“Manuscript preaching has become more popular in recent years. The danger in this type of preaching is that it becomes easy to preach someone else’s manuscript—not just a quote—all, or large parts of another person’s sermon…. it is laziness and it is a great danger. If you are copying and pasting content, it needs to be cited in some way.” - P&D
On Ambition in Ministry
Ambition in life is generally a good thing. Ambition in ministry is indispensable.
We have all heard the tired trope about pastors working only one day a week. It is sad when people repeat such drivel. It is tragic that some ministers have actually provided fodder for this criticism.
Yes, the ministry can, sadly, become a place for the indolent to hide. I’ve never understood why anyone with this mentality would seek the ministry to begin with, but some undoubtedly have.
The Rich (And Everyone Else) Get Richer
“the meme is channeling a certain truth without really nailing the truth: the number of ‘lazy’ folks who are living for ‘free’ is in fact negligible—they are not necessarily the parasites the meme implies.” - L&L
Get Behind Me, Sluggard: Four Lessons Against Laziness
The sluggard “finds a native habitat in every soul…. When the alarm buzzes, he paws the snooze. When a work project calls for relentless focus, he quietly opens a new browser tab. When some unwelcome duty faces us… counsels, ‘Tomorrow.’” - Desiring God
What Is Sloth?
“With this theme of sloth as ‘love defective,’ Dante comes close to a biblical definition of sloth. Sloth isn’t just laziness. There is a deeper inner motivation to sin that, at its core, is a defective love.” - Ligonier
Rejecting the Ways of the Sluggard
“We must first see that the Bible takes a dim view of idleness. This is clear in how Proverbs speaks of the sluggard. The word is used 14 times in the book of Proverbs; thus painting a clear and unflattering picture” - byFaith
“Apart from heretical doctrine or immorality, one of the most serious charges that can be leveled against a pastor is sloth.”
“How can a pastor who is not lazy find himself accused of just that? The accusation, undeserved, arises from two sources: first, from a difference of opinion about what a pastor’s workday should look like, and, second, from an unfortunate but correctable lack of self-awareness on the part the minister.” - Ref21