Foreword by Michael Green
It continues to be necessary today to take a fresh, biblical, positive look at some of the important areas of Christian belief and practice which have been neglected or minimized in modern times. Few areas so need that new look as preaching.
The standard of preaching in the modern world is deplorable. There are few great preachers. Many clergy do not seem to believe in it any more as a powerful way in which to proclaim the gospel and change the life. This is the age of the sermonette: and sermonettes make Christianettes. (See pg. 230.) Much of the current uncertainty about the gospel and the mission of the Church must be due to a generation of preachers who have lost confidence in the Word of God, and no longer take the trouble to study it in depth and to proclaim it without fear or favor.
John Stott is one of the few great preachers in Britain today. He has, moreover, been released into a ministry of writing and travel which takes him all over the world. It is, therefore, particularly gratifying that he has allowed himself to be persuaded to write this book which will take its place as one of the major treatments of the subject. It takes a preacher to write effectively about preaching, and that is what we have in this book.
A glance at the Contents will indicate the scope of this remarkable book. He shows the glorious heritage and the mighty effect of preaching over the centuries, and incidentally throughout this book displays an astonishing breadth and depth in his own reading on the subject. He faces head-on the objections to preaching; he marshals encouragement to preaching, and he shows how one foot of the preacher must always be anchored in the Bible and the other in the contemporary world. The chapters on the study and the preparation which make for effective preaching are full of wisdom and helpful advice, and will be both a challenge and an inspiration to preachers. But expertise by itself is not enough. The preacher must live his message and must by his humility and passion allow the Holy Spirit to work through him, and expect such preaching in the power of the Spirit to change lives.
The opening five words of this book aptly summarize its theme. “Preaching is indispensable to Christianity.” It is just that. And because he knows the truth, and feels it deeply, and has experienced its power all over the world, Dr. John Stott has produced a book which, like a good sermon, is addressed both to the head and to the heart; a book which aims to go through both head and heart to the will. For this book seeks to encourage and challenge all preachers to give themselves more wholeheartedly to their calling to make known God’s way of salvation to a world that has lost its way. There is no higher vocation than that.
There are signs today in many parts of the world of a significant growth in the Christian church. What is now needed is a revival of confident, intelligent, relevant, biblical preaching which will further that growth and build up mature disciples of Jesus Christ. If any book can stimulate such a revival in preaching, this is it.
MICHAEL GREEN
Easter, 1981