"Preach the gospel, when necessary use words." Odd isn't it?

J.D. Greear: Gospel is announcement OF WORDS. "Preach Gospel; when necessary use words" like saying "Tell me your phone #; if necessary, use digits."

HT: Justin Taylor

The preaching of the gospel demands that we please God

(3) For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, (4) but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. (5) For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed--God is witness. (6) Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ.
1Th 2:3-6

Christians have been entrusted with the gospel. Since the gospel is the gospel of God and not our own gospel, the preaching of the gospel demands that we please God, and not man.

The problem with many preachers is that they preach to fill seats and not to save souls. This leads to all kinds of preaching that is not gospel driven, but rather aimed at flattering people. What so many preachers have forgotten is that a filled seat does not translate automatically to a saved heart.

If our preaching of the gospel is not the preaching of the true gospel of God, we simply will not see the salvation of people but rather the alteration of people. This is accomplished by all kinds of programmes. People are altered, like suits are altered, all the time. Programmes like Alcoholics Anonymous, and even other religions do this all the time! We do not preach a self-help programme!

However, only the true preaching of the gospel can truly bring the message of salvation to people. People driven preaching brings more people, but it saves no one! It usually means that the natural offensiveness of the gospel is watered down to make the message palatable to the world, ending up with a gospel that does not save, but rather strokes the ego of men.

We do not preach the gospel to make people feel better, i.e. pleasing them, but we preach the gospel so that mankind can understand their "lostness" without Christ, and how they fall short of the holy standards of God. We tell people they deserve hell, however, in Christ there is a Saviour, One that has paid the penalty of sin, One that made propitiation by His blood before a holy God. We tell them that without Christ they are lost, and they will not see the face of God after death.

We do not pander to the philosophies of this life, nor the psychological drivel sold to us daily in magazines and newspapers. Neither do we follow the latest church-growth fad to fill our pews.

No, we preach the gospel to please God, and God alone!

Preaching and the Sermon Builder

Preaching is a hot topic among some, but come on! You either do it right or get out! That is how strong I feel about preaching.

Most of what goes for preaching these days are motivational speeches. Take this sermon motivational speech, for instance. If ever I heard an empty sermon, this is it! There is just no exposition of the text.

Remember, using texts from Scripture in a speech does not a sermon make. That isn't what qualifies the speech as Biblical preaching! Biblical preaching must be the exposition of the text at hand. For an example of my favourite Biblical preacher, John Piper, read, listen or watch his sermon, "This Is the Judgment: Light Has Come into the World."

If someone's preaching is shallow, with no exposition of the text, and full of platitudes, then that person is doing a disservice to the Lord he claims to serve. He obviously does not understand the gravity of Biblical preaching!

Remember, preaching is the proclamation of the very Word of God, the only message that carries the truth God wanted to share with us! It is the only message that carries the way to God, and that, dear reader, makes it the most important message in heaven and on earth! Are you willing to mess with that? I hope not!

The Shepherd's Fellowship has created a Sermon Builder. Here is a blurb concerning their sermon tool:

"Welcome to the Sermon Builder – a step-by-step guide for expository sermon preparation. While the Sermon Builder will not write someone's sermon for them, it is intended to lead pastors and Bible teachers through the basic steps of exegesis and exposition. It is our desire that even the experienced expositor, as he works his way through the Sermon Builder, will be refreshed and reminded of helpful principles and truths."

This is a tool that many pastors should be using to not only improve their sermons, but to guide them towards being Biblical in their preaching. Please start using this tool ASAP!

Here are also some other posts I wrote on preaching:

Reading on preaching
MUST Bible teachers be trained in the Biblical languages?
The "bumper sticker" gospel
Good sermon
Reading the 'non-existent' into the text

Audio sermons by James Montgomery Boice

One of my favourite preachers is the late James Montgomery Boice (7 July 1938 – 15 June 2000).

His audio sermons can be found all over. Here are a few links to his sermons:

Monergism

Believer's Chapel Dallas – This one of my favourite series.

SermonIndex

Some audio resources available

Audio resources by top notch preachers are in abundance on the internet.

Here are links to some:
Audio Resources
The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination
D.A. Carson's resources online
D.A. Carson sermons
New Covenant Sermons
Learn a bit about John Calvin
Sovereign Grace Ministries

MUST Bible teachers be trained in the Biblical languages?

I read a blog post over at Hebrew and Greek Reader, called Case and Point, that puts forth the thesis that

"all Bible teaching needs to be done by someone trained to read biblical languages. That means that if your pastor can’t read biblical Hebrew and Greek, he should keep his mouth shut and not preach from the Bible. This standard is even more necessary when untrained Bible teachers mistakenly try to incorporate some fun facts from the world of biblical languages, as Rob Bell has done in his Nooma videos. Art Boulet and Andrew Naselli have the skinny, no need for me to repeat their spot-on responses."

On the other hand, Bill Mounce, in a blog post called How do you use Greek in the pulpit? wrote:

"I just don’t think there are many times you need to parade your knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. As I said in the previous blog, people want to put you up on a pedestal. They want to think that you are different from them. But as I have told people many times from the pulpit, we are all gifted people in the same body, and only Christ is the head. My gift puts me up front and puts me in a position of leadership, but I am still just one gift in the midst of other gifted people."

Are these two writers at odds with one another, or are they simply elevating different nuances of the same thing?

You decide!

Preacher's slip of the tongue

Every now and again a preacher gets tongue tied, and when that knot comes undone, he will have a slip of the tongue.

HT: Joanna @ Crazy Christian Clips

Baby preacher

Babies and toddlers can sometimes be so cute. Yet, sometimes, there hides something deeper, underneath all the cuteness, in situations like the one below.

What seems cute, may actually be more of a commentary of how things stand, than have anything to do with a baby's cuteness.

Kids learn from adults, and if this kid learnt from the preachers at this church, then I can just imagine what is being preached there. Lots of shouting and emoting, but probably no real content.

Anyhow, depending on who watches the video, it could either be cute and funny, or tragic.

Reading on Preaching

For those preachers out there who know that their preaching is not what it should be (and even those who think they're doing a great job), C.J. Mahaney wrote a post in which several preachers recommend certain chapters in several books on Biblical preaching.

The "bumper sticker" gospel

To many evangelicals today, the gospel comes on a bumper sticker. To many, that is what the gospel amounts to. When asked what the gospel was, they would come back with bumper sticker slogans. At most a phrase with a few words. To them, THAT is the gospel.

Why is this the state of the church? Even though it was not planned, this post is really an extension to my post yesterday! When pastors cannot preach solid doctrine from the pulpit without falling back onto a little bit of this and a little bit of that with a solitary verse here or there without any good exegesis, no wonder the gospel has been demoted to the back of a car! The gospel has been diminished to little phrases that can fit onto a bumper sticker. It simply shows how small the gospel has become in the collective mind of evangelicals!

Within evangelicalism, the gospel has been demoted to be our "testimonies." It is no longer the message of God's salvific act within history to make propitiation for the sins of His people. Instead of the gospel being God's story of salvation effected within history, we have detracted from the gospel to make it "our" story! Bishop William Willimon from the UMC says that my story (and your story) is really not that interesting. That is why we should be preaching the gospel as it is spelled out in the Bible.

The problem we have is that we want to MAKE the gospel effective. It is not our job to MAKE the gospel effective! Jesus said that He will build His church. We think that it is our job to make the unbeliever believe. It is NOT our job to make people believe or try to convict them. When the Spirit comes,

(8) he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: (9) concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; (10) concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; (11) concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. (Jn 16:8-11)

We must remain true to the gospel, and the Holy Spirit will do the rest! The only reason the church must put up all kinds of side shows and circus acts, is because it no longer preaches the gospel, nor does it believe in the gospel. If it did, it would also trust that God would bring about the fruit He desires! We were told to preach the gospel, not to draw all people unto Christ. That is what Jesus Himself said HE would do!

The problem with the church today is that it goes looking for disciples. We were not told to do that! Jesus said we must make disciples. How do we do that? Not by looking for nice people to add to the church. We are not to go looking for respectable people that would add clout to our local church! We are to make disciples! That means that we must preach the gospel with all its glory and offensiveness. When we hide certain parts of the gospel because it might offend someone, then we are NOT preaching the gospel. It is either all or nothing!

The gospel is not a "pat on the back" type of message, saying, "You're OK! I'm OK!" The gospel is intrusive. It makes a full frontal assault on your human sensitivities. It tells you that you are condemned to hell by a God that is holy and hates sin, including your sin, and if you do not turn from your sin and believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, you are condemned to die in your sin!

This issue gets knocked around a bit in the White Horse Inn radio show of 24 June 2007.

Listen and learn!

Dr. D. James Kennedy retires

Dr. D. James Kennedy, who founded Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, almost 50 years ago, has retired from the pulpit. He suffered a heart attack in December and also preached his last sermon on Christmas Eve 2006. Since December 2006 he has been unable to return to lead the church.

May God bless this great man of God!

Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology

The MP3s of the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology for the 4 different host churches (Sacramento, Jackson, Grand Rapids, Philadelphia) are available at the website of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Unfortunately, you will have to pay for these MP3s!

Freely you have received, freely give! Ironic, isn't it?

Never a Christian

For many years, indeed centuries by now, many Christians have thought that since they are in control of their own salvation (becoming a Christian), they would also be in control of remaining saved (a Christian). Therefore, some believe that if they chose to become Christians, they can also choose to no longer be Christians.

My assumption is that many that once claimed to be Christians, and now are 'ex-Christians' (whatever that means), fall into this category of "former" Christians.

This comes from preaching a God from the pulpit that is at the mercy of its creatures. This type of Christianity preaches a "god" that must beg his creation to believe in him. By some divine fiat he ascribed some sort of almighty free-will to humans that he cannot violate, and as a result people can either choose to follow him or to stop following him. This, therefore, can occur several times in a person's lifetime!

Now, that is serving and believing in a small god! A god that has no control over his creatures, and, in fact is completely subject to the sovereign control of his creatures! Who wants to serve such a small god anyway?

The Bible makes it clear that those who leave Christianity after a profession of faith, were never Christians to start with.

"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us."
1 John 2:19

Jesus made it clear that once He saves someone, He saves that person completely!

"Jesus answered them, 'I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, ~26~ but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. ~27~ My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. ~28~ I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. ~29~ My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. ~30~ I and the Father are one.'"
John 10:25-30

Once Christ has saved someone that person will never perish, and no one will snatch the saved person out of His hand! This is called the Perseverance of the Saints, or like I like to call it, the Preservation of the Saints. Christ is the One who does the "saving" and He is also the One who does the "keeping."

Salvation belongs to the Lord. Why would He make it dependent upon us to "save ourselves" when the very reason we need salvation precludes us from being able to make such a saving choice?

To understand salvation Biblically, read the online book The Reformed Faith by Loraine Boettner.

Good sermon

The question on many people's minds is if the sermon on Sunday was a good one or not.

Was there enough shouting? Enough examples? Appropriate examples? Did it help me practically today? Was I bored? Did it get me excited? There are many more questions people would ask about the sermons they hear.

However, I would like to point out two very important aspects of a good sermon and our response to it.

First of all passion. A sermon without passion is like kissing a watermelon. Cold and sticky! It is simply impossible to be passionate about kissing a fruit! When there is no passion in preaching, it would seem that the preacher has no faith in the message either. Yet, what a South African or an American sees as passionate might seem completely over the top in England. So, passion could be relative. However, that should not excuse the preacher to be passionate about the message he preaches.

Now believe me, I do not believe that passion alone is good enough for the sustenance of the flock. Yet if there is no passion, it would be like stuffing your face with the driest of foods and yet not being able to swallow since there would not be anything to wash the dry stuff down with. Have you ever had food so dry in your mouth that your mouth could not generate enough saliva for you to safely swallow your food? It is then that you grab your drink to help the food down. Now that is a sermon without passion.

However, on the other hand it doesn't matter if you have all the passion in the world but the content of the sermon has falsehoods, errors or heresy in it. It is here that we have to look at the truth factor.

It is no use providing food to the flock with enough to drink (passion), but the food is laced with poison! The fact is that too many sermons out there are very passionate, yet they contain all manners of errors and heresies. There are preachers out there that are very passionate, but they are preaching a whole lot of heresies that the people in the pews do not even recognize! These are people like T.D. Jakes, Tommy Tenny, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, T.B. Joshua and a host of people like them!

The problem with today's Christian is that he has been influenced by the world and how it operates. The fact that the church is trying to operate like the world does not help either! Communication, and even the validation of truth, is tied up in sound bytes and who wins the argument at the end of the day. And how is the argument won? Basically, the one who can throw around the wittiest sound bytes, whether they are true or not, and who can interrupt the others the most and can get the most "airtime!"

This has been transferred into the church. Those in the pew no longer want the Scriptures to be explained to them through proper exegetical expositional preaching. No, they simply want to be told what to do with a couple of funny examples and then sent home!

In the end, these people want to be entertained. What they want is what I call preachetainment. They don't want the truth, because they "can't handle the truth."

Members of churches are no longer taught to search for the truth and to be like the Bereans who did not simply accept what Paul told them. The biggest problem here is that churches no longer equip their people to study the Bible correctly. This leads to haphazard Bible study that many times lead to error itself.

So, where truth is concerned, preachers can end up saying almost anything and the pew will simply say "amen!"

In the end a good sermon must have truth and passion. Truth to provide the spiritual nutrients and passion to make sure that the nutrients are edible.

The best way to package this truth is to put it in its proper theological setting. Many people are not good at systematizing information and therefore cannot see how different parts of Scripture fit together. It is for this very reason that exegetical expositional preaching would be best. The preacher can then show how the current passage fits in with the rest of Scripture and how we get to the theology we believe. It is here where the foundation for good theological preaching can be laid. If a pastor cannot do this, or he thinks that it is not necessary, he has no business being in the pulpit or the ministry! (Tit 1:9; 1 Tim 3:2).

Ok, I digressed a bit, but the point is, a good sermon will be the truth contained in the Scriptures and it will be preached with a holy passion for the things of God!

Reading the 'non-existent' into the text

It happens a lot! Christians reading things into the text of Scripture that clearly are not there!

I am on the executive of a Christian political party here in South Africa, and the other day in an opening address the speaker said that he is so involved in the party that wherever he reads in the Bible he sees the party. He said that he can see the Bible saying things about the party everywhere in the Bible!

I sat there completely shocked while, it seems, everybody shouted "Amen!" I must admit, I am still to meet a non-charismatic in the party. I suppose that says it all! The viewpoint that this speaker expressed so clouds his mind, that I find it difficult to believe that he can read a Biblical theology from the pages of Scripture!

The problem is that this happens all the time in the church. Not just in the charismatic church, but among evangelicals of all stripes! So often, preachers (and those who call themselves teachers) come with a great sermon that is not in the text at all! The fact is, they would read the text to the whole church, and then continue to set their preconceived overlay over the text, thus nullifying the very text they preach from! Instead of preaching from the text, they simply use it as a pretext in order to proclaim their own ideas that are not found in the text. At least they could claim to have read from the Bible. Actually, they do not preach the unadulterated Word of God, but rather the overlay that they brought to the text!

These preachers simply do not take God or His Word seriously! When our sermons cannot be substantiated by the text, we are, in effect, putting words in God's mouth, and as a result make Him a liar! When we do not take the time to study the Word of God and to use proper standards of Biblical interpretation when we prepare our sermons, what does that say about our respect for God? It is exactly because preachers do not respect God's Word that they would preach from a passage, a message that does not originate from that passage.

Mark Dever preached an excellent sermon on Expositional Preaching at the Grace Minister's Conference, 2007, in South Africa. In it he shows how today's churches try to attract people through all kinds of schemes and programs. Here is a short audio clip from that sermon. This is the type of hype that many preachers get into in order to get people to stay at their churches. I surmise that preaching that is not based on the actual text falls in the same category. Download the clip or listen to it online:


This happened at church this last weekend when the pastor preached on John 10:27, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." I am sure you can already see where this is going! If you can't, then you have never sat through a sermon in a charismatic church!

This verse was used as a proof text that God still speaks today. This is how the sermon starts:

"Nature is wonderful! Even more wonderful is our Creator God who made it all! Many animals such as whales and a number of bird species have inbuilt guidance systems which humans have still not figured out. This enables them to find their way to breeding and feeding grounds over thousands of kilometers with pinpoint accuracy. Some inner voice or instinct guides them with great precision. Would we think it strange that God also provides and plans for His children to be guided on the path of life? I think not. We would expect nothing less. And indeed He guides and leads us by His voice and His word!"

When we look at the passage at hand, we realize that Jesus said these words in the midst of two metaphors, The Good Shepherd and The Door, which clearly should give guidance when this passage is interpreted.

After Jesus gave them the first parable, talking about the gate keeper, and the fact that the shepherd of the sheep comes through the door, it seemed that the people did not understand His figure of speech.

In order to make it easier for them to understand, Jesus gave them two more parables.


The first parable is that of The Door:

(7) So Jesus again said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. (8) All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. (9) I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. (10) The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
(Jn 10:7-10)

The point that Jesus made here is that salvation comes only by entering through the correct door. There is only one door and that door is Christ Himself. All others claiming to give entrance to salvation are thieves and robbers. Entrance into salvation is through Christ alone.

The second is the parable of The Good Shepherd:

(11) I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (12) He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. (13) He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. (14) I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, (15) just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. (16) And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. (17) For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. (18) No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.
(Jn 10:11-18)

Jesus continued with His theme of salvation. It is the Good Shepherd that lay his life down for the sheep. It is in this context that Jesus started using the idea of His sheep listening to His voice. Jesus bound the fact that the Father knows Him and He knows the Father to the fact that He lay down His life for the sheep. Based on the fact that He lay down His life for the sheep, He pointed out that there were sheep not of this (Jewish) fold. These sheep had to be brought into the fold (salvation) too, but there was no problem, since they would listen to His voice. When that call for salvation came to them, they would hear and come!

This is where the crunch comes! When Jesus said in verse 27 that His sheep hear His voice and they know Him and follow Him, did He mean what charismatics mean by these words, that Jesus speaks to us daily and we must just listen for His voice in order to do His will daily? No! That is a gross misrepresentation of this passage and puts words in God's mouth which He did not say in this passage!

From the context thus far, we have learnt that Jesus was speaking about salvation, and His call to salvation upon the hearts of His own sheep!

So, just to reiterate the point, when the Jews asked Jesus whether He was the Christ or not, He replied to them:

"[25] I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, [26] but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. [27] My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. [28] I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand." (Jn 10:25-28)

Jesus simply told them that the reason why they did not believe was that they weren't part of His flock. Jesus is very particular in what He told them. Note that He did NOT say that they were not part of His flock because they did not believe! The reason they did not believe was that they were not part of His flock.

It is in this context of salvation that Jesus made it clear, that at the call of salvation, His sheep will hear His voice and follow Him. Only His sheep, whom He knows, will hear His voice, and He will give them eternal life!

Based on the charismatic understanding of this passage, all kinds of statements are made. One of them is that we "must be tuned in to the Holy Spirit like a radio is tuned in to the correct frequency." I am just wondering, if God is so powerful, how is it that He cannot speak to us unless we are on the right frequency? I did not know that there was a frequency that God was on! Does it work like the red presidential phone, that we can only reach Him on that line? All I know is that the God I serve will be heard when He speaks, no matter what frequency we are on! If He could step into the lives of men ever since the beginning of mankind, while making Himself heard, how is it that He has lost that ability?

Another statement that is related to the first, is that "God is speaking all the time. We must just take the time to sit down and listen to Him!" I find this to be utter nonsense! If the God who created language, is incapable to speak to me, why must I even serve Him? It is a total misunderstanding of the sovereignty of God that leads to such nonsensical statements. When God spoke to Abraham in Gen 12, we do not find any clue that he was tuned into the correct frequency, or that he had the right attitude in order to hear God! Yet, when God spoke Abraham heard. There are ample examples throughout the Bible which will make it clear that God is heard when He speaks without some spiritual preparation before the event. If God wants to be heard, does it not make sense that He will also ensure that He is heard?

So, to conclude, we find that this passage that is so widely used by charismatics, especially to teach that God still speaks to us today, actually does not convey that meaning at all. It simply speaks of Jesus calling His sheep towards salvation, whom, by the way, will hear His voice and will follow Him.

Preaching the Word

I was riding in my car to work this morning and I started thinking about preaching the Word.

Many preachers claim to be preaching the word. But, are they?

It is quite obvious that if the preacher only gives his own opinions, then he obviously is not preaching the Word!

The next question is, when are preachers actually preaching the Word? It is fairly difficult to simply make a positive comment as to when preachers are preaching the Word. However, it is easier to go into the negative as to when they are not!

It is my contention that when preachers have not done their homework in preparation for their sermons, then they are not preaching the Word. In these situations it is much easier to fall into the my-own-opinion trap! What does this homework entail?

First, it is important to spend time in prayer when preparing a sermon. Preparing a sermon is not preparing a speech with simple logic involved or just relaying facts. A sermon is to be an explanation of the Word of the Almighty God! Therefore, time must be spent with the Lord in preparing the sermon.

Second, the Scriptures must be pored over extensively. Too many sermons today, especially topical sermons, have a proof-text here and there and that is about all that the sermon contains. On the other hand, quoting many verses can mean just as little if they are not used wisely. Spend time in reading and rereading the passage in question as much as it takes.

Third, a sermon not based on proper exegesis will certainly become self-opinionated instead of Christ-centered.

It is my opinion that most topically based sermons end up being strewn with opinions not found in the Bible. It is certainly possible to preach topical sermons based on good preparatory exegesis--which lends itself to systematic theology--but on the other hand, I have seen (and heard) from experience that almost no topical preacher is a good exegete. It is so much easier to pick a topic to preach on and then to throw a couple of verses at the topic than to actually spend time searching the Scriptures and applying good hermeneutical principles to those Scriptures.

On the other hand, expository preaching lends itself to proper exegesis. Now hear me! I am not saying that you cannot be lazy when using expository preaching and end up preaching useless sermons. The nature of man is to take shortcuts where they are available! I am also not saying that good exegesis cannot be used in topical preaching. What I am saying is that one is forced more in expository preaching than in topical preaching to do exegesis. Now I know, you all have lists of preachers that are good at one style of preaching and preachers that are bad at another. That is not my point at all. I am not looking at the preachers per se in this point, but rather at the type of preaching and the preparation involved. What I particularly like about expository preaching is that it forces you to look at the context and to build the sermon based on the context of the passage, chapter and book!

Fourth, once the preacher is done with his own exegesis, it is always helpful to use good commentaries. I know that there are preachers, especially these new fandangled charismatic types, that believe that they do not need to use commentaries to help them in preparing their sermons. "Pride comes before a fall." The absolute conceit in this approach is telling. It is for this very reason that so many of these preachers have gone off the rails and are preaching erroneous doctrines at best and heresy at worst! There are many great men of God that have gone before us and they had wisdom and insight that most of us can't even dream of.

C.S. Lewis has something extremely wise to say about the reading of new as opposed to old books. This can easily be applied to the use of commentaries:

"There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about "isms" and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that firsthand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than secondhand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.

"This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology. Wherever you find a little study circle of Christian laity you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke or St. Paul or St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev or M. Maritain or M. Niebuhr or Miss Sayers or even myself.

"Now this seems to me topsy-turvy. Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light. Often it cannot be fully understood without the knowledge of a good many other modern books. If you join at eleven o'clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why--the reason, of course, being that the earlier stages of the conversation have given them a special point. In the same way sentences in a modern book which look quite ordinary may be directed at some other book; in this way you may be led to accept what you would have indignantly rejected if you knew its real significance. The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity ("mere Christianity" as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books. It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.

"Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united—united with each other and against earlier and later ages—by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century—the blindness about which posterity will ask, "But how could they have thought that?"—lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H. G. Wells and Karl Barth. None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them." Continue reading.

Obviously, commentaries should not be used as a shortcut but rather as corrective or confirmatory tools.

Fifth, here many laymen and preachers disagree with me, but I believe that preachers today must become well-versed in Biblical Greek and/or Hebrew. Martin Luther wrote way back in 1524:

"In the measure that we love the Gospel, let us place a strong emphasis on the languages. For it was not without reason that God wrote the Scriptures in two [primary] languages, the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek. Those languages which God did not despise, but rather chose above all others for His Word, are the languages which we also should honor above all others. It is a sin and a shame that we do not learn the languages of our Book."

Someone compiled a list of reasons as to why we, and in my opinion preachers most of all, should study New Testament Greek:

"1. You are always subject to the choices of the translator(s) in doing Biblical studies if you do not know the original languages.


" a.. Even though you may trust those translators, nevertheless it is more useful in doing serious study to know the language yourself.
b.. Unless you can read Biblical Greek, you have forever limited yourself to low-level study aids. The inability to research commentaries and lexicons that deal with the original language again means that you have decided to let someone else tell you what the Bible says: commentaries that are not based on the original languages are inadequate.
c.. It gives you access to the best scholarly journals and books in biblical and theological studies.
d.. It gives you a greater independence as an interpreter of Scripture

"2. It takes you a step closer to the people who used the language 2000 years ago.

" a.. It gives you a broader and deeper understanding of the linguistic and cultural milieu in which the NT was written.
b.. It gives you a new appreciation of the richness and depth of the sacred texts, which previously you have come to value even though you have perceived them only through a veil, dimly.
c.. Studying the Bible in the original languages brings a new dimension to the scriptures that simply does not get portrayed in English. It allows you to interact with the scriptures in a new way.

"3. Studying the Greek NT provides a way to get a fresh look at what the text is actually saying. It may help to overcome some of our preconceived notions of what the English text says.

"4. Studying New Testament Greek should turn a good NT scholar into a better one. [But it won't turn a bad one into a good one!]

"5. It helps you learn the grammar of your own language, and hopefully, makes you a better communicator in that language.

"6. It is great intellectual training.

"7. But, most of all, it's fun!!!!!!!"

Most preachers who give all kinds of reasons for not studying Greek are simply too lazy to do so! Others are too involved in things that have nothing to do with the ministry, and are sitting in waste-of-time meetings and treating the church as a business!

Last, I am sure that we can add many more to this list of points, but for now, return to the first point and start it all over again. Preparing a sermon is not a once off linear event. It is a cyclic, iterative process. Repetition on preparing sermons will help iron out difficulties.

So, when preachers go through this iterative process it will help getting rid of their opinions so that they can actually preach the Word and not just their own words or opinions.

Preachers owe it to their congregations, but most of all to Jesus Christ, to preach the Word and only the Word, or else to get out! If a preacher is not preaching the unadulterated Word of God, he is not representing God, and can in a certain sense be labeled a false prophet. As a preacher, where do YOU fit in?

Just thinking...