What is the most important thing to do in our preaching?

pondererWhat would you say is the single most important thing in preaching—either as the person preaching or as someone who listens? I guess many people would suggest clarity of delivery, or humour, or connecting with the congregation, or being based in Scripture. All of these are of great importance, though of course all are open to a range of interpretations.

As I continue to preach myself, and sit and listen to the sermons of others, I keep coming back to something I first learned more than 25 years ago, and feel I keep on needing to learn:

Focus more on what God has done, 
and less on what we ‘ought’ to do.

Why is this important? I think for several reasons.


First, it is what I need to hear. I think I live in a world where there are lots of people telling me what I ‘ought’ to be doing, either implicitly or explicitly. It happens explicitly in a lot of Christian teaching—I ought to be praying more, reading my Bible more, telling others about Jesus more, and so on. But it also happens on the news and from science, health and lifestyles gurus—I ought to be eating an apple a day, taking more exercise, fasting to lose weight. I also happen to be someone who takes seriously the lives of others, so when I see a programme about how someone lives, I feel the force of their lifestyle choices, and find myself asking ‘Should I be doing the things they do?’ All this can lead to anxiety about all the things we ‘ought’ to be doing—or, as a good friend of mine used to say, a ‘hardening of the oughteries’!

In all this talk of oughts and duties, I need to hear the word of grace—this is what God has done, and what he can do again. And if I need to hear that from preachers I listen to, then I need to preach this for the sake of those listening to me.


Second, it is primarily what Scripture does. If the Bible is anything, then it is the story of God’s actions for and on behalf of its people. Of course, it includes lots of other stories, of individuals and groups and their successes and failures in responding and being faithful to God’s call on their lives. But their action are always in response to the action of God, which is always prior to human action chronologically and theologically. God calls the world into being; God calls Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; God calls Moses to lead his people from slavery to freedom; God gives the gift of his law; the word of God ‘comes to’ the prophets—and so on. Whoever the human actors are in the drama, the principal actor is God—even when (as with Esther and other parts of the OT narrative) this is not made explicit.

So if we are preaching from Scripture, we must always be asking, not so much ‘What did the human actors do here?’ but ‘What is God doing here? What did he do then, and so what does he do now?’ God is the subject of the story of the Bible, so if we are not focussing in our preaching on what God has done, we are misreading the text.

(It is worth noting, by the way, that this principle underpins the format of the classic Anglican prayer, the Collect. These prayers usually begin, ‘God, who [did something in the past], do it now again for your people in our day…’ You could, therefore, write a collect as a closing prayer after every sermon.)


Third, we find this very difficult. I have lost count of the number of times I had heard a sermon—often a good sermon, inspiring, engaging and well delivered—but focussing not on what God has done but what we ‘ought’ to do. Even in churches (some would say especially in churches) where the focus is supposed to be on the grace of God and the centrality of Scripture, we seem to find it very difficult to focus on God’s grace.


Fourth, this then is a litmus test of whether I am comfortable preaching the good news of God’s grace. As Tom Wright has argued in various places, a gospel is only a ‘gospel’ if it tells the story of what God has done for us. Collections of teachings of Jesus are not ‘gospels’ because they give us more things to do. It is no accident that the four canonical gospels do include Jesus’ teaching—but as a prelude the most important thing of all, what God has done for us in the ministry, death and supremely the resurrection of Jesus. God has done something, and we need to tell others—not so that they ‘ought’ to do more things, but so that they can see God’s gracious initiative in the past, and might receive this gracious initiative in the present, in their lives today.


41kUn9aZqQLStanley Greidanus explores this in his 1978 book The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text in chapter 5. He distinguishes the two approaches to Scripture and preaching as ‘anthropocentric’ (centred on the human actors) and ‘theocentric’ (centred on God as the principal actor).

When one asks about the purpose of the canon, the thrust of the Bible as a whole, the answer seems quite obvious: the canon intends to tell us about God—not God in the abstract, but God in relationship to his creation and his people, God’s actions in the world, God’s coming kingdom. The individual authors’…primary interest is God’s action in human events, not the events themselves.

These two approaches have a radically different affect on our preaching:

AnthropocentricTheocentric
focusses on human examplesfocusses on God’s plan of salvation
tends to despairtends to hope
tends to human efforttends to trust in God
could be based on any human beingtends to base everything on the biblical text
speaks to the will & evokes effortspeaks to the heart & evokes worship
screws up divine/human relationship(re)launches divine/human relationship
expects hearers to actexpects God to act
prescribes outcomesleaves outcomes open—God is too big!

Last Epiphany I preached from Matt 2.1–12. It would have been very easy to focus on the characters in the story, and draw morals from them. We should be strong and courageous like Joseph; we shouldn’t be defensive, aggressive and insecure like Herod; we should be adventurous and risk-taking like the Magi. (All these good examples might also encourage us to ask: should we also be silent and compliant, as Matthew appears to depict Mary?) But this misses the central actor in the story—God. Within the narrative, every critical turn depends on God’s intervention. And the point of the story seems to much more focus on who God is and what God does. God is one who reveals himself to those on the outside and draws them in. God is the one who speaks and guides, in ways that listeners can understand and relate to. God is faithful to his purposes, fulfilling his promises from of old. And God turns the patterns and power structures of the world upside down. Is this the kind of God we trust? And do we believe God is doing these things still?

The same is true of every passage we preach on. Last week in the lectionary we read about Peter’s (healing of Aeneas and) raising of Tabitha. Is the story primarily about the different human agents, giving us an example to follow and a list of things we ought to do—like Tabitha, we ought to help the poor, like the disciples, we should call on leaders in faith, like Peter, we should pray for healing and new life? Or is the story primarily about what God is doing—healing the sick, raising the dead, binding people together into a community of faith, and making his good news known through his miraculous acts? The second list sounds a lot more like good news than the first—and it is much more likely to grow faith in us and our hearers too.

(Previously published in a slightly different form in 2016.)


If you enjoyed this, do share it on social media, possibly using the buttons on the left. Follow me on Twitter @psephizoLike my page on Facebook.


Much of my work is done on a freelance basis. If you have valued this post, would you consider donating £1.20 a month to support the production of this blog?


DON'T MISS OUT!
Signup to get email updates of new posts
We promise not to spam you. Unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address

If you enjoyed this, do share it on social media (Facebook or Twitter) using the buttons on the left. Follow me on Twitter @psephizo. Like my page on Facebook.


Much of my work is done on a freelance basis. If you have valued this post, you can make a single or repeat donation through PayPal:

For other ways to support this ministry, visit my Support page.


Comments policy: Do engage with the subject. Please don't turn this into a private discussion board. Do challenge others in the debate; please don't attack them personally. I no longer allow anonymous comments; if there are very good reasons, you may publish under a pseudonym; otherwise please include your full name, both first and surnames.

15 thoughts on “What is the most important thing to do in our preaching?”

  1. Thanks, Ian.
    As I look at drafts of early sermons some decades ago, the word “should” appears all too often.
    Increasingly I find that the focus on God brings its own inbuilt application, and, more importantly, gives the inspiration to follow his word.
    This is especially important when preaching narrative where all too often we lapse into “David was good here so that’s what we need to be” and vice versa.

    Reply
  2. I agree with this, although the bible is also full of commands, and instructions about how we should live. But always in response to what God has done.
    The other factor is that “should” seldom works as a way of encouraging or challenging change in lifestyle or behaviour. it can so easily drift into a hectoring style which just turns people off.

    Reply
  3. I agree with the theocentric focus of our preaching – better still Christocentric – but, there is an inescapable imperative which occupies a considerable portion of the NT teaching – it is not simply descriptive of who Jesus is and what he has done, but very prescriptive about what we are to do. Matthew’s gospel place as the first words of Jesus ministry: “Repent” (something to do) and the last words Jesus “Go”. Yes, of first importance is who he is and what he’s done, but that will always compel response.

    Reply
    • I agree with you Simon… I might add that the I think that the “oughts” are not burdensome. Our new nature, being “in Christ,” is liberating. We are now able to pursue holiness because our new desires are drawn by the Holy Spirit to live lives that are satisfying to us and pleasing to God.

      Reply
  4. True – and sometimes “big picture preaching has spectacularly failed to apply.
    However, it is a question of emphasis : indicatives must come before imperatives.

    Reply
  5. It is sometimes hard to see God doing anything at all in parts of the OT, in particular the histories of Judah and Israel. But maybe this is why they’re not often preached on!

    Reply
  6. Please forgive me for my very inexpert interjection here, I am only a churchwarden, not a ‘pro’, but due to a long interregnum, I have preached occasionally, and continue to do so as our priest is definitely ‘part time’, so once or twice a year.

    I always try to interpret the scriptures we have read in today’s context, with the object of making it possible for a listener to take with them something which would help them either explain the gospel, or maybe just ‘be’ the gospel, in their daily life. I avoid the ‘should’ statements but emphasise something along the lines of “This is what our gospel means, now go out and live it !”

    In the context of having read your article, I think I am supporting what you say about being Theocentric, and letting that emphasis generate the necessary message.

    Reply
  7. Couldn’t agree more, Bob. And how do you repent, or better, why? Is it all of God, monergism? As you know it’s done, done, a done deal.
    An exemplar to my mind, in the application of imperatives is Tim Keller but always with reference to Christ, but not as Christ as an exemplar, but as a fullfiller.
    But we like to do lists, or don’t do list, rather than in Christ why would you not want to do or cease doing: a heart, motivational change.
    Without this preaching can be reduced to “try harder” exortations, moralistic, or character studies, as you say, be like King David, don’t be like him, with underlying message, that we are better than him. Rather than bringing it back to King David’s Greater Son.

    Reply
  8. Great, but how do you go about preaching ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom ‘ or Jesus words in Luke 12: ‘Fear him’ ?

    Reply
  9. Thanks for this timely reminder. Some of the best preaching advice I’ve ever received was from Mike Thompson …every time, to ask oneself: “What’s the good news?” . If it’s not good news, the sermon is not ready to be preached. I think you’re saying the same thing.

    Reply
  10. Couldn’t agree more. I am currently working through several books on preaching (Tim Keller, Bryan Chapell, Ed Clowney, and Dr ML Jones) and they drive home the same central point – good deeds, works of righteousness are our response as come to understand what Christ has
    accomplished for us. Sanctification is the fruit of understanding God’s grace in justification.

    Tim Keller has a great, short series of audio podcasts over at RTS that well communicate these same points:
    https://subsplash.com/reformtheosem/learn-about-rts/li/+07b6f4d

    Reply
  11. While fully agreeing with the Theo/Christocentric emphasis above I think the Holy Spirit should get a mention.
    For those living the Spirit filled life the commandments (the shoulds and the ought tos) become promises – You will love the Lord your God, You will not commit adultery, bear false witness, steal etc etc.

    And to go back to the original question – the most important ingredient in preaching – again it’s the working of the Holy Spirit – in both the preacher and the hearer.
    In the preacher bringing life, clarity and power to the words uttered and the concepts presented, making connections to the hearers.
    And in the hearers bringing home the Word, applying it to heart, mind, life, making real the things of God so they may be grasped personally and claimed by faith.

    Without the work of the Holy Spirit a sermon becomes a dry academic lecture, a motivational talk or a series of perhaps vaguely amusing anecdotes depending on its content.

    I’ve attended some meetings where the speaker seems to be sharing ‘off the cuff’ with minimum notes and preparation and there’s been repetition and some hesitancy. From a technical point of view it’s not been so good yet people have responded and the Holy Spirit has still used it

    Reply
  12. That’s interesting Paul.

    I stopped after your first question, and my answer was “create headspace”, by which I meant time to reflect first – thinking about the preacher.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Bob Fyall Cancel reply