Great post on Desiring God about the danger of an overly polished sermon having the ability to impress the hearers without ever convicting them with the content.
What I saw this week is that Whitefield’s gifts of “eloquence” pose the very problem I must deal with at the NatCon. He was so good, you could like his sermon while not believing a thing he says.
For example, in the spring of 1740 Whitefield was in Philadelphia preaching outdoors to thousands. Benjamin Franklin attended most of these messages. Franklin, who did not believe what Whitefield was preaching, commented on these perfected sermons:
His delivery…was so improved by frequent repetition, that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turned, and well placed, that without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse: a pleasure of much the same kind with that received from an excellent piece of music. (emphasis added) (Harry Stout, The Divine Dramatist, 104)
Here was preaching that was so well-delivered you could like it enough to ignore it’s convicting truths.
Adrian Warnock interviewed John Piper while he was in Wales for New Word Alive. The interview is available in four video segments:
HT: Desiring God
The great challenge of the preacher is to follow Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:5, “What we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.”
But there are more ways to preach ourselves than one might think. This word from James Denney has exerted a sobering effect on me since I first read it in 1982. He had these words framed and posted in the vestry of his Scottish church.
No man can bear witness to Christ and to himself at the same time. No man can give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save. (Quoted in John Stott, Between Two Worlds, 325)
(HT: Desiring God)
From one of the best books on preaching that I [John Piper] know comes this word on the danger of pride in us preachers:
Pride is without doubt the chief occupational hazard of the preacher. It I has ruined many, and deprived their ministry of power…. In some it is blatantly obvious. They are exhibitionists by temperament and use the pulpit as a stage on which they show off…. Other preachers are not like Nebuchadnezzars, however, for their pride does not take the form of blatant boastfulness. It is more subtle, more insidious, and even more perverse. For it is possible to adopt an outward demeanor of great meekness, while inside our appetite for applause is insatiable. At the very moment when in the pulpit we are extolling the glories of Christ, we can in reality be seeking our own glory, and when we are exhorting the congregation to praise God, and are even ostensibly leading them in praise, we can be secretly hoping that they will spare a bit of praise for us. We need to cry out with Baxter, “O what a constant companion, what a tyrannical commander, what a sly, subtle and insinuating enemy is this sin of pride!” (John Stott, Between Two Worlds, 320-321)
from Desiring God
Here are some notes from John Piper’s talk (“Why I Trust the Scriptures.”) at the Resurgence conference.
Notes
