The Hybrid Modern Day Preacher

Truth and Error in the Same Pulpit

We hear the word hybrid all the time now. A hybrid car runs on petrol and electric. A hybrid plant is bred from two different kinds. A hybrid simply means something formed by combining two different things into one. In a car park, that might be clever. In a pulpit, it's deadly. Because there's a kind of preacher standing up in many churches today, and he's a hybrid. He mixes biblical truth with error. He mixes Old Testament doctrine with New Testament teaching. He mixes Scripture with motivational stories and worldly ideas. The result may sound convincing — it may even sound wonderful — but it's neither wholly one thing nor the other, and the truth becomes corrupted. Paul put it plainly: A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump [Galatians 5:9 KJV]. It doesn't take much.

Here's what we have to understand. The danger isn't the preacher who is plainly wrong. Nobody would stay and listen to a man who stood up and denied everything in the Bible. The danger is the mix. Just enough truth to make you nod along, and just enough error to lead you somewhere God never sent you. It's a mix that deceives, distracts and leads astray. Paul saw it in his own day: I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ [Galatians 1:6-7 KJV]. Perverted doesn't mean replaced. It means twisted — the real thing bent out of shape.

Mixing the Old with the New

One of the commonest marks of the hybrid preacher is how he handles the Old Testament. He'll take a promise made to Israel, or a commandment given under the law, and preach it as if it were written to you this morning. Now, the Old Testament is God's Word, every line of it, and we need it. But Paul tells us who it's for: For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope [Romans 15:4 KJV]. For our learning. The New Testament is addressed to us as sons of God, members of the body of Christ, under the Headship of Jesus Christ. God deals differently with His people now, and the promises and commandments differ because they're addressed to different people. That's why we're told to be rightly dividing the word of truth [2 Timothy 2:15 KJV]. If you don't divide it rightly, you end up carrying burdens God never laid on you and claiming promises He never made to you.

You see it most clearly in what's taught about the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament the Spirit came upon people, for a time and for a task. Of Samson we read, And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him [Judges 14:6 KJV], and of Saul, But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul [1 Samuel 16:14 KJV]. Upon, and then gone. But Jesus Christ promised something new: Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you [John 14:17 KJV]. Not upon — in. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? [1 Corinthians 6:19 KJV]. The hybrid preacher muddles the two. He'll teach that the Old Testament believers had the Spirit within, or he'll have you pleading for the Spirit to come upon you and frightened that God will take it away, as He did from Saul. Either way, you're left unsure of what God has already given you. And an unsure believer is easily led.

Fables, Feelings and Full Collection Plates

Paul warned Timothy this day would come: For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables [2 Timothy 4:3-4 KJV]. Fables. Look around. How much of what's preached today is a motivational speech dressed up as the truth? A good story, a funny tale, a moving illustration that may never even have happened — used to fill the gap where the teaching should be. It's preaching as entertainment. And often the man doing it isn't a teacher at all. He's simply someone with a good personality, a warm smile and a gift for holding a room. Paul wouldn't have it: And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power [1 Corinthians 2:4 KJV].

Then there's what he leaves out. The hybrid preacher teaches so as never to offend and never to convict. Sin is rarely named. Repentance is rarely called for. Yet the charge to every preacher is this: Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine [2 Timothy 4:2 KJV]. Reprove and rebuke are in there. So why are they left out? Ask the honest question. A message that never convicts keeps people comfortable, comfortable people keep coming back, and people who keep coming back keep the money pouring into the church. Peter saw it coming: And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you [2 Peter 2:3 KJV]. Feigned words — words that sound right but aren't.

Test It by the Book

So what do we do? We don't go looking for a fight, and we don't grow bitter. We open our Bibles. The believers in Berea are our pattern: These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so [Acts 17:11 KJV]. They listened gladly — and then they checked. John says the same: Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world [1 John 4:1 KJV]. You don't need a theology degree to spot a hybrid. You need to know your Bible well enough to notice when what you're hearing isn't in it. Is it addressed to you? Is it rightly divided? Does it point you to Jesus Christ, or to the man on the stage? Does it ever ask anything of you?

We're called to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God [Colossians 1:10 KJV]. You can't increase in the knowledge of God on a diet of stories and pep talks. You need the Word, plainly taught and rightly divided. If your church gives you that, thank God for it. If it doesn't, don't settle for the mix. Go back to the Book.

Key Takeaways:

• A hybrid preacher mixes truth with error, and a little error corrupts the whole — [Galatians 5:9 KJV]
• The Old Testament is for our learning; the New Testament is addressed to us — [Romans 15:4 KJV]
• Rightly divide the Word, or you'll carry burdens and claim promises never given to you — [2 Timothy 2:15 KJV]
• The Spirit came upon Old Testament believers; now it dwells in us — [John 14:17 KJV]
• Motivational stories are no substitute for sound doctrine — [2 Timothy 4:3-4 KJV]
• Real preaching reproves and rebukes as well as exhorts — [2 Timothy 4:2 KJV]
• Search the Scriptures and test everything you hear — [Acts 17:11 KJV]

Where to go from here:

Read 2 Timothy 4:1-5 slowly this week, and let Paul's charge to Timothy show you what preaching is meant to be. Then take the step above: check the last message you heard against the Book, and keep doing it.

📽️ Watch this teaching 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Gw0-PKG2g&list=PLhtPbQ4aPQH6BwH714Hu0_fiwYM3-DKct&index=1

🧭 Start Here — Who We Are in Christ! — the teachings to read first 👉 https://back-to-basics-christian-living.ghost.io/start-here/

🎥 The playlist to watch alongside them 👉 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEPKdqB9RuLI

➡️ Next in this week's theme — Tuesday: Motivational Speeches Are Not Modern-Day Parables!

That is where we begin: who we are in Christ, taken in order. Then, Monday to Thursday, we take one truth and look at it from four sides — this week, false teaching in the modern church, and how to test it by the Book. Fridays, we work through a series — at present Ephesians: The Letter Written to You. One email on Sunday closes the week and opens the next.

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