3. Preaching as Bridge--building
So far we have discussed some current challenges to preaching and developed a theological defence of it. But we have not yet defined what preaching is, except to insist that if it is to be really Christian it must be expository. Yet this is not a complete definition. Preaching is far more than just interpreting biblical texts.
This becomes clear when we look at six of the main metaphors used to describe Christian preachers. The commonest is that of the herald or town crier, who has been given some good news and told to announce it to everyone. So he goes to the marketplace or public square and makes the news known. Paul describes his own preaching as heralding Christ crucified (1 Cor. 1:23) and heralding Jesus Christ as Lord (2 Cor. 4:5; see also Isa. 40:9; 52:7).
Preachers are also described as sowers who go out into the world like farmers going into their fields. They sow the precious seed of God’s word, hoping and praying that some of it will fall into well-prepared soil and in due course bear good fruit (Luke 8:4-15).
They are ambassadors appointed to plead the cause of a ruler or government in a foreign, or even hostile, land (2 Cor. 5:20; Eph. 6:20). They are also stewards or housekeepers who have been put in charge of God’s household and entrusted with provisions to be faithfully shared with the members of the household (1 Cor. 4:1, 2; 1 Tim. 3:4, 5; Titus 1:7).
We have already talked about their role as pastors or shepherds. The Chief Shepherd has entrusted the care of his flock to them, and as under-shepherds they must protect the flock from wolves (false teachers) and lead them to pasture (sound teaching) (Ezek. 34; John 21:15-17; Acts 20:28-31).
The sixth metaphor presents the preacher as “a worker who does not need to be ashamed” because he “handles the word of truth” skilfully (2 Tim. 2:15). In other contexts, the Greek verb used here means “able to cut a straight path through country that is forested or difficult to pass through so that a traveller can go directly to his destination”. This straight teaching contrasts with the false teaching of those who swerve from the truth (2 Tim. 2:18, esv). Our exposition must be faithful and simple so that our hearers can understand and follow it easily.
Notice that in each of these six pictures the message is given. Preachers are not to invent it; it has been entrusted to them. The good news has been given to the herald to announce, the good seed to the farmer to sow, the good food to the steward to hand out, and good grazing is available for the shepherd’s flock. Similarly, ambassadors do not present their own ideas but the policies of their country. Workers cut a way for “the word of truth”, not for their own words. In all these New Testament images, the preacher is a servant under someone else’s authority, the communicator of someone else’s word. The preacher’s task is to contextualize this message, relaying it in such a way that listeners can relate to it.
Crossing the Cultural Gulf
The biblical metaphors show that preaching is the communicating of a God-given message to our contemporaries, who need to hear it. To be able to do this, we need to be able to build bridges spanning the chasm between the biblical world and the modern world. Just as a bridge makes it possible for traffic to flow from one side of a river or ravine to another, so our preaching must make it possible for God’s revealed truth to flow out of the Scriptures and into the lives of men and women today. Both ends of our bridges must be firmly rooted if we are to be able to show that Christianity is still relevant today.
Preachers who are theologically conservative tend to make the mistake of living only on the Bible side of the gulf. That is where we feel comfortable and safe. We believe the Bible, love the Bible, read the Bible, study the Bible and preach the Bible message. But we are not at home in the modern world on the other side of the gulf. It bewilders and threatens us. So our bridge is firmly rooted in the Bible but never reaches the other side. If we are called to account for our practice of exposition without application, we piously reply that our trust is in the Holy Spirit to apply his word to the realities of human life.
On the other side of the chasm are the preachers who are proud to be moving with the times and who ground their sermons in the modern world. They are very anxious to restate the Christian faith in terms which are understandable, meaningful and believable to their contemporaries, and so they try to answer the questions people are asking even when they are the wrong questions. But if we uncritically accept the world’s own self-understanding, we may find ourselves the servants of the latest trend instead of the servants of God. In our eagerness to be relevant, we may disregard God’s revealed truth.
So we find that conservatives are biblical but not contemporary, while liberals and radicals are modern but not biblical. And nobody seems to be building bridges. We must ask God to make us Christian communicators who are determined to bridge the ravine. We must struggle to relate God’s unchanging word to our ever-changing world without sacrificing truth or despising relevance.
In building such bridges, we are simply following the example of God, who communicated to his people in their specific historical and cultural situations through his prophets, and whose eternal Word became flesh as a first-century Palestinian Jew. God reached down to people. He demonstrated that we who preach must not just use the language of our listeners, but actually enter their worlds of thought and feeling. Incarnation (exchanging one world for another), not just translation (exchanging one language for another), is the Christian model of communication.
In building bridges, we are also following in the footsteps of the great preachers in every age. Chrysostom (who died in 407) is described as a “man of the word and a man of the world” whose preaching was both timeless and timely. Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth century is said to have had an unrivalled knowledge of the Bible and of the human heart. Both Spurgeon in the nineteenth century and Karl Barth in the twentieth advised preachers to prepare with “the Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other”.
But bridge-building is not the only metaphor that can be used for connecting the Bible and the world. Ian Pitt-Watson offers another image:
Every sermon is stretched like a bowstring between the text of the Bible on the one hand and the problems of contemporary human life on the other. If the string is insecurely tethered to either end, the bow is useless.
Yet another image is offered by Bishop Stephen Neill:
Preaching is like weaving. There are the two factors of the warp and the woof. There is the fixed, unalterable element, which for us is the word of God, and there is the variable element, which enables the weaver to change and vary the pattern at his will. For us that variable element is the constantly changing pattern of people and of situations.
Preaching Christ
If our preaching is to build a bridge between the Bible and the world, the first thing we must do is tackle the major themes of human life: What is the purpose of our existence? Has life any significance? Where did I come from? Where am I going to? What does it mean to be human? How do people differ from animals? Why do all people long to worship? What is freedom? Why is there a painful gap between what I am and what I long to be? Is there a way to get rid of guilt and shame? Why do we hunger for love, sexual fulfilment, marriage, family life and community, but also experience destructive passions like jealousy, malice, hate, lust and revenge? Why do we feel alienated from others? Is it possible to love my neighbour? Why do evil and suffering exist? How can we find courage to face life, death, and what may lie beyond death? What hope can encourage us in our despair?
These questions have been asked in every generation. They reflect the nature of humanity as revealed in Scripture: we are dignified creatures made in God’s image, but also fallen and guilty sinners.
Jesus Christ either provides the answers to these questions or throws more light on deep mysteries such as pain and evil than anyone else does. He is the fulfilment of every human desire (Col. 2:3, 9-10). Therefore, above all else, we must preach Christ. If we want to find true wisdom, to enter into a right relationship with God, or to grow in character, we must turn to Jesus Christ. For Christ crucified and risen has been appointed by God to satisfy his people.
The one we preach is not Christ-in-a-vacuum, not a remote being unrelated to the real world, not just the Jesus of history. He is the risen Christ who once lived and died, and now lives and rules. He gives us a sense of self-worth because he assures us of God’s love for us. He sets us free from guilt and shame because he died for us. We escape from the prison of our self-centredness by the power of his resurrection. We need not live in fear, because he reigns. He gives meaning to marriage and home, to work and leisure, to individuality and citizenship. He promises us that history is neither meaningless nor endless. One day he will return to end it, to destroy death and to bring a new universe of righteousness and peace.
Preaching Ethics
Bridge-building also requires us to address the ethical and social issues that affect our hearers and the society in which we live, for the gospel is not just about our salvation but also about our sanctification. James insists that “faith without deeds is dead” (James 2:26).
Ethical behaviour is not an automatic consequence of accepting the good news. It has to be taught. That is why the apostles who proclaimed the gospel also gave clear and concrete ethical instruction. To teach the standards of moral conduct that adorn the gospel and insist that our hearers heed them is neither legalism nor pharisaism but plain apostolic Christianity.
This responsibility of preachers is clearly laid out in Paul’s letter to Titus, where Titus is instructed both to teach “what is appropriate to sound doctrine” (the apostolic faith) and also to encourage good behaviour to “make the teaching about God our Saviour more attractive” (moral behaviour). In Titus 2:1-10, Paul gives detailed instructions for different groups in the congregation. The older men are to behave responsibly and be kind, serious and mature. The older women are to be reverent and teach the younger wives about their responsibilities to their husbands and children. Titus himself is to set the young men a good example and to urge them to be self-controlled. Slaves are to please their masters by being hardworking and honest. These instructions make it clear that when we proclaim the gospel, we must go on to unfold its moral consequences. Similarly, when we teach Christian behaviour, we must lay its gospel foundations.
In our preaching, we need to deal with how our faith affects our moral behaviour in a number of spheres, starting with the individual sphere. We need to consider our duty to our bodies as the Holy Spirit’s temple when deciding whether to smoke or get a tattoo or a piercing. Given that the discipline of the eyes is a major means to sexual self-control, we have to make a conscientious choice about what films to see, what magazines to read and what Web sites to surf. In relation to dress, we have to distinguish between modesty and vanity, simplicity and extravagance. But when preaching on these issues, we must be careful not to lose our sense of proportion. In comparison with the big moral and social issues of the day, some of these matters are secondary at best. To become preoccupied with them is to be guilty of a pharisaism that majors on minors and neglects what Jesus called “the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness” (Matt. 23:23). Yet we must still point out that the Old Testament sets out what it means to live according to the Ten Commandments. We must be like John the Baptist in the New Testament, who told people what it meant to “produce fruits in keeping with repentance”. Tax-gatherers were to collect only the money actually owed. Soldiers were neither to extort money nor accuse people falsely, and were to be content with their pay (Luke 3:8-14). The apostles gave similar teaching in their letters, which sometimes commend the general Christian virtues (“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” — Gal. 5:22, 23) and sometimes give specific instructions about such things as controlling our tongues (James 3:1-12).
We also have responsibilities to each other within the church, the new community. Much of the apostles’ moral teaching dealt with “how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household” (1 Tim. 3:15). Here is where all the “one another” commands in the New Testament apply. We are to love one another, forgive and tolerate one another, encourage and correct one another, “offer hospitality to one another without grumbling” (1 Pet. 4:9) and “carry each other’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2). Paul also provides a whole list of duties in Ephesians 4 and 5, telling us to do away with falsehood, anger, dishonesty, evil talk, bitterness, gossip and impurity. As “members of one body” (4:25), all our behaviour must reflect our unity.
As members of families, we must show moral behaviour in our homes. Both Paul and Peter outline the duties of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves (Eph. 5:21–6:9; Col. 3:18–4:1; 1 Pet. 2:18–3:7). They clearly feel strongly about the Christian home and the relationships there and give straightforward instruction about this. So should we, for marriage, parenthood and work are still a major part of life and are daily concerns of nearly everyone in Christian congregations. Because Christian standards differ greatly from those in the non-Christian world, Christians will be witnessing to their communities as they live out these beliefs and standards.
As members of communities and of the human race, we also need to address the major issues in our world today. For example, we cannot simplistically confine the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount to the realm of individual ethics. It raises questions about issues such as violence and non-violence in the community that cannot either be dodged in our own thinking or be eliminated from the pulpit. We have to consider how our Lord’s teaching about loving our enemies instead of taking revenge (Matt. 5:38-48) applies to our personal responses in the violent world in which we live. What does it mean in terms of our countries and politicians, governors, law-makers, policemen, judges and so forth? We should note that Paul deliberately contrasts the duty of individual Christians not to “repay anyone evil for evil” and the duty of the state to punish evildoers (Rom. 12:17–13:5). He instructs us not to take revenge, not because revenge is wrong but because it is God’s right to take revenge, not ours.
There are several other issues that cannot be avoided in our preaching. One such issue is sexual behaviour. Certain standards of sexual morality are clearly taught in the Bible. We learn, for instance, that sexual intercourse belongs only in lifelong heterosexual marriage (Gen. 2:24; Mark 10:5-9; 1 Thess. 4:3-5). What is more, since marriage was established at creation, these divine standards apply to everybody, not just to believers. It is impossible, therefore, to limit the faithful teaching of biblical sex ethics to the congregation; we also have to be involved in public discussion about marriage, about divorce, about the remarriage of divorced persons and about homosexual partnerships.
Christians should discuss these issues thoroughly and should use the pulpit to do so clearly and bravely. Preachers have a duty to expound God’s standards and encourage their congregations to uphold them. Furthermore, we must present these standards to the non-Christian community. We must preach and defend the gospel, but we must also teach and defend biblical sexual ethics. They are essential to a society’s health; failure to keep to them destroys a nation and a community.
Jesus also spoke much of the dangers of loving and serving wealth, the sin of envy, the foolishness of materialism and the duty of generosity. James includes in his letter a fierce condemnation of rich people who cling to their wealth, fail to pay their workers and live in selfish luxury (James 5:1-6). Like John and Paul, he emphasizes that Christians with many possessions are to share with the poor to ensure that they have the necessities of life (James 2:14-18; 1 John 3:17, 18; 2 Cor. 8:1-15). There are so many deprived people in our world today. The huge economic gap between the developed and the developing nations and between rich and poor must concern Christians. God is concerned about the unity of the human race, the wasting of the earth’s riches and the injustice of inequality.
When we begin to discuss these issues, we enter the field of politics. It is not enough simply to try to alleviate suffering. We also need to address issues of injustice, poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease; the pollution of the environment; failure to conserve natural resources; abortion, mercy-killing or euthanasia and capital punishment; inhumane technocracy, bureaucracy and unemployment; nationalism and tribalism; violence and revolution; the arms race, nuclear proliferation and the threat of biological warfare and terrorism; the increase of crime and our responsibility for the criminal; racism. The list seems almost endless. How can we ban such topics from the pulpit? If we do so in order to concentrate on spiritual topics, we are suggesting that God is concerned only about spiritual matters but not about the welfare of his creation. To do so is to divorce Christian faith from Christian life. We would be guilty of encouraging Christians to withdraw from the real world and would justify Marx’s well-known criticism that religion is an opiate which drugs people into acquiescing in the status quo.
I am not saying that we are to promote precise political programmes from the pulpit. Rather, it is the preacher’s responsibility to lay out biblical principles so that everyone can develop Christian values. Opinion-formers and policy-makers in the congregation need to be inspired and encouraged to apply these principles wherever they have influence. Our task is to help Christians develop a Christian mind, to lead them into maturity. We need to encourage our listeners to be the salt of the world, preventing social decay. We should urge them to spread the light of Christ’s love, peace and righteousness and so to help shape a society which is more pleasing to the God of compassion and justice.
The pulpit always has political influence, even if nothing remotely connected with politics is ever said there. A preacher’s silence suggests that he supports what is going on in society. Instead of helping to change society and make it more pleasing to God, the pulpit is then simply a mirror that reflects society, and the church conforms to the world. The pulpit cannot be neutral. Our task is not to avoid issues, nor to provide quick and easy answers. We need wisdom not to go beyond what is written in Scripture and to speak carefully where Scripture is not clear. But humility and wisdom must never keep us from discussing the urgent issues facing our world today.