Category: Preaching

On Preachers and Preaching-Inflecting the Text

~ John Koessler ~ 2 Comments

Preaching is an exercise in inflection, one that involves much more than pitch, volume and tone. In the sermon the preacher makes God’s written word incarnate by speaking the biblical author’s words into the contemporary context. This is an inflection not merely of the preacher’s voice but of the text itself. The task of inflection places a dual responsibility upon the preacher. One area of responsibility is to the text itself.

The preacher’s aim in the sermon is to animate the text without altering it. The written word has been detached from its original context but is not freed from it. We who preach must speak to circumstances that the biblical writers did not originally envision. But this does not give us liberty to wrest the Scriptures from their original context and make them say whatever we please.

The other area of responsibility involves the audience. An uninflected text is a dead text as far as the listener is concerned. “Somehow or other, every other agency dealing with the public recognizes that contact with the actual life of the auditor is the one place to begin” Harry Emerson Fosdick chided. “Only the preacher proceeds still upon the idea that folk come to church desperately anxious to discover what happened to the Jebusites.” Fosdick’s point has been heeded, perhaps too well, by contemporary preachers. But this does not make his assessment less true.

Inflecting the text requires application and application is local in nature. Despite this, preaching cannot afford to ignore what happened to the Jebusites any more than it can afford to overlook those who are actually present. A sermon which focuses only on the concerns of the contemporary audience and pays no attention to the historical and literary context of Scripture also removes the biblical text from its living voice. Such preaching co-opts the text instead of inflecting it, turning the living and active word into a ventriloquist’s dummy, a caricature whose hollow voice merely echoes the preacher’s own (or that of the audience).

Question: Do you think the preacher is important to the sermon? Why or why not?

On Preachers and Preaching: Are Preachers Born or Made?

~ John Koessler ~ 7 Comments

My homiletics students often wonder whether preaching can be taught. Are preachers born or are they made? At last, this YouTube video provides a definitive answer to this question.

What more can I say?

Sentimentality and Preaching

~ John Koessler ~ Leave a comment

In an essay entitled “Beauty, Sentimentality and the Arts,” Jeremy Begbie discusses the “pathology of sentimentality.” This is a pathology marked by three traits. It misrepresents reality by evading or trivializing evil, is emotionally self-indulgent, and fails to take appropriate costly action.

Sentimentality is not confined to the arts. It can also afflict the sermon. When the sermon becomes sentimentalized the preacher’s need to feel good about the experience of preaching leads to manipulation. Emotion is the sermon’s primary aim and weeping at the altar is equated with repentance. Because the preacher fails to deal honestly with the reality of evil, problems are romanticized and pat answers, slogans or clichés are offered as solutions.

What is the remedy for sentimentalism? According to Begbie, it is the cross, proclaimed in all its horror and glory. “In a nutshell,” Begbie explains, “Christian sentimentalism arises from a premature grasp for Easter morning, a refusal to follow the three days of Easter as three days in an irreversible sequence of victory over evil.” Preaching that deals honestly with the reality of the cross acknowledges the darkened sky of Good Friday and the awful silence of Holy Saturday, as well as the bright dawn of Sunday morning.

Begbie’s excellent essay can be found in The Beauty of God: Theology and the Arts, edited by Daniel J. Treier, Mark Husbands and Roger Lundin (InterVarsity).

A Forgotten Classic on Preaching

~ John Koessler ~ 3 Comments

Not long ago while rummaging through Google books, I stumbled across a forgotten classic on preaching by J. C. Ryle. It is a little work entitled Simplicity in Preaching: A Few Short Hints. I call it a “forgotten” classic but that only means I had never heard of it before. Others may be well aware of it. For all I know, it is a book that has been on every good preacher’s shelf for the last two hundred years, just not on mine.

It is not a large work, but as you would expect from Ryle, very practical. Just the sort of thing you would expect from the author of Practical Religion and Knots Untied. Ryle begins by acknowledging that there is no lack of books on the subject of preaching. “The volumes which have been written in order to show ministers how to preach are enough to make a small library” he observes. “In sending forth one more little treatise, I only propose to touch on one branch of the subject.” His topic is the need for simplicity both in the language and the style of the sermon.

But simplicity, as any serious writer or preacher knows, is not easy. What is the secret to simplicity? The first, and according to Ryle the most important key, is to have a clear idea of one’s subject: “If you yourself begin in a fog, you may depend upon it that you will leave your people in darkness.” The second key is to use simple language. By this Ryle means to use words that are “in daily common use.” Third, simple preaching is marked by a concise sentence structure. “Beware of colons and semi-colons” Ryle warns. “Stick to commas and full stops, and take care to write as if you were asthmatical or short of breath.” Fourth, simplicity is a function of directness. Contrary to modern convention, Ryle urges preachers to say “I” and “you.” Finally, Ryle wants preachers to use illustrations and anecdotes: “You must regard illustrations as windows through which light is let in on your subject.”

Nothing groundbreaking, I suppose. Just good solid advice from someone whose writing still speaks clearly to readers today and who practiced what he preached.

Here is a link to the full text version of Ryle’s book: http://books.google.com/books?id=MgkDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA5&dq=simplicty+in+preaching+ryle&lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&as_brr=1&cd=7#v=onepage&q=&f=false