Only The Word

Here are some great words from Gary Gilley in his book, This Little Church Stayed Home – a follow up to his earlier book, This Little Church Went To Market.

“This is how God proposes his church be built up – through the careful, accurate and clear preaching and teaching of his Word.  Nothing else will accomplish the task.  We can tell inspiring stories, sing beautiful or peppy music, fill our calendars full of social events, professionalize our program and provide small groups for every conceivable interest, but if the Scripture is not diligently, systematically, and correctly taught, Christ’s people will not be equipped and the body will not be built up, period.”

“There are no exceptions to this mandate.  The church must proclaim the ‘word of truth’ – it must be the utmost priority.  Congregations which focus on techniques, programs and entertainment at the expense of the centrality of the Word, may build large followings but they will not build the church of God.  Programs, drama and entertainment may amuse, soothe, inspire and stir the emotions, but they will not build Christians.  Only the Word can do that.

Garry Gilley, This Little Church Stayed Home, p.58.

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Saving Eutychus: A Review

As a pastor, I try to read homiletics books from time to time to help me continue to grow as a Christian preacher.  I recently purchased Saving Eutychus by Gary Millar and Phil Campbell (two Presbyterian pastors from Australia).  I want to point out this brief book here because it is a good resource on preaching.

I recommend this book because it is like a good sermon: biblical, to the point, gospel-centered, and applicable.  Millar and Campbell are firmly committed to expository preaching that has Christ at the center.  There’s even a brief chapter in the book on how biblical theology relates to the pulpit (and how it doesn’t!).  I also appreciated their emphasis on prayer and sermon prep.  The authors don’t cover every topic in this book, but they touch on the basics in a way that is helpful for developing the skill of good preaching.

As with all homiletics books, there are things in Saving Eytychus that are debatable.  For example, one of the authors is committed to sermons that are around 20 minutes long.  Some might argue that a few points in this book are cultural (i.e. the need to use short, simple words in sermons).  One author gave a sermon example in which a slide presentation and video clip were used.  This struck me as odd since the entire book is about biblical, expository preaching of a text.  Presenting a video clip in corporate worship is not preaching!  Some of the argumentative force of the book was lost on me because of this.

However, I still recommend this resource on preaching.  I needed to read this book as a good reminder to keep studying the text hard and with much prayer.  I was glad to be reminded of the need to fight against monotone and dry preaching and was happy to read ways how to improve on sermon delivery.  The emphasis on “the big idea” of the sermon was also a good one; point well taken!

Here are a few of my favorite quotes.

“Just about the worst thing that can happen when we finish preaching is that someone will walk out of the door of the church buoyed by their own resolve to try harder” (p. 77).

“The key to preaching…is to make the message of the text obvious.  Help people to see it and feel it.  Help people to understand the text” (p. 29).

“When I listen to you preach, do I want to see that you have grappled with the biblical theological implications of the text?  Yes, I do.  Do I want listening to a sermon feel like sitting at home reading a book on biblical theology?  No, I don’t.  There is a difference between doing biblical theology and preaching in a way that is shaped by biblical theology” (p. 91).

This isn’t an “end all” book on homiletics.  Millar and Campell don’t do everything in this book.  But what they do include is extremely helpful.  I’ve already made a few slight changes in my own sermon preparation and delivery.   In fact, I’m confident it will be a blessing for pastors who have labored for three months or thirty-five years.

Gary Millar and Phil Campbell, Saving Eutychus (Kingsford: Matthias Media, 2013).

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How to Listen to a Sermon

  (This post is an edited repost from May, 2008)

Christopher Love (d. 1651), a Welsh Presbyterian and pastor of a church in London, manuscripted his sermons sermons on mortification and published them in The Mortified Christian (Morgan: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1998). The whole book is worth reading, but the last section is what I’ll note for now. The chapter is called “The Right Hearing of Sermons.” Here are seven practical directions for listening to the preaching of the gospel (I’ve edited them for length).

1) Take heed that you hear the Word of God preparedly. As the preacher must take care to find acceptable words, so the people should labor to bring acceptable affections to the work – when we come to the service of God we should hear with all attention and pray with affection.

2) Hear the Word attentively, as those did in Acts 8.6. Those who hear the Word with gazing eyes, wandering thoughts, and sleepy bodies cannot hear it attentively, but are to be reproved.

3) Hear the Word of God retentively. Labor to keep in your memory what you hear, that you may put it into practice for your life. Hearing is for practice’s sake. This also has to do with treasuring the Word, so it will have a continual impression upon your hearts.

4) Hear the Word understandingly. Christ called the multitude and bade them hear and understand. This is what the Bereans did.

5) Hear the Word applicatively. If a patient has never such excellent counsel given him, never so powerful a medicine prescribed, if he does not apply it, it will do him no more good than if he had never known it.

6) Hear the Word of God reverentially. Many people represent God to themselves in such familiar notions that they ultimately breed a contempt of God which we ought not to have. We must demean ourselves with a humble reverence in His presence.

7) Hear the Word of God obediently. Come…ready, prepared, and disposed to stoop and submit to all the instructions, corrections, and reproofs of the Word of God, like those spoken of in Acts 10.33.

All of the advice Love gave assumed that we sit “under” the preaching of the Word, not over it.  The congregation does not rule the preached word; the word “rules” them.   So we come to hear a sermon ready to hear God’s word read and explained – we pray for ears to hear, eyes to see, and hearts to believe what God speaks in and through his word read and preached.  

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sunnyside, wa

Preaching, Emotions, Experiences, and the Gospel

 As a pastor, I have to preach the gospel week in and week out through the ups and downs of my own Christian life.  That’s one of many things that makes the ministry of the word a difficult calling. But I can stand behind the pulpit and preach the gospel even through the “downs” in my spiritual life because the gospel doesn’t depend upon my emotions, feelings, or experience.  These comments by J. Gresham Machen have been a source of comfort and motivation for me in the ministry.  I trust all our readers will benefit from these words, though pastors will especially want to take note.

“I know that it is hard to live on the heights of Christian experience.  We have had flashes of the true meaning of the cross of Christ, but then comes long dull days.  What shall we do in those dull times?  Shall we cease to witness for Christ?  Shall we make common cause in those dull days, with those who would destroy the corporate witness of the church?  Perhaps we may be tempted to do so.  When there are such enemies in our own souls, we may be tempted to say, ‘What time have we for the opponents without?’  Such reasoning is plausible.”

“But all the same it is false.  We are not saved by keeping ourselves constantly in the proper frame of mind, but we were saved by Christ once for all when we were born again by God’s Spirit and were enabled by him to put our trust in the Savior.  And the gospel message does not cease to be true because we for the moment have lost sight of the full glory of it.”

“Sad will it be for those to whom we minister if we let our changing moods be determinative of the message that at any moment we proclaim, or if we let our changing moods determine the question whether we shall or shall not stand against the rampant forces of unbelief in the church.  We ought to look, not within, but without, for the content of what we are to preach, and for the determination of our witness-bearing; not our changing feelings and experiences, but to the Bible as the Word of God.  Then, and only then, shall we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord” (p. 137-138).

To be moved and brought to joyful tears by the gospel is a blessed thing, but neither my preaching nor my salvation depends upon my emotions, experiences, or feelings.  My preaching and salvation depend upon the historical and biblical truth that Jesus died on the cross and rose again to save sinners.  The gospel is true no matter where we are in the Christian life; thus it is truly good news.  And so we pastors can confidently preach “in and out of season.”

By the way this book, God Transcendent, is worth every cent of the $8.00 it costs.  If you don’t have it, I highly recommend getting it:  J. Gresham Machen, God Transcendent (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2002).

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Preaching and Distinguishing Law and Gospel

In one section of this most excellent pastoral resource, The Christian Ministry, Charles Bridges (d. 1869) explains how important it is for pastors to rightly distinguish between – and preach – the law and the gospel.  I have to say up front that this is one of the most helpful discussions I’ve read when it comes to the topic of preaching the law and gospel.  It’s like a longer version of Z. Ursinus’ similar section in his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism.

Bridges, along with many other Reformed theologians, affirmed this statement: “Qui scit bene distinguere inter Legum et Evangelium, Deo gratias agat, et sciat se esse Theologum.” (“He that knows how to distinguish well be­tween the law and the gospel, let him thank/bless God, and know that he then deserves the name of a divine.”)

What is the difference between the law and the gospel?  Here are a few things Bridges notes.

“The law, partially at least (as in the case of the heathens) is discoverable by the light of nature, whereas the gospel is ‘the hidden mystery of God,’ which could only be known by the light of revelation.  We find, therefore, man in his natural state partially acquainted with the law, but wholly unacquainted with the gospel.”

“They also differ in the power of their sanction.  …Command is the characteristic of the law, promise and encouragement is the characteristic of the gospel.  In the one case, obedience is required on the penalty of death; in the other case it is encouraged by the promise of life.  A promise is indeed attached to the obedience of the law, but placed beyond our reach, upon terms far more difficult than those of Adam’s covenant [the Covenant of Works] – as he was given sufficient strength for perfect obedience, while we are entirely helpless for the lowest spiritual requirements.  The gospel on the other hand gives the promise freely, in order to obedience, as the principle and motive of it.”

“The law condemns, and cannot justify a sinner; the gospel justifies and cannot condemn the sinner that believes in Jesus.  In the law, God appears in terrible threatenings of eternal death; in the gospel, he manifests himself in gracious promises of life eternal.  The law is a sound of terror to convict sinners; the gospel is a joyful sound, ‘good tidings of great joy.’”

Later Bridges writes,

“The whole discussion will remind us of the importance of accurately distinguishing in our ministry between the law and the gospel, ‘that we, through the misunderstanding of the Scriptures, do not take the law for the gospel, nor the gospel for the law, but skillfully discern and distinguish the voice of one from the voice of the other.”

For those of you who are pastors, I strongly recommend reading this entire section of The Christian Ministry (actually, I recommend the whole book!).  My above quotes are just edited tips of the iceberg – Bridges’ explanation of the law/gospel distinction in the pastoral ministry is profound, helpful, and encouraging.  He sheds some great light on the Reformation distinction between the law and the gospel, and the necessity of properly distinguishing the two.  Indeed, if a preacher cannot distinguish between the law and the gospel, let him stay out of the pulpit!

Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1983), chapter 3, section 2. 

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