By Andy Butcher
Journalists aren’t pastors and preachers, but they share something of a similar role in discipleship, in that their work can lead people to follow or wander from God’s ways. Consider how a “bad report” prompted an entire generation to miss out on His plans and purposes for them in the Promised Land (Numbers 13:32).
With that in mind, the apostle James’ admonition is sobering: “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”
So how should we exercise our calling?
I suggest our posture should be like David’s. In his famous words of confession and repentance, he acknowledged that God “delight[s] in truth in the inward being” (Psalm 51:6). In other words, before we go round calling other people to account for their misdeeds, as noble as that pursuit can be, we need to take a close look at our own lives.
We need to be people of the Word before we are people of words.
Journalists have long been called “scribes,” a hark back to the likes of Ezra in the Old Testament. He and his peers recorded events, explained things, and helped shape public understanding: “They read from the book, from the law of God, and they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading” (Nehemiah 8:8). Ezra “set his heart to study the law of the Lord, to practice it, and to teach its statutes and ordinances” (Ezra 7:10).
Before we chase the latest breaking facts, are we grounded in the eternal truths that can help us make sense of what’s new? Caleb, one of the two dissenters who brought back the rejected “good report” of the Promised Land, said he did so “according to my convictions,” as someone who “followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly” (Joshua 14:7,8).
We need to be truth-doers before we are truth tellers.
It’s not enough to just know God’s Word; we should be embodying it: “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). Because, if we’re deceiving ourselves, how can we hope to clearly inform others?
If we’re writing about financial integrity, are we handling our own money properly? If we’re exposing sexual immorality, are we giving impurity a pass in our own lives? Jesus warned, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:7).
All of this sounds quite weighty, doesn’t it? But perhaps the prophet Isaiah shows us the way. He was already speaking for God when he had an encounter that left him undone. In Isaiah 6 he recalled how God’s holy presence shook the smoke-filled temple.
“Woe to me!” he cried (v.6). “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips…”
Isaiah recognized in a new way how inadequate he was for the task he had been given. What had brought him so far couldn’t take him any farther. Maybe we could benefit from a similar moment of clarity and conviction.
The good news for Isaiah was that one of the angels took a live coal from the altar and touched it to Isaiah’s lips, telling him, “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
Freshly aware of his inadequacy, fueled by a deeper experience of God’s holiness, purged of his sin, he was then able to recommit to his calling, telling God, “Here am I. Send me!”
Andy Butcher is a freelance writer and editor. A veteran magazine and newspaper editor with major stints as director of Youth With A Mission Press & Media Services, senior writer at Charisma magazine and editor of Christian Retailing magazine, he has served EPA as a contest judge and board member. Learn more at andybutcheronline.com.
Posted June 5, 2026
