My favorite chapter in T. David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Preach is Chapter 4: “A Few Thoughts About Content.” After wrestling with the nature of preaching for 25 years, Gordon has concluded that the content of Christian preaching should be the person, character, and work of Christ. Kind of makes sense. Of course, preaching will included moral exhortation, but it is never appropriate, says Gordon, “for one word of moral counsel ever to proceed from a Christian pulpit that is not clearly, in its context, redemptive. That is, even when the faithful exposition of particular texts require some explanation of aspects of our behavior, it is always to be done in a manner that the hearer perceives such commended behavior to be itself a matter of being rescued from the power of sin through the grace of Christ” (70-71). So much for all our “relevant” messages helping us live more fulfilled lives. So much for emergent kingdom rhetoric that fails to mention the mercy of the King. So much for more than a few of my sermons over the years.
Gordon sees four alternatives to this type of gospel preaching: Moralism, How-To, Introspection, and Social Gospel/Culture War. That is, instead of preaching Christ crucified and the grace of God, we end up preaching “be better” or “here are three steps to being better” or “are you really a Christian?” or “we need to do more to fight the bad guys out there.” It’s not that we can’t do any of this as preachers–Gordon says there is a place for three of the four (everything but the how-to)–but “the pulpit is almost never the place to do this” (91). What must predominate in our preaching is the person, character, and work of Christ. And everything else should manifestly flow from these things. Don’t leave the congregation wondering where grace come in to play. Don’t make them assume you are rooting this application in the person and work of Christ. Connect the glorious dots for them.
Gordon concludes his much-needed rant with some practical advice on how to teach Johnny to preach.
1. Arrange for an annual review. Most pastors don’t know how bad they preach because they’ve never asked anyone and no one has felt bold enough to tell him the truth.
2. Cultivate the sensibility of reading texts closely. Read literature. Try poetry. Read things that are written well and demand careful thought.
3. Cultivate the sensibility of composed communication. Write letters out by hand. Write out your prayers. And I would add, if you blog, don’t settle for sloppy or merely serviceable prose. Try to write well, rather than just writing.
Despite the passion of his lamentation, Gordon asserts time after time that all is not lost. Johnny can learn to preach. But he needs to cultivate the sensibilities to do it. And the congregation needs to give him enough time, or make him take enough time, to craft a sermon that actually deserves to be preached.
The rebuke for us preachers is a good jab, because there’s hope in the rebuke. We don’t need to give up on preaching, or ourselves. We simply need God’s grace to work harder at preaching better and extra grace to live slower, more reflective lives. God will honor his Word when it is thoughtfully, carefully, and humbly delivered. We can trust the Word to do the work. “My challenge to the comtemporaneists and emergents”, says Gordon, “is this: Show me a church where the preaching is good, and yet the church is still moribund. I’ve never seen such a church. The moribund churches I’ve seen have been malpreached to death” (33).
Alright men–time to preach them back to life. Heaven help us.
