What is Preaching?

WHAT IS PREACHING

Introducing Preaching

There is no greater privilege, and no more awesome responsibility, than to be called of God to preach the unsearchable riches of His Word. The Bible gives us a number of reasons for this:

Standing in a long tradition
Many more biblical reasons could be advanced to underscore the privilege and responsibility resting on any person who exercises a ministry of preaching; proclaiming the content and message of the Word of God. Every preacher should be encouraged by the historical fact that preaching has a long tradition behind it. No preacher is either alone, or unique, in the ministry of preaching which he exercises. God, throughout time, has had men and women who have fearlessly proclaimed the truth of His Word, very often in difficult circumstances. Some preachers have become famous because of their preaching. By far the greater number of preachers throughout history have been relatively unknown, and in the end have faded away into obscurity. But God is never obscure! The greatest passion of any preacher must always be, through his preaching, to glorify the living God. Every message preached must bring glory to God, exalt the name of Jesus, and pierce the hearts of the hearers (Acts 2:37).

In order to achieve this, preachers must be biblical in their preaching, expounding the truth of the Word of God, and proclaiming the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. Preaching is special because the preacher, if he preaches the Word of God, becomes a spokesperson for God. Only in this way can he bring glory to God - he must speak the words of God. The most outstanding characteristic of Old Testament proclamation was that the prophets repeatedly stated to the people “This is what God is saying” (Exodus 4:22, Malachi 1:4). This type of claim is made more than three thousand times in the Old Testament! The prophets were claiming to speak the very words of God. The message they brought was powerful because it came from the heart of God, through them, to the people. There is an obvious difference between Old Testament prophetic utterance and preaching in the post-New Testament era. Old Testament prophets spoke under the direct inspiration of God the Holy Spirit. In the post-New Testament era preachers study, and meditate on, the recorded Word of God. They come to an understanding of what the Word meant when it was first spoken, and seek to expound that understanding in the context of the present situation. But in both situations there is one common principle - the need to speak the words of God.

A conviction about preaching
It is clear from the above that the preacher needs a conviction about preaching. The Bible teaches that God consistently hinges the welfare of His people on their obedience to Him. They must listen to His voice, believe His promises, and obey His commands (Jeremiah 7:23; 2 Thessalonians 3:14). It is obvious from the Bible that the well-being of God’s people depends upon their obedience to His Word. But, Paul asks us, “... how shall they hear without a preacher” (Romans 10:14). If we are going to be preachers of the Word of God, we need a conviction about preaching as God’s appointed way to reach men and women with His Word, even in the 21^st century. Amos lamented in his day that there was a “famine of hearing the words of the Lord” (Amos 8:11). There were enough false prophets around, declaring that God was speaking when He wasn’t. But there was a dearth of the hearing of the Word of the Lord. Our conviction about preaching must be that it is God’s appointed way of proclaiming His Word. In preaching God must be allowed to speak through His Word, by His Spirit. Our task as preachers is to allow the Word to speak. We must preach the Word; not our opinion about the Word. We are not called to preach our pet theories, our favourite topics, or the content of the daily newspaper. We are called to preach the Word of God. If we are going to be preachers of the Word of God, we are going to practice expository preaching, because all true Christian preaching is expository preaching which seeks to expound the Bible. It is only as we learn to expound the Bible that we will bring an end to the famine of hearing the Word of the Lord.

Christianity is, in its very essence, a religion of the Word of God. No attempt to understand Christianity can succeed which overlooks, or denies the truth that the living God has taken the initiative to reveal Himself to man in Jesus Christ. Similarly, any attempt at understanding this revelation is doomed to failure, if it does not acknowledge that God’s self-revelation has been given to man by the most straightforward means of communication. God tells us about Himself through the written Word, and through Jesus Christ, the Living Word. Furthermore, God calls upon those who have heard His Word, to speak it to others. God has spoken through the prophets (Hebrews 1:1ff). Through the prophets God interpreted the significance of His actions in the history of Israel, and simultaneously instructed them to convey His message to His people, either by speech, or by writing, or both. God has spoken supremely in His Son, Who is the Word that became flesh (John 1:14). God speaks through His Spirit who bears witness to Christ and to Scripture (John 16:8). It is God’s speech which makes our speech necessary. We must speak what He has spoken. For this reason preaching is indispensable to Christianity. It is also for this reason that the history of the church is, amongst others, a history of preaching. Every religion has its accredited teachers, whether Hindu gurus, Jewish rabbis, or Muslim mullahs, who instruct in the religion and ethics of their particular faith. They are, however, essentially expositors of an ancient tradition. Only Christian preachers claim to be heralds of the good news from God, and dare to think of themselves as His ambassadors or representatives, speaking the utterances of God (1 Peter 4:11). The history of the church is, amongst others, a history of preaching. From its inception to the present, preaching has been a central and distinctive emphasis of the Christian church. In the course of its history, preaching has gone through upheavals and experienced high as well as low points. But the tradition of preaching is as old as the Church itself, and has mainly been a consistent one, which cannot be set aside. The Christian consensus, down through the centuries, has been to acknowledge the importance of preaching, as a practice unique to biblical Christianity. When we bear in mind that the health of the Christian, and of the church, depends on continual obedience to God and His Word we understand why it is vitally important that the Word is preached and taught with clarity and simplicity. This makes it possible for the hearer to understand and respond in a positive way, which honours God, and facilitates the well-being of the believer.

A conviction about people
It is always important to be clear in our own minds about why we do what we are doing! Why do we prepare sermons? Who do we hope to reach? Why do we preach? The answer to these questions is that God commands that His Word be preached (Matthew 28:18-20) because people matter to God (John 3:16). Preaching has people as its object. If we are going to pastor a local church, our preaching will have our congregation as its object. We will want to get through to our congregation in our preaching, otherwise, why preach? We will not allow the congregation to dictate the content of our preaching. We will preach the Word that God has laid on our hearts for us, and for our congregation. We will, however, consider the congregation as we deliver the message which God has given us. This may sound elementary, but it is surprising how many preachers equate “good” preaching with lengthy preaching, or a display of knowledge, or eloquent oratory. The congregation is not interested, primarily, in these or other elements of preaching which we may consider important. They may not even be interested in our definition of “good preaching.” They are terribly interested in hearing the voice of God, speaking into their own particular and subjective set of circumstances. As pastors and preachers we have the whole week to prepare the message God has laid on our hearts. We have time to allow the Word to percolate through our hearts and minds, and to be stirred by the glory and the greatness of the insight God has given us into Himself and His Word. But our congregation has not had that privilege. They have grappled with the frustrations of daily life. They have experienced an unfriendly employer. They have had to cope with a sick child. They have been painfully aware of their own inability to cope with their job situation. They have had the frustration of a depressive husband or a nagging wife. When they come to church on Sunday they are not interested in our profound theology. They are certainly not excited by the Greek or the Hebrew word which we have discovered during the week, and which we are parading with the aplomb of a great Greek or Hebrew scholar. Some of them may not even know exactly why they have come to church. Others have come because they want to hear from heaven. They are hungry for the words and the voice of God. We preachers must remember that people are more important than the satisfaction of our own selfish conceit. Paul said that pastors and preachers are to feed the church of God (Acts 20:28). We are not called to impress the congregation, we are not to entertain it, we should not bore it to death, we may not confuse it - we must feed it!! Christ did, after all, purchase the church with His own blood. We must not treat that, for which He gave His life, lightly, selfishly, or egotistically. We must glorify Christ in preaching!

What do we mean by “Sermon Preparation?”
It is for this reason that we are going to study the entire process of sermon preparation and delivery. The questions, “What am I going to preach about?” and “How will I preach it?” are of the most important questions a preacher needs to ask. To begin with, we need to be clear in our own minds what we mean by “sermon preparation.”

The process of sermon preparation is the entire activity whereby a sermon is prepared, and then preached in such a way that the audience understands what God is saying to them through the passage or text that has been preached on.

Notice from this definition that the process of sermon preparation includes principles relating to delivery of the sermon. Sermon preparation has to do not only with what we should preach, but how we should preach! The act of preaching, of sermon delivery, is an important element in the total process of sermon preparation. Preaching is special in the sense that it is not just ordinary oratory. When preaching, a preacher is not delivering a speech, reciting a poem, or reading a story. He is actually declaring the Word and the will of God to the people in sermon form. Preparing a sermon has to do with developing the skill to preach in such a way that people will want to listen to it being preached. However, it is not true that the essence of preaching is the mastering of certain skills. The idea that just as you study law in order to be a lawyer, you study preaching skills in order to be a preacher, is not correct. Learning and understanding principles of sermon preparation turns no one into a preacher. Spiritual maturity and theological clarity are prerequisites for any person wanting to preach (1 Timothy 3:6, 10). A preacher must be a committed follower of Jesus Christ, and must know what he believes, and why he believes it! In combination with these prerequisites, developing preaching skills will help a person to become an effective preacher. If spiritual maturity and theological clarity are absent, all the preaching skills in the world will not make anyone an effective preacher of the Word of God. In order to be a preacher of the Word of God, the preacher must know an overwhelming sense of the call of Christ, a commitment to Christ, and a commission from Christ. If someone is committed to Jesus Christ in an ongoing, developing, life-changing spirituality; senses a call to preach; and has a burden for preaching; understanding and applying sound principles of sermon preparation, will help him become an effective preacher.

n	Jesus exercised a ministry of preaching - Mark 1:14. He came preaching the gospel of God! Every time we proclaim the Word of God, we are doing what Jesus did.
n	Jesus appointed the twelve apostle, amongst others, in order that He could send them out to preach - Mark 3:14. Every time we proclaim the Word of God, we are doing what the apostles did.
n	Believers in the early church practiced a ministry of preaching - Acts 2:14-41; 8:5; 9:20. In the last two references the word proclaim is translated from the Greek word kerusso, which is translated as preaching in Mark 1:14. Every time we proclaim the Word of God, we are doing what the early church did.
n	God has chosen preaching as the instrument through which the message of salvation in Jesus Christ is to be proclaimed, in order that men and women may come to salvation - 1 Corinthians 1:21. Every time we proclaim the Word of God we are doing what God wants us to do.
n	The Scriptures declare preaching to be an indispensable element in the whole process of salvation, and the preacher to be uniquely blessed of God - Romans 10:14-15. Every time we proclaim the Word of God we are engaging in a God-ordained and God-blessed activity.
n	Paul states that the content and act of preaching are a manifestation of the unmerited favour of God towards the unbeliever - Ephesians 3: 8. Every time we proclaim the Word of God, we are communicating the boundless grace and mercy of God towards sinful man.