“Making a hospital visit to a suffering family makes more of an impact than the three points you made in your message on Sunday.”

Occasionally, I hear statements like this at pastors’ conferences and preaching seminars. The idea? Pastoral presence is more important than a pastor’s preaching. The implication? It’s better to spend less time worrying about your preaching and more time engaging people at a personal level.

Sounds good. But it’s shortsighted. And ultimately unhelpful.

Sure, there are pastors who spend all day in the study and never among the people. Those kinds of pastors need to be prodded out the door so they can better serve the flock. (Not to mention that being with the flock greatly enhances your preaching!)

It’s also true that most of your congregation already forgot the main points from your sermon last week. And yes, church members will long remember your presence during their time of crisis. But the point of your preaching isn’t that everyone will remember all the information you present anyway. Neither should preaching preparation be forgotten in the attempt to increase one’s pastoral presence.

No, instead we need to consider the relationship between preaching and presence in a way that measures impact beyond what is immediate, powerful, and memorable. That’s why I say: Do not downplay the long-term, cumulative effect of your preaching.

Preaching is formative in ways that go beyond mere information retention. Every time a pastor opens up the Word and preaches the gospel, he is showing his church how to approach the Bible. Pastors who elevate the Scriptures week after week, sermon after sermon, lead their people to approach the Bible in the same way.

A Personal Example

From the time I was nine years old until I left for Romania at the age of 19, I belonged to a church where the pastor (Ken Polk) preached expository sermons every week. I remember the first (and second) time he took us through the Gospel of John. I still remember his 1 Corinthians series, or his sermons from Judges.

Of course, this pastor was also by our side when we had our first child. He has comforted us amidst trial and loss. He is a pastor, after all, not just a preacher. But I dare say – his Word-centeredness as a preacher is what made his pastoral presence so powerful during our time of trial. His presence was enhanced by his preaching.

I cannot calculate the formative influence that this pastor’s preaching has had on my life. For ten years, I listened to Bro. Ken preach. 10 years. 50 weeks a year. 2 times a week. That’s 1000 sermons.

No, I don’t remember the information contained in the vast majority of those sermons. I don’t remember all the titles or the points. But I have no doubt that his preaching has greatly impacted my life.

• I approach the text the way he does, looking to discover what’s there, not invent what’s not.
• I see Christ in the Scriptures because he saw Christ there.
• I respect the Bible because of the way he always made the purpose of the text more prominent than the personality of the messenger.
• We are on the same page theologically because he consistently preached a theology that came from the page.

An exhortation to pastors

Pastors, don’t underestimate the cumulative effect of your preaching. You are not dumping information into brains. You are forming the habits of your people, teaching them how to read and understand and apply the Bible for themselves. How you preach week after week matters just as much as what you preach.

Weekly confrontation with the Word of God slowly changes how we look at the world. We see God more clearly, our human state, and the future of the world within the Bible’s framework, even if we don’t remember all the information in an individual message. Sermons gradually change the way we think and feel and believe and hope.

Yes, your presence at the funeral home and the hospital bed is vital. It matters greatly. But there’s a reason why your presence during suffering is so powerful: The Word. A pastor’s visit is unique because the pastor is the one who speaks authoritatively from God’s Word week in and week out. That’s why Christians want their pastor to be by their side, and not just a fellow church member.

So let’s not pit pastoral presence against sermon preparation. Your preaching influences your presence, and vice versa. May the Lord open our eyes to see the quiet, subtle influence that 1000 sermons have on the people God has entrusted to our care.

Last week, Jerry Vines, a retired Southern Baptist pastor and a key leader in the Conservative Resurgence, commented on  ”gospel-centered preaching”:

We are hearing a great deal these days about gospel-centered preaching. Just what is meant by the terminology? In some circles it is a code-phrase for a particular systematic theology. Others use it to refer merely to evangelistic preaching.

Dr. Vines then turned to 1 Corinthians 15 as a summary statement of the gospel, focusing on the death and resurrection of Christ as the solution to human sin and death. He concluded by saying:

Gospel-centered preaching is declaring the cross and the empty tomb. If a preacher declares those twin towers of God’s provision for the two mountains of man’s misery, he is a gospel-centered preacher!

A few weeks ago, one of the questions for the panel at Band of Bloggers concerned the phrase “gospel-centered,” and whether or not this adjective was becoming merely a catchphrase void of meaningful content. In answer to the question “What does gospel-centered mean?”, I focused on the truth that the gospel is the fuel of the Christian life, not just the ignition that starts the journey.

But Vines’ blog post got me thinking specifically about how gospel-centeredness applies to preaching. It’s true that the gospel announcement focuses on Christ’s substitutionary death and his glorious resurrection. But when we say “gospel-centered,” we’re referring to the centered part as much as the “gospel” itself. We then contrast gospel-centered preaching with preaching that is centered on something else.

Here are some examples:

1. Gospel-centered preaching vs politics-centered preaching

Some pastors continue to give the essence of a gospel presentation and call people to faith, but they are not gospel-centered because the bulk of their preaching focuses on current events and societal transformation.

For example, let’s say you walk into this church during December and you hear a message called “The Battle for Christmas.” The message is about the controversy over saying “Merry Christmas!” or displaying nativity scenes in public. The sermon application is not repentance and faith, but “stand up and take back America!” (The implication is that this change will take place through the political process.)

The gospel may still have a place in this kind of message, but it has been relegated to the final remarks of the invitation. In no way is the message centered on the twin truths of Christ’s death and resurrection.

2. Gospel-centered preaching vs advice-centered preaching

Many pastors focus the majority of their sermons on practical themes like raising a family, managing your finances, or cutting down on stress at work. These messages may also include the news about Jesus’ death and resurrection, but the main focus of the sermon is how to improve your life.

In this kind of preaching, the gospel is viewed as an entryway into the Christian life. The rest of the Christian life is a do-it-yourself model. The gospel ignites the engine of faith, but “do this” and “don’t do that” becomes the main fuel for the Christian life, and these commands (biblical as many of them may be) are disconnected from the gospel that brings transformation.

In the end, we wind up with a Christianized version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The focus is on what we need to do, but these imperatives are disconnected from the truth of what Christ has done.

(Note: Imperatives are not bad; they are biblical! But they should always be grounded in the indicatives of what Christ has done for us on the cross.)

3. Gospel-centered preaching vs evangelism-centered preaching

One might wonder how I can separate evangelism-only sermons from gospel-centered preaching, since it should be assumed that evangelism-only sermons are gospel-centered. (I wish that were the case, but too often I have heard “evangelistic” sermons that focus very little on the death and resurrection of Christ.) Even if the evangelistic sermon does center on the evangel, I think we still mean something when we speak of “gospel-centered preaching,” since the latter generally refers to a steady diet of sermons.

Gospel-centered preaching will, of course, be evangelistic, but it is driven by the realization that Christians need the gospel too. It’s not that the lost need to hear the gospel and now Christians need to move on to something deeper. It’s that the lost need the gospel and Christians need to move deeper into that gospel as well.

The gospel saves us (once and for all) from the penalty of our sin. But a continual exposure to the gospel is the means by which Christ delivers us from the power of sin and prepares us for the day we will be delivered from the presence of sin as well.

4. Gospel-centered preaching vs virtue-centered preaching

Sometimes, preachers mine the Old Testament looking for characters to make examples of, whether good or bad.

• “Dare to be a Daniel.”
• “Fight the giants in your life like David.”
• “Build up your leadership skills like Nehemiah.”

While these sermons may indeed be helpful, they are generally not what we mean by “gospel-centered,” in that they are largely disconnected from the overarching story of the Scripture that is pointing to Christ.

It is true that the Old Testament characters are given to us as an example, but it is also true that they are about Jesus. So David is more than an example of courage; he is foreshadowing the lowly Jesus who will defeat the Evil One and set prisoners free. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are more than an example of steadfast resolve; their faith unto death represents a vibrant hope in resurrection and restoration, which is the culmination of the Grand Story of Scripture.

Gospel-centered preaching takes the Old Testament texts and, while not ignoring helpful truths learned from the lives of these saints, connects them to Christ.

What do you think? What are some other descriptions that come to mind when you think of “gospel-centered” preaching?

One of my favorite classes at Southern Seminary was “The Ministry of Proclamation” (i.e. Preaching 101) with Dr. Hershael York, author of Preaching with Bold Assurance: A Solid and Enduring Approach to Engaging Exposition. Dr. York’s counsel has been of great benefit to me in preaching and teaching. I’m grateful for his emphasis on biblical exposition, application, and delivery. Today, I’m thankful that he has agreed to answer a few questions about preaching.

Trevin Wax: Your book divides sermon preparation into three parts: the text, the sermon, and the delivery. In your opinion, which part is the most neglected in preaching today?

Hershael York: I am confident that each part is neglected by different segments of evangelicals. Preachers tend to react against the abuses and errors of the climate in which they were nurtured.

As a result, preachers who grew up in churches in which the pastor was all flash and little substance tend to shy away from any emphasis on delivery, believing it to be man-centered, and focus on the text. On the other extreme, preachers who grew up in a lifeless orthodoxy may lean too far the other direction and substitute a great delivery and a few spiritual insights for rich biblical revelation. Many Millennials react against the revivalist sermon structure and rhetorical devices that seem trite and settle for a rambling narrative with little discernible structure at all.

So I would have to say that of text, sermon, and delivery, the most neglected today is the one that the preacher has seen overemphasized. But preachers need to master all three concepts. The preacher needs to discover biblical truth, organize it in a culturally relevant way, and deliver it in an engaging manner that reaches the mind of his listeners through their hearts.

Trevin Wax: How much time should a pastor spend on his sermon per week?

Hershael York: Every sermon I preach has taken me my whole life to preach it. Every sermon is the culmination of an invested life. I couldn’t possibly quantify how much time actually goes into a sermon, because I’m drawing from things I learned as a child, a student, a husband, a father, a seminarian, a pastor, a professor, and everything else I’ve done in life.

Sermon preparation is like making wine. The grapes may be newly crushed but they come from vines that are old. That’s why smart students and pastors invest their time in skills and strategies that will pay off many times over.

I don’t have to consult a lot of Greek commentaries because I took four years of undergraduate Greek and then did 30 hours of graduate Greek before I ever went to seminary. Diagramming epistolary passages doesn’t take very long because I’ve already diagrammed most epistles and work to stay intimately acquainted with the text. I invested in the Logos scholars edition so I can have those reference works at hand wherever I go. I don’t buy books that I’ll only use once, but rather invest in the kind of reference works that I will refer to repeatedly. All those things shorten the weekly time I will spend on an individual sermon because I’ve already spent it.

But having said that, I also believe that it takes a significant investment of time to think through a passage, especially to think how it applies to the people I pastor and then to figure out the best way to say it so it grabs them by the lapels and shakes them a bit.

Finding illustrations requires a great deal of time, too, because that never gets easier. In fact, it gets harder to be fresh, to find something new. How many different illustrations of faith can one find, after all? And I read and reject 100 possible illustrations to find that one window of light that illumines the subject at hand like I want it to.

So I can’t really give you a specific time allotment for my sermons as it varies, usually due to whether I’m preaching a NT text with which I have great familiarity or an OT text (like Isaiah) for which I feel much less adequate and out of my expertise. My goal is the same, however. By the time I stand in the pulpit to preach, I want to know that text so intimately and thoroughly that I am saturated with it. If I don’t have that, then I haven’t spent enough time with it.

Trevin Wax: Is it possible to spend too much time on a sermon?

Hershael York: One can spend too much time on sermon preparation in the sense that one neglects other appropriate areas of life and ministry. A sermon will never be perfect, but a text can be dealt with adequately if not exhaustively.

Trevin Wax: You advocate making the main points of the sermon applicational. What’s the difference between this style of preaching and other styles? And why is this important?

Hershael York: I heard an excellent sermon today by Mark Dever, “Children” from Mark 10:13-16. The three points of his sermon were all imperative statements that were the result of asking the question, “What should we do if we understand the truth in this text?” That’s what applicational points look like.

Simply preaching knowledge-based sermons that don’t advocate action is suggesting that biblical truth has no practical value. Every doctrine leads us to a behavior, even if that behavior is trust or rest.

Paul clearly reveals his hermenuetic of OT interpretation in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. He recounts the story of the exodus, pointing out that the majority of the Israelites died in the wilderness because of unbelief in spite of high spiritual privileges afforded them by the Lord. Then he admonishes us not to do what they did, and he enumerates those ethical deductions.

I frankly cannot understand the sentiment that I often hear from some homileticians who seem phobic that we should tell our people what to do or avoid based on an OT passage. They fear that we will detract from God’s grace; but of course it’s God’s grace that gave us the OT text and the ability to either emulate or avoid the behaviors described in it.

I do not want to preach a sermon that even the devil can agree with. James warned us of precisely that kind of faith. If we preach a sermon that only states truth but does not exhort to action, then all we have done is raise the faith of our listeners to the level of the demons–who even tremble at the truth, but do not act on it.

Trevin Wax: What are some common pitfalls in the delivery of a sermon that can distract from the truth of the sermon’s content?

Hershael York: One of my axioms is what I call the paradox of preaching: the better you are, the less they notice you. If the preacher is nervous, stammering, repetitive, jittery, wooden, frenetic, frozen, or any other distractive adjective one might imagine, the audience will hardly hear what he is saying, regardless of how true or helpful it may be.

The most common mistake I see among conservative and especially reformed preachers is the belief that if we just get the truth out there, the Holy Spirit will use it, in spite of our poor delivery.

The Millennials have a great challenge because they are far more accustomed to communicating via texts, emails, blogs, and the written word than they are orally, but preaching is oral, and that is a very different means of communicating truth than through words on a page. The biggest mistake I see is when preachers preach like writers, concentrating more on the specific words that they want to say–basically reading the sermon–than on communicating with a real audience.

Trevin Wax: Where do you find good illustrations for sermons?

Hershael York: I try to look where no one else is looking. I look at my own life and experiences. I read a lot, and I seldom use common illustration sources.

In recent years Malcolm Gladwell’s books and the two Freakonomics volumes have been worth their weight in gold to me. I listen to NPR’s This American Life. I find books like Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes, about a Wycliff translator who became an atheist on the mission field and find a treasure of ways to apply that.

Of course the Bible itself is a great way to illustrate and teach biblical content to a congregation at the same time, although I obviously do not subscribe to the belief that we should avoid extra-biblical sources for illustrations. Good illustrations won’t make a bad sermon a good one, but they do make a good sermon a great one.

Our task as Christian preachers is not subserviently to answer all the questions which men put to us;
nor to attempt to meet all the demands which are made on us;
nor hesitantly to make tentative suggestions to the philosophically minded;
but rather to proclaim the message which is dogmatic because it is divine.

The preacher’s responsibility is proclamation, not discussion. . . .

We are ‘heralds’, charged to publish abroad a message that did not originate with us (that we should presume to tamper with it) but with Him who gave it us to publish. . . .

To this revealed message men must humbly submit. ‘If any one among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.’ (1 Cor 3:18) I believe that this ‘let him become a fool’ is one of the hardest words of Scripture to the proud hearts and minds of men. Like the brilliant intellectuals of ancient Greece our contemporaries have unbounded confidence in the human reason. They want to think their way to God by themselves, and to gain credit for discovering God by their own effort. . . .

Of course men have been given minds to use . . . but they must humble them reverently before the revelation of God, becoming in Paul’s word ‘fools’ and in Christ’s word ‘babes’. It is only babes to whom God reveals Himself and only fools whom He makes wise.

So if the sinner must humble himself to receive God’s Word, the preacher must humble himself to proclaim it. There is power in it. . . .

But let it not be thought that its power is principally destructive, like a burning fire, a smashing hammer, or a piercing sword. The gospel is, above all, ‘the power of God for salvation.’ There is no stronger argument for faithful expository preaching than this, that it is through the kerygma, the revealed good news committed to our trust, that God is pleased to save those who believe.

There is no saving power in the words of men. The devil does not relinquish his grasp upon his prisoners at the bidding of mere mortals. No word has authority for him but the Word of God. Then let us proclaim and expound God’s Word, confident that it ‘effectually worketh’ in those who believe.

- John Stott, The Preacher’s Portrait, IVP 1961, p. 98-100.

How do you perform deeds of mercy and keep a strong emphasis on proclaiming the gospel?

D.A. Carson offers one suggestion:

Ideally, the place to start is with ministers themselves who know what the gospel is and who are faithful to it in their preaching and teaching.

In our day and age, we get a lot more credit in the press if we work with a whole lot of people to overcome poverty or open a pantry. But if we preach the gospel and say that only in Christ can men and women be reconciled to God, then the popular press views us as right-wing bigots and narrow-minded fundamentalists and all the rest. So obviously there is social pressure on us to emphasize the first and not the latter.

I will not soon forget a Gospel Coalition member who said, “I’ll tell you how to fix the problem. Preach hell.”

We looked at him. This particular chap is known for his bluntness. We wondered: How does that answer the question? How do you preserve gospel faithfulness while doing deeds of social mercy? We knew this chap. He is into racial integration in his church. He is very concerned about these things. How do you keep those things from swamping the whole direction of the church?

“Preach hell!”

So we asked him to explain. He said, “In the first instance, as long as you are still preaching the wrath of God against all rebellion and all sin, then you are preserving in your own mind and in the consciousness of believers in the church, that you are interested in the relief of suffering both in time and eternity. You start fudging on that corner and you lose that eternal dimension.”

“Preach hell.”

Then he said, “At the practical level, as long as you are preaching hell and the way to escape hell through responding by the strength that God gives through the Spirit to the gospel, to what God has done in the person of his Son, in repentance and faith… As long as you are still preaching hell and the need to be saved from hell, then a lot of the broader, quasi-liberal social justice crowd don’t want anything to do with you. And that preserves you as well.”

Preach hell.

- from “Proclaiming the Gospel and Performing Deeds of Mercy”

Last month, I preached the greatest sermon ever recorded in the history of the world. Greatest, of course, because it is from the mouth of Jesus Christ himself. On April 19, at the request of our senior adults, I delivered the Sermon on the Mount from memory for our congregation. (See the video below.)

I encourage other pastors and preachers to consider preaching large sections of Scripture from memory. Your congregation will be edified in a special way.

Here are some tips for getting started:

1. Choose a literal Bible translation.

I chose to preach the Sermon on the Mount from the English Standard Version, since it is my translation of choice. You might assume that dynamic translations are easier to memorize, but such is not the case. Word-for-word translations are easier to commit to memory, probably because they are closer to the original text, which was intended to be passed down orally.

2. Listen to the Scriptures on Mp3.

For several weeks leading up to delivery, I listened to a recitiation of the Sermon on my Mp3 player. When taking  a shower, when in the car, before going to bed… Find time to listen to the text you want to preach.

3. Read the passage out loud once or twice daily.

Listening helps solidify the words of the text in your mind. But nothing will substitute for the hard work of reading the text out loud and then trying to say it word for word. Try reading the text every night before going to bed. Sleep will help you retain the main ideas of the text.

4. Practice the sermon with someone who is not afraid to correct every mistake.

Corina was a big help to me as I prepared for the Sermon. Whenever I missed a word or phrase, she would let me know. Discovering where the difficulties are will help you be more comfortable as you continue the work of memorization.

An example: Many of Jesus’ words in the Sermon are in chiastic structure, not Western-styled outline form. (1) No one can serve two masters. For either he will (2) hate the one and (3) love the other, or he will be (3) be devoted to the one and (2) despise the other. (1) You cannot serve God and money. The chiastic structure is unfamiliar to us and can lead to easy mistakes. Understanding the structure helps you catch the rhythm of the ancient text.

Below is the video from my Sermon on the Mount delivery:

Part 1 (Matthew 5)

Part 2 (Matthew 6-7)

I never remember a time when I did not devote considerable effort to achieving good grades in school. In fact, until a few years ago, I always thought good grades were the primary goal of education.

So you can imagine how surprised I was to hear a seminary professor make this statement to the class before an exam: “For some of you, it will be a sin if you do not receive an A in this class. Your talents, giftings, and circumstances will be wasted if you do not do your best and earn an A. For others of you, it will be a sin if you do receive an A, as you will have chosen to sacrifice important things (like family) for a good GPA.”

For those of us who see good grades as something “good” in and of themselves, the professor’s point serves as a helpful corrective.

But I wonder if his point might also apply to preaching. Some of us measure good preaching by the time we spent in preparation. But what if preparing sermons that would receive an “A” in preaching class sometimes cost us in terms of long-term effectiveness in our local congregations?

I believe Scripture views preaching as the central purpose of those who shepherd God’s church. But “primary” does not mean “only.” Pastors have a variety of biblical responsibilities. Neglect of other pastoral duties can lead to a lackluster pulpit presence – no matter how well the pastor may understand the text he is preaching.

Many well-known pastors emphasize the many hours they spend every week in sermon preparation. Perhaps this practice is possible for pastors of larger churches who have considerable help in fulfilling other pastoral duties.

But I am concerned about the pressure this emphasis puts upon pastors of smaller churches. What happens to the small-church pastor devoted to faithful exposition who, out of a sincere desire to emulate a favorite preacher, takes this emphasis on biblical exegesis to an extreme? Can extensive sermon preparation ever shortchange a preacher and his church?

It depends on how we define “sermon prep.” If our idea of sermon preparation is a pastor locked up in his study with Greek books and Bible commentaries, then the answer is yes: this type of preparation may indeed keep pastors from fulfilling other important duties.

But true sermon preparation does not end when the pastor has successfully exegeted the text. True sermon preparation includes the efforts of faithful pastors to exegete their churches too.

Church exegesis has been going on since the New Testament times. The Apostle Paul did not write a series of letters to “the Church” in general. He knew the problems in Corinth, Galatia, and Thessalonica. So based upon the written revelation of God in the Old Testament Scriptures and the revelation of Jesus Christ, the Living Word, Paul wrote particular letters to particular churches. Why should our messages be any different?

Sermon preparation does not end with good exegesis of the Bible; it always includes good exegesis of the local congregation. The preacher who can parse Greek verbs must also be able to discern the imperatives and indicatives his own people are living by.

Great preachers not only know how to preach a particular text; they know how to preach a particular text to a particular people.

And that brings us to the practical side of sermon preparation. In order to faithfully exegete our church, we must know our people. The church is not a preaching station where individual Christians show up once a week to hear great oratory. The church is a community of believers who live together under the lordship of Christ. The preacher’s role in this community is to know the Scriptures and his people well enough to discern (through the power of the Holy Spirit) how best to exhort them faithfully and biblically.

If our enthusiasm for ”good preaching” keeps us constantly isolated from our congregation in sermon preparation, we might be shortchanging God’s people. If we are to preach effectively, we must spend time with our people, understanding how best to use the Word to train them, rebuke them, correct them, and comfort them.

Biblical exegesis and church exegesis go hand in hand.

Whenever we study the text, the faces of our people who need a word from God should be leaping from the pages.

Whenever we are in situations that necessitate pastoral counseling and comfort, the Word of God should be flowing from our hearts to our lips.

God, give us pastors who love the Word and love their people…

who know the Word and know their people…

who live in the Word and live among their people.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2009 Kingdom People blog

I am excited about the new series being published by Broadman and Holman called “Studies in Baptist Life and Thought.” With Dr. Michael Haykin at the forefront of this project as the series editor, Broadman and Holman promises to deliver a series of insightful books on Baptist history.

The first installment of this new series is devoted to the man who is most responsible for the tenor and content of the great expository preachers of the Southern Baptist Convention. John A. Broadus served as the second president of Southern Seminary in the 1889-95. But even before his leadership as president, Broadus gave Baptists an example of “balance, careful thinking, biblical faithfulness, and denominational statesmanship.” (xi)

John A. Broadus: A Living Legacy  consists of essays from a variety of Baptist scholars. The book feels, at times, as if it were condensed from a two-day conference on Baptist history. Because the scholars did their work separately, there is a fair amount of repetition in each essay, especially in the biographical information. (Occasionally, the repetition makes its way into the same essay!)

But the level of scholarship represented within these pages makes the book well worth the reader’s time. Here are some of the chapters I found most helpful:

In the introduction, Timothy George summarizes Broadus’ life and assesses his legacy.

Roger Duke summarizes and explores Broadus’ most important work: A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons. He shows how Broadus borrowed liberally from the principles of classical rhetoric. Broadus was also a firm advocate in learning the biblical languages and employing the Canons of Rhetoric in delivering a sermon. Broadus believed that a preacher does not invent the chief materials of a sermon. These materials are the result of previous acquisition and reflection. (The lesson here for preachers? READ!) Duke also shows that Broadus never believed in pitting systematic theology and biblical exegesis against one another.

David Dockery writes about how Broadus’ legacy was carried on by A.T. Robertson. Broadus was a careful scholar. The biblical text reigned supreme. Broadus’ legacy was earned by his devotion to biblical exegesis, expositional preaching and church-focused theology. Robertson learned from Broadus. He never feared taking into account recent developments in critical scholarship, but he held fast to the authority of the Bible.

Beecher Johnson’s chapter is the most practical. He uses Broadus as an example of a preacher who could preach “marketable messages,” but without “selling out the Savior.” How did Broadus manage to avoid sensationalistic preaching and yet still captivate his congregation? By modeling his preaching philosophy after Jesus’ teaching. Broadus encouraged his students to emulate Jesus, not chase the current fads.

Preachers should learn from John A. Broadus. The new book from Broadman and Holman helps us along in that task.

written by Trevin Wax. copyright © 2008 Kingdom People Blog.

Related Articles:
John A. Broadus Gravesite
Great American Preachers and Sermons – Interview with Larry Witham

This is Part 2 of my interview with Larry Witham, author of A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History. Today, we talk about how preaching has developed in the United States over the centuries. For Part 1 of my interview, click here. For my review of Witham’s book, click here.

Trevin Wax: What style of preaching did America’s earliest preachers utilize and how did that style shape the development of preaching in the following centuries?

Larry Witham: The first English preachers arrived on America shores with two styles of preaching, one associated with Anglicans and moderate Presbyterian and the other with strict Puritans. The first type of preaching goes back to Greek and Roman oratory, is seen in St. Augustine, and in the Scottish ideas of Christian rhetoric and “eloquence.” This kind of sermon is designed to persuade: it is an edifying argument, with a particular kind of format of opening, argument, evidence, and conclusion.

The second kind of sermon came with the Puritans, and it is called “plain style.” In this, the preacher takes a Bible text, probes it for proper doctrine, and then applies the doctrine to life. This is a very formal, even scholastic, type of preaching, but was perhaps the most widespread in the first century of American experience.

An early Puritan instruction book on this was called The Arte of Prophesy, but the title actually shows us the two basic kinds of preaching. One is the “art” of persuasive oratory. The other is like “prophesy” – the preacher is a channel for God supernatural message, found in the sacred text, often line by line.

Trevin Wax: You write of the importance of the “jeremiad” type of sermon. What is the “jeremiad” and how did it influence American life?

The “jeremiad” is a term coined by modern historians based on the biblical story of the prophet Jeremiah, who constantly warned the Hebrews that they would be punished if they continued their evil ways, and be rewarded for repentance and revival.

When this idea was taken up by the Puritans, who added the idea of a “covenant” between the people and God, the daily events of the American experience became biblical signs of God’s displeasure or blessing. His pleasure was proved by successful colonization and winning the Revolution, for example, but his displeasure was also proved by Indian wars, famines, plague, and earthquakes. At such times, preachers called for repentance and revival. This is the origin of the common American practice of prayer and fast days, often called by political leaders.

The American past is filled with jeremiad sermons. Indeed, Civil War sermons, both North and South, usually pointed to battlefield victories or defeats as evidence of God’s pleasure or judgment on the citizenry’s piety or lack of faith and morals.

Trevin Wax: During the time of the Civil War, both sides claimed religious reasons for fighting. How did preaching influence the direction of the War and how did the outcome of the war influence preaching in the following decades?

Larry Witham: It is hard for us to imagine such a different time in the past, but the first preaching regarding the split of North and South did not address slavery – it was about the God-given rights of states, or the God-ordained national government in Washington.

As battles flared, the South at first winning (and North turning that tide later), preachers on each side tried to explain those outcomes. At first, the South preached that God proved their cause true and just. Then, the North began to preach that the fight had to be over the morality of slavery, or God would not bring victory. The South responded by defending slavery on biblical and moral grounds. In all of this, the jeremiad played an important role.

Up to this time, the core theology of all preaching was based on belief that God takes sides and hands out clear outcomes based on divine control of events. However, this became a great conundrum – even a theological crisis – for American preachers, especially in the South, which had to understand why it lost. The result, some historians argue, was a new kind of preaching that said God brings suffering to his elect for some greater purpose (the Lost Cause becomes the Crucifixion, in other words).

Either way, American preaching, it seems, began to accept the “mystery” of God’s work in the world. We may trust that God is in control, but can’t really say which side he is on.

The other innovation was to say that God gave history and nature a certain degree of freedom to go its own way – in other words, God is not entirely in control of the details. This kind of theology was reinforced by the Civil War era revolutions in natural science, including the new theory of evolution.

Trevin Wax: In what ways has preaching developed since the 1950′s?

Larry Witham: The 1950s was a watershed period: There was economic prosperity, a celebration of “democratic faiths” – Protestant, Catholic, Jew — a boom in media technology (especially television), a tension between individualism and conformity, and above all a Cold War way of thinking.

In some religious traditions (speaking to our middle class), the preaching tried to be psychologically helpful, or to bolster traditionalism – such as preaching about church calendars, saints, and liturgical practices.

From war-torn Europe came the idea of “biblical preaching” – a proclamation of the Christ story, a salvation event that is above the conflicted world.

In contrast, popular evangelism took off by proclaiming a “moment of decision” in accepting Christ (Billy Graham), but this preaching also focused on particular modern sins: drinking, smoking, promiscuity and all the rest.

The 50s gave us the TV preacher celebrity, which we have today in great abundance.

Finally, American preaching responded to a sense of a divided world – communism versus democracy – and so it was both patriotic and you might say “dualistic” rhetoric: America is good and therefore its enemies must be evil. This is the origin of the “old Christian right,” which passed on its rhetorical style to movements seen today. In all, American culture seems to like a dualistic sermon, and the dualism speaks to conservatives and liberals alike.

Today and tomorrow, I am interviewing Larry Witham, author of several books, including The Measure of God, Where Darwin Meets the Bible, and A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History (see my review posted yesterday). We will be discussing the development of preaching in the United States.

Trevin Wax: Who do you consider to be the most important (in terms of influence) preacher in American history and why?

Larry Witham: This is a great question, but perhaps impossible to answer – unless we can think about types of influence.

In terms of quantity, there is no doubt that Billy Graham has preached to the most people on earth, and in the U.S. He laid the foundation for 20th century evangelicalism, which is now a major cultural force.

But when we think of influence, it often is best to go back to the “first” innovators. The British Anglican George Whitefield pioneered itinerant evangelical preaching in the American colonies. He was the first American celebrity, and by dint of his “marketing” campaign, colonists first began to speak about the collective experience of being “American.” Just before the Civil War, the Presbyterian Charles Finney innovated urban evangelism. In short, Graham built on two hundred years of tradition.

Historians often count as “most” influential those preachers who left behind great documents that we study again and again. In this context, the colonial Calvinist Jonathan Edwards was the great stylist (see “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”) The first great textbook on preaching was composed by the Baptist statesman John Broadus, a post-Civil War figure. In that same period, the Brooklyn preacher Henry Ward Beecher was called “the most famous man in America,” and he stands for the start of modern Protestant liberalism.

In modern times, preachers such as Harry Emerson Fosdick and Norman Vincent Peale combined psychology with preaching. Reinhold Niebuhr was a preacher for urban intellectuals. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was the first famous Catholic preacher by having the most popular religious TV show in the 1950s.

Since before the Civil War, there have also been female pioneers in preaching, and those who promoted Pentecostalism. To close on evangelicalism, Charles Fuller (the namesake of Fuller Theological Seminary) was a Baptist who, in the 1940s, had the most listened-to radio show in the United States.

Trevin Wax: What do you consider to be the most important (in terms of influence) sermon in American history and why?

Larry Witham: We’d probably want to look at sermons that came early in our history, and that were therefore discussed at great length since then. So again – I’ll opt for three!

1. Massachusetts colony Governor John Winthrop’s “City Upon a Hill” (1630) sermon – actually about “Christian charity” – is seen by many as a charter for the founding of America.
2. A century later, Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners” sermon is viewed as the most eloquent of all Calvinist arguments (and Calvinism played an immense role in U.S. mental culture until the Civil War).
3. Finally, to think a bit secularly, Abraham Lincoln’s two addresses – at Gettysburg and especially his Second Inaugural – have been extensively read, asserting great influence on how we see religious-type oratory in the nation.
4. Well, now I’m going to say four “most important”! This allows me to include Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream,” which spurred a great social change and, by being on television, first introduced Americans broadly to the cadences of black preaching.

Trevin Wax: What is the content of America’s “civil religion?” How does current preaching fuel this mindset?

Larry Witham: From its first days, American preaching has been bound up in the political order. Separation of church and state did not come until the U.S. Constitution in the 1790s, and then in steps: no state paid clergy after the 1830s, and no state-funded prayer and Bible reading in school after the 1960s.

Still, religious oratory and political rhetoric have continued to mingle, and this has produced the idea of a “civil religion.” Ben Franklin spoke of a “public religion” – basic biblical theism as the national belief. In colonial Massachusetts, clergy gave the annual “election day sermon,” and this, some would say, it the origin of the presidential inaugural.

The first inaugural was given (actually just written) by George Washington. But every inaugural since has cited God, the Great Author, the Divine Governor, and Providence, etc., to explain the nation’s origins and purposes. The scholars have called this our “civil religion.”

Others speak of a “civil piety” – a general atmosphere where religion is respected as woven into national culture. As the polls show, for example, it would be impossible for an atheist to be elected U.S. president. To be sure, most sermons are “saving sermons” given by the millions every Sabbath to a particular group in a specific sanctuary.

But still, civil religion infuses presidential inaugurals, other great public speeches (often ending in “God bless America”), and a significant number of famous and historical sermons that were given during times of great political change or social ferment.

To take just two recent examples: Billy Graham’s gave national sermons after the terrorist bombings at both Oklahoma City in 1995 and the “9/11″ attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. In these, Graham declared that evil is a “mystery,” but God is sovereign – and national religious revival is always recommended.

Tomorrow, I will be asking Larry a few questions about the history of preaching in America.