Not everyone can be what people call a 'good preacher', but no one need be a 'bad preacher'. That is one of the convictions which drove this little book!
Encouraging (in a perverse way!):
The fact is that I find sermon preparation such hard work that I actively 'back off' from starting!
One part inspiration, nine parts perspiration.The emphasis of the church is on proclamation. See Emmaus and Acts:
With Luke, we join the pair (surely husband and wife?) who walked to Emmaus. Their story is of fundamental significance: they were barred from seeing Jesus in His risen glory until they had first seen Him in the Scriptures.
Jesus comes and when he has at last., convinced his gathered disciples that it is indeed he, Luke tells us that He 'opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures' and he said 'thus is is written... that repentance and remission of sins should be preached'. The significance of these events is clear: we can neither know how and what to preach about him to the world except through the Scriptures.
Note, in particular, the sequence: the risen Lord, the written Scriptures, the command to preach. If we are to be faithful to Him, the risen, exalted, supreme, authoritative Lord Jesus Christ, then we are to be Bible people and preaching people. This is all the authority and direction we need!
'Is it enough to tell them that it is all a matter of praying and preaching?' But that's it. God's method of church growth is preaching the Word, watered by believing prayer.
'The Growing Church' would be a more suitable title that 'Acts of the apostles'. Of the thirty-seven or so references, six associate growth with the quality of church life and of Christian character, seven link growth with the evidence of 'signs and wonders', and twenty-four link growth with the preaching of the Word of God.
In Acts 1 the church is 'under starters orders'; in Acts 2 the Starter's gun is fired.
This corresponds to the 'episodic' filling with the Spirit experienced in the Old Testament, and represents for us the readiness of the Holy Spirit to leap to our aid.
On the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit clothed himself in visible form and his choice of 'tongues' established the special focus of the day: he came with the particular purpose of making the Church a speaking church, a communicating body, and Peter takes this theme up in his quotation from Joel. The outpouring of the Spirit is given for the particular purpose of creating 'prophets' - sons and daughter, menservants and maidservants all alike recipients of the Spirit and gifted for prophecy - that they too may speak intelligibly to the world of the 'wonderful works of God'
What a simple, compelling prospectus! What a satisfying, attractive and assuredly fruitful task! What a manageable calling! What a privilege - to inherit, possess, guard and absorb oneself in and preach what God has 'breathed out': His Word, our education to maturity, our message to the world! That in a word is what the church is 'all about'. This is the single point where so much of the NT converges. God's purpose of his people is proclamation.This is a good point on the call of a preacher to be faithful:
Paul describes himself as a 'preacher' (gk: kyrux) which expresses an important idea. It is a 'town crier'
The kyrux does not make up what he says; he is not sharing his own best thought for the day; he is not a person of 'ifs' and 'maybes'. He is a 'man under authority', saying what he heard elsewhere, doing what he was told to do, faithful to a given message and task, and determined that all shall hear.A helpful outline to bear in mind:
In each sermon:
- there is a central truth to be conveyed
- there is a planned method of setting that truth out
- there is a determination to bring that truth home with clarity, understanding, application and acceptability to the hearers.
'teaching and admonishing' where the latter word means something akin to our use of 'counselling', the gently application of the message; or 1 Timothy 6:2 'teach and exhort' where the second word always , as here, tends to include the warmth of 'encouraging' alongside clarity of exhortation.Our goal is to first inform the mind, teach people, and then move to the heart, stir people, and then to affect the will, move people. Aim to go in that order:
In Matthew 13 Jesus faced his disciples with an unexpexted question: 'Have you understood all these things?'. He did not ask 'Did you enjoy the parables?' - a question addressed to the emotions or the heart; nor did he ask 'what do you propose to do by way of response?' - a question addressed to the will; but 'have you understood?' - a questions to the mind. Have you grasped the truth? Have you been instructed? I have been teaching; have you been learning?
Note that the order of events: the mind was instructed, the heart burned, the feet were turned in a different direction, and the mouth was opened! That's the biblical sequence: through the mind to the heart, and on to a changed life and the word of testimony.The manner in which to teach:
Paul adds a description of the context in which they are all alike to be executed: 'with all patience and teaching'. In other words, Paul knew the biblical psychology, and we who preach must learn his ways.
The task is instruction; the source is the Scriptures; and the art is presentation - the truth 'served up' in a way that is palatable and orderly - 'set out' in a coherent order and shape.Good point about launching pads:
The Bible is not a launching pad but a deep freeze or a super-market. A launching pad is but a starting point from which a satellite goes into a trajectory which has no more link with the pad than that it started there! We have all heard sermons like that! The deep freeze and the supermarket are storehouses from which we bring out specific goods.
The way to work at our task is examination, analysis, orientation, harvesting, presentation and application, and this applies however short the time available, however meagre the help from other quarters. It is the way to 'work with the Word'.
