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The Importance of Theological Preaching

By Michael R. Jones

The modern church has sacrificed the apostolic faith
on the altar of cultural relevance.
The Apostle Paul was keenly aware of the seeming irrelevance of his
message when he wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians and acknowledged
that his message was “unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the
Greeks foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23).  Paul affirms, however, that he will
remain faithful to that message no matter how irrelevant it may seem.  “And I, brethren, when I came to
you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the
testimony of God.  For I determined
not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1
Corinthians 2:1-2).  For Paul, the
message was important, not the messenger or the medium or even the felt needs
of the audience.  This message was,
of course, the great truths of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

Yet modern Christianity has abandoned the message of
“Christ and him crucified” for something more appealing to the
masses.  No longer is the message of
Christ essential to the furtherance of the kingdom, this place has been usurped
by “other gospels.”
Marketing ideas, support groups, and self-esteem workshops have crept
their way into the mission of the church.
It is not uncommon today to attend churches on Sunday morning where the
Gospel is not proclaimed and the pastor does not preach, instead he shares.  This sharing usually involves the
proclamation of a truth perhaps illustrated by the Scriptures, but drawn mostly
from the world of business principles or pop psychology.  This author was informed by one man
whose pastor has not preached a sermon in years, the church now has
“talks” in which the pastor addresses current issues that he deems
relevant to those in attendance and the gospel is rarely presented because he
doesn’t want to “turn people off.”  No wonder church members fail to see the
comprehensive benefit of the Scriptures for their lives.  “One reason why people sometimes
doubt the abiding value of God-centered preaching is because they have never
heard any.”[1]

It appears as if pastors and church members alike have
forgotten that the church belongs to God.
This means that not only must the mission of the church be determined by
God, but the means of accomplishing that mission must also be determined by
God.  The following indictment is
all too true in many churches today:

In many evangelical congregations, one can often tell
immediately what literature the pastor has been reading, what his views are on
the latest book, what he’s just been influenced by, etc.  So many of them seem to be just sort of
shooting from the hip.  The guy
usually claims a high view of Scripture on paper, but it seems that in actual
practice, when he mounts the pulpit, he thinks his authority comes from
somewhere else – from his ability to read sociological trends or
something.[2]

There are many who would disagree with this
assessment, but there is much to commend it.  Preachers fail to grasp how significant
their task is.  They have high
standards in theory and on paper and yet another standard when it comes time to
fill the role.  For example, many
conservative evangelicals would not affirm Karl Barth’s Neo-orthodox view
of Scripture.  They would say that
the whole Bible is literally true and historically accurate, but then would
turn right around and preach the story of David and Goliath as “How to
Defeat the Giants in Your Life” or preach from Ruth about how deal with
your mother-in-law.  Neither of
these sermons would require Christ to die in order for them to be true and the
same sermons could be preached from a novel promoted by Oprah’s book club
or from a primetime soap opera and they would probably achieve the same
results.

The Bible, however, is not a self-help book, or a
Precious Promise Book, or an instruction manual for life’s problems.  Instead, the Bible reveals God to man
through his redemptive acts in the person of his Son Jesus Christ.  This revelation is systematic, personal,
and progressive.[3]  Even an exciting historical narrative
such as the story of David and Goliath has redemptive-historical value and must
be preached properly (that is, in light of redemptive history) to do justice to
the revelation.

Preaching is a message as well as a method.  It is even arguable that preaching is a
message rather than a method.  The
right message poorly proclaimed is preferable to a nonmessage well proclaimed.  Paul saw his own function as being to
declare the word of the cross.  He
had to proclaim the facts: Christ died, Christ rose.  But he had also to proclaim the meaning
of those facts.  Uninterpreted, they
were useless and meaningless.
Interpreted as Christ’s vicarious suffering for sin and the
attestation of his divine sonship and lordship, they were the saving power of
God.[4]

Notice there is no mention made in Paul’s
writings of using the Old Testament narratives to demonstrate “life
principles” nor does Paul promote his ability to make the Scriptures
“culturally relevant.”
Sin is something that crosses cultural boundaries and, thank God,
salvation crosses cultural boundaries as well.  Paul made it clear that “There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male
nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Preachers today, however, in their attempt to make the
Scriptures relevant to society and to demonstrate the practicality and earthly
value of being a Christian have attempted to fulfill the Great Commission by
taking a message that is contrary to the nature of man and making it palatable
to the masses.  The problem is that
part of the message must be sacrificed for this to happen.  That is the only way something
unacceptable and irrelevant can become acceptable and relevant to the natural
man.  They have succeeded only in
weakening the gospel message and distorting the truth of God’s salvific
work in Jesus Christ.

Many preachers today would judge a sermon to be good
if it had a good outline, a catchy title, and really “spoke to
people’s lives.”
Secondary are the considerations regarding how faithful it is to the
text or how Christ was exalted.
“If you preach a sermon that would be acceptable to the members of
a Jewish synagogue or to a Unitarian congregation, there is something radically
wrong with it.”[5]  Many sermons have great outlines, catchy
titles, and captivating illustrations, but these do not make Christian
preaching.  “Preaching, when
truly Christian, is distinctive.”[6]  These sermons may be great motivational
speeches, but they are not sermons about Christ nor is Christ lifted up and
believers edified.  As a result,
believers go home spiritually malnourished because they have not been fed on
the Bread of Life and the lost go home wondering what all the fuss is
about.  “Our Lord himself
warns us, as he did the Pharisees, that any form of preaching or reading the
Bible that misses Christ at the center is not genuine preaching or reading of
Scripture.”[7]

Once the Scriptural authority is removed by relegating
the Bible to the level of a self-help book, the picture of the church becomes
blurred and is eventually unrecognizable.
No longer is the church the body of Christ, the called-out group of
people upon whom God has put his name, the church is just another support group
or country club, or worse, it becomes a business just like any other.  This changing picture of the church is
evident today.  Certainly the Bible
uses many varied pictures of the church to illustrate its role in the
world.  We have even adopted modern
images such as that of a hospital to illustrate the same truths.  But something is subtly changing in the
way even church members and pastors view the church.  Christianity has become big business and
local churches have become the wholesale distributors.  Now the gospel has become a commodity to
be marketed rather than a truth to be believed and Christianity is an option to
be chosen rather than a life to be embraced.  The local church has to do what it can
to “get the word out about this amazing new opportunity before it’s
too late.”  The message is
“out there,” but it’s not the same message that resulted in
stripes on the backs of the apostles or fires around the feet of Reformation
preachers.

Perhaps this is true simply because it doesn’t
cost anything to be a Christian today.
Pastors, in their efforts to overthrow the caricatures of bygone eras,
have sought to establish credibility in the business world by adopting business
models and managerial paradigms to define their roles.  This idea of church as big business
drives pastors to abandon theological preaching.  Under this model, the pastor is no
longer the spiritual leader or spiritual authority in the church; he is the
Chief Executive Officer and the deacons or church leaders serve as the Board of
Directors.  This mentality must
inevitably carry over into the pulpit.
Since the church is big business it becomes the responsibility of the
pastor to motivate the workers (that is, the laity), develop programs that give
people more for their contribution dollar (hence all the activities, support
groups, and “fellowships”), and ensure that the organization turns
a profit (that is, it must at the least, produce measurable growth such as
professions of faith, baptisms, new members).  The modern church member wants more
“bang for his buck” than in years past.  To accomplish this, the practical
becomes more important than any other concern because evident and measurable
results must be produced at all costs.

Suddenly, what I do for the church becomes infinitely
more important than who I am in Christ and therefore, doctrine is not
important.  It is not important what
I learn as long as I have the skills necessary to contribute to the body.  The Bible ceases to be the “only
rule for faith and practice” as it once was and becomes a rule only for
practice.  To this guidebook
(because it is no longer a holy book, it is simply the guidebook above all
others) is added leadership books, church growth and marketing books, and
various other self-help books.  Many
of these “Christian” self-help books are really business-oriented
but because they have a Christian slant, they are marketed so that their claim
to help one maximize his potential as a servant of Christ cannot be
overlooked.  In reality, they only
preach the same self-centered self-esteem liberalism promoted by Norman Vincent
Peale and Robert Schuller.

The preacher who fails to understand the significance
of the theology of Scripture (especially as it regards the nature, function,
and purpose of the church) will easily fall prey to this same mentality.  This preacher then ceases to go to the
Lord for his messages, but to the felt needs of his congregation or the
ministry standards set by his local church leadership or denomination or the
ministry objectives set by the latest church growth guru who in turn has
borrowed his objectives from the most profitable Fortune 500 companies.  “In such churches the Bible is
subjected to strained interpretations in order to fit into the latest marketing
schemes foisted upon the church.
Biblical soundness yields to pragmatic results.  Once a new method produces results, church
growth strategists declare it to be a church
growth principle.”[8]

These factors contribute to the current glut of bad
preaching so prevalent in our churches today.  By “bad preaching” this
writer does not mean that the preaching is boring.  In fact, much of it is enjoyable, even
entertaining, but it is not good preaching in that it does not fulfill the
Scriptural mandate concerning preaching.
There are numerous examples of this bad preaching and their prevalence
depends on various circumstances such as the denominational distinctives of the
preacher or church, the education level of the preacher (although this can
sometimes be very misleading, in either direction), the mission and vision of
the church or preacher, and the preacher’s own view of his theological
role.

In most mainline conservative denominations, one does
not attend church for long without being exposed to different preaching
styles.  While styles of preaching
may vary because the personalities of preachers vary, the content of sermons
should remain close to the text of Scripture and should relate in some way to
the person and work of Christ.  This
does not mean that the preacher only preaches Christological texts or preaches
the lecture notes from his seminary theology classes.  Many texts do not explicitly deal with
Christ, especially in the Old Testament, and the preacher must consider this in
his preparation.  This is often the
problem, the right kind of preaching takes time and is hard work.  This is often too much for those who
have bought into the business mentality of the Church Growth Movement.  They view themselves as executives
rather than “heralds of the Word of Life.”

Calvin was the first major modern expositor to firmly
adhere to the natural, historical sense of Scripture.  Calvin was so firm in his belief that
the expositor must first determine the original meaning of the text that Philip
Schaff would later refer to him as the “founder of historical-grammatical
exegesis.”[9]  To Calvin, the original, historical
meaning of a passage was the meaning of the passage.  He had little patience with those who
read meanings, even Christological ones, into texts where they didn’t
belong.

This means that the expositor must not twist Scripture
to find “the Jesus part” in every passage.  That is not preaching Christ
either.  “A passage retains
its Christocentric focus, and a sermon becomes Christ-centered, not because the
preacher finds a slick way of wedging a reference to Jesus’ person or
work into the message but because the sermon identifies a function this
particular text legitimately serves in the great drama of the Son’s crusade
against the serpent.”[10]

So to preach Christ one must remain faithful to the
text of Scripture and not read anything into the text that is not there, but
the expositor must understand that each text in the Bible reveals God to us and
since God’s most perfect and complete revelation of himself is in the
person and work of Jesus Christ, then in some way each text must be related to
some aspect of the person and work of Christ.

Indeed, that is how many homileticians define
“preaching Christ and him crucified.”  For example, Sidney Greidanus defines
“preaching Christ” as “preaching sermons which authentically
integrate the meaning of the text with the climax of God’s revelation in
the person, work, and/or teaching of Jesus Christ as revealed in the New Testament.”[11]

This definition allows much flexibility in the choice
of texts (as it should) and in explaining the texts but is rigid enough to
force the preacher to carefully consider whatever text he is preaching in light
of Christ.  This means that the preacher
must work with the text to avoid resorting to shallow typology or allegory,
neither of which allows the preacher to integrate the text with Christ’s
work adequately.  It also means that
the preacher must actually understand the text prior to preaching it rather
than simply using it as a springboard to get to whatever points the preacher is
trying to make.  “In many
sermons the biblical passage read to the congregation resembles the national
anthem played at a football game – it gets things started but is not
heard again during the afternoon.”[12]  Such preaching demonstrates that the
Word really isn’t that significant to the Christian life.  “An old Dutch preacher has sagely
observed that the pulpit must not drive us to the text, but rather the text
must drive us to the pulpit.”[13]

Sadly, there are fewer and fewer sermons sounding from
pulpits that complete this maxim.
This is perhaps why many church members are very well-versed on
distinctives peculiar to their denomination, but are more than a little hazy on
the fundamental truths of Christianity.
These believers often lapse into legalism because they do not understand
the similarities between their own and other denominations.  Likewise, many Christians are very
familiar with the latest trends in end-time prophecy as popularized in several
Christian novels, but lack even a basic understanding of historic doctrines
such as the Trinity, or the inspiration of Scripture.

At the 1996 Christian Bookseller’s Association
Convention, Modern Reformation
magazine conducted a survey of evangelical Christians over the three-day period
of the convention.  When asked if
they could name the Ten Commandments, only 5% of those questioned could name
all ten.  Most respondents could not
even name half.  Only 7% were at
least close when asked to define justification.[14]

Other pastors fill time by addressing issues pertinent
to that particular body.  While the
Word does speak to many contemporary issues, it is the preaching of the Word
that must motivate and change people, not the preacher who uses the Word.  These pastors attempt to solve problems
by delivering sermons intended to make the church feel guilty for what he
perceives as their lack of performance in certain areas.  These preachers are often heavy on the
application.  While some
congregations require and “desire solid explanations whose relevance is
more fully spelled out in down-to-earth application,”[15]
and while “the healthiest preaching does not assume listeners will
automatically see how to apply God’s truths to their lives; it supplies
the application people need,”[16]
the application must be founded on clear exegesis and interpretation.  Many Christians have difficulty
adequately and soundly interpreting the Scriptures because they are forced to
follow the example of their pastor who interprets it any way he pleases in
order to get the maximum performance out of his people or push his own agenda.

Some are guilty of this same tendency but for more
noble reasons.  Hoping to encourage
their parishioners to advance in the Christian life, they make their messages
soundly practical.  These messages
are strong on method but short on fundamental issues of theology and Bible
truth.  The believer who sits under
this preaching knows four different ways to have a quiet time, the eight steps
to reaching your goals, nine reasons for growing the Sunday School and five
different ways to do it, but they have no idea what any of this has to do with
their being “in Christ.”
This practical instruction, while necessary, has been divorced from the
purpose for such practical instruction in the first place.  Either the believer will fail to
understand the necessity for walking with God daily and will fall by the
wayside or their preferred method or their pastor’s preferred method will
become “the method” and they will lapse into legalism.

Even moral preaching can quickly turn from moral
instruction into moralism.  As Jay
Adams notes, “It is easy to become moralistic while preaching.  While there is nothing wrong with
preaching morality, in contrast, moralism is legalistic, ignores the grace of
God, and replaces the work of Christ with self-help.”[17]  Adams is right, moralism involves blind
adherence to a rigid code of laws that may or may not be Scriptural.  These laws or “standards” or
“convictions” eventually become the end purpose of the Christian
life and may usurp the place of the Scriptures in the life of the
believer.  These standards then
inevitably become the test of fellowship or the gauge by which other Christians
or churches are judged.  True
Christian morality, however, has its foundation in theology.  What I believe about God determines the
way I live my life before God.
“The important fact is that in the Bible a duty always grows out
of a doctrine.  Even in Proverbs and
in James the sacred writers base morality on theology.”[18]  Notice the Ten Commandments, the
ultimate moral instruction.  The law
begins with “I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2).  The gospel comes before the law and the
duty of the believer grows out of this objective knowledge of the redemptive
work of God.

Moralism, however, demands that people do things
rather than be something.  Paul was
not shy about dealing with moral issues that trouble the church even today, but
Paul constantly reminds his readers of their position in Jesus Christ.  Paul is encouraging his readers not to
do what they can do, but to be what they are supposed to be in Jesus
Christ.  The doing will follow the
being.  Adams reminds the preacher,
“You must not exhort your congregation to do whatever the Bible requires
of them as though they could fulfill those requirements on their own, but only
as a consequences of the saving power of the cross and the and the indwelling,
sanctifying power and presence of Christ in the person of the Holy
Spirit.”[19]

Perhaps the reason why these non-biblical styles of
preaching are so rampant is because they simply require less work than the
historic method of expositing the text of Scripture.  They not only require less work each
week for the upcoming Lord’s Day, but they also require less preparation
of the preacher as an individual.
The preacher does not have to have even a fundamental understanding of
the Biblical languages, he does not need to understand the depth of the early
church councils as they dealt with the Christological heresies, nor does he
have to be skillful with the use of lexicons, commentaries, and theologies in
order to preach basic business strategies and self-help psychology gleaned from
popular-level books.  The following
lengthy quote explains what preparation in the pastor’s study entails, or
should entail:

Preaching
is work, hard work.  It takes real
work with the text, real work with the context and real work with the
redemptive-historical context.
Preaching is not the calling for the man who spends the bulk of his
weekday afternoons at Kiwanis, Rotary or Chamber of Commerce luncheons.  Nor is preaching the calling for public
relations types who are advancing their images with promotional campaigns which
look like Madison Avenue or worse.
What a pity that the Lord Jesus did not have a New York executive
managing his “style.”
And oh, the poor apostle Paul–he was born too early for the Church
Growth Movement. […] But biblical preaching requires work with the
sources; hard work with the text, commentaries, journal articles, lexicons and
a host of other resources.  I had a
friend who has been in the ministry for twenty-five years and liked to brag
that he hadn’t read a theological book since he graduated from
seminary.  What a tragedy!  If you are not now purchasing and
learning to use the basic tools for working with a biblical text, then you are
not learning what to preach.  If you
have no commitment to working at your preaching and working 20 hours per week
in your study, then you are not working hard at mastering the content of the
text of Scripture.  If you believe
that you are proclaiming the word of life and it is the difference between
heaven and hell and that it is the building of the congregation in the fullness
of the stature of Jesus Christ, then you will have 20 hours because
that’s what it is going to take.
You are going to have to work with books.  You are going to have to work with the
gold of God’s word.  Like the
Marines, the church needs a few good men–and your study is boot
camp.  You are on a battle
field.  So get yourself in shape now
and start to begin to pay the price to be a herald of the word of life.  It simply can’t be done with 2-5
hours of preparation a week.[20]

It appears, however, as if many preachers do little
more than jot down a few thoughts on a legal pad and then fill in the gaps (and
thus fill time) with whatever books they have been reading that week.  In other words, they “shoot from
the hip” as indicated above rather than delivering a carefully prepared
sermon whose purpose is to exalt Christ and nourish the body of Christ.

At this point one may rightfully ask, “What is
sound theological or doctrinal preaching and what method could I use to pursue
it?”  The most obvious method
is the method employed in many churches which do not follow a strict liturgical
calendar in which they offer a free-text sermon in the morning (that is, one whose
text is chosen by the preacher) and a confessional or catechism sermon in the
evening.  This is certainly a way to
enhance the theological acumen of one’s congregation.  Indeed the Westminster Larger Catechism
was written as an aid to preachers and this is why others, such as the
Heidelberg Catechism, were divided into “Lord’s Days.”  The idea was that a preacher would go
through the whole thing in one year and then start over.  But this has its drawbacks, not the
least of which is that unless one is a very creative and dynamic preacher, even
the most hardy churchgoer can become bored after hearing the same sermons over
and over again year after year.

Confessions have as their purpose to explain clearly
the doctrinal standards of a certain group or theological community.  They are not to serve as a replacement
for the thorough understanding of the Scriptures.  In fact, this is the most decisive
argument against preaching directly from catechisms and confessions.

Our mandate is to preach the Word.  To resort instead to expounding a human document
is to confuse our people by blurring the distinction between what is normative
revelation and what is to be judged by that revelation.  Even when creeds are inerrant (a claim
that can be made for the Apostle’s Creed, for example), their proportion,
balance, and selection of topics will not be that of Scripture.  Furthermore, confessions and catechisms
present doctrine abstracted from its existential context – the
life-situation of Scripture – and thus obscure its practical relevance or
tempt us not to apply it at all.[21]

This does not mean that confessions and catechisms are
not useful for preaching theologically.
Indeed, they can provide invaluable assistance as expository aids.  One often finds, in the better
confessions, cogent explanations both of basic Christian doctrines such as
justification and adoption, and of more advanced topics such as the covenants
and Christian liberty.  In addition,
since the confessions represent the accumulated wisdom of Christianity from
previous ages, the preacher who uses them as guides may be assured that he is
not inventing new doctrines or preaching his own private interpretation.

Also, the use of creeds and confessions provide a good
indication of the relative importance of doctrines.  As the old saying goes, “The main
thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”  Every Christian can think of some
preacher who is always preaching on election, or Christian liberty, or the
tribulation to the exclusion of other important doctrines.  The preacher who is diligent about using
confessions as a guide will avoid the pitfalls of constantly preaching his pet
doctrines, constantly preaching his favorite texts, and failing to do justice
to the core doctrines of the Christian faith.[22]

How then does a preacher fit theology into his
preaching?  Of course, biblical
theology is done every time a passage of Scripture is interpreted.  (This paper assumes that the preacher is
practicing expository preaching rather than textual or topical preaching.)  But the theology doesn’t have to
end there.  Just as each text is
interpreted in light of the teaching of the whole Bible, each doctrine or point
of theology encountered is handled in light of the entire system of theology.

Many preachers will not admit that they have a
“system of theology.”
They like to think that they believe the Bible and only the Bible.  The fact is, however, that everyone has
a system of theology whether they admit it or even realize it.  There is nothing wrong with having a
system.  In fact, acknowledgment of
a system demonstrates that one has a comprehensive grasp of Bible knowledge and
Scriptural truth that provides a framework within which one interprets life.

More importantly, the theological system provides the
framework within which each portion of Scripture is to be interpreted and thus
preached.  When one preaches on Acts
16:31, for example, the preacher may draw on the entire doctrine of faith to
help elucidate this text.  When
preaching on John 3:3 he may draw on the entire body of teaching regarding
regeneration.  When preaching on 1
Thessalonians 4:16-17, a verse often used to “prove” many things
that it does not really say, the preacher will draw on the entire teaching
regarding the second coming to ensure proper interpretation and application of
this text.

This last example leads us to another important
function systematic theology: the system of theology provides a control over
the interpretation of the text.
That is, systematic theology establishes boundaries that the preacher
must stay within in order to do justice to the whole of Scripture.  This is a most crucial function.  An obvious example is James 2:17.  When preaching this text, the preacher
must be diligent to draw from the entire systematic teaching regarding
justification to ensure that justification by faith alone is taught.

These functions are most evident with regard to
Christological texts.  The historic
teaching of the church regarding the deity of Christ and the truth of the
Trinity had as its purpose to refine and further explain the Scriptural
teaching with respect to the person of Christ.  Since the teaching about the work of
Christ stands or falls in relation to the person of Christ, this doctrine
cannot be underestimated.  However,
many preachers fail to do justice to the Scriptures relating to the person of
Christ, often because they themselves have a diminished understanding of
Christology.  Others fail in this
respect because they fail to see the importance of this doctrine beyond its usefulness
in evangelistic preaching.

The fact is, however, that the usefulness or
practicality of a doctrine does not determine how often it should be preached,
if ever.  Instead, the clear
teaching of Scripture and the prominence afforded to a doctrine by Scripture
determines its necessity.  Sadly, though,
many preachers and teachers of the Bible fail to see the importance of a
precise statement of the Trinity and the deity of Christ when preaching
redemption.  They stumble over the
correct definitions and do an injustice to the Savior by either erring too far
on one side or the other.  If one
does not understand who Christ is and what He did, then he cannot preach the
truth about Him unless it happens by accident.  If the preacher doesn’t preach the
truth about Christ, then those he leads in worship cannot worship Him in truth
because they do not know the truth about Him.

In light of the great help that one’s
theological system may provide in the pulpit, one must be careful, however, not
to let the theology overtake the text.
If one is preaching from Philippians 2:5-10 about the humiliation of
Christ by his taking on humanity, it is wrong to use systematic theology to
minimize the humanity of Christ in order to emphasize his deity.  That not only does an injustice to the
text, it does an injustice to the body of Christ by giving them a skewed
picture of the person of Christ.

The same may be true of many doctrines.  For example, many who preach in
Calvinistic churches, such as this author does, may fear calling for a decision
since such a method has been abused by many who do not share our theology.  But the fact is, Paul called for his
listeners to choose Christ by repenting and believing and yet his teaching on
election and predestination is very clear.
If preaching a text such as 2 Thessalonians 1:9-10, where Paul uses an
aorist participle to draw attention to a believer’s past act of faith at
conversion, it is wrong for the preacher to focus on the believer’s life
as a continuing act of faith.  It is
true that the believer’s life is a continuing act of faith and the
preacher may choose to demonstrate the contrast, but the text emphasizes the
active decision of one who comes to Christ and that is where the focus of the
sermon should lie.  The text must
speak its own truth, not the truth the preacher thinks it should speak, even
when the preacher has the most noble of intentions for doing so.  “Because the bible is God’s
holy and sacred Word, it must be treated with respect, its purity protected, and
its intended message never violated or misrepresented.”[23]

Likewise, the preacher should allow the text to choose
his theology rather than his theology, his text.  It is the Scriptures that give life and
in order for them to do so they must be proclaimed faithfully.  In selecting which books or passages to
preach through, the preacher may select portions of Scripture that allow him a
well-rounded cycle of theological preaching.  If one is following a pattern of
preaching through Bible books, as the true expository preacher will do, he must
be careful not to select books that cater to his theological whims, but must
prayerfully seek the guidance of the Spirit to ensure that the “whole
counsel of God” is proclaimed.

What does all of this mean for the preacher?  After all, “the preacher’s
first, and the most important task is to prepare himself, not his
sermon.”[24]  First of all, the preacher must be a
true “man of the Word.”
He must be educated enough to understand the theology that flows from
the Scripture he is to preach.  He
must be familiar enough with Scripture that he does not have to struggle with
the basic teachings of the Word.

But more than that, he must have a burning desire and
a jealousy for the Word of God.  He
must desire the Word of God like he desires air to breathe.  He must be so sure of the truth and
power of this Word that he will stop at nothing to defend it and will be
stopped by nothing in his preaching of it.
He must possess a humility that will drive him to his knees to commune
with God.  This humility will give
him the fire to preach as he should because he knows that the Word he preaches
has power because it is not his word, but God’s.  This understanding will police his heart
as he studies and preaches because his jealousy for the Word of God can serve
to prevent him from twisting the text to fit his own carnal desires to promote
himself or his agenda.

This communion with God is essential.  “You need to be alone with God
before you can effectively usher others into His presence.”[25]  This is what makes the theology of the
Scriptures come alive.  “All
too often the preacher of the Word strains out the delicious wonders and serves
it up with boring dullness, drained of all life!”[26]  The preacher must himself be impacted by
the Word so that the Word will, through him, impact others.

Finally, the theological truths of God’s Word,
when preached in the power of the Spirit, will transform people’s
lives.  Indeed, the greatest
external evidence of the power of God’s Word is the people in the
pew.  This author has only been in
ministry a short time and was involved in lay ministry for several years prior
to his ordination.  In that brief
period of time, he has seen people delivered from drunkenness, delivered from
immorality, freed from drug addiction and sexual addiction.  This author has seen people freed from
the bondage of childhood sexual abuse and physical abuse, he has seen men quit
beating their wives and become loving and devoted husbands and fathers, he has
seen strippers and prostitutes changed into godly women and has even seen
ultra-rational skeptics become sound defenders of a book that they once
ridiculed.

These changes do not occur because of the personality
of some preacher, or borrowed business strategies implemented in a
church-growth setting, or as a result of brow-beating by an aggressive
evangelist.  These things happen
because the Holy Spirit took the truth of the preached Word and pierced the
hearts of sinners until they became like that Word and its truth, alive and of
God.

WORKS
CITED

Adams, Jay.
Preaching with Purpose.  Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982.

Blackwood, Andrew.  Doctrinal
Preaching for Today.  Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1956.

Chapell, Brian.
Christ-Centered Preaching.  Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1994.

Clowney, Edmund P.  Preaching
and Biblical Theology.  Nutley:
Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1977.

Dennison, James T., Jr.  “Building the Biblical-Theological
Sermon, Part I: Perspective.”
Kerux: The Online Journal of
Biblical Theology.
http://www.kerux.com/documents/KeruxV4N3A3.asp.

Greidanus, Sidney.  Preaching
Christ from the Old Testament.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.

Horton, Michael.
The Face of God.  Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996.

Lloyd-Jones, D. Martin.  Preaching
and Preachers.  Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1971.

Macarthur, John, Jr.  “A Study Method in Expository
Preaching.”  Rediscovering Expository Preaching.  Dallas: Word, 1992.

Macleod, Donald.
“Preaching and Systematic Theology.”  The
Preacher and Preaching, ed. Logan, Samuel T.  Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed
Publishing Company, 1986.

Mawhinney, Bruce.
Preaching with Freshness.  Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1997.

Newton, Phil A.
“The Pastor and Church Growth.”  Reforming
Pastoral Ministry, ed. Armstrong, John H.  Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2001.

Piper, John.
The Supremacy of God in Preaching.  Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1990.

Robinson, Haddon.
Biblical Preaching.  Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980.

Vos, Geerhardus.
Biblical Theology.  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.

White Horse Inn, The.  “1996 CBA Convention Poll
Results.”  Alliance of
Confessing Evangelicals.
http://www.alliancenet.org/radio/whi/whi.poll1996.html.

Willimon, William.  “An Interview with William
Willimon.”  Modern Reformation, November/December
2000.

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[1]
John Piper, The Supremacy of God in
Preaching, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1990), 21.

[2]
“An Interview with William Willimon,” Modern Reformation, November/December 2000, 44.

[3]
Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology,
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 5-7.

[4]
Donald Macleod, “Preaching and Systematic Theology,” in The Preacher and Preaching, ed. Samuel
T. Logan, (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1986),
246-247.

[5]
Jay Adams, Preaching with Purpose,
147.

[6]
Ibid.  Emphasis in original.

[7]
Michael Horton, In the Face of God,
(Dallas: Word Publishing, 1996), 205

[8]
Phil A. Newton, “The Pastor and Church Growth,” in Reforming Pastoral Ministry, ed. John H.
Armstrong, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2001), 265.  Emphasis in original.

[9]
Cited in Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ
from the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 130, n. 80.

[10]
Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching,
(Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1994), 293.

[11]
Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from
the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 10.

[12]
Haddon Robinson, Biblical Preaching,
(Grand Rapids: Baker book House, 1980), 20.

[13]
Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching and Biblical
Theology, (Nutley: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1977), 19.

[14] The
complete survey is available at
http://www.alliancenet.org/radio/whi/whi.poll1996.html.

[15]
Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching,
86.  The reference here is to
blue-collar verses white collar congregations.

[16]
Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching,
44.

[17]
Jay Adams, Preaching with Purpose,
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 146.

[18]
Andrew Blackwood, Doctrinal Preaching for
Today, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1956), 79

[19]
Adams, Preaching with Purpose, 147.

[20]
James T. Dennison, Jr., “Building the biblical Theological Sermon, Part
I: Perspective,” Kerux: The Online
Journal of Biblical Theology, http://www.kerux.com/documents/KeruxV4N3A3.asp.

[21]
Donald Macleod, “Preaching and Systematic Theology,” 269.

[22]
See Macleod, “Preaching and Systematic Theology,” 266-270 for a
fuller discussion of the use of creeds and confessions in preaching.

[23]
John Macarthur, Jr., “A Study Method for Expository Preaching,” in Rediscovering Expository Preaching,
(Dallas: Word, 1992), 209.

[24]
D. Martin Lloyd Jones, Preaching and
Preachers, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), 166.

[25]
Bruce Mawhinney, Preaching with Freshness,
(Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1997), 137.

[26]
Ibid, 108.