Underground Pewster: How did your preacher approach John 14:6?

Today's Gospel reading is one which post-modern false prophets of "tolerance" and "inclusiveness" would just as soon ignore. That was the Underground Pewster's experience in church this morning, and he is interested in how others handled it.

Today's Gospel reading was John 14:1-14. After sitting through today's sermon, I wondered how other preachers tackled verse 6, 

"Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." 

I know how it was handled in our church.

It was ignored.

Sigh...

John 14:6 is felt by many to be a "clobber verse" or a sure-fire conversation killer. Repeating Jesus' exclusive claim is not going to make you many friends if you bring them up during an interfaith dinner party, and writing about it in the public sphere will assure that you are removed from any list of potential commencement speakers.

I remember trying to get a handle on this verse a few years back during an on-line theology group. At that time, I came up with what I called an inclusively exclusive response to the question of whether or not John 14:6 means that someone who has never heard the Gospel, or a good Muslim, or a good Buddhist needed to follow Jesus in order to come to the Father. I reasoned that Jesus could call a non-christian at the time of their death at which time that individual soul could respond positively or negatively. I for one would not want anyone to wait until the last minute like that, and I think we are clearly commanded to go and make disciples in the here and now, so my non-scriptural solution may not be of any merit.

Even if it poses problems for the modern, pluralistic mind, I think the subject is something that should not be ignored when it comes around on Sunday morning.

For what it's worth, here's my sermon on the text from this morning.

Lectionary Helps: Epiphany 6

Texts: Deuteronomy 30:15-20, 1 Corinthians 3:1-9, Matthew 5:21-37

Those who would elevate the "red letter" passages of the New Testament, that is, the words of Jesus, to a special status in an effort to blunt some of the moral demands found in other parts of the Bible need to consider carefully the words of Jesus in this little snippet from the Sermon on the Mount.

You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. (Matthew 5.21-26)

Jesus is not softening anything here. In fact, he is raising the bar higher than any scribe or Pharisee ever would. It is not enough to refrain from murder; you must also harbor no animosity toward your brother. Don't even insult him and be especially mindful of the eternal peril associated with calling him a fool.

It was lingering animosity that finally got the best of Cain when he murdered his brother Abel. But, if we read Jesus' words carefully, we will find that Cain's downfall was a bitterness toward his brother which had taken root long before he committed his heinous act. "So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you," Jesus says, "leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift."

Had Cain been in a right relationship with his brother when he offered his gift, God would have received it. But because Cain was not in a right relationship with is brother he was, likewise, not in a right relationship with God. Bitterness bred jealousy, and jealousy manifest itself in Cain's murderous rage. He had offered his gift from a divided and unreconciled heart, thus allowing sin to gain a foothold in his life.

Jesus calls us to a life of perfect love toward God and one another. We cannot be in a right relationship with God unless we are in a right relationship with one another. An inward orientation toward anger and bitterness will ultimately manifest itself in outward actions which cause strife, division, and even death. The life of holiness begins with an inward reorientation toward love, unity, and peace.

Encouraging news: Most still prefer in-person preaching

Phillips Brooks

Phillips Brooks' classic definition of preaching, "truth communicated through personality," might well be lost on many of today's mega-church "pastors" who are content to grow their flocks by streaming their "sermons" via satellite to multiple locations every Sunday morning. Such "preaching" may draw attention to a personality, but the communication of truth is often sacrificed in the process.

New research from LifeWay is quite encouraging in this area. The vast majority of worshipers still prefer their sermons to be delivered in person by an actual preacher, not beamed into an auditorium (let's not kid ourselves about the architectural foibles of most of these multi-site churches) on a television screen.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.–Most Americans still prefer a real-live preacher to a video sermon, according to a survey from Nashville-based LifeWay Research.

About a third (35 percent) say they will only visit churches with a live sermon.

Three in 10 say a video sermon won’t keep them from a church, but they still prefer live peaching. The same number say live or video sermons are fine.

Less than one percent prefer to watch a video sermon.

“I don’t think anyone gets up on a Sunday morning saying, ‘Boy, I’d really like to watch a video sermon,’ ” said Scott McConnell, vice president of LifeWay Research and author of Multi-Site Churches: Guidance for the Movement’s Next Generation. “But the fact that many churches utilize video sermons means other factors such as relationships, preaching approach, music, relevance, and location can be more important.”

The sermon question was part of a telephone survey of 1,001 Americans, conducted September 6-10, 2013.

Video sermons are mostly used by multi-site churches, which hold services in more than one location, often called a campus. Those campuses frequently have live music, prayers, and a local pastor, who does everything but preach.

About half of the estimated 5,000 multi-site churches in the U.S. use video teaching, said Jim Tomberlin of the consulting firm MultiSite Solutions.

Tomberlin said larger churches are more likely to use video sermons.

Many large churches already project an image of their preacher on a big screen during the sermon. So when they open a new campus, people are already accustomed to seeing a video image of their pastor. That’s less likely to be the case at a smaller church.

“Small churches have a bias against video,” said Tomberlin. “As a church grows bigger, video gives them more options. It becomes a non-issue.”

Younger Americans are more likely to accept a video sermon. More than a third (37 percent) of those 18 to 29 say it doesn’t matter if the preaching is live or by video.

By contrast, only about a quarter of those 45 to 54 (24 percent) or those over 65 (26 percent) say they are fine with both options.

Researchers also found that that those in the Northeast also are most open to a video sermon, with 40 percent saying they are fine with either an in-person or video sermon.

Almost half of those who don’t go to church (47 percent) also say it doesn’t matter if the sermon is live or delivered by video.

Those with a college degree are more likely to prefer an in-person sermon (41 percent) as are self-identified born-again, evangelical, or fundamentalist Christians (37 percent).

Ken Langley, president of the Evangelical Homiletics Society and an adjunct professor of homiletics at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, is skeptical about sermons delivered by video.

The sermon is part of the church’s worship, he said, and it’s incomplete if the preacher isn’t there with the rest of the congregation.

“I do think that there is something missing when the preacher is not present,” he said. “And it’s hard to define. Presence is important.”

Langley, who also serves as pastor of Christ Community Church in Zion, Ill., said sometimes he makes changes to the sermon while preaching, depending on who is listening.

For example, he was preaching a sermon about finding joy in the midst of suffering, and noticed some congregation members who had been going through a difficult time.

He made some subtle changes in language to his sermon, in order to comfort them, while still making his point.

“You can’t do that when you are preaching to a camera,” he said.

But Tomberlin points to the example of Billy Graham, whose crusade sermons were sometimes filmed and later broadcast on television. People still connected with Graham’s message, even though they were watching it at home and not in person.

“God could still work, even if Graham wasn’t in the room,” he said.

The Billy Graham example is true enough, but there was a different ethos at work there. A virtual evangelist can be an effective herald of the Gospel to those who would never darken the doors of a church.

A virtual pastor, however, can never be anything but an abomination.

On the wearisome theme of "justice"

In addition to his royal obligations back home, the other reason Archbishop Justin Welby was unable to stick around for last week's GAFCON gathering in Nairobi was a previous commitment to attend the Porvoo Primates' Meeting in Iceland. The sermon he delivered at that gathering has now been posted, along with a press release, at the Archbishop's official website.

Predictably, Welby's address, based on Luke 18:1-8, is typical of the innocuous little homiletical doilies spun by church leaders in such settings. There is nothing particularly objectionable, but nothing particularly remarkable. In the grand tradition of Harry Emerson Fosdick, however, he resorts to the tried and true hermeneutical trick of reading his predetermined point back into the biblical text. That predetermined point is also typical and unremarkable.

The widow is caught up in her desire for justice. For her the cause is clear and she will not give in.

Justice is something we seek when it is not against us. The heritage of church abuse and patriarchy reminds us that the church follows the world in its injustice and too often combines its misuse of power with the blasphemy of theological justification. But the widow cries out, and in one of the very rare occasions where Luke explains the parable, we are told that it is to stop people giving up in prayer.

That is the first lesson. As Pope Francis said, the church is not called to be a Christian NGO. One of my churchwardens said something similar many years ago when I was leading a parish: 'We are not the Rotary with a pointy roof.' When we lose sight of prayer and the reading of the scriptures, both as individuals and Christian communities, we lose the road we are to travel. Prayer for justice seems vain when compared to action. But Jesus is speaking out of the tradition of the psalms, where the psalmist calls to God to wake up. Prayer for justice, and a church that prays for justice, should be blunt and clear.

We need to find together in the Porvoo churches a regular renewal of our prayer and the forms with which to celebrate, to protest and and to lament. The widow is caught up with the judge. Are we truly caught up with God? Is his life what calls us together, or merely agreement, habit and obligation? In each other do we see the face of Christ and hear the call to follow together the Lord of justice, to encourage each other so that when the Lord comes he finds faith on the earth? Being caught up with God means that faith is found, not organisation, and faith is the assurance of things unseen.

We are all living in societies that change radically amongst Christian communities that are divided in their response, a reality studied amongst us. We will only find renewal and common purpose in the service of proclaiming the news of the Kingdom, and in making new Disciples, when we are together caught up in the prayer and worship of God.

But there is more. God is a God of justice, and the widow finds her answer. Any serious view of the nature of human beings, any proper theological anthropology, tells us that without the action of God the can be no true justice, and that the church is there to be the widow, to cry out and claim and struggle. That must involve action, which may be slight or grand.

The emphasis on this rather vapid concept called justice has become more wearisome to the beleaguered faithful longing for pure spiritual food than even the widow to the unjust judge.

One wonders if Welby and others who emphasize this theme have seriously thought out the implications of the God of justice motif. As the Archbishop's predecessor at Durham, N.T. Wright, points out in his commentary on Luke, the parable of the persistent widow should not be read in isolation from the immediately following parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14). Both parables pretty much tell the same story from different perspectives. There is nothing to suggest that the widow was any more deserving of a hearing before the judge than the tax collector was worthy to enter the Temple to pray. Nevertheless, as the tax collector "went down to his house justified" for no other reason than the mercy of God upon a penitent sinner, the widow receives a judgment in her favor simply because the judge is worn down by her persistence. In other words, the focus of both parables is not justice in the vague social liberal sense, but justification as the gift of God's grace and mercy. Ironically, the very people who most often scream about justice are the very ones who would benefit least if justice, apart from mercy, was the sum of God's purposes. A God of justice does not hesitate to cast all sinners (that means all of us) into the lake of fire. A God of mercy saves sinners from such a fate through the blood of his Son Jesus Christ, whose death satisfies the justice required under the law.

Two bitter fruits from the same poisonous tree?

The emergence of theological liberalism in the nineteenth century had a devastating effect on the American pulpit. Preachers like Horace Bushnell (1802-1876) and Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) were at the forefront of the transition from strict doctrinal precision to broad doctrinal license. Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) was a twentieth century man, building his reputation through adept use of the mass media of book publishing and radio (the weekly "National Vespers" on the NBC network). However, he was every bit a product of the nineteenth century liberalism in which he was immersed.

Paul Scott Wilson, in A Concise History of Preaching, describes how Fosdick came to develop "a new, alternative method of preaching."

Fosdick

 In journal articles in the 1920's, 1930's 1950's, and in his autobiography, Fosdick discussed his "project method" of homiletics. It was in contrast to topical preaching, which he felt was a "Sir Oracle" lecture on a theme, and expository preaching, in which preachers "assumed that folk come to church desperately anxious to discover what happened to the Jebusites." He outlined the contemporary expository preaching of which he was critical: "First, elucidation of a Scriptural text, its historical occasion, its logical meaning in the context, its setting in the theology and ethic of the ancient writer; second, application to the auditors of the truth involved; third, exhortation to decide about the truth and act on it."

After floundering for his first years as a preacher, he devised a homiletic based in pastoral counseling that made preaching an adventure for him. Every sermon was to start with the "real problems of people" and was to "meet their difficulties, answer their questions, confirm their noblest faiths and interpret their experiences in sympathetic, wise and understanding co-operation." He looked for the way even larger issues of the day, national and international, affected the lives of ordinary people. He wanted sermons to be conversational, "a co-operative dialogue in which the congregation's objections, questions, doubts and confirmations are fairly stated and dealt with." The preacher's business is "to persuade people to repent . . . to produce Christian faith [and] to send people out from their worship on Sunday with victory in their possession." To this end, "A preacher's task is to create in his congregation the thing he is talking about." A sermon on joy is to explore wrong ideas about it, false attempts at it, problems in getting it, and then move to create it.

Whereas lectures had "a subject to be elucidated," preaching had an "object to be achieved." Determining this "object" or problem to be solved was the first step in preparation. This was followed by "free association of ideas," perhaps for several hours, followed in turn by exploration of literature, cases from counseling, the Bible, and personal experience. His structure, commonly three points, for which one must listen carefully to discern, often emerged in the writing of his sermons. Someone said his "sermons begin by describing a human need, next illustrate that need from literature, from contemporary events and personal experiences, and then turn to the Bible for those principles which could meet that need." His critics caricatured his preaching as "undogmatic Christianity" and "problem-solving."

Fosdick was also criticized, rightly according to Wilson, "for taking his message to the biblical text and for using the text to illustrate his predetermined point." He was not the first, and certainly not the last, preacher to commit this error. His methodology, the mistakes inherent in it, and the paucity of its doctrinal and theological underpinnings represented the coming of age of the liberalism birthed in the preaching of Bushnell and Beecher and brought to its tragic conclusion in the incoherent psychobabble of Spong and Schori. Less obvious, at least on first glance, is the sowing of the seeds of the equally innocuous false gospel of "positive thinking" first popularized by Norman Vincent Peale, advanced through mass media by Robert Schuller, and now embodied in all its garish glory by the insufferable Joel Osteen.

Except for students of homiletics and church history, Harry Emerson Fosdick's sermons and writings are largely forgotten. To the person in the pew, he is best remembered for the stirring hymn "God of Grace and God of Glory." In recalling the era in which he was at the height of his influence, however, we can see two bitter fruits produced from the same poisonous tree of the liberalism which shaped his methodology and his ministry.

Horace Bushnell: A misguided herald sounding an uncertain trumpet

Naturalistic theology (often referred to as theological liberalism) did not appear as a challenge to orthodoxy overnight. Its precursors constituted the panoply of heresies repudiated by the Ancient Church and, as the preacher of Ecclesiastes long ago observed, there is nothing new under the sun. The rise of naturalistic theology first in Europe and then in America was, in large part, merely a repackaging of old lies in newer, more sophisticated, wrapping.

In his encyclopedic history of homiletics, The Company of Preachers (Kregel, 1998), David L. Larsen notes the rise of "New England theology" in the early nineteenth century and the negative influence it had on the preachers of the day. Like most expressions of naturalism, this was a theology of denial, not affirmation. New England theology denied the orthodox doctrines of sin, depravity, and imputation, paving the way for even more radical departures from the faith as the century progressed.

The person at the center of the transition from doctrinal purity to theological liberalism, was Horace Bushnell (1802-1876), a gifted preacher with a penchant for pushing the doctrinal envelope well beyond acceptable limits.

Bushnell has been called the father of liberalism, and indeed in moving beyond New England theology he lurched very close to Unitarianism. Certainly in God in Christ he lapsed into Unitarian thinking, espousing a modal view of the Trinity. In his Vicarious Sacrifice and Forgiveness and Law, Bushnell jettisoned transactual and propitiatory aspects of the atonement. In a reaction against revivalism, he opted for gradualism rather than conversion in his book Christian Nurture. Neither did he believe a child to be depraved. He believed the child was to grow up never knowing that he or she is other than a Christian.

Charles Hodge spoke of his views as "less than Christian." For Bushnell the Bible was essentially figurative. In 1866 he indicated his leaning toward understanding the fall in Eden as a myth. Jesus was teacher rather than the crucified and suffering God. His were "orthodox memories, Unitarian hopes." The old wine had not survived being transferred to new bottles. He scoffed at the idea of the Second Coming. He was very theological but he did not preach sound doctrine.

What Bushnell lacked in doctrinal substance, he made up for in homiletical style. This was not enough, however, to spare him criticism for going off the theological and exegetical reservation.

Yet Bushnell was a preacher's preacher. There was a virility in his style and a fire inside him, but the common people were not drawn to his variety of naturalism. Early on, he gained a reputation as a public speaker of note, and his ability to title sermons is dramatic. Little wonder he was offered the presidency of the College of California (later the University of California at Berkeley), which he turned down.

Bushnell's celebrated sermon on "Unconscious Influence" is based on John 20:8, "Then went in also that other disciple." But for Bushnell this had nothing to do with the resurrection or Jesus Christ. He did not do exegesis, and even Brastow speaks of his interpretations as often "fanciful" and lacking "the support of recognized exegetical canons."

[Larsen, p. 528]

In the end, Bushnell must be characterized, in Larsen's words, "as a tragic figure in American pulpit annals" whose "influence upon successive generations has been unfortunate." For all his intellect and homiletical ingenuity, he was a misguided herald sounding an uncertain trumpet.

Politics, pulpits, and priorities: Sorry, I'm just not on board with the latest "religious liberty" cause

The pulpit is sacred space. It is to be used for a sacred purpose: the faithful proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The preacher in the pulpit enjoys the greatest freedom this side of New Jerusalem: the freedom to proclaim the Word of God to the people of God. With that great freedom comes great responsibility, namely, the responsibility to be faithful to Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Apostles as revealed in Scripture and affirmed through 2,000 years of consensual tradition. The preacher abdicates that responsibility if he uses the pulpit, or allows it to be used, as a forum for partisan political speeches or the endorsement of candidates for political office.

To put it in less magisterial terms, don't count on my support for the latest cause celebre on the "religious liberty" front.

A coalition of church and ministry leaders is calling for legislation that would end the ban on political endorsements from the pulpit.

The chairman of the group says the current law stifles the speech of pastors who fear losing their churches' tax-exempt status.

The report specifies that tax-deductible donations during worship services would not be spent on political campaigns.

Opponents to changing the law say there's no need to further intertwine religion and politics.

I find myself, oddly enough, on the same page with C. Welton Gaddy, my old campus minister from my days at Mercer University. Gaddy, to my recollection, is a quite gifted preacher but I haven't often agreed with him on issues. In this case, however, he is absolutely correct.

“My concern is what that kind of change would make to the integrity and the unity of the church itself,” said C. Welton Gaddy, president of The Interfaith Alliance. “It’s about the sanctity of the religious voice in the context of worship and to compromise that authority would be devastating to religion in America.”

The freedom of the preacher to proclaim the Gospel is a freedom which cannot be abridged, undermined, or abolished by any human government--no matter what laws may ostensibly regulate speech or expression--because no human government is ultimately free from accountability to the Gospel's eternal claims. Every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (cf. Philippians 2:10ff). That is the message which ought to be proclaimed from every pulpit in every church. That some churches and some preachers would surrender the great freedom to proclaim that message in favor of a far lesser freedom to endorse candidates for petty political offices suggests a serious misappropriation of priorities.

Preaching: God in action

Every Sunday morning when it comes ought to find you awed and thrilled by the reflection--"God is to be in action today, through me, for these people: this day may be crucial, this service decisive, for someone now ripe for the vision of Jesus." Remember that every soul before you has its own story of need, and that if the gospel of Christ does not meet such need nothing on earth can. Aim at results. Expect mighty works to happen. Realize that, although your congregation may be small, every soul is infinitely precious. Never forget that Christ himself, according to his promise, is in the midst, making the plainest and most ordinary church building into the house of God and the gate of heaven. Hear his voice saying, "This day is the Scripture fulfilled in your ears. This day is salvation come to this house." Then preaching, which might otherwise be a dead formality and a barren routine, an implicit denial of its own high claim, will become a power and a passion; and the note of strong, decisive reality, like a trumpet, will awaken the souls of men.

James S. Stewart

Huizenga: Microphones injure preaching

Leroy Huizenga believes the use of microphones in churches has led to a decline in the quality of homiletics.

I think microphones might very well injure preaching, for in preaching the microphone functions as both obstacle and crutch. The microphone is an obstacle, one more piece of complexity that can go wrong. It makes preachers tentative; the microphone is like a snake that might bite if one makes a wrong move. Having used many microphones of all kinds in both public speaking situations as well as concert venues (I used to play in rock and heavy metal groups as well as praise-and-worship bands), I have learned that microphones are painfully unpredictable. We have all been in situations where they don’t function well, for whatever reason, and the result is poor sound quality (at best) or feedback (at worst). The microphone is also a crutch, since the electronics of the microphone are designed to do the work the bodies of preachers of prior ages used to do.

Microphones are therefore enervating, as the microphone affects the very nature of the homily by affecting delivery in removing much of the preacher’s body from the arduous physical task of public speaking. Good preaching generally involves a tone of authoritative proclamation, but the use of microphones encourages a quieter, conversational tone from the pulpit. Thus the proclamation of both law and gospel loses its force as preaching becomes something either casual or intellectual. The preacher transmits either banalities or mere information, and the congregation misses a potential transformative encounter with the Word of God.

Technologies have unintended, undesired, and often ironic effects. One such ironic effect of microphones in preaching is the increased distance between preacher and congregation. We do not hear our preachers directly from their lips, but at another remove, from the speakers. To me, this seems to cut against the grain of good preaching, which ought to be both interpersonal (ideally, we have a good relationship of trust with our preacher) and incarnational (as the word of the homily rooted in the word of Scripture proclaims and makes present the Word of God, Jesus Christ). In evading the role of the body, the microphone subtly supports a soft sort of Gnosticism, like most modern technologies. 

Could we drop the mic? Certainly. Of course we will continue to employ technology in our lives and in our religion, but we needn’t be slaves to technological determinism. Dropping the mic would necessitate cultivating the art of classical oratory as well as constructing sanctuaries designed to carry the human voice, just as the use of the microphone (I would suggest) has relegated homiletics to an afterthought for many seminarians and encouraged uninspired ecclesiastical architecture. “A microphone allows its user to impose his voice . . . on many more people than an ancient orator could,” White writes, and it’s certainly true. The technology exists today where it would be possible for a single speaker to address all seven billion people on the planet at once. But ancient orators could address multitudes of people, many more than attend most churches on a given Sunday. Think no further than Jesus addressing the crowds at the Sermon on the Mount.

This is symptomatic of a larger trend. How many times have we heard it repeated that "we," that is, those of us blessed to be living in this age of so many advancements in the field of communication technology, have the greatest opportunity to "spread the Gospel" than any previous generation. Well, try telling that to the first generation of disciples--those whose story is chronicled in the Acts of the Apostles. In the span of less than forty years, they "spread the Gospel" from an upper room in Jerusalem, into the surrounding areas of Judea and Samaria, and ultimately to the remotest areas of the Roman Empire. They traveled on foot, on the backs of donkeys, occasionally by chariot and, when they were feeling particularly adventurous, in weather-beaten rust bucket ships. They had no radio, no television, no internet, and certainly no microphones.

"We" who have all those technological advantages, are often afraid even to speak the name of Jesus to our next door neighbor.

Conrad Mwebe on the curse of motivational speaking

Conrad Mwebe wants to exorcise from the church the meddlesome curse of "motivational speaking" popularized by the likes of Joel Osteen (definitely not one of my favorites). H/T to Stand Firm.

Sadly, motivational speaking has become the staple diet of many evangelical pulpits. The message being heard is, “God has put the potential in you and all you need to do is believe in yourself to unlock that potential. Have a grand vision and live out that vision. You must be a man or woman of destiny and the sky will be the limit for you. Don’t let your past failures get in your way of success. Look beyond them, as Jesus looked beyond the cross and thus overcame it. You are the head and not the tail. ”

In the light of the plethora of motivational speaking, it begs the question, “Is this how Old Testament and New Testament preachers preached?” If I summarise the preaching of Noah, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jonah, Paul, Peter, etc., in the Bible, is this the kind of message that I will find there? I do not think so. Granted, motivational speakers borrow words from these men, but borrowing someone’s words is not the same thing as saying what he is saying. “A text without a context is a pretext.”

My chief quarrel with motivational speaking is that it reduces God to a means rather than an end. Men and women are not made to see that the nature of SIN lies in the letter “I” in the middle of the word. Instead, motivational speaking feeds that same ego and points to God as the one who can spoil it to the point of intoxication. That is a lie! It is God alone who must be at the centre of our lives. Christianity demands a dying to self, a taking up of one’s cross, and a following after a suffering Saviour.

Whenever I listen to motivational speaking, I seem to hear the message, “Peace, peace,” where there is no peace. It sounds to me like a doctor assuring a patient who has terminal cancer in its final stages that he should not worry because all will be okay if he only believes in himself. The guy is dying, man, for crying out loud! It is the height of insincerity if a preacher knows that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) and instead makes those heading for the slaughterhouse feel nice.

Motivational speaking makes people feel good, whereas the gospel first makes people feel bad—until they find their all in Christ. True preaching must make people face the fact that they are living in rebellion against God and that they need to repent or they will perish. It is only as people recognise this and cry out, “What shall we do to be saved?” (Acts 2:37, 16:30) that true preaching gives them the good news, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).

Motivational speaking is an attempt at trying to kill a charging lion with a pea-gun, using freshly cooked peas, spiced with the most aromatic seasonings. The aroma may be tantalizing to the taste buds, but it is totally useless in bringing down that ferocious beast. Men and women outside Christ are DEAD in trespasses and sins. Exciting their senses with nice-sounding platitudes will not give them life. They need the law to kill their fallen egos and the gospel of Jesus Christ to give them life.

I know that motivational speaking is filling up our church buildings until they look like football stadiums. In this world of misery and gloom, we can all do with some encouragement. But is that all that we were called to do as preachers? What good is it if men feel inspired and motivated, and then go back home to live a life of sin and selfishness? Sadly this is the norm in so many evangelical churches. The churches are filled to capacity with people determined to drink sin like water the whole week.

Motivational speaking is not biblical preaching. It is a blight on the landscape of true evangelicalism. It is filling the churches with dead people who are being told to live as if they are alive. We need to return to the good old gospel that truly gives life to the dead and sets men and women free. Like Paul of old, every truly evangelical pulpit must sound out the clear message of “repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). Let us get rid of this curse of motivational speaking!

Advent sermon by Phillips Brooks

As something of an addendum to my recent post on "O Little Town of Bethlehem," here is a sample of the preaching of Phillips Brooks, appropriate for the season, from a sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent. Reflective of the theology ascendant at the time, the elements of so-called Christian humanism are apparent, but it is, nevertheless, a stirring exposition on the Incarnation. You can read the full text of the sermon here.

"He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God."—John I. 11, 12.

I cannot stop to tell you what I am sure that many of you must know—how real this belonging between God and humanity becomes to a man at the time of his own conversion. God stands far off from you, and you think that you have nothing to do with Him. You send Him duty-prayers as if you shot arrows into the darkness, toward a voice which you are not wholly certain that you hear. By and by that God comes to you; and the surprise of all surprises in conversion is to see how your heart knows Him and opens and lifts itself to take Him in. "My beloved is mine, and I am His," it says, with surprised and sudden recognition. Christ has come "unto His own."

But there is a yet closer and tenderer meaning of these words, I think. They mean that Christ came in answer to a most urgent and pressing call of need. That is what it signifies when it is said that "He came unto His own." For in a true sense everything is a man's own which needs that man; not everything which he needs, but everything which needs him. Do you not know what that is? Your child is yours not merely by the claim of birth and nature, but by the tie of continual dependence. He is most yours when he needs you most. He is never so much yours as when he requires your forgiveness for some sin. He ceases in part to be yours as he outgrows his most urgent need of you. So the charitable man or woman talks about "my poor." So the teacher talks about "my boys." Everywhere that is yours which needs you. I pity the man who does not know the responsibility and privilege of that high sort of ownership. It is a most sacred claim upon another to go to a poor helpless creature and say, "You need me. I will help you. You are mine." Now when it is said that Jesus came to His own, is not this at least part of the meaning? He came to those who needed Him; most of all to those who from the stricken earth held up to Him the deepest of all needs, the need of sin that craved forgiveness; and that was what made them His. Certainly no level-eyed intercourse of sinless man with sinless Christ could have wrought in us such a profound and precious sense that we belong to Him as this simple knowledge that we need Him. Need has its sacred rights. Because we want forgiveness and help, and He only can forgive and help us, therefore we are His.

How clearly this shines out in those typical men and women of the Gospel stories! How closely they became Christ's by merely needing Him! How He acknowledged their claim! The sinning woman who crept in and touched the hem of His garment was completely His; she commanded with a perfect freedom His sympathy and time and care simply because she was so wretched and could not do without Him. The poor man to whom He gave sight, and whom the Pharisees turned out of the synagogue, laid hold of Christ immediately, and Christ acknowledged him as one of His because he could not do without Him. And who among the apostles was more perfectly Christ's own than Simon Peter, whom Christ was always answering and saving in extremest need?

Need I say more about the meaning and the purpose of the Incarnation? Put these two ideas together. Jesus "came unto His ovm." To men forgetful of their godlike nature He came to tell them that they were the sons of God; and to men who could not do without Him He came because they needed Him. Oh, my dear friends, by what high warrants does the Saviour claim us for His own! Because we are His Father's children, and because we are so needy, therefore our divine Brother comes. He comes to you and says, "You called Me." And you look up out of your worldliness and say, " Oh no! I did not call. I do not know You!" But He says, calmly, "You did, although you do not know it. That power of being godlike which is in you, crushed and unsatisfied—that summoned Me; and that need of being forgiven and renewed which you will not own— that summoned Me. And here I am! Now wilt thou be made whole? If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." Just as all through the crowds of Jerusalem there must have been many who walked with a sense that they peculiarly belonged to the great Healer—one with his healed arm that once was withered, another with the new-given sight in his eyes, another witb his body yet missing the long possession of the demon who was cast out yesterday, each with some need which had been recognized and supplied—so through this congregation there are many who rejoice that they are Christ's. They needed Him and He owned their need. He took them, He forgave them, He holds them, and nothing shall pluck them out of His hands.

Shall not Christ be heard? (Charles Spurgeon)

. . . With all his amiability, the minister should be firm for his principles, and hold to avow and defend them in all companies. When a fair opportunity occurs, or he has managed to create one, let him not be slow to make use of it. Strong in his principles, earnest in his tone, and affectionate in heart, let him speak out like a man and thank God for the privilege.

There need be no reticence--there should be none. The maddest romances of Spiritualists, the wildest dreams of Utopian reformers, the silliest chitchat of the town, and the vainest nonsense of the frivolous world, demand a hearing and get it. And shall not Christ be heard? Shall his message of love remain untold, for fear we should be charged with intrusion or accused of cant? Is religion to be tabooed--the best and noblest of all themes forbidden? If this be the rule of any society, we will not comply with it. If we cannot break it down, we will leave the society to itself, as men desert a house smitten with leprosy. We cannot consent to be gagged. There is no reason why we should be. We will go to no place where we cannot take our Master with us. While others take liberty to sin, we shall not renounce our liberty to rebuke and warn them. Wisely used, our common conversation may be a potent means for good. Trains of thought may be started by a single sentence which may lead to the conversion of persons whom our sermons have never reached. . . .

Be it ours to sow not only on the honest and good soil, but on the rock and on the highway, and at the last great day to reap a glad harvest. May the bread which we cast upon the waters in odd times and strange occasions be found again after many days.

Yesterday's Inspiration: The naked preacher

On days like these, when I have nothing particularly on my mind to write about, I am tempted to "go to the well," that is, to dig out some previously written piece, polish it up here and there, and post it here. Well (pardon the pun), that's what you're about to read here. I wrote down most of these thoughts about five years ago. When I go back and read some of the articles I wrote or some of the sermons I preached back then, I am amazed at how naive I was, how incomplete my grasp of this or that subject was, and how utterly foolish I was to think I was qualified to speak or write about it.

Preaching is, in many respects, a form of low comedy and preachers are the world's worst comedians. Every Sunday (or, in my case these days, every Monday and Wednesday), we stand in the pulpit and presume to speak, using the finite language of an imperfect humanity, on behalf of an infinitely perfect God. We wear fancy robes and seat ourselves on a platform exalted above the people in the pews. I seem to recall Jesus warning the people to beware of those who wrapped themselves in such regalia and took the best seats in the house. Even more intimidating is the mandate of Exodus 20.26, "And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it."

Perhaps that is why we wear robes. But does this not suggest that the preacher is more naked than the parishioner? After all, the parishioner is neither robed nor seated on a high platform. It is the preacher who stands in the pulpit, robed in a splendor which usually speaks more of academic than of spiritual achievement, and declares, "Thus says the Lord!"

Here is the punch line to this most magnificent joke. The preacher is the most naked of all. Yet God, in his infinite mercy and grace, somehow uses the inadequate and often presumptuous words of a common sinner to clothe the naked with a measure of heavenly splendor and feed the hungry with the bread of life.

Michael Patton: "I Was Going to Preach This, But the Holy Spirit Lead Me to This" and Other Stupid Statements

A caveat for preachers from Parchment and Pen.

Does my title give me away? So much for being coy with my proposition. Let me say that this post is going to get me in trouble with some dear friends who preach God’s word every week. My message to them: Bear with my critique. I pray that my thoughts will be considered as “wounds from a friend”—a very fallible friend.

Here, let’s start this way. Have you ever heard someone (probably a preacher or teacher in the church) say something like this:

“I had prepared all week to teach on __________, but the Holy Spirit changed my lesson at the last minute.”

I have. Dozens of times. The idea it conveys is that the particular message that was prepared was not of God (at least at that time) and this new message was most certainly of God. In fact, the new message is miraculously of God! Why? Because I did not really prepare for it. It must have been God who prepared it. “I just step back when that happens and let God do his thing. Who am I to interrupt God?”

Can I say something? (Wait, let me hide behind something first . . .There.) That is a stupid statement!

The Naked Preacher

Preaching is, in many respects, a form of low comedy and preachers are the world's worst comedians. Every Sunday we stand in the pulpit and presume to speak, using the finite language of an imperfect humanity, on behalf of an infinitely perfect God. We wear fancy robes and seat ourselves on a platform exalted above the people in the pews. I seem to recall Jesus warning the people to beware of those who wrapped themselves in such regalia and took the best seats in the house. Even more intimidating is the mandate of Exodus 20:26, "And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it."

Perhaps that is why we wear robes. But does this not suggest that the preacher is more naked than the parishioner? After all, the parishioner is neither robed nor seated on a high platform. It is the preacher who stands in the pulpit, robed in a splendor which usually speaks more of academic than of spiritual achievement, and declares, "Thus says the Lord!"

Here is the punch line to this most magnificent joke. The preacher is the most naked of all. Yet God, in his infinite mercy and grace, somehow uses the inadequate and often presumptuous words of a common sinner to clothe the naked with a measure of heavenly splendor and feed the hungry with the bread of life.