Preaching problems?

On a recent Sunday at a Free Church in the south of England, the guest preacher was a veteran Welsh pastor.

He began his address by explaining the difference between a Bible Study and a sermon. If we recall it aright, he said words to the effect that, while a Bible Study is aimed especially at imparting information to the mind, a sermon is aimed, additionally, at moving the heart, the soul and the affections. His words were general, not with that congregation particularly in mind!

It is sad that he felt it necessary, and quite rightly, to stress that preaching is more than just the impartation of Scriptural truth.

In recent years the phrase ‘teaching the Bible’ has sometimes been made synonymous with preaching. While the former is undoubtedly integral to the latter, a sermon is so much more than just ‘teaching the Bible’. Could the over-use of this term, which may have reduced the nature of preaching in some people’s minds, account for the paucity, dryness and lecture-style of what passes for some (if by no means all) expositional preaching today?

Missing jewel

A while ago retired Cof E bishop Wallace Benn (a member of the en board) wrote a booklet entitled Prophetic Preaching – the Missing Jewel of the Evangelical Church? in which he makes the excellent point that New Testament prophecy is ‘expository gospel preaching with application which is Spirit-enabled and prompted’. Such a message ‘has touched the preacher’s heart, as well as being Spirit-anointed and enabled in its delivery’.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, of course, spoke not dissimilarly of the unction of the Holy Spirit. The writer Ben Awbrey once summarised this as follows: ‘Preaching with unction is accompanied by the perceptibly powerful presence of God that impacts the hearts of the hearers.’

In a not-unrelated vein, J.I. Packer once said: ‘If a preacher does not seek to make every sermon an occasion of an encounter with God for His people, well, you know the old saying: “If you aim for nothing, you are sure to hit it”.’

Friends, where is the power in some of our preaching today? Interestingly, after the address by the veteran Welsh pastor, one person present was heard to remark: ‘That was prophetic.’ Well, precisely.