Why is it that some people are seemingly so alive, and others seem stone cold, when both have the same Bible? Maybe the difference is in them…click here for today’s post
Preacher’s Personal Life
Review: Why Johnny Can’t Preach, by T.David Gordon
It’s a short book,108 pages, but it packs quite a punch. T.David Gordon wrote Why Johnny Can’t Preach during a year of treatment for cancer. Given only a 25% chance of survival, he found his focus clear and the desire to compromise his message absent. The book is hard-hitting, but I found the tone entirely appropriate and not harsh despite the subject matter.
The writer is a media ecologist – that is, one who studies the effects of the change of media forms on the culture. Taking his title from two books in the 1960’s on the growing inability of students to read and write, this book focuses on why the present state of preaching is so dire.
The first part of the book sets out his evidence for his claim that preaching is ordinarily poor. While admitting freely that his first line of evidence is merely anecdotal, I found the presentation of evidence hard to argue with (not that I’m inclined to argue since my experience largely reflects the author’s). Yet Gordon’s evidence is not merely subjective. He goes to some pains to make clear that there are some objective measures of sermon quality that can be used to identify problem preaching. It is too common to hear “that is just your opinion” if a sermon is ever questioned or critiqued.
The author’s argument culminates with the almost total absence of the annual review, not missing in any other profession, but indicative that all sides know there is an issue. Gordon doesn’t blame seminaries for this state of affairs. In his perspective they haven’t changed, but the calibre of incoming student certainly has. What has changed? Because of the change in media forms, Johnny is no longer able to read, nor write, nor discern the significant, and hence he can’t preach either.
True preaching requires close examination and study of a quality text, something non-readers have no experience of today. People don’t study classical languages. They don’t read literature. They aren’t equipped to really study a text. People read for content, but don’t learn to look at how a text communicates.
True preaching requires careful composition. But people don’t write letters anymore. They talk on the phone. Instead of careful composition, we live in a day of easy and cheap talk.
True preaching requires a sensibility of the significant. But the only way to watch hours of television is to turn off such sensibility, so most do.
A once-common sensibility (close reading of texts) is now uncommon, and a once-common activity (composition) is now comparatively rare. A once-common daily occurrence (face-to-face communication allowing us to “read” the unstated feelings of another) has been replaced by telephone conversation in which visual feedback is absent. A once-common sensibility, the capacity to distinguish the significant from the insignificant, is becoming rare. For a minister today to preach a basic average sermon by early-twentieth-century standards would require a lifestyle that is significantly countercultural.
The book is not solely concerned with capacity to study and compose. The fourth chapter looks at the content of sermons and gives a fine rebuttal of four contemporary approaches – moralism, how-to, introspection and “so-called culture wars” . . . helpful content that I will come back to in other posts.
At certain points I would suggest that the author’s view of Christian preaching is a little narrow. There is more to an inherently relational faith than merely submitting our will to God’s will. Perhaps the Bible text, if read carefully, might present the heart of God such that our hearts might be changed in response.
Nevertheless, even taken on the author’s terms, the book’s message is important and needs to be considered. All of us live in a fast-paced world that simply doesn’t allow for careful reading of God’s heart in His Word. Perhaps it is time we were more counter-cultural in order to be able to read the text well.
Thankfully, T. David Gordon is still alive and serving the church through his teaching and writing. We should be grateful for this little gem of a book. Buy this book, perhaps even pass on a copy to someone else!
(If you are in the UK, click here to buy.)
Surprising Identification
When we read “narrative” – that is, story – we naturally find ourselves identifying with some characters, and perhaps distancing ourselves from others. We do the same thing when we watch films or TV shows too. There’s nothing wrong with that, whether it is a fictional story (like a film), or an inspired account of something that actually happened (like a biblical narrative).
As a preacher, part of your task is to tap into this natural response to narrative. You do this by telling the story well enough that people start to identify. You do this by overtly helping people to identify. But sometimes the natural point of identification is not the way to go (or maybe it is the way to go, with a twist somewhere along the line for greater affective impact!) Take, for example, the passion narratives. Who might you, or your listeners, naturally identify with? Caiaphas, Peter, Pilate, Judas?
Here’s an interesting quote from a certain German monk, a Dr Martin Luther:
“It is a Christian art when a person can regard the Lord Jesus as one whose business is to deal with our sins. . . . Although Christians will identify themselves with Judas, Caiaphas, and Pilate; sinful, condemned actors in the Gospel story – there is another who took the sins of humanity on himself when they were hung around his neck. . . . And today, Easter Sunday, when we see him, they are gone; there is only righteusness and life, the Risen Christ who comes to share his gifts.” (Sermons, 125.)
The amazing thing about the easter story, the heart of our proclamation, is that while we naturally identify with so many of the characters involved, we are invited to identify with the One at the centre of it all. It isn’t natural that we identify with the sinless Jesus, but it is the heart of the gospel to do so!
Preaching in Light of the Big Question
The big question throughout Scripture is consistently the same. Will people trust God or not? Will they have faith in Him or not? Will we?
We are living under the same banner, the same fluttering question mark. Will we trust God? As preachers we need to help people see the simplicity of life (i.e. this is really the issue in every situation), while addressing the complexity of life (i.e. it never feels that simple!)
Hebrews 11, for an obvious example, presents example after example of people of faith who lived in the present in light of eternity. They were willing to choose discomfort now, because of what was to come. This is always a great indicator of faith in God. They trusted God. But this is an obvious preaching passage. What about something more obscure?
Leviticus 17 makes an enigmatic reference to the people making sacrifices outside the camp to goat demons or goat idols. Some obviously were choosing to be unfaithful to God for some reason or other. This incident is similar to the golden calf incident back in Exodus. God had delivered them, was among them, yet they rebelled and didn’t trust Him. Ok, what else?
Actually if we take any incident in Scripture, any narrative, we will find people either trusting or not trusting God.
We face the same options today, although in different forms. Will we be unfaithful to a God who has given us so much and dwells among us? Will we commit spiritual adultery by giving our worship to another? Or will we be men and women of faith, trusting in God even when it means choosing discomfort in the present circumstances? Let’s be preachers that encourage others to allow God’s Word to inspire them as we read all sorts of biblical texts, obscure or otherwise – and let’s try to live out a good answer to the big question hanging over us today.
Preach With The Right Goal
I’d like to think this was obvious that it wouldn’t need to be stated. I suspect I’d be wrong. The goal of Bible reading, and indeed, the goal of sermon listening, isn’t to gather information. That’s not a bad side-effect or by-product, but it’s not the real goal.
The goal of spending time in God’s Word is not to fill the brain with facts so that you can impress at the next Christmas Bible trivia quiz. It’s not to gather information so that you can feel good about your knowledge relative to others. Now this is not to say that our brains don’t matter. They do, very much. But our goal in Bible reading, and our goal in preaching the Bible, is not primarily intellectual, but spiritual.
The goal of spending time in God’s Word is to know, relate to and respond to God Himself. We worship God, not the Bible. Yet we can know God and respond to God as we spend time in what He’s given of Himself to us in the Word, the Bible.
Make this clear in your preaching. Even if you know this, I guess some of your listeners will still be in the “I need to know more, educate me” school of spirituality. As preachers we must first live, and then also preach, the central vital absolute importance of Christianity as relationship.
Some of your listeners don’t grasp this. In fact, they may be getting very overwhelmed and discouraged because they struggle to retain information. Help them know that the real goal is to know and respond to God. The goal of preaching is not primarily informational, educational, or even transformational, it is relational. Spiritual. The goal is God, not just a better them.
Superficial Preaching Isn’t Christlike
When Jesus finished preaching the sermon on the mount, the crowds were astonished at his teaching! I’m sure one of the reasons for that was because when Jesus taught, he didn’t stay on the surface. He spoke in simple ways, but spoke such profound truths. His teaching went beyond behaviour to motives, past the outward to the inward issues of the heart. If we imagine being there, we can see why they were amazed!
After that sermon the reader moves into two chapters of Jesus’ miracles. The crowds were amazed again, and I suspect that part of that related to how Jesus wasn’t superficial with people – it’s not his style, is it? We see his heart in his actions as well as his preaching.
So what about when we preach? Are we superficial? Do we fail to probe the depths of the experience of contemporary experience of the pain of life? Superficial allows more time for heady exegetical demonstrations. Superficial allows more time for obscure learned illustrations. Superficial allows me to avoid the discomfort of being real with the listeners.
But superficial preaching, just like superficial living, simply isn’t Christlike.
Keep the Main Ingredient Main
Just a quick thought to ponder. Presumably our goal in life and ministry should be the same as God’s goal for our lives – to make us more like Christ, to grow spiritually. How does that happen?
Reading, hearing, responding to the Bible is not the only ingredient in God’s recipe for our spirituality. There is also need for prayer, awareness of creation, the Lord’s Supper, other forms of worship, fellowship with other believers, perhaps even suffering, fasting, and so on. Bible intake isn’t everything, but it is central and critical. Why?
1. Because it gives us the perspective and discernment we need as we participate in all the other ingredients in God’s recipe for our spiritual growth.
2. Because it is the way God claims to speak to us. It is the Word of God. While it may feel traditional and staid, and while all other “revelations” may have an air of excitement about them, the Bible is the Word of God that speaks.
We need to live that out ourselves, and make clear to our listeners why we make much of God’s Word.
Fire in the Bones
I respect all preachers in history and across the globe today who suffer for preaching God’s Word. Many of us reading this blog face nothing of the persecution that many preachers have had to endure. Sometimes our biggest struggles seem to be coping with disappointing response in the lives of those listening, or perhaps filtering slightly tactless feedback at the door of the church. But still, even in the ease of our experience, many of us do face something. It is nothing compared to what others may face, but it is something nonetheless.
We face the repeated decision to stand up and preach again. Most preachers can speak about the sense of feeling battered in ministry. There is the work of preparation, the prayerful work of hoped for response, the draining work of giving of yourself, the sometimes tiring work of processing feedback from people oblivious to how vulnerable you may feel at that point. Sometimes this can all add up to a significant level. The combination of personal, spiritual, emotional, relational and physical expenditure, alongside the reality of spiritual warfare, can leave us drained.
What then? What do we do next? Do we give up? Do we quit the ministry? Sometimes that may be a very real temptation for some of us. Do we lay low and pour ourselves into something safer for a while? Do we avoid interaction with people? There are any number of possible responses to ministry drain on a weekly basis.
My thoughts sometimes go back to Jeremiah’s words in chapter 20. He went through it and suffered deeply. He was drained and wiped out and had no natural resource left. Tempted to remain quiet, he could not. Not because he loved preaching. Not because he wanted affirmation (he got none). Not because he needed the income. He could not because “there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” He could not because the LORD was with him.
Do you get up and preach again because you love preaching? Or because you need affirmation? Or because of some other self-gripped motive? Or, or do you get up and preach again because God is with you and you cannot keep inside what He has given to you?
Tired? You’re not alone. Let’s press on.
Get the Idea? – Part 3
So a lot of people endorse Haddon Robinson’s Biblical Preaching but seem to miss the prize jewel in the book – the Big Idea. They may use the language, but many miss the point. We’ve thought about the Big Idea in terms of communication, and in terms of biblical studies. One more:
The Big Idea in terms of the Holy Spirit Continue reading
Chrysostom on Applause
Way way back many centuries ago, not long after the Bible ended, there was a famous preacher called Chrysostom. I thought I’d share a bit of his thinking today. He’s reflecting on the tension created by the applause that was culturally part of the public speaking event, and had come into the church too:
There are many preachers who make long sermons: if they are well applauded, they are as glad as if they had obtained a kingdom: if they bring their sermon to an end in silence, their despondency is worse, I may almost say, than hell. It is this that ruins churches, that you do not seek to hear sermons that touch the heart, but sermons that will delight your ears with their intonation and the structure of their phrases, just as if you were listening to singers and lute-players.
Then he offers a helpful simile to show the dangerous temptations facing preachers (still today, I would say):
We act like a father who gives a sick child a cake or an ice, or something else that is merely nice to eat – just because he asks for it; and takes no pains to give him what is good for him; and then when the doctors blame him says, ‘I could not bear to hear my child cry.’ . . . . That is what we do when we elaborate beautiful sentences, fine combinations and harmonies, to please and not to profit, to be admired and not to instruct, to delight and not to touch you, to go away with your applause in our ears, and not to better your conduct.
Finally, he gives a vulnerable and honest insight into the inner struggle he faced as a preacher. Let’s face it, the flesh is a potent feature in every preacher’s experience.
Believe me, I am not speaking at random: when you applaud me as I speak, I feel at the moment as it is natural for a man to feel. I will make a clean breast of it. Why should I not? I am delighted and overjoyed. And then when I go home and reflect that the people who have been applauding me have received no benefit, and indeed that whatever benefit they might have had has been killed by the applause and praises, I am sore at heart, and I lament and fall to tears, and I feel as though I had spoken altogether in vain, and I say to myself, What is the good of all your labours, seeing that your hearers don’t want to reap any fruit out of all that you say? And I have often thought of laying down a rule absolutely prohibiting all applause, and urging you to listen in silence.
Most of our churches don’t have applause breaking out mid-sermon. But we still have the flesh!
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This quote taken from S. Chrys. Hom. xxx. In Act. Apost. c. 3, vol.ix. 238., quoted by Edwin Hatch in The influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 1897, p111.
Biblical Preaching 