The problem is that when I read the Bible I don’t see it described by itself as

• A dictionary for life’s maladies
• An encyclopedia of prescriptions for a better life
• A road map for life
• God’s little prescription book

No, I see it described as things like:

• A sharp two edged sword.  Hebrews 4:12, Ephesians 6:17
• A mirror that reveals my weaknesses.  James 1:22-25
• Something that by knowing sets me free.  John 8:31,32
• A belt that girds me up with strength and prepares me to fight.  Ephesians 6:14
• Something I have to work at and be disciplined in studying in order to rightly handle.  2 Tim 2:15
• Something that, in it’s entirety, is breathed out by God and is profitable for correction, rebuke, teaching and training in righteousness. 2 Tim 3:16

Too many teachers of God’s word seem to fancy themselves as pharmacists dolling out portions of scripture, a verse here and a verse there in order to make their constituents feel better about themselves when the real issue is that the problem is their selves.  We don’t need our egos to be medicated, we need to be extricated from our egos.  This is what the teacher of God’s word is to address in His teaching because this is what God’s word deals with.    

For those of us who have been given this awesome and fearful responsibility to teach God’s word every week, we must be ready to bring our scalple to the pulpit on Sunday morning rather than a prescription pad.