philopreachy

Dug up one of my papers that I had to write on my philosophy towards preaching in my final semester. It was a good reminder for myself.

"I have been asking myself this question for the past few years — why do we need preaching? What is the end goal of preaching? Having grown up in church the moment I was born, I have heard or been exposed to at least 821 sermons, not including the ones I heard when I was in my mother’s womb. But of these 821 sermons, I can only remember being impacted by less than 20 of them. And out of these 20, some impacted me because of how bad they were. I have also wondered about the pulpit joke favourite that just 15 minutes after a church-goer listens to a sermon, the retention rate of the sermon goes down by 25%. Thirty minutes later, 50% remains, and once lunch is done, 5% or none are left. Sadly, I have found this true of my youths, and even myself. During the preaching itself, I have observed the attitudes and postures of both myself and those around me. When the preacher is unable to capture the audience, a few things happen — fidgeting, daydreaming, dozing, and gaming. But when the preacher manages to capture the audience, it does not mean that what is preached is always faithfully expository. In the church where I grew up, the almost-lecture-like sermon is widely celebrated by the vocal majority (an intellectual crowd), yet on the ground few are actually able to follow the sermon, and these people fall through the cracks. And going by the reactions of the intellectuals, I see little affectual impact on them, apart from them relating mentally (complication goes further when intellectuals are also post-modern/post-literates). I have come across too few preachers who have been able to balance the two well; even so, there is such a wide spread of types in the congregation — so how are we able to capture all fronts — effectually and affectually — whilst remaining faithful to the Text? It is such a immense task and art to do so indeed. 

But back to the deeper question: Why do we need sermons to be preached? In the first place, what is the place of preaching in the church — starting from the Biblical times? 

The first time an idea of a “preacher” appears in the Bible is in Ecclesiastes, where the Hebrew noun, Qohelet (קֹחֶלֶת) is translated in English as “the Preacher”. The HALOT definition of this word is leader or “speaker of the assembly”, from the root verb קחל, which means “to assemble, call together, meet together”. In Ecclesiastes we see that the Preacher brings us on a lengthy discourse of life using wise sayings, the Torah, proverbs, self-reflection. Even in Ecc 12:9-10, it is noted that the Preacher also “taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs with great care. The Preacher sought to find words of delight and uprightly he wrote words of truth”. In fact, other references to “preach” (נתף) in the Old Testament are sparingly found in the prophets and appear to carry the meaning “to drivel, foam at the mouth”, a metaphor of prophesying ecstatically. The prophesy that is heralded contains "Word of the LORD" (cf. Jer 1:1, 4; Mi 1:1; Mal 1:1; Eze 13:1 etc) and this is also being "drivel-ed" precisely because it is a message the LORD wants the people to hear — with a response required. In the New Testament, “preaching” is translated from the Greek word κήρυγμα (kergyma), which according to BDAG is also similar to κηρύσσω, which means “to make an official announcement”, or “make public declarations”. Jesus was proclaiming the Good News (Luke 4:18-19) and teaching Scripture in synagogues and also among the crowds, and the disciples in Acts stood up in the midst of those gathered to explain the Word of God (cf. Acts 2:16-36; 3:12-26 etc), very specifically "teaching the people and proclaiming  in Jesus the resurrection from the dead". Paul’s letters also take on a homiletic nature as he addresses issues regarding heretics and various theological themes using the rhetorics of his day that adopts the Aristotlean rhetoric of ethos (character of the speaker), logos (content of the speech) and pathos (connection to the listener). In biblical times, then, we can first have a preliminary understanding that preaching in the OT involves preaching to a congregation of people the word of God to exhort and put forth a call to action, i.e. repentance in Nineveh, "turn back" in Jeremiah; or proclaim imminent judgment or warn of potential judgment — and in the NT involves mainly explaining the Scriptures to show how Jesus fulfils Scripture with His resurrection from the dead, or as a form of apologetic or exhortation. What is common is also the presence of a call and response, brought forth by a messenger and carried forward by its recipient.

Moving to the early church fathers briefly, as the Bible was canonised it was only available in Latin, hence only those who were trained were able to read and expound on it. Preaching especially in an illiterate society perhaps took on a top-down approach; the Preacher of the Scripture had ascribed authority, and the allegorical preaching styles of the likes of Augustine  and even Spurgeon filtered down to the masses, yet that was largely accepted. However, I do recognise that they spoke with their understanding of Scripture and context, and would not be too quick to immediately put their preachings down. I grew up with the preaching style of lecture-like, verse-by-verse exposition style, which is most common among Singaporean Presbyterian churches. With the Presbyterian church being one of the oldest traditional forms of Christianity, it is no surprise that such a preaching style remains the same. Yet Sunday school and Bible studies have become prevalent in today’s post-literate Singaporean society, I find that such a type of preaching only continues to reinforce what is in the head but not what is in the heart. The need of preaching, then, seems to exist not really to take the function of teaching per se, but through the presentation of the Word edify and build a group of people/congregation when it gathers corporally. Preaching is also largely done by people who hold a certain authority in the ecclesiastical life, equipped and gifted to do so; it addresses an observed need and invites a response. David Wells states that ministers are to be able to “expound the Word of God and bring its truth into vital relation with the modern world in such a way that moral character is formed and Christian wisdom results”. He or she should “bring the congregation into the presence of God through His truth and by His Spirit”. Since there is a message that is to be brought across meaningfully, preaching may hence also take place in a variety of forms, as long as faithful exegesis is done beforehand, and edification and building up of the people of God in a congregational setting is the aim.

After exploring the above, these are three main thoughts I arrived at that will form my first, still-developing philosophies as a budding preacher:

Firstly, a Preacher teaches behind the pulpit, preaches from the pulpit, and reaches off the pulpit. We would usually reckon authority to the place of the pulpit, a platform or raised structure — in spatial terms, a place that lifts one up in authority, and in this sense, also the Word. The Preacher who “teaches behind the pulpit” is one whose teaching authority lies behind the Word, allowing the Word to lead him or her, and not vice versa. The Preacher “preaches from the pulpit”, bringing forth the Word of God, and “reaches off the pulpit” reminds one not to purely be staying on a high position of authority but to also reach the congregation and walk and talk with them to know and attend to their needs. As Ravi Zacharias said, “Yes, if truth is not undergirded by love, it make the possessor of that truth obnoxious and the truth repulsive”. The Preacher needs to be known not just as a possessor of truth, but one who truly loves.

Secondly, preaching includes teaching but teaching is not preaching. As I was wrestling to figure out the difference between the two, it came to mind that perhaps preaching includes faithful exegesis of the Word, but does not necessarily plainly present the exegesis itself. Preaching, if I may, is like performing a piece of classical music. It flows as one song as the pianist plays, after the pianist has on his or her own gone through the interpretation of the written score, practiced the technical aspects of piece (often in parts), then putting the entire piece together and presenting it to an audience. The pianist does not explicitly tell the audience how the technical aspects are applied during the piece, yet the audience is able to enjoy the piece as expressed by the pianist. In the same way, preaching presents to the congregation careful exegesis, interpretation and crafting of a sermon, then presents the message to the Church today. A well-written tune is also a memorable tune that speaks to the audience, albeit the Christian melody goes one step further to reveal God through Christ. There is a caveat here, however: to be able to understand (and therefore appreciate) a piece of music, it is necessary for the audience to be educated on how to listen. Otherwise, the music may become very subjective and the audience will only tune in to what they enjoy. The nuances and technicalities that allows one to understand and properly appreciate different types of music will be lost. In the same way, if the Church does not know how to listen to a sermon, they may end up only wanting to be entertained — if they come across a sermon that does not suit their liking, they will not be able to chew on the meat and spit the bones out. There will also be little desire to be able to articulate why and how the sermon preaches to them, and hence little motivation to respond concretely.

Finally, to summarise with a final, rather flawed attempt to describe the part of preaching in the Body of Christ (I do intend to falsely dichotomise the mind and the heart but just for analogy’s sake): Preaching is the brain’s work to inform ears of the Church (where the Holy Spirit indwells); it hits the heart and the head of her Body and leads her to behold the glory of God, smell the fragrance of Christ, and in turn speak forth the Word of God into the world, move her hands to do justice and feet to walk after Christ.


May the Lord continue to guide me and be my wisdom in all of life."

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