Randy Greenwald

[This is the second in a series on preaching stimulated by John Stott’s book Between Two Worlds. It was prepared originally for the Bradenton Herald and appeared there on May 9, 2009.]

A preacher has an intriguing job. Weekly, at least, he stands in front of a group of people and tells them what to do and think. Who else (besides third world dictators) gets to do that?

And who else gets to do that with such immediate feedback? The feedback is, however, coded: “Good sermon” may mean no more than, “I agree.” “Interesting” translates as “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”

But DO we expect others to believe or agree with what preachers say? Why should preachers have any more inherent authority than, say, Rush Limbaugh?

The answer depends largely on the individual preacher, what he says, and how. But clearly if the authority of the preacher resides solely in him, then his words occupy no unique space and can be embraced or discounted according to the whims of the listener.

Perhaps the preacher derives his authority from the church in whose pulpit he stands. For a church to set a man apart implies that the body is granting to that man some authority to speak in its name. Is that sufficient? Should we accept and believe what the preacher says because of the eminence of the church behind him?

Yes, to some degree. It is better to hear from a man who has the approbation of others. But is the church that which gives the preacher’s words their ultimate authority? No.

What makes the preacher unique is that he is not, if he is doing what he is supposed to do, rehearsing his own clever ideas to impress a consenting audience. He is, rather, seeking to represent and explain the Bible.

I remember once standing before a group of Kenyan pastors who had come to hear me speak. Me. Not Billy Graham. Not John Stott. Me. My thought then was that I had nothing to say to these fine men. Nothing. Only if what I said accurately reflected Biblical truth would my words have any significance for these men. It is the Bible that gives the preacher authority.

But even to see this is not to have climbed the ladder far enough. The Bible is a book. A good book. A culturally influential book. But the preacher’s authority is grounded in this book only if we understand that this book’s author has authority. The preacher has authority because what he preaches arises from a book whose author is God himself.

To think this way has huge implications for the humility of the preacher. It has implications as well for those who hear sermons. The authority of the message resides in God. When we hear a message whose roots are in Scripture, we are not hearing a mere man speaking mere words. We are, in a very real sense, listening to God speak to us.

If I believed that, I would, as a preacher, be very careful about what I say. And if I believed that, I would, as a listener, be very excited about getting to a church on Sunday!

Ashton Kutcher has nearly two million people following him on Twitter. This means, if I understand the reports correctly, that more people follow him than follow CNN.

I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. But it seems to make his Twitter account a “Major Medium”.

This causes me to reflect upon an assertion I stumbled upon some twenty years ago. The contention was made then that among the ‘major media’ the pulpit was primary. That is, though little recognized and appreciated, the pulpit is the vehicle through which the greatest impact is made on human life and thinking.

I thought then and I think now that such a view is overly optimistic and tinged with an idealism that borders on the delusional. It ignores the fact that, for example, 1.36 billion Americans passed through the stiles of movie theaters last year. Who knows how many rent them, download them, or catch them on TV.

We get our news and entertainment on-line or on-screen. We are surrounded by schools and universities which shape and mold students apart from whatever Christian underpinnings some of them might have once had. Celebrities dominate our news (and our Twitters) and we drink from many streams of influence. Who can say what the major influences upon public thinking are. Few would include the lowly sermon in the list.

But then again, over three billion Americans passed through the doors of churches last year (take that Academy), so perhaps my skepticism is out of place.

This fact remains: there is no other medium with such a rich heritage and tradition. For 2000 years the Christian faith and life has been passed on by preaching. There have been times when the church has been at a low point, but still there were preachers. There have been times when preachers preached and immediately their sermons were printed, distributed, and read. The role of the sermon has ebbed and flowed, but it has always been there.

And it is unique.

No other medium even imagines that its message possesses a divine origin. Yet every (faithful) preacher who stands in the pulpit is intent upon opening God’s word to his congregation and therefore is seeking to bring a word from God to them. And though many have emerged from the movies or from the concert hall persuaded that their lives had been unalterably changed by what they heard or saw, when Christ is preached, lives are turned from eternal damnation to eternal life, from falsehood to truth, from an empty life to a meaningful life.

And though preaching is an ancient medium, it is gaining in relevance. In a recent unpublished document distributed among a group of pastors to which I belong, the following was noted:

‘One of the interesting phenomena noted by many writers studying the so-called emergent generation, or post-moderns, is that there is, in younger people, a hunger for deeper and more serious and authentic preaching of the Scriptures.
In the book The Emerging Church, Dan Kimball writes: “I sense a renewed hunger for theology and an interest in discussing the mysteries of God. Emerging generations are starving for depth in our teaching and preaching and will not settle for shallow answers. In his chapter on preaching in that book he says: “I know of several churches drawing hundreds and thousands of younger people in which the message is forty to fifty minutes long.”’

I am a preacher, and so I want to think that the work in which I am involved is indeed significant. I can’t claim one million Twitter followers, and only 200 or so visit my blog, and that in a good week, and most of those visit but don’t read. And yet, God has preserved his church and prospered his kingdom and persevered his people through something which seems so foolish, so mundane, so pedestrian, as preaching.

And I get to do it.

Wow.