Charles Simeon

Yesterday I quoted from JI Packer’s chapter on Charles Simeon in Preach the Word. I wanted to finish quoting the paragraph since it is provocative and perhaps helpful:

The motive behind his almost obsessive outbursts against Calvinistic and Arminian “system-Christians,” as he called them, was his belief that, through reading Scripture in light of their systems, both sides would be kept from doing justice to all the texts that were there. Be “Bible-Christians” rather than slaves to a system, he argued, and so let the whole Bible have its way with you all the time. Whether or not we agree that such speaking is the wise way to make that point, we must at least endorse Simeon’s “invariable rule . . . to endeavour to give to every portion of the word of God its full and proper force.” (Packer, in Preach the Word, 147-148.)

Perhaps you might substitute a different theological label into his quote, but still I think the point is helpful. It is naive to think that we can simply preach the Bible in a theology-neutral way. However, there is a great difference between reading every text in light of your system and constantly adjusting your system in light of the biblical text. In that sense, let’s preach as, and let’s preach to motivate, “Bible-Christians.”

On one level it is a feeling that can come for any reason. A little moment of doubt. An unexpected event, or listener, or conversation, or comment . . . and suddenly the temptation is there to give up on the planned message. Some may have this feeling every time they preach. Others may never get it at all. But is there a genuine reason to abort the message and switch to something else?

In his excellent chapter on Charles Simeon in Preach the Word, J.I. Packer states the following:

Simeon would go on to remind us that expository preaching should be textual in character. The preacher’s task, according to him, was not imposition, giving texts meaning the do not bear; nor was it juxtaposition, using texts merely as pegs on which to hand general reflections imported from elsewhere (“preachments of this kind are extremely disgustful”); it was, precisely, exposition, bringing out of teh texts what God had put in them “I never preach,” said Simeon, “unless I feel satisfied that I have the mind of God as regards the sense of the passage.” (Preach the Word, 147)

There may be more than one reason to abort a sermon, but this one alone is worth pondering. If we are not satisfied that we have the mind of God as regards the sense of a passage . . . we should not preach it! Better to preach an unprepared sermon at a moment’s notice on a text we do understand, than to preach a prepared sermon built on shaking exegesis. If you really don’t get, don’t preach it. Abort sermon!