I remember hearing an interview with Carl Trueman about Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book Preaching and Preachers.

In it, he said, “Half of the book is brilliant, and half of it is completely bonkers. . . . Lloyd-Jones has these sections where he talks about ‘unction.’ And these things have gripped a variety of people who have read this book. Lloyd-Jones talks about going into the pulpit on some days, and he’s flying. He’s got unction. Other days he goes into the pulpit and the unction just isn’t there. My experience has been that I can go into the pulpit and think that I am flying, and a lot of people think I’ve preached a complete clunker. . . . I’ve become aware that how I respond to the sermon is no guide for how the congregation responds. I have a feeling that Lloyd-Jones is confusing—dare I say it—‘carnal response’ to his sermons with the action of the Holy Spirit.”

I understand what Truman is saying. Preachers are not infallible interpreters of how their sermon goes. In my ministry, it’s common to think I preached an excellent sermon only to discover the majority found it ho-hum. It’s also frequent to believe my sermon was a disaster only to find out it helped an enormous swath of the congregation. Dr. Trueman is right on this point.

But we should not throw out the notion of unction altogether. It’s in the Scriptures. Church history testifies to its reality.

Defining the Indescribable

Part of the problem in discussion unction relates to how we define it. Its nature makes it almost ineffable. As Alexandre Vinet, the French preacher, said, “Unction is felt, and known by experience; it cannot be analyzed. It produces its impression secretly, and without the aid of reflection. It is communicated in simplicity, and received in the same manner by the heart, into which the warmth of the preacher passes. Ordinarily, it produces its effect without awakening our consciousness of its presence, and without our being able to render a reason to ourselves of the impression which it has produced upon us. We feel,—we experience,—we are moved,—we can hardly assign a reason, why.”

To say the experience of spiritual power in preaching is hard to describe is different than saying it’s impossible to describe. There are multiple places in Scripture where we discover what happens when the Spirit falls on a preacher.

5 Marks of Unction

As I read the Bible, there are at least five things that can be true when the Spirit arrives with unusual force in the preaching. Unction doesn’t mean all five happen at once. More often than not, it may be more like a momentary combination of a couple of these points.

Unction enflames the preacher. The Spirit falls on the apostles in Acts 2 and tongues of fire fly over them. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus’ teaching strangely warmed the hearts of the disciples (Luke 24:32). YHWH commissions Jeremiah and says, “Behold, I am making my words in your mouth a fire” (Jer. 5:14). No doubt, this enflaming passion came to mark Jeremiah’s ministry, as he said, “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (Jer. 20:9).

Unction gives the preacher a sense of unworthiness. God’s spirit is the Spirit of holiness (Rom. 1:4). When the Spirit falls, there is inevitably a sense of one’s unworthiness. The preacher’s disposition is that of Isaiah, who cried, “Woe is me!” (Isa. 6:5). To preach about Christ’s salvation and man’s sin without any pathos, without any sense of an affected heart, is to preach the Good News without the Spirit.

Unction stamps the preacher with the seal of God’s authority. John Owen, in a sermon titled, “The Duty of a Pastor,” said authority is required of God’s preachers. He asks, “What is authority in a preaching ministry? It is a consequent of unction, and not of office. The scribes had an outward call to teach in the church; but they had no unction, no anointing, that could evidence they had the Holy Ghost in his gifts and graces. Christ had no outward call; but he had an unction.” Remember the times when Jesus’ preaching left the crows and religious leaders marveling, for he spoke “as one who had authority” (e.g., Matt. 7:28–29).

Unction provides unprepared-for clarity. Sermon preparation is often little more than working for clarity in exposition and application. But there are times in preaching when unexpected clarity comes. You say something better than you thought you would. An unanticipated logic flies from your lips. That’s the Spirit’s work! Jesus told his disciples that times would come when persecution would require extemporaneous preaching. He comforted them by saying, “When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:11–12).

Unction brings boldness related to the matters of eternity. Courage in preaching Christ might be the most common facet of unction. Trace out the theme of boldness in Acts 4 and see what this meant for the apostles’ ministry. In Acts 4:13, the religious leaders “saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” In 4:29, the believers pray in the face of opposition, “Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.” The prayer is answered through the Spirit, as Acts 4:31 says, “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” Sinclair Ferguson says,

“The hallmark of the preaching which the Spirit effects is ‘boldness’. . . As in the Old Testament, when the Spirit fills the servant of God he ‘clothes himself’ with that person, and aspects of the Spirit’s authority are illustrated in the courageous declaration of the word of God. This boldness appears to involve exactly what it denotes: there is freedom of speech. We catch occasional glimpses of this in the Acts of the Apostles. What was said of the early New England preacher Thomas Hooker becomes a visible reality: when he preached, those who heard him felt that he could pick up a king and put him in his pocket!”

How Do We Get It

The five points above give shape to how we understand unction. But how do we pursue it? That’s what we’ll think about in Part 2.

An admission is in order: this post’s title has a fair amount of tongue in its cheek. Countless texts compete for the title’s reward. I mean for the title’s cheekiness to provoke examination—particularly among pastors.

“What Verse,” You Say?

The text I have in mind is Colossians 3:16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Its twin is Ephesians 5:19, where Paul commands being filled in the Spirit, which means—in part—”addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.”

For this post, I’m leaving aside historical arguments that “hymns and spiritual songs” are also references to biblical psalms. I’m not urging exclusive psalmody, but I am arguing for inclusive psalmody. I am simply stating, on the basis of Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:19, that God expects His churches to sing the psalms from His word. What do you think? Is that a fair declaration? I believe so.

Yet, how many evangelical churches today sing the Psalms?

The Lay of the Land

I recently saw a pastor of a massive and influential church say, “Let the Psalter the be the soundtrack of your life.” However, ne’er is a psalm sung in his church’s gathered worship.

The pastor’s declaration and his church’s reality reveal two things I see in evangelical churches today.

First, we have seen a genuine resurgence of devotion to the Psalms. Praise the Lord! I first began to notice this when, in 2008, Union University (a Baptist institution, mind you) hosted a conference on psalm-singing. A few years later, B&H (a Baptist press, mind you) published the addresses as Forgotten Songs: Reclaiming the Psalms for Christian Worship. As is often the case, developments in the academy take a few years to seep into ordinary churches. The much-voiced call for restoring lament in the church’s life (e.g., Rejoicing in Lament) is a consequence of the revived focus on the psalms. So too is Donald Whitney’s work Praying the Bible, which exhorts Christians, “when you pray, pray a passage of Scripture, particularly a psalm.”

Second, precious few churches today sing the Psalms in corporate worship. I’m optimistic that more and more churches will start singing psalms. My experience and observation are that precious few churches are doing so at the moment.

I live in a bastion of the Bible-belt. “Evangelical” churches occupy many corners in my community. There are three mega-churches within five minutes of my home and another dozen smaller congregations. You’d never expect to sing a psalm at any of them on a Sunday.

Lest you think I’m only pointing the finger at other ecclesiastical traditions, let me turn it back on myself. The church I pastor is a member of the PCA. More than anything else, Redeemer’s identity in the presbytery and community is that of a traditional-liturgical church. Any person who knows anything about the history of Presbyterian worship knows that psalm-singing is among our most distinctive features. I attended Redeemer consistently for eight months before being called as senior minister. Although it had a history of sporadic psalm-singing in the past, we never sang a psalm over those eight months. I wonder many Presbyterian churches today likewise have forgotten our biblically-informed tradition.

One of the first adjustments I made to our worship at Redeemer was reintroducing the Psalms for singing. We now sing at least one psalm every week, and it is a delight to hear God’s people sing God’s word.

A Sad Irony

In our zeal against exclusive psalmody, perhaps we have inadvertently promoted exclusive hymnody—or as one brother I know put it, “exclusive chorusody.”

Too many of our churches today are ignoring God’s hymnbook, which has been at the heart of every major branch of Christianity’s worship tradition. Let us repent of loving to sing our words more than God’s words. Let us pray for the ample and regular singing of psalms—along with Scripturally-sound hymns—in our gathered worship services.

Resourcing Recovery and Reform

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Whenever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure vanishes from the Christian church. With its recovery will come unsuspected power.” John Chrysostom, that golden-mouthed preacher, asked,

Do you wish to be happy? Do you want to know how to spend the day truly blessed? I offer you a drink that is spiritual. This is not a drink for drunkenness that would cut off even meaningful speech. This does not cause us to babble. It does not disturb our vision. Here it is: Learn to sing Psalms! Then you will see pleasure indeed. Those who have learned to sing with the psalms are easily filled with the Holy Spirit.

Every gospel pastor longs for Christ’s word to dwell deeply in his church. Every pastor prays for Christ’s spirit to fill the church. Singing psalms is one of God’s ordained means for both blessings to grow in your congregation.

Here are some resources pastors can use for further study:¹

• C. Richard Wells and Ray Van Neste, editors, Forgotten Songs: Reclaiming the Psalms for Christian Worship is the product of the 2008 series at Union University exploring the Psalms.
• John Witvliet’s The Biblical Psalms in Christian Worship: A Brief Introduction and Guide to Resources is a treasure. Witvliet surveys all of the significant Christian communions, other than Eastern Orthodoxy, concerning the use of the Psalter in worship. His resource lists are focused and substantial. Pastors should continue to watch for psalm-singing resources from the Witvliet-directed Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.
• John Witvliet, Martin Tel & Joyce Borger’s Psalms for all Seasons: A Complete Psalter for Worship covers “the history, reception, and practice of psalm use and contains all 150 psalms, most in multiple formats.”
• Anthony Selvaggio and Joel Beeke, editors, Sing a New Song: Recovering Psalm Singing for the Twenty-First Century. Multiple contributors from Presbyterian and Reformed churches cover psalm- singing in Scripture and church history. They strongly argue for the place of the Psalter in the worship of the church. The essays are short, well-written, and focused on the life of the church. Study groups and worship committees would do well to read this together.

Some shorter pieces encouraging the singing of Psalms in corporate worship:

• Terry Johnson’s essay in honor of James Montgomery Boice, “Restoring Psalm Singing to Our Worship” in Give Praise to God: A Vision for Reforming Worship demonstrates that even the Presbyterians can have difficulty using the Psalter in worship. Johnson’s concern for Bible-saturated worship is commendable to the People of the Book.
• Old Testament scholar Gordon Wenham answers the question of his chapter titled “What Are We Doing Singing the Psalms?” in his book The Psalter Reclaimed: Praying and Praising with the Psalms. In a few short pages, he ranges over the Bible, church history, speech-act theory, and finally back to the Psalms themselves as he attempts to coax the Christian reader into a psalm-singing frame of mind.

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Andrew Bonar’s Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne is a bonafide spiritual classic.

Consider the following commendations and comments from some of God’s great men:

• “This is one of the best and most profitable volumes ever published. The memoir of such a man ought surely to be in the hands of every Christian and certainly every preacher of the Gospel.” — C. H. Spurgeon
• “That wonderful classic.” — W. Robertson Nicoll
• “I am constantly hearing of the great good that book has been the means of doing.” — Alexander Whyte
• “That converting and sanctifying biography.” — Bishop Handley Moule
• Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s biography written by his friend Andrew Bonar is one of my most treasured possessions and has been a companion throughout almost all of my Christian life. M’Cheyne died when he was twenty-nine, but his life story has been for me personally a model of grace, and his ministry pattern a model for service. It is a book every young Christian man should read—more than once.” — Sinclair B. Ferguson

For my own experience, nothing outside of Scripture has done me so much spiritual good as Bonar’s Memoir.

Something of a Backstory

After M’Cheyne’s death in 1843, his close friends were eager to commission a story of his life and ministry. Because he was M’Cheyne’s closest friend and possessed the required gifts to tell the tale, Bonar was chosen to write the memoir. The Great Disruption of 1843 distracted him for a time—from May through September of that year. When Bonar finally put pen to paper, he wrote with determination, finishing the manuscript only three months later. The result was a volume of 648 pages, 166 of which are Bonar’s original biography. The remainder of the work contains M’Cheyne’s letters, sermon, and miscellaneous treatises.

Once it released, the book sailed off the shelves. The Jewish Herald said the Memoir “commanded a sale almost unprecedented in the annals of religious biography.” Andrew Palmer, who wrote a doctoral thesis on Bonar, says, “Though Bonar could have made a great deal of money from the publication of the Memoir, he received only a very moderate sum, and the copyright was originally secured by the remaining members of M’Cheyne’s family.”

One Author’s Experience

One of the more fascinating observations in my studies on M’Cheyne was Andrew Bonar’s experience in writing the Memoir. Here’s what we find in Bonar’s Diary and Letters about his work on the Memoir and its subsequent reception:

• April 1843: “I am urged to have my Memoir of Robert M’Cheyne ready by the end of the year.”
• September 30, 1843: “Beginning to write Robert M’Cheyne’s Memoir. This fills up all my leisure time.”
• December 23, 1843: “Finished my Memoir of Robert M’Cheyne yesterday morning. Praise, praise to the Lord. I have been praying, “Guide me with Thine eye’ I may soon be gone”; but I am glad that the Lord has permitted me to finish this record of His beloved servant. Yet it humbles me. My heart often sinks in me. Just to-night I saw my soul full of nothing but self, and all that comes forth seems a black stream of selfishness.”
• March 4, 1843: “The Memoir of Robert M’Cheyne is now just about to appear. O that it may be blessed!”
• March 23, 1843: “It was on this day of the week last year, about sunset, that a messenger came and told me of Robert M’Cheyne’s illness. It makes the day very solemn. I have grown little indeed by that providence, though it seemed sent to us for that intention. Several of us are to observe Monday as a season of special prayer and fasting to ask a blessing on the Memoir and the raising up of many holy men.”
• January 4, 1845: “Looking back on last year I feel how awfully little has been done for God. My soul has grown very little. My ministry this year has been little blessed. The Memoir of Robert M’Cheyne and my Tract on Baptism seem to me the chief way in which the Lord has been using me this year to any extent.”
• March 27, 1845: “Received a letter to-day telling me of the blessed effects of Robert M’Cheyne’s Memoir on one in London, in which he refers to the anniversary of his death—the 25th, a day I did not forget. Many tokens have I received of the Lord’s blessing that book. It roused me to thanksgiving, and I began to think that, if I oftener thanked God at the moment, I might oftener hear of His blessing upon my labours. He lets us know in order that we may give praise.”
• December 18, 1846: “I see that the prayers of so many friends who pray for me are, no doubt, the cause of my getting peculiar help in writing the Memoir and then, the [Commentary on] Leviticus, I have often felt things in study so plainly given me, not at all like the products of my own skill, that this is the way in which I account for them. The Lord sends them because of people praying for me.”
• May 1, 1853: “After my Communion I heard of blessing upon the Memoir of Robert M’Cheyne in the case of one in Edinburgh.”
• December 31, 1856: “Encouraged by hearing of a soul awakened through reading Mr. M’Cheyne’s Memoir in
  Guernsey.”
• November 17, 1860: “Got to-night from Holland a Dutch translation of M’Cheyne’s Memoir. Praise the Lord, O my soul, that thus good is done in foreign lands by that book.”
• December 31, 1864: “It is now evening, and just at the close of the most memorable year since the death of Robert M’Cheyne (Bonar’s wife died on October 15th). I shall remember this year, in the ages to come, as the year I came in a special sense into the valley of Baca. My heart still fails me as often as I realize my loss. But, Lord, make my beloved wife’s removal as blessed to me as was the death of Robert M’Cheyne to the public through means of his Memoir.”
• July 13, 1876: “A minister from America cheered me greatly by telling me how M’Cheyne’s Memoir has been used there.”
• August 2, 1884: “Have heard lately oi two cases in which the Memoir of Robert M’Cheyne has been blessed: one here, another in England.”
• July 21, 1891: “Heard to-day that Mr. Sinclair, minister of Kenmore, who translated the Memoir of M’Cheyne into Gaelic, received more than one letter telling that it had been blessed to the reader.”

Lessons Learned

It’s striking to see the place the Memoir occupied in Bonar’s life. For nearly a half-century, words of the book and thoughts about the book were close to his mind.

In reading through Bonar’s notes, two simple spiritual lessons came to my mind. First, how often God works through biography. You don’t have to be an expert in church history to know how a religious portrait launched many mighty men and women into Christ’s service. The nineteenth century was an era in which biographies flourished. Our age has so shunned history that many have lost the desire to learn not just from, but also about the old saints. If the trend continues, it will mean poverty in our piety. We need another generations of pastors and scholars whom the Spirit fuels and fills to right Christ-exalting biography.

Second, the great books fly on the wings of prayer. Bonar comments about how a day of fasting and prayer was set aside before the Memoir went out for sale. Prayer for the book didn’t stop; it continued throughout the years. What we need today are books that have prayerful authors and prayerful readers. Let us pray down God’s blessing on the great books. Let us yearn for God to glorify His name and His Son through the expansion of edifying works throughout the world.

I’ve been the Senior Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church since November of 2017.

I’m married to Emily, and we are the proud parents of six children: Hudson, Owen, Haddon, Knox, Sarah, and Boston. I completed my M.A.R. at Reformed Theological Seminary with a thesis entitled, This is Not the End: Puritans on the Glory of Heaven. I received my Th.M. and Ph.D. from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I also enjoy writing as time allows. My recent work has focused on Robert Murray M’Cheyne. I’ve published A Communion of Love: The Christ-Centered Spirituality of Robert Murray M’Cheyne (Wipf & Stock, 2019), and Love to Christ: The Piety of Robert Murray M’Cheyne (Reformation Heritage, 2020). My next book, A Holy Minister (Christian Focus), arrives in 2021.

Aside from pastoral work, I spend most of my time with my family, reading books, watching soccer, and running on country roads in Anna, TX.

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