What do you find attractive in a preacher? Many people are worshipping online these days, and that means having lots of options. Do you want slick production values – perfectly coiffed hair, plexiglass pulpit, and polished delivery? Are you impressed by profound scholarship and deep, penetrating insights into ancient history and Biblical languages? Do you like to hear personal, heartfelt stories and testimonies?

Well, regardless of his obvious wisdom and spiritual gifts, Paul didn’t boast about any of those things. Instead he admitted that he was nothing more than an earthen vessel – for as with all clay pots, it’s what inside them that really matters. Paul thus wanted people to see Jesus, not him – that’s why he says in verse 5 that he only wanted to preach about Jesus as Lord.

And that’s probably why Paul pointed not to his knowledge or abilities but to his afflictions and persecutions as his main qualifications for ministry – after all, those are the sorts of things that Jesus went through. Paul thus most clearly displayed the character of Christ not by being an attractive winner, but by being a patient, humble loser.

And so it should be no surprise that Paul calls himself nothing more than a bond-servant of his readers (4:5) – to him, what was really important was not his own fame or reputation, but the spiritual growth and maturity of the people to whom he preached. Again, Paul was just doing what Jesus had already done – giving of himself so that others might live. Paul even went so far as to say in verse 12 that he wouldn’t mind if death came to him, as long as spiritual life came to his people.

So, what should we want in a pastor? Paul would say we need someone who is a lot like our Good Shepherd, Jesus: “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11).

II Corinthians 4:5-12 (NASB)

5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.
6 For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves;
8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing;
9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
11 For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
12 So death works in us, but life in you.