Pastor's Devotions

From time to time I hear pastors advise other people against doing their personal devotionals in a book/passage they're preparing to teach. Their advice is primarily for pastors, but applies to anyone who is teaching the Bible for one reason or another. Frankly, I think it's really bad advice.

The rationale behind the thinking - especially for pastors - is that they want to protect themselves from seeing their devotional time as a part of their daily job. So, if their job includes studying and preaching from Malachi, they would want to do their personal devotional/quiet time in another book so their personal devotional isn't just an extension of their sermon/lesson preparation.

To me, this introduces an unhealthy dichotomy (division) between personal devotion and public responsibilities. Honestly, I'm worried about sermons that aren't prepared as an outgrowth of the pastor's devotional time. The Adult Bible Fellowship teacher, seminary professor, or pastor's responsibility as a herald of Scripture should be grounded in his/her own private devotion, not divorced from it.

When we see our role responsibilities as distinct from our relationship with God, we're destined to give God less than He deserves.