I have never found it easy to preach to congregations I do not know. I much prefer to be at home in the pulpit with my own congregation, with the people who know me. This section from John Stott explains why I feel that way.
“Though you have many countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel” (1 Cor.4:14). The metaphor of father for the preacher highlights his love and gentleness. Preaching involves a personal relationship between preacher and congregation.
“The preacher needs to be pastor, so that he may preach to real men. The pastor must be a preacher, that he may keep the dignity of his work alive. The preacher who is not a pastor, grows remote. The pastor who is not a preacher, grows petty.” (Phillips Brooks). He will find that his sermons to some extent express, and are determined by, the relationship which he enjoys with his people. He is their father; they his children.
Love is the chief quality of a father to which the apostle refers when he uses the metaphor to illustrate his ministry – not a soft and sickly sentimentality, but a strong unselfish love which cares and which is not incompatible with discipline. In what ways may we expect this love to manifest itself?
First, a father’s love will make us understanding in our approach. The people of the congregation to whom we preach have many problems, intellectual, moral, personal, domestic.
“You must root your preaching in reality, remembering that the people before you have problems – doubts, fears and anxieties gnawing at their faith. Your problem and mine is to get behind the conventional fronts that sit row upon row in the pews.” (Peter Marshall) Too much of our preaching is academic and theoretical; we need to bring it down into the practical realities of everyday life. It is not enough to give an accurate exposition of some passage of the Word of God if we do not relate it to the actual needs of men. This is the fascination of preaching – applying God’s Word to man’s need. The preacher should be as familiar with man in his world as he is with God. But the question is how we can come to understand the problems which are perplexing and burdening the people we serve? The simple answer is: by love. A father labors to understand his children as they grow up. He cares about them so deeply that he will do his utmost to enter into their hopes and fears, their weaknesses and their difficulties. So too a preacher, if he loves his people with a father’s love, will take time and trouble to discover what their problems are. The minister usually leads a sheltered life. He may know something about home life, but he has probably had no experience of business life. He has never had to face ethical decisions, the pressures, the competition, the relationships with colleagues, the strain, the daily travel to and from the office, which are the common lot of the businessman. As likely or not, the congregation are aware of this, and are quite convinced that their minister does not understand their difficulties. He talks glibly about the Christian life and Christian witness. But has he ever had to stand alone as a Christian in an office or store or factory with no fellowship with other Christians? It really is of the greatest importance that we think ourselves into the situation in which our people find themselves; that we identify ourselves with them in their sorrows, responsibilities and perplexities; and that we do not live, or appear to them to live, in a remote ivory tower. Such an estrangement between preacher and congregation is most harmful to the proclamation and to the reception of the message. Speakers and hearers are not on the same wave length.
How can we effect a rapprochement? For one thing, we shall have to read books, magazines and newspapers, not only to deepen our knowledge of human nature in general, put in particular to get to know how people live and think. And we shall let people talk to us. Listen to people as we meet with them. Love will help the preacher to be understanding in his approach not only because he will then take the trouble to get to know his people and their problems, but also because he will be the better able to appreciate them when he knows them. Love, the unselfish care which longs to understand and so to help, is one of the greatest secrets of communication. It is when the preacher loves his people, that they are likely to say of him, ‘He understands us’.
Secondly, a father’s love will make us gentle in our manner. So many of us are naturally brusque and rough-handed. By temperament we are neither meek nor sensitive. Yet the true father, whatever his character may be like and however strict a disciplinarian he may be, shows a certain tenderness towards his children. His love makes him gentle (Matt.11:29; 2 Cor.10:1; 1Thess.2:7; 2 Tim.2:24,25).
“Dr. Parker repeated again and again, ‘Preach to broken hearts!’ And here is the testimony of Ian Maclaren: ‘The chief end of preaching is comfort.’ Dr. Dale, ‘People want to be comforted. They need consolation – really need it, and do not merely long for it.’”
Thirdly, a father’s love will make us simple in our teaching. With what patient simplicity does a father spell out the alphabet to his child! He humbles himself to the child’s level. If we love them, our objective will not be to impress them with our learning, but to help them with theirs. “To make easy things hard is everyman’s work; but to make hard things easy is the work of a great preacher. (James Ussher) Simplicity in preaching begin with our subject-matter. We shall need to spend most of our time expounding the central themes of the gospel; the more abstruse matters of prophecy, and questions of controversial or speculative character we can well afford to leave on one side. To a simple subject and a simple style add simple words. And we must keep clear of jargon. If we are wise, we shall take nothing for granted. Use pictorial language to visualize what we are talking about. Then let us not be afraid of appealing to people’s power of imagination.
Fourthly, a father’s love will make us earnest in our appeal. A father who loves, cares; and a father who cares will not hesitate to use entreaty if he has cause for anxiety about his children. Just as the father warns his children of danger, the faithful preacher will sometimes preach of sin, judgment and hell. It is no mark of love to leave them alone in their peril (1 Thess.1:10). “The true function of the preacher is to disturb the comfortable and to comfort the disturbed.” (Chad Walsh) We have already thought about men’s need of comfort, as there is so much to disturb us in these days. But there are others who are not disturbed when they should be. They are self-satisfied and self-sufficient. They feel no need for God and have no thought of judgment and eternal destiny. Can we abandon them in their fool’s paradise?
Fifthly, a father’s love will make us consistent in our example (1 Pet.5:2,3). “A practical doctrine must be practically preached. We must study as hard how to live well as how to preach well.” (Richard Baxter)
Sixthly, a father’s love will make us conscientious in our prayers. We must pray for those to whom we preach. Praying and preaching go hand in hand. This is the balanced ministry to ‘devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word’ (Acts 6:4).
THE PREACHER’S PORTRAIT, John Stott.
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