Preaching In Shades of Gray

In my freshman year in Bible college, one of my professors told a class of eager preacher-wanna-be’s that the church lives or dies by its preaching.  He went on to say that before every great move of God in history God sent out a preacher.  Before the Flood, the Exodus, the coming of the Messiah there was a preacher.  The church began with twelve preachers on the day of Pentecost. The Reformation waited on the preacher.  You get the idea.  This dear old saint poured his life and heart into teaching us how to be good preachers.  But that begs the question, “What is good preaching?”

Is good preaching stylistic?  Is it the conveyance of theological truth?  Is it the ability to hold the attention of the audience?  I have been told that good preaching is the preaching that makes people feel good on Sunday, after a long Saturday night.  My own struggles with effective homiletic practices are well known to those who hear me speak.  But I have never met a preacher that didn’t want to improve his craft.  And most preachers believe they are good public speakers. 

Rather than address a whole range of homiletics, let’s focus on one key area of preaching where there is a profound shade of gray.  It is a place where the shades of gray are a weekly struggle in many of our sermons.
Preaching to the lowest common denominator
On one end of the spectrum the sermons ought to be simple and basic and ought to be understandable for persons who have no Christian understanding or context. Sermons should be very attractional with an intentional focus on style and content that will attract the un-churched to the worship of the church and inspire them to return each week. Often these sermons offer practical help in the struggles of life.  They present how the Christian life is the best choice.  These sermons are positive and upbeat; they focus on the good and if bad news is presented, it is done so in such a way that emphasis is on a quick easy fix.  As one preacher said, “I don’t allow any stinking thinking”. 

There is the danger that the preaching time degenerates into positive, mental attitude, Oprah-ish, self-help and results in telling people what they want to hear.
Preaching ought to move toward depth
At the other end of the continuum, preaching is focused on teaching Biblical and theological truths and leading the hearers to personal challenge and growth. Preaching of this sort tends to require much more of the listener and will not be as entertaining.  The hearers must have some theological or religious background to comprehend the concepts.  The language can become exclusive and only understood by those with the correct knowledge base.  Style is relatively unimportant so long as the precise nature of the doctrinal position is articulated.  By its very nature, it assumes the purpose of preaching is not so much evangelistic as edifying.

Taken to an extreme it becomes a theological lecture that may seem unrelated to daily living.  While effective to challenge and help mature left-brain Christians, it may leave half of the congregation waiting for the sermon to end or looking for a different church.

No preacher is ever and always at one extreme or the other.  We generally preach in the way that challenges and moves us.  Generally, finding the right place on the continuum is sole responsibility of the preaching minister. While he has that responsibility, he is wise and helped by a system of feed back concerning his sermons that helps him gain the perspective of people in the pews.

Prayers in the Aftermath of the Dallas Massacre

Another week and we have witnessed another horrific and logically foolish tragedy.  In an effort to prove that the lives of black people matter, domestic terrorists murdered five police officers.  As I listen to the rhetoric from both sides of the political spectrum, I would occasionally catch a glimmer of hope, but it was only an echo bouncing off the walls of our cities.  I heard from the left the warning that violence only begets violence and that non-violence is the only path for real change.  That is true.  From the right I heard the lament that the break down of society began with the break down of the home.  Again it is hard to argue against that conclusion.

What I did not hear was a single word about repentance, about the need for our nation to apologize to God for the sins that, having now been born, are bringing about death, both spiritually, literally and figuratively.  I heard about the need to learn to understand others; I didn’t hear a word about understanding that we are sinners both in corrupted nature and individual acts.  I heard about controlling guns and the police, but never a hint about the complete inability of a spiritual dead man to control his sinful nature.

America was intended to be a theocracy, but she was conceived and born with and into a Christian world-view.  Not all of the founders were orthodox Christians, but from the core of her being to the surface of her daily life, America thought in terms of right and wrong as defined by the Scriptures.   Over the last 70 years or so, we have actively removed that Christian core from our soul.  Now the veneer of a civil society based on Biblical tolerance, love for enemy, and value of all those created in God’s image is cracking.  Beneath that veneer we see a society of hate, injustice, greed, violence, and rampant selfishness. 

A few weeks ago I told a friend, “This nation is coming apart at the seams.”  It seems that I have, this week, more evidence to support my predictions.  Furthermore, no one in the public square has offered any real solutions.  This rush to self-destruction will not be averted by another conference, study, dialogue or election.  Neither Clinton nor Trump can implement solutions that will help us avert our demise.  As we choke to death on the forbidden fruit of sin there is no solution by which we can perform a self-rescue. 

A century and a half ago two nations, both driven by greed, pride and a lust for power, engaged in a fratricidal war that claimed between 620,000 an 850,000 lives.  In the south, 25% of men between the ages of 18-44 died in that war.  This week I have heard rumblings of a call for another war.  In terms of percentage of population, a similar war today would claim about seven million lives. There is but one solution: pray for revival of the church of our nation and of our lives.  To quote a prayer request from that earlier war:

Knowing that intercessory prayer is our mightiest weapon and the supreme call for all Christians today, I pleadingly urge our people everywhere to pray.  Believing that prayer is the greatest contribution that our people can make in this critical hour, I humbly urge that we take time to pray- to really pray.

            Let there be prayer at sunup, at noonday, at sundown, at midnight – all through the day.  Let us pray for our children, our youth, our aged, our pastors, our homes.  Let us pray for our churches.

            Let us pray for ourselves, that we may not lose the word “concern” out of our Christian vocabulary.  Let us pray for our nation.  Let us pray for those who have never known Jesus Christ and redeeming love, for moral forces everywhere, for our national leaders.  Let prayer be our passion. Let prayer be our practice.

            Robert E. Lee

Reflections on the Fourth of July

The noted historian Alfred Edersheim wrote:

“Absolute right in Rome did not exist, might had become right.  The social relations exhibited, if possible, an even deeper corruption.  The sanctity of marriage had ceased; female dissipation and general dissoluteness lead at last to an almost entire cessation of marriage.  Abortion and the exposure and murder of newly born children were common and tolerated.  Un-natural vices which even the greatest philosophers practiced if not advocated obtained proportions which defied description.”

In addition to the moral decline of society, Rome was openly hostile to the faith. Toward the end of the first century the persecution of the church had shifted from the spasmodic, disorganized efforts of a mob to a systematic, methodical program of the Roman Empire.  At that time, Clement of Rome, in his first letter to the Corinthian Christians, offered this prayer for the rulers and governors, “Grant them, Lord, health, peace, harmony, and stability, so that they may give no offense in administering the government you have given them.”

Our problem is not on the outside, but on the inside.  In answer to the question, “What is wrong with our nation?”  my answer is “Me!”

Our problem is not that we have a secular state, but that we have a secular church.

Our problem is not that we have unholy leaders, but that we have unholy Christians.

Our problem not that we cannot have Christian prayer at a school board meeting, but that Christians have not prayed for the school board. 

Our problem is not that we have removed the nativity scene from the courthouse, but that Christ is not incarnate in the church.

Our problem is not that the men and women in the halls of power do not pray to our God, but that the people of God do not pray for the men and women in the halls of power. 

Our problem is not that we are restrained from expressing our faith in public, but that we are unwilling to share our faith in private.

Our problem is not that our society is deteriorating fast, but that the church has not taken time to fast and pray for our society. 

Our problem is not that some want to remove the tokens of America’s Christian heritage, but that the American Christians are often little more than a token of faith.

Our problem is not that some leaders will not endorse a national day of prayer, but that Christians seem only able to pray for their leaders on one day.

Our problem is not that there is an absence of God in the functions of government, but that there is an absence of God in the functions of the Church.

Our problem is not that the government is full of self seeking, greedy, and controlling people, but that the church is full of people seeking their own agenda, protecting their religious turf, and unconcerned with the world at large. 

I am the problem, and the only answer is repentance and turning from self to love and serve God and man.