John Owen on Preaching Preparation

Some good advice from John Owen, from his last years of ministry, part of a sermon preached at another's ordination..

I think, truly, that no man preaches that sermon well to others that doth not first preach it to his own heart. He who doth not feed on, and digest, and thrive by, what he prepares for his people, he may give them poison, as far as he knows; for, unless he finds the power of it in his own heart, he cannot have any ground of confidence that it will have power in the hearts of others. It is an easier thing to bring our heads to preach than our hearts to preach. To bring our heads to preach, is but to fill our minds and memories with some notions of truth, of our own or other men, and speak them out to give satisfaction to ourselves and others: this is very easy. But to bring our hearts to preach, is to be transformed into the power of these truths; or to find the power of them, both before, in fashioning our minds and hearts, and in delivering of them, that we may have benefit; and to be acted with zeal for God and compassion to the souls of men. A man may preach every day in the week, and not have his heart engaged once. This hath lost us powerful preaching in the world, and set up, instead of it, quaint orations; for such men never seek after experience in their own hearts: and so it is come to pass, that some men’s preaching, and some men’s not preaching, have lost us the power of what we call the ministry; that though there be twenty or thirty thousand in orders, yet the nation perishes for want of knowledge, and is overwhelmed in all manner of sins, and not delivered from them unto this day.

J I Packer on Preaching: Knowing Notions or Knowing God?

"The first requirement for authoritative, perceptive communication of the word of God is that you yourself should be experiencing the power of it. The Puritan John Owen said, 'A man only preaches that sermon well which first preaches itself in his own soul.' He was profoundly right, I would verify that from my own ministry... If we are not ourselves living in and under the Scriptures, those who hear us speak on fellowship with God will soon realize that we do not know what we are talking about... The quantity of theological notions in one's mind, even correct notions, doesn't say anything about one's relationship with God. The fact that one knows a lot of theology doesn't mean that one's relationship with God is right or is going to be right. The two things are quite distinct... My times with the Bible, like those of all pastoral leaders, indeed all Christians, are meant to be times for knowing God."
-- J I Packer, Knowing Notions or Knowing God

[Knowing Notions or Knowing God is from The Collected Shorter Writings of J. I. Packer: Volume 3: Honouring the Written Word of God by J. I. Packer (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1999), pp. 241-246.  Knowing Notions or Knowing God was originally published in Pastoral Renewal 6.9 (March, 1982), pp. 65-68.]

Quoting Hymns in Sermons

I was at the last day of QTC's preaching week, and sat in on the last session of Mike Raiter's elective on preaching from Hebrews. In one of his sample sermons, it ended with a lengthy quote of four or five verses or so from an old hymn. It got me wondering about the quoting of hymns in sermons. Perhaps more in the past, it was quite a common practice. I remember being in a church where we basically only sang hymns, so you were quite familiar with a lot of hymns. When someone quoted a hymn, often you could think, "Yeah, I know that one". I wonder in the past if preachers quoted hymns because they knew people were familiar with them and sang them, or just because of the powerful choice of words etc in a particular hymn? And what about today? Hymns aren't so common any more. When preachers quote them, do they expect people to be familiar with them? Or do they hope to introduce them to songs they hadn't heard before? Recently I led communion at our church, and I quoted from a modern song, which perhaps our people were not familiar with, but I thought the expressions were quite potent, and captured the sense I wanted to convey. And I liked the song as well (and I suppose it would be nice if the church learned that song some time..!)

I also just looked up an old sermon, which happened to come with my selection of songs for that service. It included a hymn that I liked, but haven't sung for a long time. I share the words here to enjoy them again in this moment :D

Lo! he comes, with clouds descending,
Once for favored sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending
Swell the triumph of his train:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
God appears on earth to reign.

Ev'ry eye shall now behold him,
Robed in dreadful majesty;
Those who set at naught and sold him,
Pierced, and nailed him to the tree,
Deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
Shall the true Messiah see.

Ev'ry island, sea, and mountain,
Heav'n and earth, shall flee away;
All who hate him must, confounded,
Hear the trump proclaim the day;
Come to judgment! Come to judgment!
Come to judgment, come away!

Now Redemption, long expected,
See in solemn pomp appear!
All his saints, by man rejected,
Now shall meet him in the air:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
See the day of God appear!

Yea, Amen! let all adore thee,
High on thine eternal throne;
Saviour, take the pow'r and glory,
Claim the kingdom for thine own:
O come quickly, O come quickly:
Alleluia! come, Lord, come.

(Original Trinity Hymnal, #237)

Phillip Jensen on Systematic Theology and Preaching

Amongst many Evangelicals today there seems too little an appreciation of Systematic Theology. You can easily imagine people saying, "Let's not talk about doctrine, I just teach the Bible" Granted, there is a big danger for our theologizing to be too speculative, or too much about what other people think, rather than a proper consideration of what God tells us as we consider the whole of the Scriptures. Nonetheless, as they say, we should not throw out the baby with the bathwater. In an essay I was reading by Phillip Jensen, he provides a helpful corrective for those who try to avoid doing Systematic Theology in relation to preaching. His words come under the heading of "Preaching God's Word Depends on Systematic Theology":

Again, because the Word of God is unitary, preaching God's Word will always display our systematic theology. Expository preaching is sometimes put in opposition to systematic theology. This is a sad mistake. Expository preaching in particular will reveal our competence or incompetence as systematic theologians.

The preacher who prides himself on being "a simple Bible man" does not understand himself. He may claim to just "preach the passage" in front of him without being bogged down by theology or doctrine or systems. yet he rarely preaches the passage in front of him. Rather, he will unconsciously preach the church tradition from which he comes. Or worse, he will preach his own hobbyhorses and ideas. For without a consciously self-aware and well-considered theology that is open to being framed, corrected, and developed by the text of Scripture, the preacher's own frame of reference will overwhelm the text. That frame of reference may be his church's tradition or maybe his own personal experience, but it will not be the Bible.

(This excerpt has been taken from "Preaching the Word Today" in Preach the Word: Essays on Expository Preaching in Honor of R. Kent Hughes, p.163.)

What is your response to the King?

Well, I've talked about preaching, so I thought I may as well stick my neck out, and put a link on here to the last sermon I preached. It was based on Luke 19:37-44 and entitled 'What is your response to the King?' We also had Psalm 2 as a second reading. So now everyone can tell how I don't do what I said should be done! If you happen to visit, and have some time to kill, feel free to have a listen, and offer some comment or critique, or ask anything you like about it. Only condition is that if you are critical, you have to also try and be encouraging LOL ;-)

The sermon plus reading is about 35 minutes, and the mp3 is about 8.3Mb in size.

Preaching & 'The Big Idea'?

Should Bible teaching and preaching be focused around a single central point, or 'big idea'? Well, I must admit I was very much inculcated with the 'single central point' idea. And I agree with it. (How well I do it is another question ;-) Here are some of the reasons I think it is a good approach:

• Bible teaching and preaching should be more persuasion and proclamation than just academic. Having the single idea focus adds momentum and purpose which is helpful to these ends.
• Unless I have randomly selected the verses I will expound, presumably there is something which makes those verses a unit, something (one thing) which unifies them (UNI=one). It seems consistent then that this reason I picked that textual unit (or even collection of texts) will also be at the heart of the message I preach. So I think it is treating the bible as well as I am in picking my text :-)
• We commonly understand the Bible to speak with this kind of purpose (with points, sub-points etc), and usually search for this purpose (meta-narrative if you like) in understanding the Scriptures. It again seems consistent that our preaching should follow that same model.
• If I don't know what I want to get across, how will my listeners know either?

So whatever Bible teaching I do (not just in preaching), I prefer by far to have a clear single focus. I suppose at times we can have multiple foci, but if there is nothing that really unites them, then I guess they are really each separate talks or units.

While I'm at it, here are a few more of my random thoughts about preaching...

• I think APPLICATION is really important in a sermon. But by 'application' I don't just mean things we tell people to do physically. Application can be something like 'appreciate what it means for Jesus to be the Christ'. Although application can I suppose be just knowledge (eg 'intellectually understand what it means for Jesus to be the Christ'), I think application should be more emotional and/or volitional. I prefer to see intellectual understanding as the means rather than the end. In fact, I would think that some of the best sermon applications are those that inform our heart, our worldview, and as a result powerfully change our lives, rather than those that merely and superficially tell us what to do, or just put some more third-person knowledge into our heads. So I think our 'big idea' of the sermon should answer questions like 'What response to hope to see in my hearers?'
• Having said that, I think most people need lots of nudges to move from abstract to real-life, either by way of concrete explanatory illustrations or by examples as to how non-action applications will translate into day-to-day living. Too often we are not reflective or thoughtful enough to do it ourselves after the sermon has finished.
• I also suspect that the rather formal and polished form and delivery of sermons that is usually expected today, was probably not how they did it in the apostolic church. Maybe it is my problem, but I just can't really imagine them sticking to a tight 25min shedule, making sure everything is word-perfect, writing out everything in full and practicing beforehand, making sure there is a really good introduction and conclusion etc. As for PowerPoint presentations...
• Theory is easier than practice. Do as I say, not as I do ;-)