The Doctrine Of Preaching? Pt. I

"I can forgive the preacher almost anything if he gives me a sense of God, if he gives me something for my soul, if he gives me a sense that, though he is inadequate himself, he is handling something which is very great and very glorious, if he gives me some dim glimpse of the majesty and the glory of God, the love of Christ my Saviour, and the magnificence of the gospel."- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones*

 It is my contention that we earnestly need a doctrine of preaching. It is something that should be emphasized and taught in colleges and seminaries. It is something that should be asked by churches of pastoral candidates. I believe that it is one of the central doctrines for a healthy church. It IS that important. What I am not saying is that you can make any man a preacher. I certainly concur with Martyn Lloyd-Jones (who, in my opinion, is the greatest preacher that has ever lived outside of New Testament era) who thinks preachers are born and not made. Not just any man can enter the sacred pulpit and preach the Word of God who has not been gifted and called by the Living God to do so.

This goes for the seminary graduate that is doctrinally sound and well educated but not called and gifted to preach and shepherd the flock of God; the young man that has the amazing and dramatic conversion story, which can bring almost anyone to tears, but has no solid theological foundation. If a man has not been called and gifted by the Spirit to herald the Word of God they are not preachers and that which they proclaim is not and cannot be classified as preaching. It may be a great lecture, well-informed message or an emotional pep-talk utilized by emotional sentimental stories but it is not preaching and if it is not preaching then it must remain outside of the time commanded by God in corporate worship for the proclamation of His name among His people. It is the time we all know as the sermon.

We need to emphasize the doctrine of preaching not only to those in the pulpits but also to our congregations. All too often churches have allowed pastors into the pulpits because they are seminary graduates who have the right theological training but present such biblical truths without any passion. While other churches call pastors just because they are good with people and can give a great sentimental message that will bring in the masses. Even those who are sound in the faith have fallen prey to the demand of the people for "friendlier" sermons. Others have sold out for the sake of their own ministry and peddled the Word of God.

Alex Montoya writes of this two-fold aspect of preaching (the deliverer and the hearer):

In our struggle to be effective, contemporary preachers, we are tempted to avoid the charge or certain aspects of it. The lure of the crowd and of popularity can tempt us to compromise our call to "preach the Word. " Too easily we make merchandise of the divine message and sell it cheaply to the fickle crowds. The church at large has no lack of window-shopping hearers who seek peddlers of the Word who will be content with simply pleasing the ear instead of changing the heart. Indeed, we preach in difficult times, and all of us preachers know it. The fickle crowd needs a faithful preacher who will meet the charge Paul delivered to Timothy. But the crowd is not just fickle; it is also apathetic, listless, lifeless, and wetted down with the materialistic dew of the day. Such a people need preaching that connects with them, preaching that can awaken them from a spiritual stupor. Such people need passionate preaching. Most of us are delivering the goods, as they say. We are preaching the Word faithfully. We stay tied to the text, preaching sound expositional messages. Yet we find our churches unresponsive and listless. For many of us, the congregation grows smaller with each passing year. The problem is with neither the content of the sermon nor our methodology; rather, the problem lies with our delivery of the sermon. The problem is not what we say; it is how we say it. Our sermons lack passion.*

The preacher must be passionate about what He is preaching. This cannot be some manufactured passion but a genuine one. It is something wrought in him by the Holy Spirit. The "man of God" realizes that He is dealing with the very Words of the Triune God and is proclaiming it to the covenant people of God. The Word of God first moves him before it moves the people and this done through the work of the Spirit. The preacher is concerned with the Word of God and nothing but expounding it for the glory of God, conversion of sinners and building up of the saints. Here is how Lloyd-Jones put it:

If the Holy Spirit only acted on the preacher there would be no conversions. He acts also on the listeners, and that is what is put abundantly before us especially in Acts … This then is the dual action of the Spirit. He takes the preacher, the speaker, whether in a pulpit or in private, and gives this enabling. Then he acts upon the ones who are listening and he deals with their minds and hearts and wills. Both happen at the same time.*

I'm not convinced that the Holy Spirit moves men in such a way to grow the body of Christ that they preach themselves, their ministries or give great stories to grow the body. Attention is always drawn do the Triune God and that through Christ. Nor am I convinced that the Spirit of God moves, equips and gifts the "man 0f God" to proclaim the Holy Writ dispassionately.

I the church I currently pastor were to ever look for another pastor or even associate pastor I would not only ask the pastoral candidates about theology, Christology, harmartiology (especially justification), eschatology e.t.c. but I would also ask him about the doctrine of preaching. What he thinks preaching is and why he thinks he has been called to the pastorate.

 Why is this important? Let me direct your attention, again, to D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

I WOULD REMIND YOU AGAIN of our method of approach to our subject. We are in a church service, and we are looking at a man standing in a pulpit and addressing people. Having shown the all-importance of preaching and that this is the primary business and task of the Church, we have gone on to consider the two aspects of preaching— the sermon and the actual act of preaching. I trust I have made it clear that, as I see things at any rate, the two aspects are vitally important; you must not have the one without the other. Both are essential, and true preaching consists in the right blending of these two elements. Proceeding now with this same approach, and still looking at preaching in general, it seems to me that the next logical question to ask is: Who is to do this? Who is to preach? Or in scriptural terms, ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’, for the delivering of this message as we have defined it, and in the manner which we have indicated? Here is a most important question, and especially today when some say that we do not need the Church at all and talk about a ‘religionless Christianity’. But even amongst those who still believe in the Church this question needs to be asked, Who is to do this preaching?

NOT ALL ARE PREACHERS The first principle I would lay down is that all Christians are clearly not meant to do this, and that not even all Christian men are meant to preach, still less the women! In other words we must consider what is called ‘lay-preaching’. This has been practised very commonly for a hundred years and more. Prior to that it was comparatively rare, but it has become very common. It would be interesting to go into the history of that, but time prohibits our doing so. The interesting thing to notice is that this change once more, was primarily due to theological causes. It was the shift in theology last century from a Reformed Calvinistic attitude to an essentially Arminian one that gave rise to the increase in lay-preaching. The explanation of that cause and effect is that Arminianism, ultimately, is non-theological. That is why most denominations today are generally non-theological. That being the case it is not surprising that the view gained currency that preaching was open to almost any man who had become a Christian, and later, any woman also.

My assertion is that this is an unscriptural view of preaching. There are of course exceptional circumstances where this may be necessary; but I would then query as to whether it is actually ‘lay-preaching’. What I mean by exceptional circumstances is that it may well be the case, owing to the state and the condition of the Church— lack of means and so on— that the Church may not be in a position to support a man full-time in the work of the ministry, and particularly preaching. Definitions are important at this point. The modern view of lay-preaching, largely derived from the teaching of Methodism and Brethrenism, is that this should be the normal practice and not the exception, and that a preacher is a man who earns his living in a profession or business, and preaches, as it were, in his spare time.

The exceptional position which I am envisaging is that of a man who feels called to the ministry, and who would like to spend all his time in it, but who, because of the circumstances I have described, is unable to do so. He longs for the day when the Church will be sufficiently strong financially and in other respects to support him, that he may give the whole of his time to this work. So I would not call him, strictly speaking, a lay-preacher; he is a man who, for the time being, has to earn his livelihood, partly, by doing something else in order to make his preaching possible. What I am concerned to examine is the notion that any man who is a Christian can preach and should preach. There are some sections of the Christian Church who have taught this regularly. There has been the slogan, ‘Give the new convert something to do; send him out to preach and to give his testimony’— and so on. There has been this tendency to thrust people out into preaching. Much of this can be attributed to the influence of Charles G. Finney and also D. L. Moody, who was very keen on that idea of giving the new converts something to do.

On what grounds are we critical of this attitude to preaching? I suggest that it is due to a failure to understand the difference between 

saying that every Christian should be ready, as Peter puts it in 1 Peter 3: 15 ‘… to give … a reason of the hope that is in [him]’, and saying that every Christian should preach the Gospel. That is the distinction. Every Christian should be able to give an account of why he is a Christian; but that does not mean that every Christian is meant to preach.*

By all means, if you ask to speak at someone else's church or seek to be a pastor, if you do not intend on preaching the Word of God please remains seated. A man who is afraid of the congregation is a man who has not been called to the ministry.






*Sargent, T. (2007). Gems from Martyn Lloyd-Jones: An Anthology of Quotations from 'the Doctor' (235). Milton Keynes, England; Colorado Springs, CO; Hyderabad, AP: Paternoster.
 *Alex Montoya. Preaching with Passion (Kindle Locations 33-41). Kindle Edition. 

*Sargent, T. (2007). Gems from Martyn Lloyd-Jones: An Anthology of Quotations from 'the Doctor' (235). Milton Keynes, England; Colorado Springs, CO; Hyderabad, AP: Paternoster.


*Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn (2012-01-17). Preaching and Preachers (Kindle Locations 1792-1827). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.