Thesis 23 We must preach rather than teach.
I don’t know if it happens at all seminaries, but it happened at the seminary I attended. Seminaries, presumably, are established to prepare men for gospel ministry. But where I went more young men than not were there preparing not to serve in the church, but in the seminary. They came, they looked up to their professors, and they dreamed that one day they too would be professors. Trouble was, precious few of them make it that far. The pressures of families and work cause most who had hoped for an academic career to “settle” for a pastoral one. What tends to console those who “settle” I suspect, is the prospect of having a flock of sheep to serve as a substitute for a classroom of seminarians. These men can pretend to be professors, because they are given, as pastors, a captive audience. The result? Sermons that sound, feel, and act more like lectures than sermons. Preachers who are really teachers. And sheep with swollen heads and shriveled hearts. What we are too often left with is “worship” where we hurry through the preliminaries so we can get to the good stuff, where the pastor downloads his knowledge into the heads of the flock.
We, especially those who us who consider ourselves heirs of the Reformation, have jumped from the wise belief that sound thinking can change our hearts to the foolish notion that sound teaching will automatically change our hearts. We react against the sloppy sentimentalism of the broader evangelical church, where we are told that doctrine divides, and we are encouraged to merely emote when we gather together for worship, and fall off the other side of the horse. We think that if we have all our theological ducks in a row, then we are ready to inherit the kingdom.
We need to reform our thinking about our feelings. We need to confess that “dry orthodoxy” is not only real, but is pandemic. What we need is preaching. Preaching, like teaching, certainly involves and includes the passing along of information. But unlike teaching, it is designed to go through the mind and into the heart. Preaching not only explains, but exhorts. It not only proclaims, but pierces. Preaching causes those who hear it not merely to affirm that what they have heard is true, but causes them to cry out, “Brethren- what must we do to be saved.” Preaching causes hearts of flesh to burn with joy for the glory of the Son.
We must put away the pride that says, from the pulpit, “I must give the people some new insight they could not have discovered on their own.” We must put away the pride that says from the pew, “Let us see if the pastor can come up with something that is both new, and orthodox.” We must come to the preaching of the Word prepared to be changed. The Word is not smarter than a super computer, but sharper than a two-edged sword. Teaching talks about the sword. Preaching wields it.