Thoughtful and Passionate

6

PREACHING

Five Paradoxes

The contemporary world is decidedly unfriendly towards preaching. Words have largely been eclipsed by images, and the book by the screen. So preaching is regarded as an outmoded form of communication, what someone has called “an echo from an abandoned past.” Who wants to listen to sermons nowadays? People are drugged by television, hostile to authority and suspicious of words.

In consequence, some preachers lose their morale and give up. Either they lack the heart to keep going, or they transmogrify the sermon into a sermonette or a little homily or something equally unsatisfactory. My task in this chapter, however, is to try to persuade preachers to persevere, because the life of the church depends on it. If, as Jesus said, quoting Deuteronomy, human beings live by the word of God (Matthew 4:4), it is equally true of churches. Churches live, grow and flourish by God’s word, but they languish and perish without it.

I invite you, then, to consider that authentic Christian preaching has a number of indispensable characteristics which appear at first sight to contradict each other, but actually complement each other in the tension of a paradox.

BIBLICAL AND CONTEMPORARY

Authentic Christian preaching is both biblical and contemporary. It is an exposition of Scripture which is related to the world in which we live. Bishop Stephen Neill expressed it well:

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.1

All Christian preaching is biblical preaching.

I hope we are agreed that all Christian preaching is biblical preaching. We do not occupy the pulpit in order to preach ourselves, broadcast our theories or ventilate our opinions. No! Our understanding of preaching is that it is essentially an exposition of the word of God. In that sense all Christian preaching is “expository” preaching—not in the narrow sense of that term (a running commentary on a long passage), but in the broad sense (it opens up the biblical text). For we are trustees of God’s revelation and are determined above all else to be faithful in our stewardship.

As Dr. Donald Coggan, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote:

The Christian preacher has a boundary set for him. When he enters the pulpit he is not an entirely free man…. He is not at liberty to invent or choose his message; it has been committed to him, and it is for him to declare, expound and commend it to his hearers.2

At the same time, authentic Christian preaching is contemporary. It resonates with the modern world. It wrestles with the realities of our hearers’ situation. In our resolve to be biblical, we refuse to lapse into irrelevance. Instead we seek to relate the ancient text to the modern context.

I like to imagine this as a picture of a flat territory deeply cut by a canyon or ravine. On one side is the biblical world, on the other side the modern world, while between the two there is a deep gulf, two thousand years of changing culture.

Evangelical believers live in the biblical world. That is where we feel comfortable. We believe, love and read the Bible. We are essentially biblical people. But we are not so comfortable in the modern world. We feel threatened by it. So how should I draw our preaching on this picture? It all comes out of the Bible. We would not dream of preaching from anywhere else. But then it goes up in the air and never quite lands on the other side. We are biblical, but not contemporary.

Liberal preachers, on the other hand, make the opposite mistake. They live in the modern world and do not feel threatened by it. They read modern poetry, philosophy, psychology, science and novels. They are moving with the moving times. But their situation is that they have largely jettisoned the biblical revelation. So when I draw their preaching on the picture, it all lands in contemporary reality. But where it comes from, heaven alone knows; it does not come out of the Bible. They are contemporary but not biblical.

This simple picture illustrates one of the major tragedies in the church today. Evangelicals are biblical but not contemporary, while liberals are contemporary but not biblical. Comparatively few are building bridges. But authentic Christian preaching is a bridge-building operation. It relates the text to the context in such a way as to be both faithful to the biblical text and sensitive to the modern context. We must not sacrifice either to the other.

Authentic Christian preaching is a bridge-building operation.

In order to build bridges that are solid, we have to study on both sides of the canyon. It goes without saying that we must study Scripture until we are really familiar with it. But we must also study the world in which we live. Nothing has helped me do this more than belonging to a reading group which began in 1972. We met every few weeks, having read an agreed non-Christian book, to discuss its challenge to our Christian worldview. I call this “double listening,” listening to the word of God and listening to the voices of the modern world, its cries of anger, pain and despair.

AUTHORITATIVE AND TENTATIVE

The twentieth century was an epoch of doubt. True, it began with a decade of Edwardian triumphalism. While Edward VII was on the British throne, everything seemed stable and fixed, even immovable. But the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912 was an omen of worse disasters to come. For the social stability, which characterized the Edwardian era, was shattered by two World Wars and their aftermath. All the old landmarks (symbols of stability) were destroyed. Now, in the twenty-first century, people are floundering in the swamps of relativism and uncertainty. Even the church seems as blushingly insecure as an adolescent teenager. Many preachers conceive their task as sharing their doubts instead of their faith. For the parading of personal doubt belongs to the very essence of postmodernism.

So on the one hand it is vital to recover the voice of authority in the pulpit. Bishop J. C. Ryle of Liverpool (1880-1900) complained that “a vast quantity of modern preaching is so foggy and hazy and dim and indistinct and hesitating and timid and cautious and fenced with doubts, that the preacher does not seem to know what he believes himself.”3

Not that we should ever presume to use the formula “Thus says the Lord.” That was the language of the biblical prophets, who were organs of divine revelation, but preachers are not prophets in that sense. Our formula is rather, “the Bible says,” provided that we have done our hermeneutical homework and have been conscientious in applying proper principles to the text. Then we shall be able to preach with courage and conviction.

On the other hand, alongside authoritative preaching, it is often right to be tentative. For God has not revealed everything; he has deliberately kept some things secret. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever” (Deuteronomy 29:29). This is why Christians combine elements of dogmatism and agnosticism. We should be dogmatic about those things which have been plainly revealed, and agnostic about those things which have been kept secret. Our troubles arise when our dogmatism trespasses into the secret things, and our agnosticism into the revealed things.

Moreover, even what God has revealed is not always plain. True, we believe in the perspicuity of Scripture (that it has a transparent or see-through quality), but the Reformers were alluding to the central message of salvation by grace alone through faith alone. That is as plain as day. Even the simplest people can understand it. But the Reformers did not claim that everything was equally plain. How could they when the apostle Peter confessed that there were some things in Paul’s letters which he found hard to understand (2 Peter 3:15-16). If one apostle could not always understand another apostle, it would hardly be modest for us to claim that we can!

So I would like to see in the pulpit, alongside the authority which belongs to God’s infallible revelation, the due humility and diffidence which belong to its fallible human interpreters. Commenting on Romans 10:14-17, Calvin wrote: “I shall state my own view freely, but each must form his own judgment.”

Besides, if we serve everything up on a plate (precooked and ready to eat), we condemn our congregation to perpetual immaturity. Is this not why Jesus forbade his disciples to call anybody their father or teacher on earth (Matthew 23:8-10)? That is, we must not adopt towards anybody on earth, or require anybody to adopt towards us, the dependent relationship of children to their parents or disciples to their guru. There are to be no gurus in the Christian community—only pastors (shepherds).

All preaching should lead people to the Scriptures.

But how do shepherds feed their sheep? The answer is that they don’t! To be sure, if a newborn lamb is sick, the shepherd will doubtless take it up in his arms and bottle-feed it. But normally shepherds do not feed their sheep; they lead them to good, green pasture where the sheep feed themselves.

Thus all preaching should lead people to the Scriptures and encourage them to browse there for themselves. It is not easy to strike a balance between the authoritative and the tentative, the dogmatic and the agnostic, the infallible word and its fallible interpreters. But we must struggle to do so. I would like to see among us preachers more confidence in what God has revealed, alongside more reticence before what he has kept secret.

PROPHETIC AND PASTORAL

Indeed, not only authentic Christian preaching, but the whole church is called to this double ministry—“prophetic” in the sense that we bear witness (without fear or favor) to the doctrinal truths and ethical standards which God has plainly revealed; and “pastoral” in the sense that we deal gently with those who are slow to believe biblical truth and who fail to attain biblical standards.

On the one hand, some preachers have a very faithful prophetic ministry. They show great courage in declaring God’s word. They refuse to compromise it even to the smallest degree. They remember that it is false prophets who say “peace, peace” when there is no peace. So they include warnings of judgment in their message.

But these prophetic witnesses are often pastorally very insensitive. They exhibit little of “the meekness and gentleness of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:1). They seem to enjoy seeing the congregation squirm under their lash. They even do what Scripture says the Messiah would never do: they break bruised reeds and snuff out smoldering wicks (Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 12:20). If they are faced with Paul’s dilemma “shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit?” (1 Corinthians 4:21), they opt for the whip.

Other preachers excel in pastoral love and care. Their favorite words are “tolerance” and “compassion.” They know the frailty and vulnerability of human nature; and they make due allowances for it. They remember that Jesus did not condemn the woman caught in the act of adultery; so they seek to be non-judgmental in their relationships.

But they forget that Jesus also told the adulteress to go and leave her life of sin (John 8:1-11). He also told the Samaritan woman to fetch her husband and so to face her sin. By forgetting the holiness of God’s love, and his call to repentance, their prophetic witness is blunted and their trumpet does not give a clear sound.

It is not easy to combine prophetic witness and pastoral care, firmness and gentleness, discipline and compassion. I think it was Chad Walsh, an American Episcopal layman, who first defined preaching as “disturbing the comfortable and comforting the disturbed.”4

GIFTED AND STUDIED

We face the question: who and what makes a preacher? Does God create preachers? Or do they have a share in the creative process? The answer to these questions must again be “both.” It is the fourth paradox of preaching.

On the one hand, every authentic preacher has been called, equipped and anointed by God. The very concept of a self-appointed, self-made preacher is grotesque. For preaching is a gift. The five New Testament lists of charismata include pastors and teachers, together with the gifts of exhortation and encouragement. It is highly significant that when Paul lists ten conditions of eligibility for the presbyterate, nine of them are moral and spiritual (for example, hospitality and self-control), and only one could be classified as “professional,” namely didaktikos, having a gift for teaching (1 Timothy 3:2).

It is a mistake, therefore, to distinguish between “institutional” and “charismatic” ministers, as if the former are appointed by the church, and the latter by God. No! The church has no liberty to ordain those whom God has neither called nor gifted. On the contrary, what is ordination? We should agree that it includes at least a public acknowledgment by the church that God has called the candidates, together with a public commissioning of them to exercise the ministry to which God has called them and for which he has gifted them. In particular, a gift for teaching is an indispensable qualification. Without this gift and its accompanying call nobody can be a teacher or preacher.

On the other hand, the divine call, gift and anointing are not enough. The gift has to be nurtured and developed by those to whom it has been given. So Timothy was exhorted not to neglect his gift, but rather to fan it into flame (1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6). How to do this he was not told, but presumably it would be by disciplined prayer and study, and by the conscientious exercise of his gift.

The very concept of a self-appointed, self-made preacher is grotesque.

One still sometimes meets preachers who are suspicious of the exhortation to study. They think that it is incompatible with the anointing of the Spirit, and that if they were really trusting in the Holy Spirit, study would be superfluous. Some even quote Jesus for support: “Do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matthew 10:19-20). But the context for this promise is the law court not the church, and the people to whom the promise is made are prisoners in the dock, not preachers in the pulpit!

A more appropriate text for preachers is 2 Timothy 2:7: “Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this” (NIV) or “Think over what I have said, and the Lord will give you full understanding” (NJB). The two parts of this verse need to be kept together. It is indeed God who gives us understanding or insight; but we have to do the reflecting and the thinking.

We have to do the reflecting and the thinking.

This need for study or reflection has long been recognized. Calvin wrote that “no one will ever be a good minister of the Word of God unless he is first of all a scholar.”5 Spurgeon had the same conviction: “He who no longer sows in the study will no more reap in the pulpit.”6 And here is a longer passage from Bishop Phillips Brooks in his 1877 Yale Lectures:

The preacher’s life must be a life of large accumulation… Learn to study for the sake of truth, learn to think for the profit and the joy of thinking. Then your sermons shall be like the leaping of a fountain, and not like the pumping of a pump.7

In our own century Billy Graham has added his voice to this chorus. Speaking in 1979 to about six hundred pastors in London, he said that if he had his ministry all over again, he would make two changes. The atmosphere was electric. What changes would he make? First, he continued, he would study three times as much as he had done. “I’ve preached too much,” he said, “and studied too little.” Second, he would pray more. In saying this, he must have had in mind the two apostolic priorities which we considered in chapter four: “we will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4).

THOUGHTFUL AND PASSIONATE

By thoughtful and passionate we mean that in all authentic preaching the mind and the emotions are both engaged; clear thinking and deep feeling are combined.

Some preachers are extremely thoughtful. Their desk is piled high with commentaries and other books. Their biblical orthodoxy is impeccable. They not only study, but they bring the fruits of their study into the pulpit. Each sermon is the product of painstaking exegesis and application.

In all authentic preaching the mind and the emotions are both engaged.

But their sermons are also dry as dust and dull as ditchwater. They would never lean over the pulpit with tears in their eyes, begging people to be reconciled to God. There is no feeling in their sermons, no heat, no heart, no passion. They would never provoke a child, as Charles Simeon did, to cry: “O Mama, what is the gentleman in a passion about?” Yet how can anybody preach the gospel of Christ crucified and not feel moved by it?

Other preachers are all fire and no light. They rant and rave in the pulpit. They work themselves up into a frenzy like the prophets of Baal. Every sermon is one long, fervent, even interminable appeal. But the people are confused as to what they are being urged to do because there has been no exposition before the appeal. It is a safe rule to insist on no appeal without an exposition and no exposition without an appeal. The apostle Paul is a fine example of this combination in 2 Corinthians 5. First came the exposition: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:18). Then came the appeal: “We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).

One of Richard Baxter’s favorite axioms was “first light, then heat,” and C. H. Spurgeon wrote:

There must be light as well as fire. Some preachers are all light and no fire, while others are all fire and no light. What we want is both fire and light.8

Similarly, in his book titled Preaching and Preachers Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote:

What is preaching? Logic on fire! Eloquent reason! Are these contradictions? Of course they are not. Reason concerning this truth ought to be mightily eloquent, as you see it in the case of the apostle Paul and others. It is theology on fire. And a theology which does not take fire, I maintain, is a defective theology; or at least the man’s understanding of it is defective. Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire.9

Here then are the five paradoxes of preaching. Authentic Christian preaching is

The devil is the enemy of all balance and moderation. One of his favorite hobbies is to tip Christians off balance. If he cannot get us to deny Christ, he tries to make us distort Christ. Instead, we need to develop “BBC” (balanced, biblical Christianity) by combining truths which complement one another and not separating what God has joined. For it is in these unresolved paradoxes that authentic Christian preaching is to be found.

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