Conflict and controversy are always hard, and they again tend to be correlated to faithfulness in preaching. The harder you work at it, the greater the risk -- the higher the stakes. And it is not just conflict and controversy. Sometimes, preachers have experienced persecution or even martyrdom. After all, the man who wrote this letter to the Colossians was himself a martyr for the faith. In giving his final instructions to Timothy he speaks of being poured out as a libation. He is ready to be offered as an offering. The sufferings of which he speaks in Colossians 1:24 are going to be realized in a martyrdom that is yet before him.

And there have been martyrs throughout the history of the church, such that the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the church -- the nourishment of the church. Moreover, the church is repeatedly persecuted. Do you not imagine that your preaching priorities would become self-evidently clear under persecution? If you are forced to meet in a catacomb, and if as you gather you know that at any time you might be arrested, you are going to weigh every word. There is not going to be any time for pulpit frivolity. There is not going to be any time to promote the next youth program. Everything is going to be concerned with getting down to the reality of the eternal Word of God.

But, sometimes preachers are ejected and fired. That is simply one of the realities of pulpit ministry. Sometimes it happens that preaching the Word is met with antipathy and resistance. Why? Because "the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword ...."5

And as the Lord spoke to His prophet Isaiah, "... [My Word] will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire."6 Sometimes this means that God uses the Word to rebuke and correct His people. And it is the preacher who must speak that word and reap the response.

Indeed, I will go so far as to assert that if you are at peace with the world, you have abdicated your calling. You have become a court preacher to some earthly power, no matter how innocuous it may appear. To put it straight--[you have been bought. If there is no controversy in your ministry there is probably very little content to your preaching. The content of the Word of God is not only alive and active, it is sharper than any two-edged sword, and that means it does some surgery. It does some cutting, and that leads to bleeding, and by God's grace, there then comes healing, and there is always controversy.

Well, the text lands right in the middle of all of this and hits us in the solar plexus. Why? Because Paul is not unaware of all of this. Paul is emphatically aware of the dynamic of which we are speaking. He understands the very real experience of preaching. He understands the frustration and sometimes he articulates it in his own words.

Just read his letters. It was not as if he avoided the controversy. Read 1 Corinthians chapter 1. He laid it right before them, even to the point of saying, "I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius."7 Have you ever wanted to say that from your pulpit? That's a rather strong word of correction. But this text hits us where we need it, because Paul not only endures all of this, he seems to revel in it, to celebrate it. Paul seems to understand all of the frustrations and the conflict and controversy and trouble of preaching, and yet he says, as it were, "Bring it on. This is what I was made for. This is what I was called to do. This is what I am here for. Let's get at it."