Jeffrey Arthurs has an interview which just posted today on PreachingToday.com where he was asked two questions: What are you passionate about (as a homiletics professor at Gordon-Conwell)? and What concerns do you have about contemporary preaching?
He answered the first question by giving examples of how preaching tends to leap over or go behind the back of Scriptural intent and instead focus on immediate felt needs (of the preacher and/or congregation). The text is then made to fit the message by offering principles that are not inherent to the intent of the passage. He argues for getting the point of the passage as the first and foremost task of the expositor. (AMEN to that!)
There was a cartoon strip I saw once where a parishioner was shaking the hand of the preacher as he left the service and saying, “I’ll bet you wish you could take that one back.” This rings a little too true for some of the messages I have preached in years gone by. I may have preached a message that was meaningful, life-changing, etc., but the question I have to ask myself is, “Did I preach what God, by His Spirit, through the Scriptures was actually saying?”
In answer to the second question, he spoke to the issue of plagiarism. Better yet, he spoke to the positive call to the preacher to spend the time and energy necessary to know the text and be changed by it (or perhaps I’m making him say more than he did ;-) ). I fully believe that preachers need to marinate in the word of the Lord prior to preaching it. Let it change you! Let your being be transformed by the Scriptures! Let the Spirit of God cut to your heart and work in you in power!
You can read the whole interview HERE.
While I’m at it, here are a few helpful volumes on the topic of preaching:
Chapell, Bryan. Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon. Baker Academic, 2005.
Lloyd-Jones, David Martyn, and Kevin De Young. Preaching and Preachers. Zondervan, 2011.
Mathewson, Steven D. The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative. Baker Academic, 2002.
Piper, John. The Supremacy of God in Preaching. Baker Books, 2004.
Robinson, Haddon W. Biblical Preaching The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages. Baker Academic, 2006.
Stott, John R. W. Between Two Worlds: The Challenge of Preaching Today. W.B. Eerdmans Pub, 1994.
Willimon, William H. Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized. Eerdmans, 2000.
Willimon, William H. The Intrusive Word: Preaching to the Unbaptized. Wipf and Stock Pub, 2002.
Willimon, William H., and Stanley Hauerwas. Preaching to Strangers. Westminster, John Knox Press, 1992.
Related articles
- You Didn’t Preach That Sermon (bluechippastor.org)
- A Sermon No One Should Preach (bluechippastor.org)
