What Preaching Should Be & Who It Should Be About
by Donavon Riley
Although the Scriptures are clear about what preaching should be, and more importantly who preaching should be about, most of today’s preaching misses the mark.
This has dire consequences for the church. Weak preaching leads to achurch that is Scripturally illterate and spiritually weak. If the churchtoday, whether Lutheran, Reformed or Roman Catholic, is considered “illiterate” that is because of poor preaching. If the pastor fails to teach the truths of God’s Word, distinguishing between God’s words of law and Gospel, on a weekly basis, if the pastor instead settles for entertainment, the church is left happy, but under-fed. Of course, some pastors will try to over-simplify this problem. They will, for example, categorize “good” preaching as expository and “poor”preaching as topical. The fact is that both styles can and often do produce a mal-nourished church. Who we preach is always more important than what style of preaching we adopt.
In Second Timothy, Paul described a day when preachers would deliver a message suited for “itching ears.”
Today, as always, that message suited for itching ears is manifest where preaching about God subsumes preaching the “for you” of Christ’s promises. Instead of proclaiming that God has acted, is acting and is seeking “you” in His oral, written, incarnate and Sacramental Word the common Sunday sermon asks a question, “Who is God?” Then, besides the “illiterate” already mentioned, the larger impact of such a question is an unhealthy church, a church which cannot distinguish Moses from Christ, law from Gospel, death from life, sin from grace, etc. Those who don’t know God’s Word don’t know the One whom God sent into the world, to reconcile the world to God.
They are not faithful to the Word of God as given and revealed in the Scriptures; in evangelism, liturgy, stewardship and a host of other areas. The result? Pastors perform a spiritual autopsy on God in the pulpit, fashioning a church that can run things just fine without the living God and His Word.
Preaching is the critical thing. The single characteristic of a healthy church is a strong pulpit. And that strength can and does come solely through the Word of God and faith. For it is not expository preaching that is the thing but, the Holy Spirit calling, gathering, and enlightening the whole church with His gifts and keeping it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. That fact alone should motivate pastors to urgently and zelously focus on Biblical preaching. It doesn’t matter what circumstance a strong pulpit finds itself in, His church – His little “Word House” – will flourish, and as the Scriptures assert, not even the gates of hell will stand against it! Conversely, it doesn’t matter what is done to support a weak pulpit, the church will suffer and become sick because it does not have that healing balm, the Word of God made flesh, our righteousness, Jesus Christ. Amen.
