Many are unhappy about distinguishing between "hearers" and "preachers" in the church. There seems to be something un-egalitarian about this kind of distinction. To them it implies the greater authority to the preachers and a lesser authority to the hearers. In our modern culture, if you aren't one of the talkers you are a nobody. This is not so in the biblical pattern of relationship in the church. Martin Luther made this clear when he helped the little congregation in the town of Leisnig, Germany sort out the election of their own priest and preacher at the beginning of the Reformation. Such a choice would have been unnecessary if just anyone could preach. In the radical Reformation, this is exactly the conclusion Anabaptists reached about this question. The distinction between pastors and people was rejected; everybody could be the preacher. But where the distinction was maintained, as it was among the Lutherans, the very act of electing a pastor indicated the power of the people as conferred by God. The church is divided into hearers and preachers by God. They simply have different offices.

The power to judge the shepherds is placed into the hands of the sheep. They are the judges of the preachers. If that is so, then the sheep have a more exalted position than the preachers. The church is not like the world, where those who talk command those to whom they talk. No, in the church the preachers do not command, but serve the sheep, speaking for God and leading them to the still clear waters of God's Word.

The sheep are required to beware of false prophets ( Mt 7:15). This requires discernment and gives the right of judgment to precisely those sheep. The discernment of the sheep is to be grounded and centered in study of the Word of God. Every preacher has had the experience of being taken to task in a voters meeting by a sheep who never attends Bible class and quite literally doesn't know what he is talking about. However, it is still his privilege to speak and we preachers, for the good of all, must withstand that criticism. God has given His Word to the church, and therefore He expects the sheep to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it. This is the standard upon which the preachers are to be judged. Under the authority of the Word of God the people of God have not only the privilege but the duty to judge the preachers.

There is also a deep mutuality as we live out our vocations as preachers and hearers in the church. No one lives to himself alone ( Rm 14:7). First, we all belong to the Lord. Second, and because we all belong to the Lord, we all belong to one another. This means that we are all subject to one another in service and obedience and yet at the same time subject to none, freed by the gospel and under only one Lord, who is Christ. Because we are free in Christ, we are then free to show that honor and respect mutually; shepherd to sheep and sheep to shepherd. There is no contradiction here, but a community made of proclaimers and hearers; each deferring to proper authority.

Sometimes clergy lament the fact that they are on the menu during Sunday lunch. However, I think of it as a blessing. First, the sheep are actually talking about what they heard me say. Second, it is their right to judge me by the Word of God.