The jubilation of the presentation implies strict attention to the very words of the biblical text as a means of radically penetrating the reality that the text seeks to communicate.
I appeal to a type of generalized preaching that is based on the Bible, but is not saturated with the Bible. Am I appealing against reading a text followed by a sermon showing your points?sometimes you find very good points in the text?without showing people the same words and phrases from which the dots are extracted. I appeal to preaching that doesn’t help people see how text really leads us to the most important reality.
- What are the reasons behind this belief that a preacher should show people.
- In the words of the text.
- How can they see for themselves the reality he proclaims?I’ll only discuss two of them here.
First, the authority for preaching is in the clear correspondence between what the preacher is trying to communicate with his words and what the biblical writers are trying to communicate through the inspired words of Scripture. The keyword here is clear. The correspondence between the points of the sermon and the meaning of the words that the Scriptures should show.
A preacher who doesn’t care if his people believe what he says about the most important issues in the world is a charlatan; play word games in one of the holiest places in the world. I guess a lot of preachers who think the Bible is the word. of God are not charlatans, that is, they take very seriously the call to say things that people must believe in, they want to be believed in. They expect their people to believe what they’re saying.
The basis of this astonishing expectation is divine inspiration and the total truthfulness of the scriptures. The Christian preacher intends to speak the word of God. He wants to be believed because he says what God means. In the first sermon I preached as a pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, at 34, I said:
“The source of my authority in this pulpit is it not?My wisdom; nor is it a particular revelation that has been given to me beyond the revelation of the scriptures. My words are authoritative only to the extent that they are the repetition, development, and proper application of the words of the scriptures. I have authority only when I am under your authority . . . My deep conviction about preaching is that a pastor must show people that what he says has already been said or is implicit in the Bible. If it can’t be displayed, don’t you have special authority?.
My heart hurts for the shepherd who increases his own burden by trying to find ideas to preach to his people. As for me, I have nothing to say. But God does, and with that word I hope and pray that I will never tire of speaking, the life of the Church depends on it.
In this sermon, I quoted WA Criswell (1909?2002), who was the pastor of the first Dallas Baptist for forty years. I said at the time, and I think today, that your words are a warning to pastors who think they are right, and I think this is a big challenge:
“Often, when a man goes to church, he hears a preacher in the pulpit reprint everything he has read in publishers, newspapers and magazines and in television commentary, hears the same things again, yawns, goes out and plays Golf Sunday. When a man goes to church, what he really says is, “Preacher, I know what the TV commentator has to say; I hear it every day. I know what the editor has to say; I read it every day. I know what magazines have to say; I read them every week. Preacher, what I want to know is that God has something to say. If God has something to say, tell us what it is (Why do I preach that the Bible is literally true [i])?.
This means that if preaching seeks to claim the authority to believe, it must correspond to what the scriptures teach, but here is the problem: the desire of the Christian preacher is not that the place where people place their trust changes from Scripture to preacher. He wants you to believe what he says. He wants authority in that regard, but he wants authority to remain in Scripture itself, not in him and in his words.
This implies that the message must not only correspond to the meaning of Scripture, it must also show that this is the case. The authority for preaching lies in the clear correspondence between what the preacher is trying to communicate with his words and what the biblical authors. are trying to communicate through the inspired words of the scriptures. Otherwise, on what basis would people believe that the meaning of the sermon is the same as that of the Bible?They can discover for themselves that this is the case, without any help from the preacher, but why would the preacher make it difficult for people to see this correspondence?
It seems to me that not showing people that the meaning of the sermon exists in the words of the scriptures is probably due to incompetence, laziness or vanity, the presumption that your words have sufficient authority in themselves, laziness, because it is difficult not only to examine what the text means, but also to build compelling explanations that show that the biblical text actually has this meaning. Incompetence because the preacher simply does not have the ability to show how the meaning of the message actually corresponds to the meaning of the scriptures: these are characteristics that a preacher should not have.
The tragedy that occurs over time in a church where the preacher does not pay strict attention to the words of the scriptures, to help people penetrate communicative reality, is that the word of God ceases to exercise its power, and people disintegrate in the scriptures.
When this happens, everything in the church departs from a pleasant orientation in the scriptures, people are no longer a people guided by the Bible, without the saturation of the scriptures, people become increasingly vulnerable to the winds of false teachings and, more subtly, to the conditioning of a disbeliever society. Their expectations become worldly and push church leaders to make more and more concessions to what attracts non-spiritual people. The preacher may wonder what the problem is, but he does not have to look, did he not appreciate the Word of God enough for the content of his messages to turn it into glorious realities, showing believers, through the words of the text, how can they see these realities for themselves?and get excited.
This is the first reason for the conviction that the preacher must show his people, through the very words of the text, how he can see for himself the reality he proclaims; maintains the authority of Scripture as a clear foundation for all that is preached. .
The second reason a preacher should show people, in the words of the text, how they can see for themselves the reality he proclaims is that preaching aims to awaken and strengthen faith in Christ, for which the scriptures themselves were designed to do, more effectively. than any message from a man that changes his words and meaning.
The essence of the saving faith is to see the supreme beauty of Christ in the gospel and embrace him as Savior and Lord, and as the greatest treasure in the universe, I say this because, among other reasons, it is implicit in 2 Corinthians 4: 4:?In which the god of this century blinded the understanding of the unbelievers, let not the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, which is the image of God?. There is a spiritual light that shines through the gospel, and it is the light of Christ’s glory.
Satan prevents the disbelievers from seeing this glory. That is why they cannot believe it, it is the light and glory of Christ that a person must see to believe and be saved, this is seen with the eyes of the heart (Ephesians 1:18), when the Holy Spirit removes the veil from our spirit (2 Corinthians 3:16). The absolutely decisive question, to which preachers must answer, is: how will I preach to become an instrument of this miracle?, how will I preach to awaken faith through the vision of Christ’s glory?
My answer is that God gave the church a book of divine inspiration, which is the consumption of God’s demonstration of Christ’s beauty and courage. Is this the complete image of God showing the glory of His Son?The meaning of his work from eternity, to eternity and its implications for human life. This divine portrait of Christ is God’s ordained way to generate saving faith. God’s words are the best way to show God’s glory.
Therefore, the preaching we expect God to use to create the saving faith does not imply that there is a more convincing picture of the glory of Christ, which a preacher can create by setting aside or silencing the image of the scriptures in the words of the scriptures. Instead, the preacher’s purpose will be to draw people’s attention to the words of the scriptures and, through them, to reveal the reality of the glory of all that God is to us in Jesus.
Scripture is the divine word where glory shines. Our goal is to focus people’s attention on this Word so that they see and believe in glory for themselves.
[i] In reference to the book: Why am I preaching that the Bible is literally true?W. A. Criswell.