I was blessed to have SEBTS professor/pastor/author Tony Merida and pastor/author Jared Wilson on my blog for a discussion on preaching.
Here is an excerpt:
TONY: My main focus is that that I want to take the listeners for a swim in the text. I want us to immerse ourselves in Scripture, and my desire is particularly to exalt Jesus as the hero of the Bible – and by extension as the hero of every sermon. I want people to walk away every week and say, “What a great Savior” not “What a great sermon.”
JARED: Preaching ought to be exultational, an act of worship on the preacher’s part. Many preachers have already discovered that their congregations don’t get excited about what their preacher tells them to get excited about but instead about what their preacher is evidently and obviously himself excited about. Our people will start to see how God’s proclamational initiative in saving us through Jesus Christ provokes doxological astonishment.
For the full discussion, click HERE.
I think from reading this post that these men, Tony and Jared, might have come across this beautiful description of preaching from John Crysostom:
. . . . . “but when a man is speaking from heaven, and utters a voice plainer than thunder? For he has pervaded the whole earth with the sound; and occupied and filled it, not by the loudness of the cry, but by moving his tongue with the grace of God.
And what is wonderful, this sound, great as it is, is neither a harsh nor an unpleasant one, but sweeter and more delightful than all harmony of music, and with more skill to soothe; and besides all this, most holy, and most awful, and full of mysteries so great, and bringing with it goods so great, that if men were exactly and with ready mind to receive and keep them, they could no longer be mere men nor remain upon the earth, but would take their stand above all the things of this life, and having adapted themselves to the condition of angels, would dwell on earth just as if it were heaven.”
The original doctrine of the Baptists on ministerial qualifications is that God calls and qualifies a person for the ministry by illumination and/or education. Illumination is the gift of understanding with the power to proclaim. Perhaps, it would be bet to state that it is an “and” stituation rather than an “or” as education without the divine help manifested in illumination is a polarized position that must inevitably fail. Likewise, illumination is practically doomed from the start as God requires reding of Scripture with understanding of what its said there. Even so there is a spiritual aspect to understanding that education cannot supply. The Bible exhorts to study to show ourselves approved, to give ourselves to reading of the word. The doctrine is a both/and, two-sided, apparently contradictory truth. Education and illumination cannot be reconciled and are not meant to be. They set up a tension in the human mind so that one can be balanced, flexible, creative, enduring, and magnetic. Having said all that, we come to the sobering reality that it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. That means the highest act, art, aim, and aid of preaching is the delivering of the word of deliverance to the needy souls. And, since salvation is an ongoing process, there is the message at the beginning, the conversion, followed by the message for continuing conversion and consecration, and finally the message of consummation where one finishes his or her course of service to Christ in this world.
Few people realize that the message truly and freely delivered is a presently real and up close and personal here in this world just as it is in Heaven where there the only difference is the absence of all sin. The glory here to God is greater in the sense that it occurs under conditions and circumstances directly contrary to good intended.
Think of the glory and honor given to God by the woman of Canaan, when she expressed such faith in Him and His goodness and power that she thought the equivalent of His gift as small as a mircocrumb that a family pet might snap up from under the children’s table. Jesus certainly took notice of it. He called her faith great. The woman of Canaan and the Roman Centurion are the only two people in the Gospels that come to mind of whom our Lord said their fatih was great or so commendable as to be beyond anything else in Israel.
Think of how a poor sermon can be the instrument of God to accomplish great things, and think of how the best prepared message can fall flat. Think also of how we ought to tremble at he great opportunity to preach or to hear the word preached. Think of the Presence of God in the worship service.
I have been struck by the fact that Erasmus spoke of the Greek New Testament presenting Jesus to the reader as more real than if Jesus stood before the reader in the flesh, and I am struck by the fact that when we come to church and to the worship service it is counted as something so great as follows. GO back in your mind 2000 years ago. Think of living in Bethany or Bethlehem. It is a summer day. You are going to the temple to hear Jesus. think of the dusty paths, the rocks in the road, of fellow travelers talking about hear the Messiah. Then you come to the temple and there you hear and see the Son of Man Himself and his words spoken to you along with others.
Now think of coming to church today. What have you come to. THe writer of Hebrews says “You are come to Mt. Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem…the church of the first born,….to God, and to Jesus.”(Hebs.12:22,23,24). Yes, the Lord is there, more present than if He stood before you in the flesh, God Himself is present…so are angels….The idea is overwhelming. The Presence is overwhelming, provoking adoration and worship and praise. In Him we live and move and having our being. In a sense He is coming to us ever second of every minute of every hour of every day. Why do we not preach HIS PRESENT COMING. In Jn.14. Jesus at least twice in the Greek present tense I am coming to you…Think about that. And in church He is present in a special way. Where two or three are gathered together in his name, there is He in the midst of them. Do we really think of the awful and awesome Presence in the worship services of our churches, regardless of what others think and say? And when the minister of the word stands to speak that word to us do we anticipate a message as from the heart of God?
When we have the sense of that overwhelming presence then, perhaps, we shall know the wonders of a Great Awakening again in our land. For such I do pray.