For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. (2 Corinthians 4:5)

There is a sense in which we should never be modest in our preaching. Certainly we should not make great claims about ourselves, but we should not preach ourselves in the first place. In the proclamation of the gospel, we advance Jesus Christ as the one worthy of trust and worship. We declare Jesus Christ as supreme. And if we preach him and not ourselves, what is there to be modest about? We praise him without restraint, and without fear of exaggeration.

There is a place for humility, and it is in the fact that we draw attention to him and away from ourselves. This humility is invisible, because whenever it is present and succeeds, it directs the focus to the Lord. A constant self-abasement that everyone cannot help but notice signals that the person has already failed. True humility translates into an aggressiveness in our preaching, because if our preaching is faithful to its subject, it will reflect the quality of what is preached. So when we talk about Jesus Christ, we must be fearfully bold and forceful.

Even though we are weak in ourselves, and at times we approach the task with fear and trembling, in him we are strong, and in our speech we exemplify his strength and his truth. Thus with a firm tone and steady voice, we make the grandest boasts. We proclaim Jesus Christ with an indomitable spirit, not fueled by confidence in ourselves, but by our confidence in him. He is worthy to be declared as Lord of All, and he lives up to the claims that we make about him.

In the ministry of the gospel, we preach Jesus Christ as Lord, but we make ourselves the servants of those who hear us. There are some false notions as to what it means to be servants to those who receive our ministry. They stem from a failure to distinguish between being servants of men and being servants of God. “Servant” can refer to two very different things. Jesus made himself a servant of men – he said he came to serve and not to be served – but he never allowed men to control him. He served men, but he did not obey men. He served men in the sense that he did what was good for them, but he did this only under the Father’s direction, often even against men’s wishes.

A father hires a tutor to educate his child, thus the tutor works hard for the child’s benefit, but the child has no authority to design the schedule and the curriculum of the lessons. Rather, the child must cooperate with the tutor or face the father’s displeasure. Likewise, when we preach the gospel, we become servants of those who hear us in the sense that we work hard for their benefit, even the salvation of their souls. But even though we are their servants, they are not our masters. We work for their benefit under the Lord’s direction. He is the one who dictates our message, our method, and our movements. Thus the authority of the preacher is not nullified but rather established by his role as a servant to men under the command of Jesus Christ.

Some have misapplied the idea of servanthood to business, parenting, and leadership in general, with ridiculous consequences. Does the biblical teaching imply that we must be gentle and accommodating? No. Does it mean that we must listen to people’s input? Although in many cases it is good to receive input, this does not come from the idea of being a servant to men. Servanthood does not mean some of the things that people think it means. In any case, it does mean that we must work hard for the benefit of others, and this often entails an exercise of strong commanding power, even against the desires and suggestions of those that we serve. We are the servants of all men, but only Jesus Christ is our master. The failure to grasp this simple distinction has produced a number of unbiblical and often grotesque results.