Why do you people stay long in teaching and preaching the word? I love the message but your meetings are too long

According to human behavioural patterns, is it safe to say that we spend time and resources on activities (or people, objects, etc) that we love or/and count to be essential/important.

This assumption holds true for virtually all aspects of our lives including activities that are: important but not loved (counted to be enjoyable) e.g. rigorous formal education, loved but not essential e.g. hobbies, and both enjoyable and essential.

Let us take a look at 1 Cor. 9:25 to see a typical example of time being spent on activities not necessarily enjoyable/loved but very essential to a cause.

“And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we are incorruptible.”

In this verse, the apostle Paul made reference to the strict training an athlete must be subjected to in order to win a trophy (check other versions of the bible). Putting it in retrospect, a typical pro athlete would train around 5-6 hours a day 6 days a week with ridiculous training intensity.

Therefore, another way to phrase this question is: “How important or essential is meeting/preaching of the word?”

From the end part of the scripture above (“…but we an incorruptible”), a believer’s primary cause or a believer’s hope is to attain an incorruptible crown – crown of life (James 1:12).

Another way to see this accurately is Titus 1:2, where the hope of a believer was clearly spelt out – Eternal Life. Therefore, the most important and essential cause for a man is attaining/laying hold of Eternal Life which is Salvation.

According to the sovereign wisdom of God, the only way by which a believer can attain the hope of Eternal Life or experience Salvation is through the preaching of the gospel (1 Cor. 1:21). If we are to attain eternal reward that cannot perish, we have to subject ourselves to the only technology provided by God to achieve it, that is preaching.

We are admonished from scriptures to labour and endure (2 Tim. 4:3, John 6:27) the preaching of the gospel as (even more than) a pro athlete does with his training for a corruptible crown.

As we continue to labour and endure, hearing the preaching of God’s word would become an activity that is not only essential but loved and enjoyable.