Peter SmytheA Different Kind of Word Preacher

Wow. You’re home early.

Ah, yeah. Ummm, have you started cooking?

What? It’s only 2 in the afternoon. Why are you home so early?

I … I … really don’t want to talk about it. It’s nothin’.

Nothin’? Well, there ain’t going to be any dinner around this house until you tell me what’s going on.

Well … he … I mean … ya see . . .

Would you spit it out? Sheesh, I’ve never seen you so sheepish.

All right already! - He called me Satan. So there.

Satan?!? What in the world?!? What did you do?

Like I said, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s complicated.

That’s great. Just great. Well, what are we going to do now? How are we going to have a ministry with you being called Satan? Tell me that.

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Wait a minute - I’ve seen that look before.

Hey, don’t start with me. I’ve had a hard day.

What is it now? Did he have to pull you out of the water again? Huh?

No.

Then what? You didn’t say that you wanted to build another one of those altars to Moses, did you?

No.

So what is it?

I denied him.

What? Spit it out and stop that whispering. It’s just us.

I denied I knew him.

Oh my God. Why on earth did you do that?

I don’t know. It just … I don’t … there’s this girl . . .

Oh, gee whiz, she probably just heard you wrong.

It wasn’t just once.

What do ya mean it wasn’t just once?

Three times!! Three times!! This girl just kept on pestering and pestering and I … I … well, I could have just . . .

Terrific. We finally get through that Satan Ministries thing and now this. Do you still have your boat?

Hey, I wasn’t going to go back, but you said . . .

Don’t you even . . .

I had planned to hang it up after the Elijah piece. Life would be sweet as a vanilla pew-warmer (we could find a vanilla church, those are everywhere). But the wife said no.

So the beating goes on.

Note:

After my Elijah piece, I received a number of emails encouraging me to keep it up.

First of all, I want to say thanks. The notes of appreciation caught me off guard and they are very much appreciated.

Second, the large majority of the emails (and they were from all over) spoke about being frustrated with the lack of coherency in Word doctrine and the lack of “thinking through” - the same kind of frustration that I wrote about in my Elijah piece.

The number of emails received demonstrates that the frustration doesn’t lie with a pastor here or there, but with the entire Word movement. After writing for the last year and a half on some of the most controversial topics regarding Word doctrine, I find that the problem doesn’t sit with the doctrine, but with a lack of skillfulness in the word of righteousness. This generation of preachers just doesn’t seem to have the same kind of drive to understand the Word and the Spirit as did the Prices, Lakes, Kenyons, or Wigglesworths. Word preachers, of all people, shouldn’t have any problem with doctrinal coherency or thinking things through.