At any given time I am usually working through three or four books. Among them I always have going at least one book that gives help for pastoral or church ministry. At the moment that book is Light and Heat: The Puritan View of the Pulpit by R. Bruce Bickel.

The Puritans saw the pulpit as the central part of corporate worship. The preaching of God’s Word is the principle work of a minister and the central, most important part of a church service. Because of the great gap between the Creator and the creature and our great need for divine truth, it is more important that the assembled believers hear what God has to say than that they speak to God. Prayer and singing certainly have an essential place in church but it is through the expounding of God’s Word that the people hear from God.

Bickel says the Puritans “note clearly the progression that begins with God giving the ministry of preaching to His Son, the Son giving the ministry to His apostles, and thence to all ministers of the gospel.” He then quotes the Puritan Paul Bayne who points out Ephesians 2:17 which mentions Christ preaching to the Ephesians. Jesus was never in Ephesus so the preaching must have been through Christ’s messengers, those appointed as ministers of the Word. When those men speak it is as though Christ speaks, as Jesus said in Luke 10:16: “The one who hears you hears me…”

The Puritan sermon was divided into three parts: Doctrine, Reason, and Use; or Declaration, Explanation, and Application. The sermon always followed a text of Scripture. The first part of the sermon would lay out the doctrinal teaching from the text. The second part would present the argument and respond to objections. The third part would give specific application of the text on the Christian life. Bickel includes a quote from Richard Baxter about the development of a sermon and appeal to the hearer:

The preacher’s aim should be first to convince the understanding and then to engage the heart. Light first, then heat. Begin with a careful opening of the text, then proceed to the clearance of possible difficulties or objections; next, to a statement of uses; and lastly to a fervent appeal for acceptance by conscience and heart.

I’m only part of the way through the book so there is much more to see and learn, but already my preaching has been challenged. To what degree do we look for light and heat in the pulpit? Are we as preachers really trying to speak in a way that Jesus speaks through us? Are we watering down his message with the world? Are the hearers looking for solid, biblical preaching that unfolds Scripture before them? How much will today’s congregations tolerate poor preaching?

Brothers, hold me accountable, and preach the Word. Person in the pew, hold your preachers accountable.

What is the God-centered goal of preaching? To borrow language from Piper it is to make much of God. My goal in my ministry – preaching, teaching, visiting, etc – is to help people love God more each day. I do this by trying to help them see more about God, his incredible character, his holy nature, his boundless grace.

The more people love God the more they will desire to serve and obey him. Luther, quoting Augustine, said, “Love God, and do what you will.” (Could someone point me to where those quotes are found?) The idea behind this is not that if you love God then anything else you do is permissible. Luther understood that if you love God then what you will to do is that which is pleasing to God. This is similar to Psalm 37:4: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” It is not that God says, “Oh, this person delights in me! I’ll give them anything they want!” rather it is that the person says, “I delight in God! The desire of my heart is to live for him, to enjoy him forever!” When you love God your heart and focus change to God himself.

The person who delights in the Lord does not desire a new car more than he desires God. He desires God more than he desires adultery or drugs or possessions or pornography or pride or power or a host of other worldly things. Preaching that focuses on doing rather than thinking and feeling gets at the symptom while neglecting the problem.

Consider Matthew 12:43-45:
[esvbible format="inline" header="off" reference="Matthew 12:43-45"]Matthew 12:43-45[/esvbible]

To empty a house of demons is all well and good but is ultimately a useless act of the house is left ready for reoccupation. If soldiers on the battlefield clear a stronghold they have done well, but if the stronghold is not secure the enemy will just return in even greater numbers and the problem will be worse than ever. If preaching leads people to change behavior without first leading them to be consumed with love for God then little good has been done. It has probably caused harm, creating people who seem moral on the outside but are dead and rotten on the inside. Teach people about God. Show them Jesus, the image of the eternal, invisible God, in all his glory. Pray for the Spirit to grow in them and for the first fruit of the Spirit, love, to grow wildly for God and then for others.

This is what I want to see happen through my preaching – people loving God, delighting in him, and becoming so filled with wonder at the glory of his goodness and grace that the things of this world grow strangely dim. Teach people to be filled with God. To desire him. To honor him and delight in doing so. That is how the Holy Spirit will work through us in the process of sanctification. That is how disciples are made.

Will Willimon is bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church and he blogs occasionally at A Peculiar Prophet. Yesterday he posted an entry titled A Faith that is Based on the Testimony of Women. The title itself is problematic – the Christian faith is not based on anyone’s testimony, the Christian faith comes from the work of God in Christ. But Willimon was trying to be provocative with his title, a frequent characteristic of his speaking and writing, so I will give him a little leeway.

More problematic is the content of his entry. For example:

The angel preached the first Easter sermon: “Don’t be afraid. You seek Jesus, who was crucified? He is risen! Come, look at where he once lay in the tomb.” Then the angel commissioned the women to become Jesus’ first preachers: “Go, tell the men that he has already gone back to Galilee. There you will meet him.”

Two issues here. First, the proclamation of the angel was not a sermon. I suppose if we use the term as loosely as Willimon does we could say that any religious proclamation is a sermon. But the angel was not unfolding the word of God to the people of God, he was proclaiming an event. He was testifying. He was evangelizing. 

Second, the women were not then commissioned to preach but were called to do what the angel had done. If we define preaching loosely we could say that anyone presenting the gospel is preaching, but the word is more specific than that.

The women were sent out to spread the good news that Jesus Christ was risen from the dead. This is not preaching, this is evangelizing. 

In his attempt to defend the role of women as preachers Willimon misses something more important. Not everyone is called to preach but everyone is called to evangelize. Not everyone is called to stand in the pulpit but everyone is called to do what the women did here, proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Willimon then brings up the Great Commission and reminds us that we are called to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. But he doesn’t seem to realize that this is what the women at the tomb were doing. They were not commissioned to be preachers, pastors, or spiritual leaders. They were told to spread the good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In his discussion Willimon includes this lament:

How sad that there are still churches that continue, despite this clear witness of scripture, to deny the testimony of women and to prohibit them from preaching the gospel that God has given to them – but I digress.

Once again he seems to be confusing what preaching is. Giving a testimony about the work of God is not preaching. Men and women alike are called to testify of the goodness of God, in particular the work of salvation by which we are brought from sin to righteousness, from death to life, from darkness to light. Scripture does not limit the call to evangelize. Scripture does limit the call to pastor.

The clear witness of Scripture is that all believers are called to spread the good news. The clear witness of Scripture is also that men and women are different and have been given different work within the church and the world. We share some of the work but not all of the work.

What is truly sad is that many churches have chosen worldly egalitarianism over biblical complementarianism. God created men and women to work together and to complement one another in the work of the church. So much is lost when we try to force men and women into the same roles.

Bishop Willimon, please be true to Scripture. Do not take one example and try to force it to be something it isn’t. And please consider the whole counsel of God, that God made human beings male and female with a particular hierarchy and particular roles. Only when we are ordered according to the purpose of God can we find liberty and joy.

John Piper had better hurry up and get back from his writing break. Soon I’ll be talking about Driscoll more than Piper.

Apparently a new controversy has broken out around Mark Driscoll (mentioned by the Founder’s folks). I don’t know all the details but some of the criticism focuses on his explicit discussion of sexuality. A number of people strongly oppose the amount of explicit information Driscoll is willing to put in public.

Here is my take.

First, consider the medium. Critics are concerned with Driscoll making such explicit information easily available over the internet. I would share their concern except for the fact that a tremendous amount of pornographic material is even easier to obtain over the internet. It is very difficult to spend much time on the internet and avoid seeing things you do not want to see. Today’s young people spend a lot of time on the internet. I guarantee most of them have seen by accident more pornographic material than many adults have seen in their lifetime. I also guarantee that a large percentage of people on the internet – including Christian young people – are not just stumbling across pornographic material by accident, they are looking for it.

With that in mind, I am reluctant to disapprove of churches offering a counter response. Driscoll and others are saying that sexuality is a good thing if handled properly. Want to know how to handle it properly? Don’t go to a porn site, go to church. Young people are more open discussing sexuality than most older people. Biblically, I don’t know how anyone could make the case that Christians should not be explicit when talking about sex. One must be wise, yes, but I think in this case wisdom leans in Driscoll’s direction.

Second, consider the context. Driscoll is pastoring a church of young people in Seattle, Washington. If he were trying to present this material to my church it would be inappropriate. Most of my people are not immersed in culture and technology the way his are. Most of my people do not have the questions about sexuality that his people have. I don’t believe Driscoll has anywhere said all preachers should address sexuality in the way he does. He has his flock with their quirks and their needs, I have mine. There may be some in my church – and are certainly many in my city – who would benefit from his preaching on this subject, but the majority of my people do not need the material he is offering. The majority of the people in Driscoll’s church do.

This does not relativize preaching and practices. Rather it seeks to accomplish the same end through the same means carried out in different ways. The end is glorifying Christ and leading people to live God glorifying lives. The means is preaching and teaching that will help them know how to live those God glorifying lives. Such preaching will guide people to make decisions guided by the Bible and know how to handle issues not clearly spelled out in the Bible. If my people don’t have those issues it would serve no purpose to raise them. Driscoll’s people do have those issues and questions so he guides them to know how to glorify God in those areas.

This is pragmatism of the good sort. All preachers should ask this question: “What do my people need to hear in order to help them glorify God better in their lives?” This requires knowing your people, knowing their needs, and being bold enough to address those needs, whatever they may be. Are your people consumed with racism? Preach on it. Do they struggle with alcohol addiction? Preach on it. Do they cheat on their taxes? Preach on it. Do they want to know how to honor God with how they raise their kids? Preach on it. Do they struggle with how their sexual relationship with their spouse can be glorifying to God in the midst of a culture that sees sex as the ultimate selfish pursuit? Preach on it. That’s what Driscoll has done.

Richard Baxter in The Reformed Pastor on irreverent preaching that seeks to entertain:

Of all preaching in the world, (that speaks not stark lies) I hate that preaching which tends to make the hearers laugh, or to move their minds with tickling levity, and affect them as stage-plays used to do, instead of affecting them with a holy reverence of the name of God.

Pages 119-120.

As if I didn’t struggle enough with the weight of preaching, the Pyro folks have to go make it worse. Be sure to check out Dan Phillips’ post Carpe Diem.

This may be the only time they’ve been in a church, about to hear someone who claims to believe the Word, the Gospel. Maybe they’re there because a friend or relative has prayed for them for months, for years, for decades. Finally, they’re in a (professedly) Christian church, intending to listen to whatever a (professedly) Christian preacher is about to say. It is literally a critical moment, a moment of crisis, of judgment. Angels attend! The Triune God is there! Endless ages will reverbrate with the impact of what happens next. These people are accountable, you are accountable. All eyes are on you.