09/28/2026
When he entered the pulpit, he heard the door close behind him and a key turning. He was locked in.
So goes the story related by the theologian Stanley Hauerwas.
Some years ago, while lecturing in Scotland, he was asked to preach at the Cathedral of Edinburgh. The sexton had a surprise for him. As Hauerwas entered the pulpit and closed the door, he heard a key turn behind him. The sexton explained that it was the church’s tradition, dating back to the Reformation, to lock the preacher in the pulpit and keep him there until he had preached the Gospel.
Now there’s an idea I can get behind.
Preachers who don’t preach the Gospel are a strange breed. Imagine a chef who won’t cook. A doctor who won’t doctor. A teacher who refuses to teach.
Yet preachers who don’t preach the Gospel are frighteningly common. Much might be said about the Bible, discipleship, stewardship, praying, avoiding evil, and other “spiritual issues,” but somehow Jesus and his work for us get lost in the shuffle.
The Spirit did not put preachers in pulpits to be pontificating moralists, political hacks, spiritualizing psychologists, wannabe Moseses, or motivational speakers.
Life is too short to be in a church with a preacher that doesn't preach the Gospel.
If you are in such a congregation, walk away and never look back.
Preachers are, like John the Baptist, “a voice.” A voice to proclaim Christ crucified and risen for us. Yes, they expose evil, call to repentance, instruct, admonish, and warn. But most vitally, they preach the Gospel.
They use their tongues as keys to liberate those sitting before them.
They preach to people whose marriages are collapsing, whose children are addicted, whose families are estranged, whose bodies are sick, who have sinned.
We need the good news of Jesus in all its unabashed and unlimited grace. It won’t untangle every knot in their lives, but it will provide an anchor in the storm.
We need to be lifted out of our spoiled, selfish, stained stories and planted firmly in the grand story of how “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son.”
Once that Gospel has been proclaimed, swing wide the pulpit door. The preacher has done his job.
