by Dennis Gladden, By Green Pastures, ©2025
(Oct. 15, 2025) — A hearing aid or an earplug.
Which of these describes your pastor?
If yours contributes to the unity of the faith, then express your thankfulness this October, which is Pastor Appreciation Month. That pastor is the gift the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote:
He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers … till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.1
My comparison of a hearing aid to an earplug stems from the phrase, unity of the faith. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, says Paul.2
Does your pastor help you hear God?
This is why God raises up pastors and teachers. When it comes to hearing, only Jesus hears the Father perfectly. The rest of us need hearing aids because God wants us to hear Him equally well, to come to a unity of faith. One message, one hope, one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all.3
Whether a pastor is a sheep among the sheep or a wolf in sheep’s clothing will become apparent.
These days, many churches are disrupting the faith. They
- forsake Christian doctrine and embrace diversity;
- decry the exclusive claim of Jesus: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life;
- parse the Bible into myths versus the meaningful;
- salute PRIDE and desecrate humility.
They plug ears and deafen the truth.
This is evil, according to the Hebrew definition. Evil snatches what is whole and breaks it into pieces, ruining, spoiling, and rendering the useful useless. God intends unity of faith; evil disturbs it.
Who, then, is the wise and faithful pastor?
Paul describes many qualities; let me summarize four that are especially relevant in our culture.
Here’s an easy way to show your appreciation. If I’ve described your pastor, share this post and tell them, “Pastor, this is you! Bless you.”
1. Upholds sound doctrine
“Be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.”4
In three brief letters to Timothy and Titus, Paul raises doctrine 15 times, including sound doctrine three times, good doctrine once, and the doctrine three times.
Paul is not contending for the teaching of Baptists vs. Methodists, Calvin vs. Arminius, or the church at Corinth vs. Philippi. There were no denominations in his day.
He has in mind “the doctrine of God our Savior.”5 One God, one Savior, one doctrine, “which accords with godliness.”6
The connection of sound teaching with godliness begins, “God was manifested in the flesh.”7
The faithful Christian pastor, like Paul, is not ashamed of the Gospel and its exclusive claim: Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world.
The apostle John warned, “Many false prophets have gone out into the world… Every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.”8
Worthy of thanksgiving are pastors who bear this personal testimony and guard the church against intruders, willing to “exhort and convict those who contradict.”
2. Upholds the Bible
The Holy Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.9
Many concede that parts of the Bible are useful, but not all of it. I was in a Sunday School class where the teacher called the creation account in Genesis a myth. When we dissect divine inspiration, we infect it with disbelief.
The godly pastor regards all scripture as sacred and, like Paul, is careful to preach and teach “the whole counsel of God.”10 The pastor who picks and chooses will have an incorrigible congregation, devoid of reproof and correction.
Read the rest here.