What Every Preacher Needs to Know

 

In late April of 2025 I watched a YouTube video on the subject of Judges because I love that book and because the video about the book was only three minutes long. The video, What Every Preacher Needs to Know about Judges, is on The Master’s Seminary channel; and the speaker is a ‘Doctor of Ministry.’ He is also called ‘Staff Pastor’ and ‘Director of the MacArthur Center for Expository Preaching.’ 

I will give this video this man did some criticism. The criticism will have a point. It will prove itself, I think, to have a good reason for existing. 

First, the doctor of ministry says that ‘nice Christian people’ do not like to read the book of Judges because it is ‘too violent and too primitive.’ How does he know that? Did he take a poll amongst ‘nice Christian people’? Or is this nothing but a thoughtless platitude?  

Second, he says that the theme of Judges is not a ‘cycle’ of depravity, but a ‘tailspin.’ What does he mean by this? He seems to be trying, and failing in the attempt, to say something wise here. He is barely thinking when he says this. The opinion is false. Regardless, he doesn’t think much of it because near the end of his video he calls the theme ‘cycles of depravity.’  

Third, the ‘radical depravity of God’s people’ in Judges is on ‘Technicolor display,’ he says. Does this inform us of anything? Is the book of Judges a movie? 

Fourth, he draws three lessons from the book of Judges. The first one is that ‘society is wrecked by sin.’ We saw an example of this, he says, when the Dodgers won the 2024 World Series, for buses were burned and someone ‘blew his hand off with fireworks.’ This was ‘a very book of Judges kind of moment,’ apparently. The second lesson is that the book highlights the fact that ‘sinful people need a Saviour.’ The third lesson is that the book of Judges closes with ‘darker stuff than Sodom and Gomorrah’ but with the glimmer of hope of God’s tenacious grace. Is what happened in Judges 19 and the near extermination of a tribe by other tribes for the wickedness committed by the tribe of Benjamin really darker than the filth of sodomy that drew down the righteous judgment of God upon whole cities?  

Familiarity with the sermons of Spurgeon will make this video by this doctor display itself, maybe in Technicolor, I guess, as utterly weak. And it reveals something disturbing about how this man spends his time. Has he ever actually studied the book of Judges? Has he ever read a good exposition of the book? ‘Nice Christian people’ don’t like to read Judges because it’s too violent? Are these the same ‘nice Christian people’ who are addicted to violent movies? The truth is not that ‘nice Christian people’ don’t like to read the book of Judges. The truth is that people generally, whether they are ‘nice’ or not, and whether they are professing Christians or not, don’t like reading the Bible, especially the Old Testament. The issue of them not liking to read the word of God, any part of it, has nothing to do with them hating chronicles of violence. They love Technicolor violence especially. And they love cycles of depravity. This is why they watch soap operas, sitcoms, and horror films. They adore ‘darker stuff than Sodom and Gomorrah.’

What bothers me the most about this video is what contributed to the incompetence of the man who narrated it. I think that the ‘Dodgers’ is a baseball team based in Los Angeles. I’m glad that I don’t know if it is for sure. I’m relying on my faulty memory. For certain I am unable to name any current player on any professional team of any sport. But this man knows so much about who the Dodgers are that he knows when they won and all about these buses being burned after they played such and such a game; and he even knows that a person got a hand blown off in relation to the event. Should a man teaching ‘what every preacher needs to know about Judges’ be a sports aficionado, as this man obviously is? My sense from this video is that he could tell us what years the Dodgers won, who their best players have been, who’s who on the team right now, and what some of their statistics are. This is not the kind of man that we need teaching what preachers need to know. You see how naturally he plucked a sports anecdote from his mind to try to illustrate what goes on in Judges? He didn’t stop long enough to think how stupid it was to say that what happened after the game was ‘a very book of Judges kind of moment.’ Burning buses is not that kind of moment; getting a hand blown off by pyrotechnics is not that kind of moment. What is ‘a very book of Judges kind of moment’? Something closer to that kind of moment would be the sacking of cities: the kind of thing that Antifa and Black Lives Matter do. Something closer to that kind of moment would be mass rape by Philistine-like people: the kind of thing committed by Pakistani Muslims in the UK. What does the doctor think went on during the times of the Judges? Gatherings for sports events and subsequent vandalism because one side lost to the other? This is the man who is telling preachers what they need to know about a biblical book? What every preacher, or would-be preacher, needs to know is that the odds that a doctor of ministry knows what he should know are not good; and that the odds that he is addicted to sports are high.

I said that what would be closer to ‘a very book of Judges kind of moment’ would be what Antifa and Black Lives Matter do, and what rape gangs do in the UK. But these crimes would be like ‘Judges moments’ only if they involved conflicts between rebellious people of God and children of the devil. Are victims of riots in the USA and rape victims in the UK the children of God? It would be too much of an assumption to say that they are. What would be a ‘Judges moment’ today? A ‘Judges moment’ today would be a saint asleep on the lap of a Delilah, having his strength shorn by his enemies. What might this look like in Technicolor? Imagine a doctor of ministry fallen asleep on his couch in front of the television set after enjoying his Delilah Dodgers, dreaming of making a homerun in the final inning of the World Series. This would be a ‘Judges moment.’ This is Doctor Samson getting a haircut. “It was said of Samuel Rutherford, that he often did fall asleep talking about Christ, and was often in his dreams saying sweet things about his Saviour” (C. H. Spurgeon, A Bundle of Myrrh.) 

What does sanctification include if not separation? What should a doctor of ministry and teacher of future preachers be separate from if not worldly sports events? Understanding a book of Scripture requires some degrees of separation from Scripture’s nemesis: the World. “As for the house of feasting, the joy of harvest, the mirth of marriage, the sports of youth, the recreations of mature age—they are all as the small dust of the balance compared with the joy of Immanuel our best beloved” (Ibid.) 

Because I gave a doctor of ministry a chance to bless me with insight, I regret that I know that, in 2024, these Dodgers won the pennant, trophy, medal, cup, plaque, or whatever it is they kiss these days. I would rather remain ignorant of something like that. Do you see how wearisome it can be to dip into sermons, discussions, or even blurbs delivered by contemporary evangelicals? They drip with worldly information that is of no account. Within minutes of beginning to listen to one of their unlearned ‘expositions,’ you get soaked with worldliness when they, like a wet dog, attempt to anoint you by shaking their dirty water all around.     

Get wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. But know this in order to it: you need to surpass your official superiors. This is especially what every preacher, or would-be preacher, needs to know today. You need to get to this point, which is easier to do now than ever before: “I have more understanding than all my teachers” (Psalm 119.99.) The reason that this is easier to do than it was before is because even theological doctors these days cannot honestly confess the rest of the verse: “for thy testimonies are my meditation.” What is their meditation? Too often, even when preparing a brief talk on what a book of the Bible contains, their meditation is something as worldly as a sports event. This worldly meditation is so much their focus that they can’t resist using sports to illustrate the Bible, which causes them to entirely miss the mark they aim at. When the testimonies of the LORD are meditated on, though, something remarkable happens. Even the few arrows that are shot at random seem to strike between the joints of the harness because biblical meditation generates a kind of instinctive aim. The arrows, then, are like birds that follow their migratory paths even when the birder, after bidding them Godspeed, pays them no attention. 

What is the book of Judges about? It is about, not a cycle of sin merely, but the consequences of making unholy alliances and turning from God to idolatry. What happens in the book is the fulfillment of the following promise by the LORD: “But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them” (Numbers 33.55, 56.) We see the beginnings of this fulfillment in the first chapters of Judges. See the repetition of ‘neither did’ in chapter 1: as in, “Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol; but the Canaanites dwelt among them, and became tributaries” (Judges 1.30.) And then see verse 3 of chapter 2 where the promise from Numbers is alluded to. They did not entirely drive out the wicked nations, but joined with them in idolatrous practices. The book of Judges is a cycle of idolatry, bondage, and deliverance. If the theme of the book of Judges were a tailspin, as the doctor says, there would be no deliverance found in the book, only idolatry and bondage, for a tailspin, by definition, is a rotating nosedive. A tailspin can be recovered from; but the doctor would have to tell us that because recovery is not included in the definition of ‘tailspin.’ And the purpose of God in not driving out the nations before Israel was to prove Israel (Judges 2.21, 22.) The idolatrous nations were permitted by God to linger for that purpose. What is the permitted existence of sports idols for vis-à-vis the Christian? It is for the Christian’s proving. Will we be in bondage along with the world’s people before these idols? Or will our profession of faith in our Deliverer be proven to be genuine by our refusal to join heathen worship?                 

I wrote the preceding paragraph, not after looking at Commentaries, but simply by cracking open the book of Judges and comparing it with what I had recently read in Numbers. Did this man even open the book of Judges before making his video? Or did he make it on the strength of having watched his latest game on TV? 

A lot may be taken issue with in this three minute video. Ought this to be the case? There should be nothing to object against if this man is a doctor of ministry associated with a reputable seminary. The custom amongst evangelicals today, unfortunately and unbiblically, is to question the character of a writer who points out uncomfortable facts. This untoward defensiveness only serves to show that the ones guilty of it are not ready for personal reformation, being, for now, obstinate, which trait is not in tandem with a teachable spirit. A doctor telling preachers what they need to know about anything at all should, at least, before thinking to strike back at just criticism, be willing to be admonished by a man who was more consecrated than he is: “If I walked in the fear of God as I should, they would have to imitate me, and the fact that they are wandering from the right path is possibly my fault, my guilt. So I must show them the kind of example I want them to follow…If Paul, who had great zeal for doing his duty, still felt guilty when there was some evil in the church, what, I ask you, will become of us, who are as cold as ice when compared with him?…nowadays there are very few people who can tolerate being admonished or having their faults pointed out” (John Calvin, Sermons on Job, Sermon 3.)