Preaching God’s
Word
By: Dr. Joel R. Beeke and Rev.
Ray B. Lanning
If Scripture
is such a powerful force for the transformation of the
lives of God's people, with what great diligence and
zeal ought preachers to expound the inscripturated Word
of God! If, by God's own appointment, the faithful
preaching of the Word is the first mark of a true church
and the primary means of life-giving and
life-transforming grace for the people of God, what
a solemn responsibility rests upon those who are called
to proclaim the "unsearchable riches of Christ" revealed
in these "oracles of God" (Cf. Belgic
Confession, Article 29; Heidelberg
Catechism, Question
65).
But this compels a
searching question: If we agree that the Bible is a
miraculous, powerful, living, inerrant, authoritative
book, and the very breath of Jehovah, why is there not
greater evidence of its transforming power in our
congregations? Why do many remain so
"untransformed" and worldly in conversation and
action? No doubt a large part of the answer lies in
their lack of rightly reading and hearing the Word,
together with the onslaughts of Satan, an enticing
world, and their own sinful hearts and undisciplined
lives. After all, when television is watched more than
the Word of God is searched and the newspaper is read
more seriously than the Scriptures, what can one
expect?
The problem
of a lack of transformation, however, lies not only in
the pew. It resides also with us as ministers when we
fail to respond to the Word "in obedience unto God, with
understanding, faith, and reverence" (Westminster
Confession, XXI:5), and
consequently lack the power of Word and Spirit in
our preaching. Ought we then be surprised when the
people in our pews lack transformed
lives?
For the Word of
God to transform the lives of our people, we are of
course always dependent upon the work of the Holy
Spirit. But this is not the whole answer. Church history
makes clear that the Holy Spirit honors preaching which
bears certain critical and scriptural marks. As
preachers, we have the responsibility to examine our
preaching in the light of several probing
questions:
First, am I truly
preaching the Word? Paul's command to Timothy is
"Preach the Word" (2 Timothy 4:2). The command defines
the task. Timothy is to open, explain, and apply the
Holy Scriptures which he has known from childhood (2
Timothy 3:15). He is to be a minister or servant
of the Word. The Scriptures must
be to him what a master is to a slave: all-commanding,
all-providing,
all-determining.
This explains why
the preaching of the Reformation was expository
preaching. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones defined expository
preaching in these words:
A sermon
should always be expository. In a sermon the theme or
doctrine is something that arises out of the text
and its context. So a sermon should not start with
the subject as such; it should start with the Scripture
which has in it a doctrine or theme. That doctrine
should then be dealt with in terms of this particular
setting (Preaching and
Preachers, pp.
71-71).
The minister of
the Word must hold himself to this task, and serve his
biblical master with single-minded devotion and
concentration.
Faithfulness to
the example of the apostles and the Reformers requires
the preacher to devote himself to prayer as well as
to the ministry of the Word (Acts 6:4). Not to preach
the Word is not to preach at all. Not to pray for the
Spirit to use the Word as a transforming power is to
preach in vain.
Second, am I
preaching the whole counsel of God? Every preacher
must bear two things in mind at all times. First, he
bears a personal responsibility for the eternal
welfare of his hearers. Second, he must one day give an
account of his stewardship of God's Word. When
taking leave of the Ephesian elders, Paul could make two
great claims (Acts 20:20, 27).
First, "I kept back nothing that
was profitable unto you." He had told his hearers
everything needful for their salvation and eternal
well-being. Second, "I have not shunned to declare unto
you all the counsel of God." As a messenger, Paul had
fully and faithfully delivered the message entrusted to
him by God.
All this
points to the need for system, balance, diligence,
and pastoral focus in preaching. Two devices have been
employed in the churches of the Reformation to secure
these ends. The first is lectio continua,
or serial exposition of the
Scriptures. Verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by
book, the Scriptures are opened, explained, and applied.
This method is as old as Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin,
and has its precedent in the preaching of the
synagogue, where preaching was tied to the
systematic reading of the Law and the Prophets
(Luke 4:16-21).
The other method
is catechism preaching, favored especially by the
Dutch Reformed. Catechism preaching is the
systematic exposition of a catechism, most commonly the
Heidelberg Catechism, which was divided into fifty-two
portions for the fifty-two Lord's Days of the year.
The Catechism is on the one hand a complete and balanced
presentation of biblical doctrine, and, on the other, a
heart-searching application of that doctrine to the
needs of the Christian, both as sinner and as
saint.
Either method has
its strengths and weaknesses, but both will go far
toward achieving the great ends of saying all that needs
to be said, from the hearers' point of view, and saying
all that God would have us say as His counsel,
delivered unto men and sent forth into all the
world.
In any case,
this whole counsel necessitates preaching unabashedly
the utterly devastating analysis of the human condition
that Scripture presents (Genesis 6:5; Ephesians 2:1). It
necessitates preaching divine, sovereign grace as
the all-sufficient, victorious answer to man's plight
(Ephesians 2:5; Romans 9:16). It necessitates hemming
the sinner in to this grace, calling him to faith and
repentance, and offering hope exclusively in Jesus
Christ for "wisdom, righteous ness, sanctification,
and redemption" (I Corinthians 1:30). It
necessitates preaching that the Christian must present
himself "a living sacrifice of thankfulness" unto Christ
(Romans 12:1) (Heidelberg
Catechism, Question 32). It
necessitates thrusting Scripture's unchangeable
directives and broad-sweeping demands into every
sphere of life, rather than following the
kaleidoscopic agenda of men. As Luther said, rather than
preaching against straw men, the faithful preacher will
bring the Word of God to bear on every pertinent truth
which he knows his congregation (with its peculiar
temptations) needs to have
addressed.
Third, am I
preaching the Word of God with clarity and passion?
Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones defined preaching as "Logic
on fire!"
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 (Preaching
and Preachers, p.
97).
Every preacher
must struggle with the tendencies of his own
personality. Some tend to be intellectually oriented,
and their preaching is orderly, substantial, and yet
quite dispassionate and cold. Others are emotionally
oriented, and tend to "go for the gut." The aim of every
preacher ought to be a thoroughgoing blend of order and
passion, logic and fire.
It is the
teaching of Scripture that we are saved "through
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth"
(2 Thessalonians 2:13). The gospel is word (logos),
"discourse" (rherna),
"message" (kerygma), and
"doctrine" (didache).
To preach the gospel in a
careless, disorderly, illogical way is to deny its
very character. At the same time, the preacher is
dealing with matters of the greatest significance and
consequence for himself and his hearers. He must know
the terrors of the Lord, and preach with fear and
trembling. He must be constrained by the love of
Christ, and preach with love and tears (2 Corinthians
5:9-2 1).
Church
history has borne out that the Spirit transforms lives
most frequently under biblical preaching which is
brought with compelling lucidity and heartfelt
conviction. In our own land, this potent combination was
the underlying secret of great, mightily used
preachers like Jonathan Edwards and Samuel Davies (Works of Jonathan
Edwards; Sermons of the Rev.
Samuel Davies; Cf. Iain Murry, Revival and
Revivalism, pp. 3-31).
Fourth, am I
preaching the Word of God experimentally as well as
doctrinally? To preach experimentally (or
experientially) is to address the vital matter of
Christian experience, and in particular the way in
which the Christian experiences the truth of
Christian doctrine in his life. The term "experimental"
comes from the Latin experimenturn,
meaning "trial," derived from the verb experior,
meaning "try, test, prove, put to the test." The
same verb can also mean "to experience, to find, or
know by experience," and so gives rise to the word experientia,
meaning "trial, experiment" and "the knowledge
gained by experiment" (Cassell’s Latin
Dictionary). Calvin used "experiential" (experientia)
and "experimental" (experimentum)
interchangeably, since both words, from the
perspective of biblical preaching, indicate the
need of "examining" or "testing" experienced knowledge
by the touchstone of Scripture (Willem Balke, “The Word
of God and Experientia
according to Calvin” in Calvinus
Ecclesiae; Cf. Calvin’s Commentary on Zech 2:9).
Experimental
preaching stresses the need to "know by experience" the
great truths of the Word of God. Experimental preaching
seeks to explain in terms of biblical truth, how matters
do go and how
they ought to go
in the Christian life, and aims
to apply divine truth to the whole range of the
believer's experience both as an individual and in
all his relationships in the family, the church,
and the world around him. As Paul Helm
writes:
The situation
[today] calls for preaching that will cover the full
range of Christian experience, and a developed
experimental theology. The preaching must give
guidance and instruction to Christians in terms of
their actual experience. It must not deal in
unrealities—or treat congregations as if they lived in a
different century or in wholly different circumstances.
This involves taking the full measure of our
modem situation and entering with full
sympathy into the actual experiences, the hopes and
fears, of Christian people (“Christian Experience,”
Banner of Truth, 139).
Experimental
preaching must in the first place be discriminatory
preaching. Discriminatory preaching defines the
difference between the Christian and the non-Christian.
Discriminatory preaching is the key by which the kingdom
of heaven is opened to believers and shut against
unbelievers. Discriminatory preaching promises the
forgiveness of sins and eternal life to all who by a
true faith embrace Christ as Savior and Lord; it
likewise proclaims the wrath of God and eternal
condemnation as God's judgment upon the unbelieving,
unrepentant, and unconverted. Such preaching teaches us
that unless our religion be experiential, we shall
perish-not because experience itself saves, but because
the Christ who saves sinners must be experienced
personally as the rock upon which the house of our
eternal hope is built (Matthew 7:22-27; 1 Corinthians
1:30; 2:2).
Experimental
preaching is applicatory as well. It applies the text to
every aspect of the hearer's life and spiritual need. In
this way it seeks to promote a religion that is truly a
power, and not a mere form (2 Timothy 3:5). This kind of
experimental religion was defined by Robert Burns as
"Christianity brought home to 'men's business and
bosoms.' . . . In one word, the principle on which
experimental religion rests is simply this, that
Christianity should not only be known, and understood,
and believed, but also felt, and enjoyed, and
practically applied" (“Introduction,” in The Works of Thomas
Halyburton, pp.
xiv-xv).
How
different this is from most contemporary preaching!
The Word of God is often preached today in a way that
will never transform anyone because it never
discriminates and never applies. Preaching is then
reduced to a lecture, a demonstration, a catering
to the wishes and comforts of men, or a form of
"experientialism" which is cut loose from the
foundation of Scripture. Such preaching fails to expound
from Scripture what the Reformed called vital religion: how a sinner is continually
stripped of all his own righteousness; how he is driven
to Christ alone for a full-orbed salvation; how he finds
joy in simple reliance upon Christ and strives after
obedience to Him; how he encounters the plague of
indwelling sin, battles against backsliding, and gains
the victory by faith in
Christ.
It is no wonder
that when God's Word is preached experimentally, it
shows itself to be a great force for transformation of
men and nations, as "the power of God unto
salvation" (Romans 1:16). For such preaching proclaims
from the gates of hell, as it were, that those who are
not born again shall soon walk through these gates to
eternally dwell in the homelessness of hell unless
they repent (Luke 13:1-9). Such preaching proclaims from
the gates of heaven that the regenerate, who by God's
preserving grace persevere in holiness, shall soon
walk through these gates into eternal glory and
unceasing communion with the Triune God. Such preaching
is transforming because it corresponds to the vital
experience of the children of God (cf. Romans 5:1-11);
it expounds clearly the marks and fruits of saving grace
germane to the believer (Matthew 5:3-12; Galatians
5:22-23); it sets before the believer and unbeliever
alike their eternal futures (Revelation 21:1-9). (See
the Heidelberg Confession for a Reformed confessional
statement that facilitates preaching. This is evidenced
by: {1} the catechism’s exposition of an outline . . .
{2} its application of most doctrines directly to the
believer’s conscience and spiritual profit, and {3} its
warm, personal character in which the believer is
regularly addressed in the second
person.)
Fifth, does the
manner of my preaching and my entire ministry confirm
the message I proclaim? One of the problems of the
contemporary pulpit is the jarring contrast between the
serious nature of the message proclaimed and the casual
and even offhand way in which it is delivered. Preachers
who by their manner convey the impression that they
have nothing especially important to say should not
be surprised if no one gives them any serious
attention.
The manner
of our preaching ought to confirm the seriousness
of what we have to say. The Westminster Assembly divines
understood this fundamental link between style and
substance. They conclude their discussion on method in
preaching in The
Directory for the Public Worship of God (1645) by
taking up the matter of style or manner, and charge all
preachers that both their preaching and "whole ministry"
must be performed in the spirit of these seven
marks: (1) painfully, that
is, painstakingly, not negligently; (2) plainly, so
that the most uneducated may be able to grasp the
teaching of Scripture; (3) faithfully,
yearning for the honor of Christ, the salvation of
the lost, and the edification of believers; (4) wisely,
teaching and admonishing in a manner most apt
to prevail with the parishioners; (5) gravely, as
becomes the Word; (6) lovingly, with
godly zeal and hearty desire for the welfare of souls; (7) earnestly,
being inwardly persuaded of the
truth of Christ and walking before the flock in a godly
manner, both privately and publicly.30 If these seven
qualities were exemplified more fully in today's
preaching and ministry, would we not see more of the
transforming power of the Word of God in the
churches?
Ministers
must seek grace to build the house of God with both
hands-with their doctrine and their life. "Truth is in
order to godliness," said the Old School Presbyterians.
Doctrine must produce life, and life must adorn
doctrine. Preachers must be what they preach and teach.
They must not only apply themselves to their texts, but
they must also apply their texts to themselves (The Confession of
Faith, p. 381). "He doth preach
most," wrote John Boys, "that doth live best." Perhaps
Robert Murray M'Cheyne said it best: "A minister's life
is the life of his ministry.... In great measure,
according to the purity and perfections of the
instrument, will be the success. It is not great
talents that God blesses so much as likeness to
Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of
God."
[Taken from
Sola Scriptura!
The Protestant Position on the Bible; Don Kistler,
editor.]
