Hobby Rider – Good Or Bad?

Many use the term “Hobby Rider” to disparage those who are apt to do what passages like Acts 20:20,26-27,31 and Ezek 3:18 require – warning saints of their false beliefs and practices. We have to preach what is needed … for our listeners’ souls sake and for ours too – in the words of verse 26 – so we will be “pure from the blood of all men.”

Was Peter riding a hobby when he preached to the Jews they needed to repent of killing the Son of God in Acts 2:23,36, Acts 3:15, Acts 4:10, and Acts 5:30 – four sermons in a row? And didn’t Stephen ride this same hobby in Acts 7:52? Why should we approach preaching any differently today? But most gospel preaching today doesn’t challenge like that, does it?

During the midst of the institutional issues battle Earl Dale wrote in the May 12, 1955 issue of the Gospel Guardian ‘With many the definition of a "hobby rider" is: "Anyone who preaches something which I do not believe, but whose arguments I cannot answer." They figure that the best thing to do is to throw mud in his face and brand him as a "hobby rider" to cover up.’ That definition still seems apropos over a half century later.

John the Baptist could have preached a hundred truths Herod agreed with in Mark 6. For example if he had chosen to preach the truth that citizens should be subject to their rulers (Rom 13:1), I am sure Herod and Herodias would have patted him on the back and praised him (Luke 6:26). After all, they were government rulers. But instead John told them in verses 17-18 exactly what they needed to hear (that their marriage was “not lawful”), they were offended, and John lost his head because of it. So John the Baptist forfeited his life for doing what brethren today would call “hobby riding.”

If you got a chance to preach a night in a gospel meeting at a church of Christ and all 100 attendees showed up “buck naked,” would you choose to preach on the necessity of baptism (something they all already agreed with) and feel good about your choice because you preached the truth? Would preaching on modest clothing (I Tim 2:9-10) in that case be riding a hobby?

I’ve been reading a book about a gospel preacher of yesteryear and it talks about him fighting the “digressives and hobbyists.” Of course the digressives naturally meant those this gospel preacher was correcting and the hobbyists naturally meant those who were trying to correct what this gospel preacher believed. Name calling was the only difference in the two. Atheists say believers are hobbyists for preaching the existence of God (Gen 1:1); those same believers say Baptists are hobbyists for preaching baptism should be immersion (Rom 6:4); those same Baptists say gospel preachers are hobbyists for preaching the necessity of baptism to salvation (Mark 16:16); and those same gospel preachers say the few who preach on the covering (I Cor 11:2-16) and such like are hobbyists. Who is a digressive and who is a hobbyist is relative to your vantage point it seems.

If “hobby rider” means I don’t fall into the “II Tim 4:3 teaching to satisfy itching ears” trap, count me as a “hobby rider.” Me thinks those who aren’t “hobby riders” must not really believe souls will be lost because of their sin (Rom 6:23, Isa 59:2). Conclusion: Please don’t accuse those who are warning like they should of being “hobby riders” (“pestilent fellows” – Acts 24:5) to try to salve your conscience for not warning brethren as you ought.

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