Handling Criticism

Every critic, however ill-informed, represents a point of view which is likely not limited to just him.

-- Wordsmithy, Doug Wilson

Boring Preaching = an oxymoron

I put next something which is meant partly to correct, or perhaps not so much to correct, as to safeguard, what I have been saying, from misunderstanding. I refer to the element of ‘liveliness.’ This underlines the fact that seriousness does not mean solemnity, does not mean sadness, does not mean morbidity. These are all very important distinctions. The preacher must be lively; and you can be lively and serious at the same time.

Let me put this in other words. The preacher must never be dull, he must never be boring; he should never be what is called ‘heavy.’ I am emphasizing these points because of something I am often told and which worries me a great deal. I belong to the Reformed tradition, and may have had perhaps a little to do in Britain with the restoration of this emphasis during the last forty years or so. I am disturbed therefore when I am often told by members of churches that many of the younger Reformed men are very good men, who have no doubt read a great deal, and are very learned men, but they are very dull and boring preachers; and I am told this by people who themselves hold the Reformed position.

This is to me a very serious matter; there is something radically wrong with dull and boring preachers. How can a man be dull when he is handling such themes? I would say that a ‘dull preacher’ is a contradiction in terms; if he is dull he is not a preacher. He may stand in a pulpit and talk, but he is certainly not a preacher. With the grand them and message of the Bible dullness is impossible. This is the most interesting, the most thrilling, the most absorbing subject in the universe; and the idea that this can be presented in a dull manner makes me seriously doubt whether the men who are guilty of this dullness have ever really understood the doctrine they claim to believe, and which they advocate. We often betray ourselves our manner.

– D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, p.86-87

The Message of the Apostles

The apostles understood that the end of the ages was upon them and that the judgement was just around the corner (Acts 17:30-31). And so they didn't rise up on Sunday morning to explain that there were interesting perspectives in this word that you might choose to adopt if they happened to fit in with your faith journey. They didn't canvas the various options and perspectives that might shed light on what this word actually meant. And they didn't provide a verbal commentary, detailing some of the idiosyncrasies of biblical Hebrew. They preached that God's king had come and that today was the day to repent.

-- Phillip Jensen, The Archer and the Arrow, p.31

What if God showed up this Sunday?

If God guaranteed you that he would visit your church this Sunday, and bring a message to the congregation, direct from his own lips, speaking his life-changing truth to the spiritual needs of all, would you think about cutting one or two songs and giving God some extra time? Would you ask the drama team to postpone their 20-minute re-enactment of the Prodigal Son? Would you feel the need, if you were the minister, to put aside some time after God had spoken to tell some stories that made the divine message a bit more real and relevant to the people?
If God did turn up in all his blazing glory to deliver a message to your church, what would your reaction be? Hopefully you would scrap everything, fall trembling on your knees, and say, "Speak, Lord, your servants are listening."

-- Phillip Jensen, The Archer and the Arrow, p.19

Clever Sermons Can Hide the Gospel

“Hear the Gospel, only mind that what you hear is the Gospel. You can hear some very smart sermons and very clever sermons and, as a rule, I may say that the cleverer they are, the worse they are! Where you see so much of the man, you will see very little of His Master.”

– Charles H. Spurgeon, quoted on Pure Church by Thabiti Anyabwile

The Priority of Preaching Christ

Martin Luther: "I preach as though Christ was crucified yesterday, rose from the dead today, and is coming back tomorrow."

Richard Baxter: "If we can but teach Christ to our people, we teach them all."

Charles Spurgeon: "A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution.... When we preach Jesus Christ, then we are not putting out the plates, and the knives, and the forks, for the feast, but we are handing out the bread itself.... [Let us] preach Christ to sinners if we cannot preach sinners to Christ.... I wish that our ministry--and mine especially--might be tied and tethered to the cross."

-- Quoted by Joel Beeke in "God-Centered Theology in the Ministry of the Word," The Puritan Reformed Journal. Mentioned by Pure Church on 08/20/2009

Piper on Preaching

Some of you may have little or no experience with what I mean by preaching. I think it will help you listen to my messages if I say a word about it.

What I mean by preaching is expository exultation.

Preaching Is Expository

Expository means that preaching aims to exposit, or explain and apply, the meaning of the Bible. The reason for this is that the Bible is God’s word, inspired, infallible, profitable—all 66 books of it.

The preacher’s job is to minimize his own opinions and deliver the truth of God. Every sermon should explain the Bible and then apply it to people's lives.

The preacher should do that in a way that enables you to see that the points he is making actually come from the Bible. If you can’t see that they come from the Bible, your faith will end up resting on a man and not on God's word.

The aim of this exposition is to help you eat and digest biblical truth that will

• make your spiritual bones more like steel,
• double the capacity of your spiritual lungs,
• make the eyes of your heart dazzled with the brightness of the glory of God,
• and awaken the capacity of your soul for kinds of spiritual enjoyment you didn’t even know existed.

Preaching Is Exultation

Preaching is also exultation. This means that the preacher does not just explain what’s in the Bible, and the people do not simply try understand what he explains. Rather, the preacher and the people exult over what is in the Bible as it is being explained and applied.

Preaching does not come after worship in the order of the service. Preaching is worship. The preacher worships—exults—over the word, trying his best to draw you into a worshipful response by the power of the Holy Spirit.

My job is not simply to see truth and show it to you. (The devil could do that for his own devious reasons.) My job is to see the glory of the truth and to savor it and exult over it as I explain it to you and apply it for you. That’s one of the differences between a sermon and a lecture.

Preaching Isn't Church, but It Serves the Church

Preaching is not the totality of the church. And if all you have is preaching, you don’t have the church. A church is a body of people who minister to each other.

One of the purposes of preaching is to equip us for that and inspire us to love each other better.

But God has created the church so that she flourishes through preaching. That’s why Paul gave young pastor Timothy one of the most serious, exalted charges in all the Bible in 2 Timothy 4:1-2:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word.

What to Expect from My Preaching and Why

If you're used to a twenty-minute, immediately practical, relaxed talk, you won't find that from what I've just described.

• I preach twice that long;
• I do not aim to be immediately practical but eternally helpful;
• and I am not relaxed.

I standing vigilantly on the precipice of eternity speaking to people who this week could go over the edge whether they are ready to or not. I will be called to account for what I said there.

That's what I mean by preaching.

-- John Piper, What I Mean By Preaching, Desiring God Blog, 5/13/2009.

'Wet-Eyed' Preaching

There is great intellectual ability in the pulpit of our day, great eloquence, and great earnestness, but spiritual preaching, preaching to the spirit - 'wet-eyed' preaching - is a lost art. At the same time, if that living art is for the present overlaid and lost, the literature of a deeper spiritual day abides to us, and our spiritually minded people are not confined to us, they are not dependent on us.

-- Alexander Whyte, quoted by Iain Murray, A Scottish Christian Heritage, p.xi

On Preaching Christ

Christ-centered preaching rightly understood does not seek to discover where Christ is mentioned in every text but to disclose where every text stands in relation to Christ.

Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching, p.279

Is Your Sermon Precious?

A word to preachers. Truth and falsehood is a good pair of categories to use when deciding what to preach. Speak truth not falsehood.

But there is another crucial pair of categories. God tells Jeremiah that he must use this pair if he would be faithful:

Therefore thus says the Lord: "...If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth. (Jeremiah 15:19)

In deciding what to preach make these two judgments: Is it true and is it precious? Preach what is both. If it is true, preach it with authority. If it is precious, preach it with passion.

One great reason why some preaching leaves people unmoved is that preachers seem unmoved. Is this precious or isn't it? That is the question in the hearts of the people. If it is, why don't you sound like it?

The great battle of preaching is to see what's true and to savor what's precious. Weak seeing and weak savoring are a curse to God's people.

Brothers, plead for deliverance from this curse. The ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. They are more precious than gold and sweeter than honey (Psalms 19:9-10).

-- John Piper, Desiring God Blog, Oct 21, 2008

The Direction of Your Preaching

As preachers, they were all remarkable. There are some who preach before their people, like actors on the stage, to display themselves and to please their audience. Not such were the self-denied preachers of Ross-shire. There are others who preach over their people. Studying for the highest, instead of doing so for the lowest, in intelligence, they elaborate learned treatises, which float like mist, when delivered, over the heads of their hearers. Not such were the earnest preachers of Ross-shire. There are some who preach past their people. Directing their praise or their censure to intangible abstractions, they never take aim at the views and the conduct of the individuals before them. They step carefully aside, lest their hearers should be struck by their shafts, and aim them at phantoms beyond them. Not such were the faithful preachers of Ross-shire. There are others who preach at their people, serving out in a sermon the gossip of the week, and seemingly possessed with the idea that the transgressor can be scolded out of the ways of iniquity. Not such were the wise preachers of Ross-shire. There are some who preach towards their people. They aim well, but they are weak. Their eye is along the arrow towards the hearts of their hearers, but their arm is too feeble for sending it on to the mark. Superficial in their experience and in their knowledge, they reach not the cases of God’s people by their doctrine, and they strike with no vigour at the consciences of the ungodly. Not such were the powerful preachers of Ross-shire. There are others still, who preach along their congregation. Instead of standing with their bow in front of the ranks, these archers take them in line, and, reducing their mark to an individual, never change the direction of their aim. Not such were the discriminating preachers of Ross-shire. But there are a few who preach to the people directly and seasonably the mind of God in His Word, with authority, unction, wisdom, fervour, and love. Such as these last were the eminent preachers of Ross-shire.

-- John Kennedy, The Ministers of Ross-Shire, 22-23.
(HT: Thabiti Anyabwile)

Preach to Persuade!

Preaching to convey information is predictable and unthreatening. Preaching to effect transformation is hard work and risky business. Yet that is the whole point of preaching. An effective sermon is measured not by its polished technique but by the ability of the preacher to connect the Word to the reality of the listener’s life. Preachers and sermons can be funny, entertaining, enthralling, intriguing, intellectually stimulating, controversial, full of impressive theological and doctrinal footpaths, and authoritative. But if ultimately the outcome does not result in a changed life because of an encounter with truth, then it has not been what God intended preaching to be.

-- Joseph Stowell in The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching, Willhite & Gibson, eds., p.125

Preaching can be Exhausting

Wrestling ourselves clear with an author’s thought, and then wrestling ourselves clear with our own, is not for the mentally lazy. It often involves long hours of struggle in order to understand and capture fully and accurately what an author is saying; then equally long hours struggling to produce a message that will communicate that message, and its implications, faithfully and creatively to our own audience. It can be an exhausting task.

-- Duane Lifton in The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching, Willhite & Gibson, eds., p.57

Heresy in Preaching

Every sermon is heresy when judged for all the important truths left untreated.

-- Fred Craddock in The Homiletical Plot, by Eugene Lowry, p.xiv

Make Them Ask Questions!

The overall deductive structure (of sermon outlines) is most effective when the Big Idea, clearly stated, causes the listener to immediately have some questions about it.

-- Donald Sunukjian in The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching, ed. by Keith Willhite & Scott Gibson, pg. 116

Are you a Hack?

"Without guidance, the most earnest preacher of the gospel hacks away with a blunt knife at the most delicate of operations, his labour vastly increased, his effectiveness sadly decreased, by his lack of a method."

-- R.E.O. White, quoted by H. Wayne House and Daniel Garland, God's Message, Your Sermon, p.4

All Roads Lead to Christ

"I believe that those sermons which are fullest of Christ are the most likely to be blessed to the conversion of the hearers. Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the gospel. As for myself, brethren, I cannot preach anything else but Christ and His cross, for I know nothing else, and long ago, like the apostle Paul, I determined not to know anything else save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. People have often asked me, "What is the secret of your success?" I always answer that I have no other secret but this, that I have preached the gospel,—not about the gospel, but the gospel,—the full, free, glorious gospel of the living Christ who is the incarnation of the good news. Preach Jesus Christ, brethren, always and everywhere; and every time you preach be sure to have much of Jesus Christ in the sermon. You remember the story of the old minister who heard a sermon by a young man, and when he was asked by the preacher what he thought of it he was rather slow to answer, but at last he said, "If I must tell you, I did not like it at all; there was no Christ in your sermon." "No," answered the young man, "because I did not see that Christ was in the text." "Oh!" said the old minister, "but do you not know that from every little town and village and tiny hamlet in England there is a road leading to London? Whenever I get hold of a text, I say to myself, 'There is a road from here to Jesus Christ, and I mean to keep on His track till I get to Him.'" "Well," said the young man, "but suppose you are preaching from a text that says nothing about Christ?" "Then I will go over hedge and ditch but what I will get at Him." So must we do, brethren; we must have Christ in all our discourses, whatever else is in or not in them. There ought to be enough of the gospel in every sermon to save a soul. Take care that it is so when you are called to preach before Her Majesty the Queen, and if you have to preach to chairwomen or chairmen, still always take care that there is the real gospel in every sermon."

-- C.H. Spurgeon, The Soul Winner, from Kaleo blog

Scripture should not be merely learned...

The study of Scripture can never be complete until one has moved from text to context. The static study of the original meaning of a text dare never be an end in itself but must at all times have as its goal the dynamic application of the text to one’s current needs and the sharing of that text with others via expository teaching and preaching.  Scripture should not merely be learned; it must be believed and then proclaimed.

 

-- Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral, p.410

 

Lack of reading hurts you

What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear, to this day, is want of reading. I scarce ever knew a preacher who read so little. And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the taste for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago. It is lively, but not deep; there is little variety; there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it, any more than a thorough Christian. Oh begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not; what is tedious at first will afterwards be pleasant. Whether you like it or no, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days, and a pretty, superficial preacher. Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer. Take up your cross and be a Christian altogether. Then will all the children of God rejoice (not grieve) over you; and in particular yours.

 

-- John Wesley, quoted in D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, Letters Along The Way, p.169.

Think Yourself Clear

Despite the difficulty of clothing thought with words, a preacher has to do it.  Unless ideas are expressed in words, we cannot understand, evaluate, or communicate them.  If a preacher will not – or cannot – think himself clear so that he says what he means, he has no business in the pulpit.  He is like a singer who can’t sing, an actor who can’t act, an accountant who can’t add.

 

-- Haddon Robinson, Biblical Preaching, p.39