BRUNSWICK, ME—Preaching the Word of God is incredibly rewarding, but it can also be a health hazard. While attempting to “unpack” Colossians 3:16-17 Sunday morning, pastor Tim Lauderdale pulled a back muscle, causing severe pain and rendering him unable to continue his preaching duties for the morning.
After opening his Bible to the text, the minister hunched down over the Scriptures to unpack key elements of the Bible passage, but exegeted too much weight too quickly, resulting in a sharp pain shooting up his spine as he crumpled to the stage floor.
“I just want to unpack this text together with you this morning for the next thirty or forty min—aaggghhhh!!!” he cried out as the muscle in his lower back strained under the weight of the theological brilliance of the passage.
The elders were able to help him hobble off the stage before signalling the tech team to play a video clip from God’s Not Dead for the next 30 minutes to fill the time. They then applied compression and a cooled-down MacArthur Study Bible to his lower back for 10 minutes at a time to ease the pain of his strained back.
Medical professionals are well aware of the dangers of unpacking too much Scripture without proper back support.
“Never forget the importance of the ‘team lift.’ Consider getting two pastors to unpack the text together, or use a commentary to ease the strain as you carefully lift with your exegesis, not your preconceived theological system,” Dr. Lance Manning, M.D. told us. “Make sure to stretch before you’re going to be doing any heavy theological lifting.”
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