The Benefits of the Priesthood

The Forty-Third Sermon on Exodus

Recently on the PuritanBoard, there was a young preacher that asked about "must reads" for every newly ordained pastor. This got me thinking what I would liked to have suggested to me when I started nearly nine years ago. Since preaching is the sine qua non of the Reformed church, a young preacher need to read about preaching, think about preaching, listen preaching, discuss preaching with his colleagues, and when he's done that, he need to then read some more about preaching, preaching, and more preaching! You get the point. I can honestly say it took me five years to develop confidence and a method that works for me. So, for all you seminarians out there and freshly ordained ministers, here is some basic advice on what to read, but more importantly, how to develop your skills.

First, read books on preaching. You probably read several homiletics texts in seminary, but you will not appreciate them as much as when you are actively preaching, week in and week out. Some of my favorites have been:

Preaching with Confidence...Daane

Between Two Worlds...Stott

Evangelical Eloquence...Dabney

Peculiar Speech...Willimon

The Art of Prophesying...Bunyan

Essay on the Composition of a Sermon...Jean Claude

Second, I would find a mentor pastor that you can either meet locally with or talk with over the phone if you are a remote Reformed pastor. Speak with him every week after you have preached. Go over what you did and how you did. Send him audio or text of your sermons for evaluation. This is humiliating. This is the death nail to any pride. This is painful to listen to . . . but this is a good thing! You need to learn to get over yourself quickly. You are not Chrysostom, Calvin, or Clowney.

Third, I would find 1 or 2 preachers whose sermons you can listen to regularly. Listen to me well: do not do this to cheat! You need to do this to enjoy a sermon yourself. You also need to do this to glean from an experienced preacher. Listen to how he preaches, listen for his structure, listen for his rhetorical devices. I listen to Joel Beeke, for what it's worth, and have learned how to be clear, how to be understandable, how to be doctrinal,how to be applicable, and how to be Christ-centered.

Fourth and finally, read the sermons of our great forefathers, not only Reformed forefathers but the patristic fathers . . . Chrysostom, Augustine, Cyril, the Cappodocians, as well as Calvin, Sibbes, Watson, Owen, etc.

My beloved college professor, Rev. Ronald Wright, was the man who led me to the Reformed Faith. And as many of you know, he was an ordained Assemblies of God minister! One of his favorite sayings in class that has never left me was, "Theology that does not become biography is wishful thinking." Over my 8+ years of pastoral ministry I have come to appreciate that slogan more and more, and even recently, have sought to "get back to my roots" so to speak and begin preaching more practically, simply, and pointedly. Back in my college days of trying to convert everyone to Calvinism, especially the high school students I youth pastored, I was an avid reader of A. W. Tozer. One of his pointed writings was “Exposition Must Have Application,” which is chapter 7 from Of God and Men (Harrisburg, Penn: Christian Publications, 1960). Enjoy!

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THERE IS scarcely anything so dull and meaningless as Bible doctrine taught for its own sake. Truth divorced from life is not truth in its Biblical sense, but something else and something less. Theology is a set of facts concerning God, man and the world. These facts may be, and often are, set forth as values in themselves; and there lies the snare both for the teacher and for the hearer.

The Bible is among other things a book of revealed truth. That is, certain facts are revealed that could not be discovered by the most brilliant mind. These facts are of such a nature as to be past finding out. They were hidden behind a veil, and until certain men who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost took away that veil, no mortal man could know them. This lifting of the veil of unknowing from undiscoverable things we call divine revelation.

The Bible, however, is more than a volume of hitherto unknown facts about God, man and the universe. It is a book of exhortation based upon those facts. By far the greater portion of the book is devoted to an urgent effort to persuade people to alter their ways and bring their lives into harmony with the will of God as set forth in its pages.

No man is better for knowing that God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth. The devil knows that, and so did Ahab and Judas Iscariot. No man is better for knowing that God so loved the world of men that he gave his only begotten Son to die for their redemption. In hell there are millions that know that. Theological truth is useless until it is obeyed. The purpose behind all doctrine is to secure moral action.

What is generally overlooked is that truth as set forth in the Christian Scriptures is a moral thing; it is not addressed to the intellect only, but to the will also. It addresses itself to the total man, and its obligations cannot be discharged by grasping it mentally. Truth engages the citadel of the human heart and is not satisfied until it has conquered everything there. The will must come forth and surrender its sword. It must stand at attention to receive orders, and those orders it must joyfully obey. Short of this any knowledge of Christian truth is inadequate and unavailing.

Bible exposition without moral application raises no opposition. It is only when the hearer is made to understand that truth is in conflict with his heart that resistance sets in. As long as people can hear orthodox truth divorced from life they will attend and support churches and institutions without objection. The truth is a lovely song, become sweet by long and tender association; and since it asks nothing but a few dollars, and offers good music, pleasant friendships and a comfortable sense of well-being, it meets with no resistance from the faithful. Much that passes for New Testament Christianity is little more than objective truth sweetened with song and made palatable by religious entertainment.

Probably no other portion of the Scriptures can compare with the Pauline Epistles when it comes to making artificial saints. Peter warned that the unlearned and unstable would wrest Paul’s writings to their own destruction, and we have only to visit the average Bible Conference and listen to a few lectures to know what he meant. The ominous thing is that the Pauline doctrines may be taught with complete faithfulness to the letter of the text without making the hearers one whit better. The teacher may, and often does, so teach the truth as to leave the hearers without a sense of moral obligation.

One reason for the divorce between truth and life maybe the lack of the Spirit’s illumination. Another surely is the teacher’s unwillingness to get himself into trouble. Any man with fair pulpit gifts can get on with the average congregation if he just “feeds” them and lets them alone. Give them plenty of objective truth and never hint that they are wrong and should be set right, and they will be content.

On the other hand, the man who preaches truth and applies it to the lives of his hearers will feel the nails and the thorns. He will lead a hard life, but a glorious one. May God raise up many such prophets. The church needs them badly.

John Knox Preaching
". . . and how are they to preach . . .?" (Rom. 10:15) Although wrenched out of its context, this certainly is an important question for all churches, ministers, and parishioners in the modern reformation movement.

Evangelicalism is filled with everything from the revivalistic method to what the crowd I roll with here in So Cal calls the John MacArthur-esque/Chuck Smith-ish "glorified Bible study" method (although he wouldn't call it that, I'm sure). Reformed churches have the same gamut, with ministers that preach sermonettes for Christianettes, the Jay Adam's followers and "Preaching with Purpose," the hyper-"Biblical Theological" preachers who won't preach Paul's commands, for example, to pray without ceasing because that's moralistic, and everything in between.

In his essay, "The Lasting Power of Reformed Experiential Preaching" (available as a .pdf here), I think Dr. Joel Beeke steers Reformed homiletics in the right course, which is the historically Reformed course. What is so interesting to me is that this method is basically what I have always tried to follow, but under the title of "Law-Gospel" preaching that I learned from the likes of Mike Horton and Kim Riddlebarger. Hmmm . . . old school Dutch preaching meets Southern Californian modern reformers.

This essay is also part of a much larger volume entitled, Puritan Reformed Spirituality (Reformation Heritage Books) that is available for $15.