So far, we’ve seen that T David Gordon believes (preacher) Johnny can’t read and can’t write. (He’s made no comment on whether he can bowl or throw!) The question now is “What consequences do these failures lead to in terms of sermon content?”
Gordon states that “the content of preaching should be the person, character and work of Christ … what is offered to the congregation in rightly ordered Christian worship is nothing less than Christ himself” (p. 70, quoting the Puritan John Flavel). Such content will include the shaping of a Christian moral vision in a redemptive context, the character of Christ, and faith-feeding spiritual sustenance that encourages confidence in Christ.
He suggests that when modern sermons fail to fulfil these criteria, they typically fall into one of four categories:
- Moralism: The sermon that tells you to do good, be good. The redemptive work of Christ is overlooked for the sake of behavioural improvement.
- How to: This is a little like moralism, but the emphasis is on not what one ought to do, but how to go about doing it.
- Introspection: The purpose of the sermon is to convince people that they do not, in fact, believe. It builds up the self-righteous and berates those who are looking to have their faith built up.
- Social gospel: The thrust of the sermon is to point out what is wrong with contemporary culture and what ought to be done to improve it. It’s kind of the sermon version of the BBQ discussion concerning the demise of a national sporting team and what should be done about it.
These four categories are failures not solely because of what they are and the week-to-week ‘sameness’ of sermon they produce, but also because of what they aren’t. Fundamentally, they fail to nourish faith or build up the believer. What is required, Gordon argues, is Christ-centred, faith cultivating preaching.
I expect for many of us, as we read this, we say “Yes, there’s nothing especially profound here”. But here’s Gordon’s key point, which may come as a surprise:
A return to such Christ-centred preaching, however, cannot occur apart from cultivating the sensibility of reading texts closely … and almost surely this change will not occur apart from cultivating a sensibility of the significant—because only a true sense of what is significant will cause a minister to realise that nothing in the entire history of human affairs is more significant than what the God-man has done; therefore nothing should crowd the proclamation of Christ from the centre of Christian preaching. (p. 92).
For Gordon, a return to good preaching is as much a literary issue as it is a theological one. Yes, preachers need to be reminded and in some cases, convicted of the fact that God speaks through his word, and that his word is powerful, but they also need to be convinced to read it—carefully, thoughtfully and intensely.
While I support Gordon’s ‘two-pronged’ challenge, there is the danger that the ‘literary’ prong can overtake the ‘theological’. I recently attended a one-hour seminar on the Bible for men in our church. The speakers were clear, well-prepared and careful, but 100 per cent literary. There was no discussion of revelation, God speaking or God’s word. We were presented with a careful discussion of the history of the Bible and its different forms of literature, without actually opening the Bible or thinking about what it means for us. If we are going to encourage literary engagement (and encourage we must), it must be informed by a robust theology of hearing God’s voice.
What will this theologically informed literary engagement mean for our pastors and pastors-in-training? That’s in the next (and last) instalment.
Hi Peter
Thanks for this series. Really interesting.
Three quick comments:
– I can identify with the danger you mention with being too ‘literary’. I’m a reader and writer by profession, and when I preach I need to keep making the conscious shift into a different mode of communication. I’m probably more of a ‘writerly’ preacher than some, just because of who I am.
– However, if I understand what Gordon is saying (via you!), then it’s the engagement with the text of Scripture that needs to be literary, not the end product (the sermon). It’s the commitment to really read what is there in the text that will end up making our sermons Christ-centred, because the text is Christ-centred. How we then deliver that message is another question.
– In this connection, I can’t help thinking of Phillip Jensen and his preaching—he’s not at all a literary or ‘writerly’ preacher; it’s all very ‘verbal’ and persuasive (and from personal experience I can tell you that attempting to transcribe one of his sermons and turn into prose is a challenge!). But Phillip is precisely the kind of literary preacher I think Gordon may be referring to, in that he his utterly committed to reading and re-reading and nutting out the text, and then preaching what he finds there (rather than preaching his system, or anything else).
Thanks again for the stimulation.
TP
Hi Tony,
You are exactly right – this is in the end largely a book about preparation rather than delivery. No one (Gordon included) wants a sermon to turn into a book reading! Rather, he is encouraging, as you say, careful literary and Christ centred engagement with the text, which will go a long way to producing a nourishing, Christ centred sermon.
There will be a bit more about this in the final post of the series.
I think you are exactly right in thinking of Phillip. A careful reader of literature he certainly is, as well as careful and faithful Christ centred preacher.
I’ve actually been listening to a series on Mark’s gospel of Phillip’s here in Mexico as I drive from dropping the kids at school to my house of pain (aka language school) and I’ve been reminded again of the need for careful reading and to preach what is there, not what you think, or what you would like to be there.