Today there are authorities on every subject imaginable. All of these solutions are cutting edge. At one point in time preachers were viewed as the men with the answers. If there was a problem people would take it to the preacher for resolution. Today that it is a different story, preachers are no longer the only people in the community with a formal education.
Every congregation has members in various fields of work.
These members are far more knowledgeable in their particular fields than the preacher. Unless they hear the Bible preached, and related to their lives, they are not learning anything they could not have in the secular world. According to Riegart, We receive too much information as it is. God made it his purpose to make himself known to man, it is through his self-revelation that man discovers the truth that could never be known outside of God s own intitiative. When personal opinions are preached with no biblical basis people will experience God in their lives but will be missing the truth and life revealed in His word.