Monthly Archives: May 2016

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Preaching & Piety

Preaching and Piety

“It is, perhaps, an overbold beginning, but I will venture to say that with its preaching Christianity stands or falls.” So began P.T. Forsyth when he delivered the Lyman Beecher lectures at Yale University in 1907. Trepidation may have constrained the Scottish theologian as he stood in the throes of New England modernity, but we can confidently acquit him from the charge of being “overbold.” He simply read his Bible well.

Preaching Has Power

God’s word tells us the Christian life is, this side of heaven, is lived “by faith, not by sight.” In other places we are told, “Faith comes by hearing,” and “anything that does not proceed from faith is sin.” Because faith is central, we can boldly declare preaching to be central. For preaching is the ordinary means by which God awakens cold, crusty, and callous hearts to breathe in the grace of faith. Preaching is the chariot that carries Christ to sinners’ bosoms and breasts. It is the spiritual sword God uses to assault hell’s gates and ruin Satan’s strongholds. The Sun of Righteousness dawns upon the earth in His heralded word to harden clay hearts and melt icy souls. Preaching convicts, illuminates, rebukes, encourages, and enlivens the soul.

Power for Piety

It is then, perhaps, my overbold beginning to say that with its preaching Christian spirituality stands or falls. There is a direct correlation between the substance of preaching and the promotion of spirituality. Our Lord Jesus proved this to be true when He asked the Father to sanctify His people in truth. Hearing God’s truth sanctifies God’s people. Preaching promotes piety. Do you want to know what a church believes theologically? Listen to her preachers. Do you want to know what a congregation confesses about spirituality? Sit in on the sermon.

Not only do Scripture and experience bear witness to the correlation between preaching and piety, church history does as well. Memorial plaques of mighty preachers line the hallowed halls of our faith. These were preachers who compelled particular visions of spirituality. In this hall we hear of Chrysostom’s zeal, Augustine’s understanding, Patrick’s earnestness, Bernard’s compassion, Calvin’s reformation, Edwards’ learnedness, Whitefield’s affection, M’Cheyne’s love, and Spurgeon’s power.

What Kind?

If my thesis is true—that there is clear link between a church’s preaching and piety—we pastors have here a reason for stop and stare at our spirituality. Not just our individual spirituality, but our corporate life as well. We should often ask (however painful it always is), “What marks our church’s life together? Where are we strong? Where are we struggling?” Honest examination is good for the soul. Honest evaluation is always needed. The point of this brief post is that how you answer those questions reveals much about your church’s pulpit ministry.

What kind of piety does your preaching promote?

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A Sermon for the Ages

edwards

Every once in a while, it seems, you read something and know you’ll never forget it. That happened to me this week.

Yesterday, I finished a doctoral seminar on Jonathan Edwards at The Institution. One of the required readings was Edwards’ sermon entitled, “The Excellency of Christ.” Dr. Nettles (who led the seminar) said this sermon “is the best thing written in the English language.” “Hyperbole!” you cry. “Possibly,” I reply. But I’m prepared to join Dr. Nettles’ cause. For outside of Holy Scripture, I’ve never read anything so soul-stunning and holy-affections-generating as this message. Here is Edwards’ heart for Christ written in ink. Here is doctrinal preaching at its finest. Here is biblical meditation at its zenith. Here is a fearfully deep reach into the unsearchable riches of our Savior.

Consider this paragraph taken from Edwards’ encouragement “to accept of Jesus, and close with him as your Savior”:

And here is not only infinite strength and infinite worthiness, but infinite condescension, and love and mercy, as great as power and dignity. If you are a poor, distressed sinner, whose heart is ready to sink for fear that God never will have mercy on you, you need not be afraid to go to Christ, for fear that he is either unable or unwilling to help you. Here is a strong foundation, and an inexhaustible treasure, to answer the necessities of your poor soul, and here is infinite grace and gentleness to invite and embolden a poor, unworthy, fearful soul to come to it. If Christ accepts of you, you need not fear but that you will be safe, for he is a strong Lion for your defense. And if you come, you need not fear but that you shall be accepted; for he is like a Lamb to all that come to him, and receives then with infinite grace and tenderness. It is true he has awful majesty, he is the great God, and infinitely high above you; but there is this to encourage and embolden the poor sinner, that Christ is man as well as God; he is a creature, as well as the Creator, and he is the most humble and lowly in heart of any creature in heaven or earth. This may well make the poor unworthy creature bold in coming to him. You need not hesitate one moment; but may run to him, and cast yourself upon him. You will certainly be graciously and meekly received by him. Though he is a lion, he will only be a lion to your enemies, but he will be a lamb to you. It could not have been conceived, had it not been so in the person of Christ, that there could have been so much in any Savior, that is inviting and tending to encourage sinners to trust in him. Whatever your circumstances are, you need not be afraid to come to such a Savior as this. Be you never so wicked a creature, here is worthiness enough; be you never so poor, and mean, and ignorant a creature, there is no danger of being despised, for though he be so much greater than you, he is also immensely more humble than you. Any one of you that is a father or mother, will not despise one of your own children that comes to you in distress: much less danger is there of Christ’s despising you, if you in your heart come to him.

Read the whole sermon here and let me know what you think.

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Every Pastor is a Writer

The Pastor's Writing

Sometime during third grade our class had a writing contest. The contest was one of description. Our teacher made each student look at some object in the room and make it come alive on the page. The teacher then picked the best two submissions. The winners went to an all-expense paid “Future Writer’s Workshop.” The teacher—Mrs. Yoke, as I recall—happened to pick my paper and I promptly declared to my parents that I would be a writer when I grew up.

I still hope to grow up and be an author. I have a folder on my computer titled, “Books to Be Written.” Hundreds of thousands of words are in that folder. And not a single one has been published. Only the Lord knows if one will ever be published.

“Stop Longing and Listen,” He Says to Me

There are times when I pray for a bit of margin to slam out a book proposal or polish off that manuscript. I long to make good on that third-grade declaration of future occupation. It’s in those moments, however, that I often sense an inspired voice saying, “You already are a writer. Remember 2 Corinthians 3:1-3.” There the Untimely Apostle says, “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”

Oh, the comforts of Scripture! God calls every pastor to be a writer.

Real, But Unreadable Writing

For the next two weeks, I’m at The Institution working on a couple of Ph.D. seminars. I will speak with professors who publish books as often as Messi puts the ball in the back of the net. I will be around other students who are under contract with a publisher or have just published a book. Literary ambition is palpable around these halls. I confess I often get caught up in it all.

So, think of this short post as nothing more than an exercise in personal reminding. God doesn’t hold his servants accountable to writing pages for reading. He holds us accountable to writing real books, but books you can’t read. The congregation’s life in Christ is the book we write. The families we shepherd are the chapters. The individuals we oversee are the paragraphs.

The pastor has three pens he must wield in this work: word, sacrament, and prayer. These ordinary means are how the pastor writes on hearts—they are our Spirit-wrought epistolary tools. We wield this spiritual quill and ink unto exhaustion. Here we agonize with all God’s energy that he powerfully works within us. Here we write.

In Praise of Pastor-Writers

Maybe you are like me—you hope to publish a book eventually. Or maybe that sounds as enjoyable to you as watching turtles race.

Whatever your literary ambition is, God’s word unites us all in this spiritual writing ministry. Every pastor must be a writer. We should say, “Every pastor is already a writer.“ The great question is, “What spiritual book are we writing?” Let us desire, with Paul, to say to our churches, “You are Christ’s letter.”

We write Christ.

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Pastoral Ministry & Old Paths

Old Paths

“Pay careful attention to how you walk,” the Untimely Apostle said. The days are evil and few. Slippery slopes abound, so Christians must pay attention. When it comes to walking there is something comforting about an old path. The weeds have long been trampled out. The path itself was cut ages ago and has thus become nearly one with the earth.

Ah, yes. The glory of old paths.

Walking on Pastoral Paths

Pastors must pay peculiar attention to their path. If they are faithful, they will usually lead from the front. The sheep trail behind hearing the shepherd’s voice, following with trust and care. Therefore, a wise pastor won’t choose a path marked, “Contemporary,” “Culturally Relevant,” or, “Fresh.” Such things—especially in our day—are about as sturdy as an egg’s resistance to a boulder. Faddish paths tend to leave egg on the face. Wise pastors will instead choose paths of pastoral practice well trod by great men of old.

Where can we find such paths? In the books of old.

Three Glories of Old Paths

I tend to read any new book on pastoral ministry that shows up from a reliable publisher. The modern books on pastoral ministry usually only serve to increase my pining for the old ones. Maybe I’m just a soul aged before my time. Or maybe there is something different about an old book. In fact, I’d argue there are three peculiar advantages to reading earlier works on pastoral ministry:

  • Dignity. Our culture’s obsession (many a church’s obsession, as well) with casual authenticity is systematically destroying something God says every one of his elders must have: dignity. The old men radiated dignity in life, love, faith, and purity.
  • Gravity. This second point is a natural consequence of the first. My personal definition of dignity, after all, is the gravity attending godliness. There is a gravity in the old writings on ministry absent from today’s works. Pastoral ministry was serious business. Eternity hung in the balance. The pulpit was the sacred desk, not a bar table to sit behind. The prayer closet was real. The study was his home.
  • Maturity. This, for me, is probably the greatest reason to read the old books. Modern books on ministry are full of biblical awareness and personal experience. But they lack what I call “piercedness.” In my view, the new books don’t pierce like the old ones because they often come from young pastoral pens. Let me listen to a man who is decades into the ministry. Such a man has seen much and so can say much. He has piercing views in the heart. He pierces through the chaff and gives us the blessed wheat for ministry.

To the 19th Century We Go

Let me thus suggest a few 19th–century books on pastoral ministry for pastors to read. I have a theory as to why the 1800s produced such excellent reflections on ministry, but I’ll leave that for another time. Four old, trustworthy, and proven paths for ministry are:

0875521649mWords to Winners of Souls by Horatius Bonar. Bonar gets the first nod because he unleashes conviction aplenty in less than one hundred pages. This is a book you can—and probably should—reread every year.

9780851510873mThe Christian Ministry by Charles Bridges. Simply the best book on pastoral ministry yet written. It comes in second only because of its length (400 pages) being off-putting to some today.

0851518931mPrinceton and Preaching: Archibald Alexander and the Christian Ministry by James Garretson. Oh, how I wish this one got more press! It’s far too underrated. Here’s your opportunity to sit in a seminary class on ministry with Alexander. It may be the most useful class you ever take.

41sqaNuDw7L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_Pastoral Theology by Thomas Murphy. Murphy’s work is essentially his rehashing of Archibald Alexander’s teaching. This work cuts to the quick and is astonishingly expansive. It’s also available for free online.