By now, many of you have heard about the inflammatory statement Pastor Jamal Bryant made in a recent sermon entitled “I Am My Enemy’s Worst Nightmare.” Bryant, dressed in an electric-blue suit coat, yelled “THESE H*ES AIN’T LOYAL,” a popular Rap lyric from singer Chris Brown to his congregation during the sermon about Pontius Pilate and his wife’s premonition about crucifying Jesus. Now, if you find difficulty making the connection between “disloyal h*es” and Pilate’s wife, you’re not alone. There’s not enough space or time to really explore the context of the scripture or his comment, but what there is time for is to talk about the loyalty in and purpose of preaching.

Before the influx of social media, preachers had to have a literal platform – a storefront church, a borrowed pulpit, a makeshift theater, a lived-in basement, some form of physical location for the Word of…