by R N Frost . September 6th, 2010
by Clive Cowell . April 28th, 2009
Clive Cowell makes his debut on Spreading Goodness by offering a reflection stirred by a posting by Peter Mead on January 4 (a second offering by Peter was posted on February 15). Clive is a dear friend who presently serves as the Executive Director of the Bible Institute of Hawaii. Read and enjoy!
My brother in Christ and fellow Englishman Peter Mead recently communicated on the Spreading Goodness that “Preaching is at the center of the life of the church.” Dr. Mead would no doubt agree that teaching likewise has a central role. Are they the same? Are they different? Are they to be marked by separate venues? I have not come to a complete conclusion but I do have some pieces for our conversation today.
Both preaching and teaching are clearly used as ways of conversation. By conversation I am not thinking of an informal exchange, rather intimate acquaintance and relational life. Christoph Schwöbel leads us to a wonderful invitation in his Introduction to Colin Gunton’s Theology Through Preaching by (p2) which I trust will delight your hearts regarding the beauty of divine conversation:
Luther was so bold as to suggest that communication is not only the paradigm for the relationship between God and his creation, but even more so the mode of the trinitarian life of God. There is, he [Luther] says, in the divine Trinity a pulpit: as God the Father is an eternal speaker, so the Son is spoken in eternity, and the Holy Spirit is an eternal listener. God’s triune being is an eternal conversation (my emphasis), and since the Holy Spirit tells us what he hears, we are taken into this conversation.
This is not merely talking but intimate relational life.
Schwöbel continues,
The creation of the world and the story of God’s interaction with his creation in Israel and in Jesus Christ is, therefore, about God creating other conversation-partners who are drawn into the conversation of the divine life, distinguished by their created existence but nevertheless enabled in Christ, the uncreated Word of God who became a human speaker and listener, to participate in this conversation.
What a wonderful invitation! Where once we were kept at a distance from the smoking mountain (Ex. 20:18), now we have confident access (Rom. 52; Eph. 2:18, 3:12) and stand and rejoice in the presence of our Lord.
Dr. Mead rightly gave to us readers a wonderful conversation as to the preaching process, that is, a study of the Scripture (a conversation with God), the message formation (another conversation with God) while keeping stoked in the heart our God-captivated love (sustained by conversation) so that He can be communicated to others (another conversation). If this is preaching in process, then it is likewise teaching in process.
Biblical dictionaries and encyclopedias often present the premise that preaching is mainly for converting people and teaching for growing them and this is one way of presenting the distinction between preaching and teaching. However, understanding this distinction might lead us into the trap of emphasizing one method over another and causing unnecessary divergence. In the parish, most preaching is very application oriented, with parishioners in view as the targets of the applications. Is it possible to both preach and teach given the Biblical idea that conversion and growing are part of the lovingly divine conversation? Yes! In fact it has to, because on any given Sunday events will transpire such that both non-believers and believers are called by God into the conversation.
Some people are called who have yet to be converted, others come who have already tasted that the Lord is good and are growing in Him. As much as the preacher and teacher, who is sometimes both, comes to the table to be fed, such persons have the privilege of passing on the good news they have received to these others. While it is true that most Sunday morning sermons are application oriented, surely a great emphasis should be given to warming the hearts such that the announcement of good news, the exposition of God’s word and the proclamation of Jesus Christ is the centerpiece to allow for teaching in matters of faith, morality and indeed application.
Observation of church life shows that on many Sunday mornings some level of divergence has occurred. In extreme cases, preaching has swamped teaching to the detriment of those growing in faith, and in others, teaching has overtaken preaching such that the invited non-believer is overwhelmed. The problems are further compounded by the fact that such unbalanced conversations only take place on Sunday morning and in some cases are purely monological—there is no conversation.
Friends, God is calling us in an eternal conversation and as the Holy Spirit tells us what he hears eternally, we are indeed eternally taken into this conversation. This is both profoundly intimate and relational and preaching and teaching take us into the conversation. Do we deserve to eat at such a table? From our view, certainly we don’t. But God is abundantly loving and desires for us to truly fellowship with Him. I trust that is a good reminder, in short, of our conversion. Our part of the conversion is to continually express our confession, repentance and acknowledgement that there is no other God beside Him. He is the centerpiece! Now let’s grow in faith, morality and application.
A conversation on conversion (and a reminder of conversion) sets up well teaching to wholesomely pursue matters of faith, morality and indeed application. It will take faith to cast aside our current living to be in such a conversation. You might well posit the question: aren’t there times when it is only preaching? I will grant that an evangelist would say so! So be it, but as we have opportunity let us eternally respond to weave both. Preaching and teaching have a common thread and as Dr. Mead conversed with us, “God is a God who speaks through His Word. He is a God who speaks because He loves”.
Need more? Be warmed by the attitude expressed in Malachi! In the OT the priest communicated with the people and the prophet tells us how both speaker and listener can engage, “For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 2:7).
Preaching today is often one-to-many, with the danger that it can be anemically monological. However, it can, as Mead suggests, be affective. We also know that divergence can set in, but a faithful response in presenting preaching and teaching is possible.
As we preach and teach, wholeheartedly take up His invitation and engage yourself to seek, to crave, to yearn for God’s instruction and to settle for nothing less.
As we preach and teach, wholeheartedly invite and engage those whom God loves to seek, to crave, to yearn for God’s instruction and to settle for nothing less.
Seek it and yes, as you find it – guard it.
Continue the conversation!
by Peter Mead . February 15th, 2009
It is my pleasure to introduce a second guest entry by Dr Peter Mead of OM, in London. His first posting, published here on January 4—“Preaching and Affective Hermeneutics”—was a compelling call to engage any given Bible text with a lens of spiritual and personal affectivity in order to capture and then to offer the transformative substance of that text in our proclamation. In what follows here Peter presses the point back to the bedrock reality of our personal response to a God who calls for us to love him as a full-life response—and to discover a God who will properly “wreak havoc” on our former selfish ways!
Preaching is at the center of the life of the church. This is not only true practically, in schedule and in logistics, but it is true theologically. Speaking the Word of God is central because our God is a God who has spoken, a God who speaks. Christianity stands apart from all religions in that in Christianity we have a God who initiates, who makes the first move, who speaks first.
All too often, sadly, churches are centered around a weak word. The loving God who speaks through His Word is considered essentially silent. Some churches look to the Bible for an ancient word that must be brought to bear on contemporary listeners’ minds through truth in proposition form, or with a skillfully generated attempt at “making that old truth relevant to today” (the skill varying from pulpit to pulpit). Others treat the biblical revelation as a starting point for their own message. Still others as a set of accepted vocabulary for a more contemporary attempt at speaking into the lives of those gathered – either by means of essentially new revelation (“as I was preparing, God told me . . .”), or the increasingly common lists of hints for living birthed out of human wisdom and then pasted onto a biblical narrative.
What does a Trinitarian and affective theology have to offer in the arena of preaching? Much in every way. If God is a loving God who speaks through His Word, then the church is to be a listening and responding community. Listening to His Word and responding to His love. The Father gives the Son and the Spirit, the object of our preaching and the source of its power. The community of God’s people is called by a captivating love to be lovers: lovers of God and lovers of others. The “Great Commandment” must be given freedom to wreak havoc in our individualized and self-centered lives as believers, but it also must be given freedom to run riot in our preaching. What might this look like?
Preachers Loving God
To perhaps oversimplify the preaching process, it first involves the passage study phase, which focuses on the biblical passage. Then it involves the message formation phase, in which the listeners are considered as the message is formed that will faithfully, clearly and relevantly present the teaching of the passage to them.
So, the preacher must consider carefully the study phase as a lover of God. This cannot be merely cold exegesis, original language study, commentary consultation and the derivation of a proposition statement. The study phase should involve a prayerful, interactive and relational dynamic as we fellowship with our God in the study of His Word. This is not to say that we are freed from the burden of the finest exegesis our skills will allow. Surely a heart gripped by the love of a God who gives of Himself through His Word will earnestly desire to understand that Word as effectively as possible? The goal here is not some sort of a mystical study phase divorced from the rigorous study of the revealed Word, but a spiritually sensitive study that is fired to rigorousness by the captivating love of God. Paul urged Timothy to be a worker who rightly handles the word of truth (2Tim.2:15), having already told Timothy of his goal in all things – the goal of love (1Tim.1:5).
Equally, the preacher takes the fruit of that study of the passage and maintains the same God-captivated motivation when it comes to forming the message. The goal here does not suddenly shift from the sublime to the pragmatic, from the spiritual to the practical matters of simply being ready to preach when Sunday comes. The formation of the message is to be an act of responsive love in which the preacher seeks to bring pleasure to God by the diligent care poured into this aspect of ministry. After all, when Sunday comes, this message will be spoken as a Word from God. Inasmuch as it accurately reflects the teaching and relevance of the biblical text, it is spoken with an authority that is not the preacher’s, but is God’s Himself. So, the preacher is looking to a God who is delighted to work in lives through this message. A message that is at one and the same time both an act of worship, a form of doxological speech in which the preacher makes much of God, yet at the same time it is an applicational message of relevance to the lives of the listeners. It is applicational and relevant because God loves them and cares about the specifics of their lives today.
To preach effectively, a preacher must love God passionately. But this is not enough. In preaching the preacher stands between heaven and earth and in that moment not only loves God, but also represents (that is, re-presents) the love of God to the people. In preaching there is potential for great reciprocity between the love of God extending out beyond the Trinity to the people that are His own, and the love of those stirred to respond to Him in that moment. So the preacher must love God, but the “second commandment” also applies to preaching. We are to love God, and to love others:
Preachers Loving Others
How does the preacher preach out of love for the listener? Surely, a loving preacher would not merely preach to scratch itching ears, while at the same time failing to present the fullness of God’s message in His Word? A loving preacher will give what is needed, not just what is wanted. Surely, a loving preacher would not deign to offer his own nuggets of life skill in place of the grandeur of God’s self-revelation? Surely, a loving preacher would not simply bruise listeners with the pressure of duty, after himself being warmed and delighted by divine captivating love in his own times with God? How sad that so many churches perceive repeated tirades of guilt-inducing duty to be so spiritual (appealing to the flesh), while others seem satisfied with tips for living only ornamented by reference to an apparently now silent God.
Listeners don’t need tips for living independent lives better, they need God. Listeners don’t need guilt-stirring pressure to pull their acts together, they need God. They need to be able to engage with Him in a faith response to His Word. They need to experience in community the joy of God’s wonderful giving of Himself through the Word – both written and in the incarnation. They need messages that are highly biblical, for the Bible is where God speaks. They need messages that are communicated clearly, for what other standard is fitting for a God of such effective communication? They need messages that are relevant in deeply spiritual and practical ways, for God is not pleased with irrelevant historical lecture, lofty theological ramblings or petty practical tips. God loves these people, so our preaching of His Word should reflect that in its biblical content, effectual communication and genuine emphasis on relevance.
We must preach the Word as those genuinely captivated by the love of God in the Word of God. We must preach contagiously as those who enjoy delightful engagement with this God. Our listeners will subconsciously mimic our leadership in their own “spirituality” – the question is, what kind of spirituality will they mimic? Will theirs be an intellect-only spirituality? Or will it be a purely pragmatic, self-concerned spirituality? Or will it be a pseudo-spiritual flight of fancy unearthed in the truth of God’s revelation in His Word? Or will it be relational, Word-based, heart-level, real?
Conclusion
Perhaps many of the weaknesses of the church today reflect the weaknesses of the pulpit. It is easy to look back to reformers, puritans and other famous pastors of days gone by. But the truth is we do not need the greats from previous generations: Luther and Calvin, Sibbes and Edwards, Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones. What we need are preachers greatly gripped by God in this generation. We need preachers who are captivated by the love of God, gripped with a passion for God, and prepared to thoroughly preach the Word of God to the listeners of today.
A Trinitarian and Affective consideration of the preaching ministry has much to offer the church today. The only sadness is that what we have described in this article should really be the baseline from which to build, rather than a standard so often unreached in the contemporary pulpit. God is a God who speaks through His Word. He is a God who speaks because He loves. We dare not stand and speak for Him if we are not captured by that love – a love responding to Him, and a love overflowing to others!
by Peter Mead . January 4th, 2009
Dr Peter Mead of OM [Operation Mobilization], a Brit living near London and a dear friend, is my first guest contributer. There is a need to offer God’s love in ways that meet people both affectively and effectively—that is, in heart and in practice! I asked Peter to share something on that topic in line with his concern for preaching and his devotion to sharing about God’s heart-to-heart purposes in offering us his word. His offering is directed to those who are already preachers or who aspire to that role. For those who find it to be a good fit, please take advantage of Peter’s website biblicalpreaching.net where benefits abound. For non-preachers, I invite you to listen in and take full advantage of some lessons from a gifted communicator of God’s love.
I’m delighted to offer a guest column here on Ron’s site. I fully agree with Ron that every aspect of Christian life and ministry should be viewed through the lens of Trinitarian/affective theology. I would like to offer some thoughts on the critical area of preaching.
Preaching is both indispensable and central to Christianity. When given the privilege of preaching, we participate in the glorious activity of God’s self-communication. Augustine taught that “what the Bible speaks, God speaks.” So preaching is an extension of a central reality of our faith – we have a God who speaks through His Word! Why does our God speak? Donald Coggan put it simply, “He speaks because he loves.”
Some perceive homiletics (the “academic” term for the field of preaching) to be sanctified rhetoric, a matter of mere technique. In reality, the “technique” aspects of preaching need to build on a solid foundation of the hermeneutics and the spirituality of the preacher.
In 1948, Andrew Blackwood stated that, “Pastors everywhere are becoming concerned about expository preaching.” It would be easy to observe that such an interest in expository preaching in the post-war years has surely faded considerably since. While this is true, there does seem to be a reviving interest in “expository preaching” in recent years. Perhaps this is only in my experience (or in my dreams!) since I am so involved in preaching seminars and the like, but it does seem like there are new academic programs starting, journals being launched, websites born, special events for preachers convened, and so on.
Why is there such an interest in preaching? Let me suggest two reasons.
Reason 1 – Because so much contemporary preaching lacks biblical substance
The first, and easier, answer to this question typically involves pointing the finger at others. Many are pointing out that the church generally (usually that means everywhere but our own church!) is in the grip of an epidemic of Diet Sermons with all the nutritional value of Diet Sodas. Perhaps motivated by the demands of a consumerist culture, or the notion that contemporary listeners are incapable of concentration beyond a few minutes at a time (consider MTV to support this claim, but ignore the lengthening Hollywood movies since that undermines the point!), many churches have moved to purely practical how-to messages giving helpful tips for life. The fruit of this change may be bulging pews, but shriveling souls, as biblical illiteracy sweeps the contemporary church scene.
There is certainly truth in the critique of such Preaching Lite that pervades much of evangelical Christendom today, but there is another reason for an increasing interest in preaching.
Reason 2 – Because so much biblically substantive preaching lacks spiritual power
J.I.Packer suggests that the reason for such an interest lies in a deeply troubling sense that we do not know how to revive the powerful preaching of Whitefield, Wesley, Simeon and others. “We feel that, for all our efforts, we as preachers are failing to speak adequately to men’s souls.”
Do we indeed have a deep dissatisfaction with our own ministry? We try to compete with the world, but often do not sense that hearts are truly won, nor that genuine peace and joy result in the spirits of those listening. We give much, but do we really give much of God or a genuine confidence in Christ?
I would like to suggest two moves that need to take place in our understanding of preaching.
Move 1 – From Diet Bible Sermonettes to Well-Informed Biblical Exposition
The first move that is needed is a shift in focus. A shift from preaching well-crafted lists of tips for life, to genuinely understanding and then applying the Bible to our lives (or even applying our lives to the Bible). This is fundamentally a hermeneutics issue. After all, preaching involves the fruit of the preacher’s hermeneutics communicated to the community. Instead of combing the text seeking departure points for our own gems of practical wisdom, we need to give ourselves to the joyful agony of wrestling with the text, allowing the text to wrestle with us. We must not rest until we can speak with humble confidence that what we speak are not our words superimposed on a passage, but God speaking from His Word. True expository preaching involves letting the Word of God be the master of that which is said.
True exposition should not be boring, for we would not want to give the impression that God gives of Himself in self-revelation in a way that is boring. True exposition should not be disconnected from real life, for in the incarnation we see God giving of Himself, His ultimate self-revelation, in the most relevant manner imaginable. Perhaps if more preachers would truly grasp the need for effective hermeneutics in their sermon preparation, perhaps then we would not have so much occasion to point the finger at others and complain of dumbed-down diet sermonettes abounding in our generation.
However, answering the first reason for contemporary interest in preaching (the failure of others), doesn’t address our own feelings of failure. What if our well-trained orthodox hermeneutics are not resulting in sermons that genuinely feed the soul, win hearts, give peace and joy in the spirit? What if our technically right hermeneutics do not result in giving much of God or genuine confidence in Christ? The fact is that there are many preachers today who do not fall into the Diet Sermon category, and yet something is still missing. With “good understanding” of the text many are still tending toward pragmatics, dogmatics and duty-driven responsibility. This is not what we long for in our ministry.
So we progress to the second move, one which perhaps addresses this issue with our own preaching.
Move 2 – From Well-Informed Biblical Exposition to Heart-Level Biblical Exposition
The first move highlighted the need for effective biblical study by means of well-informed hermeneutics. Yet how is it that the best hermeneutics that the academy can offer fails to guarantee good results? Obviously preaching is much more than the fruit of hermeneutics on show, but rather than moving on to speak of gifting, anointing, etc., I’d like to push the hermeneutics issue a bit harder. Michael Quicke notes that churches are suffering from one-dimensional engagement with Scripture: either just with the head or just with the heart. As a result, “The two edged sword becomes a plastic butter knife.” We need to engage the Bible with the head and the heart.
Perhaps the best hermeneutics on offer in our seminaries is lacking something? Perhaps, as Ron might suggest, the combination of a pervasive stoic influence, a cold-and-distant-God theology and duty-driven spirituality so pervades our Christian thinking and practice that we view all through colored lenses – evidently not rose-tinted ones? Like Ron, I am not rejecting academics. I believe our skill in Bible study and sermon preparation should be informed by the best that the academy has to offer, but we should not be blinded by an intellectual arrogance that suggests an informed will is all that is required for, or even offered by, a biblical spirituality.
Just as move 1 amounted to improving the hermeneutics underlying preaching, so too move 2 calls on us to improve our hermeneutics. The weakness in much of the hermeneutics taught today is that it amounts to heady exegesis that misses the heart-level revelation of God in His Word. Genuine exegesis cannot, and must not, be divorced from spirituality. Indeed, true spirituality demands careful exegesis. The nature of Scripture is that it is God’s self-giving, self-revelation, through which we are privileged to know Him. This knowledge is not mere mental classification, but heart-level relationship.
So in order to preach the Word in such a way that hearts are won, souls are fed, and our listeners receive much of God and genuine confidence in Christ, we must do more than study the Bible merely to the point of intellectual understanding. We must engage with God as we seek to be both transformed by and understanding of His self-giving through the Word. We must engage with Him through a more complete hermeneutic, then present the fruit of our “study” in a manner that goes deeper:
Our preaching must go deeper than the conduct of our listeners (either through practical tips for life, or duty-driven guilt-pressed responsibility). Our preaching must go deeper than the beliefs and brains of our listeners (through intellectual information transfer, seeking to inform the mind that informs the will of our listeners). Our preaching must go deep enough to touch the affections of our listeners (hearts touched that then give values to the mental processing faculties, and thus determine the conduct of the believers in everyday life).
We need preaching that touches the affections. This is critical. But how do we achieve “affective preaching?” Let’s consider two possible solutions:
Solution 1 – Adding “affective” to our preaching through classical rhetoric
A typical solution is to seek to introduce an emotive element at the level of content and delivery. Some may simply introduce engaging, entertaining or emotional content in the form of “illustrations.” Others may unleash some passion in delivery since passion and enthusiasm are known to be contagious. Still others may strategize rhetorically, looking to classical rhetoric for that aspect that goes beyond presentation to persuasion, which is the core issue in classical rhetoric. Perhaps a good old “peroratio” is key? That is, the final appeal to the emotions designed to cement consent to that which has been presented. Whether the latin language of classical rhetoric is known or not, many preachers seek to introduce the critical affective element into preaching by means of that final applicational appeal – a tear-jerker of a story, an impassioned plea, or just a plain-old guilt trip!
Defaulting to classical rhetoric is not the only solution. In fact, it can be a problematic solution. Augustine was an expert in the art of rhetoric. He knew the power of speech and its capacity for ill when divorced from the goodness of God’s truth. He looked back on his earlier work in the realm of rhetoric as a dishonest pursuit, a peddling in “crafty tricks.” How easily a desire to communicate effectively can slide into a contemporized form of rhetoric that depends on the skill, charisma and technique of the preacher, rather than on the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Apostle Paul also had concerns with a classical rhetorical approach to persuasion in preaching. Duane Litfin has studied Paul’s teaching in 1st Corinthians 1-4 at length. He contends that Paul is distancing his own preaching ministry from the public speaking of the classic orators, the public entertainers of that era. Paul identifies his ministry with that of the herald, as opposed to the rhetorician/orator. Many would suggest that his focus is on content alone – the foolishness of the kerygma (defined as just the content of the gospel). Litfin makes a very strong case that for Paul, being a herald involved a distinction in form as well as content. The effectiveness of the communication was ultimately not determined by the convincing content and irresistible technique of the speaker, but by God’s using the “foolishness” of both the content and form in the presentation of His Word. As Litfin puts it, “Faith, if we are thinking in biblical terms, means taking God at his word, and when it comes to the gospel, that word is all he is inclined to give us.”
Solution 2 – Being “affectively” aware in our spiritual hermeneutics so that we represent an affectively attractive sacred rhetoric
If classical rhetoric does not provide the solution for the problem of affective preaching, perhaps the answer lies in what Michael Pasquarello calls Sacred Rhetoric. Instead of somehow introducing the affective element into the preaching event as an extrinsic addendum, genuinely affective hermeneutics will recognize the affective nature of Scripture itself. Thus, the task of the preacher is not to skillfully manipulate affections by technique in preaching or a worked-up passion in presentation, but merely to act as a herald, a presenter of that which is there in the Word – the source of the message he brings.
A heart-to-heart engagement with God through His Word, an affective hermeneutic, will provide a far more genuine form of affective preaching. Affective elements are not somehow added in, but are genuinely there in the message, and hopefully, in the messenger too. As Harrison wrote in Augustine, “Love is the hermeneutical principle of Scripture . . . God has chosen to motivate man’s fallen will to the true and good through the delight occasioned by His beautiful revelation of Himself – and this includes, centrally, Scripture and preaching.”
Pasquarello writes of “the divine artistry inscribed in the scriptural narrative” and says of its power that it “delights, captivates, and persuades us, rather than teaching us something (since knowledge puffs up), of the divine generosity and goodness that is creation’s source and end.” In the Bible we have “God’s truth and goodness, expressed in an abundance and excess of self-giving love.”
Conclusion
So in conclusion, does the field of preaching benefit from an encounter with trinitarian/affective theology? It benefits greatly. While the field of homiletics can and must teach methodology and “how to” – this must be integrated with genuine spirituality, for the central calling of preachers is to be listeners to God’s Word, prayerfully attentive to God’s self-revelation in His Word and communicators of that divine devotion to the community of God’s people. Ultimately preaching goes beyond content and form to a function of the “activity of the Triune God, who speaks.” Hence the dual focus of this post on hermeneutics and spirituality.
True preaching preaches from the heart of God to the heart of humanity. All who preach need to pursue further the true role of the heart in preaching: God’s heart in His self-revelation, our engagement with His heart in our study and preparation, and the effective contagious presentation of that relationality in our preaching to the hearts of His people.
As Pasquarello puts it, “When situated within this Trinitarian vision, preaching is a form of graced participation in God’s expression of himself in the Word, an inspired witness of praise through which God the Father lovingly communicates himself in the abundant generosity and joy of self-giving.”
Much of the preaching in evangelical pulpits today would be strengthened by greater attention to the hermeneutics used in sermon preparation. However, having accurate understanding is not enough, if somehow that “accuracy” is missing the heart of the God who gives Himself through His Word. Most will agree that effective preaching must touch the heart as well as the head. But how are we to preach “affectively?” The solution is not found in the techniques of rhetoric, ancient or modern. The solution is essentially a spirituality/hermeneutical solution. We are not to make the message touch the hearts, we are to effectively understand and then present the Word of God which itself touches hearts. Pasquarello again, “The Word itself is invested with the character of rhetoric or persuasion. It appears to the eye as beauty, as possessing a certain splendor, as an intrinsic, luminous, graceful style that attracts and kindles love of love itself.” Or better, of Love Himself.
Affective preaching is not about rejecting all rhetoric, but recognizing the beauty and power of the revealed divine rhetoric that is Scripture. When we preach Scripture well, His self-giving love and beautiful wisdom will do the persuading, not our technique. Indeed, homiletics is not a field focused on technique. It is primarily a matter of spiritual hermeneutics – of participating in the loving self-revelation of a God who gives of Himself through His Word. When we are gripped by that truth, then perhaps we will preach in such a way that listeners can taste and see that the Lord is good. Perhaps then the words of Humphrey Mills at hearing the preaching of Richard Sibbes will be echoed in the church today. After giving himself to the duty-bound “spirituality” found in the sermons of other preachers, Mills wrote:
“But yet I was distracted in my mind, wounded in conscience, and wept often and bitterly, and prayed earnestly, but yet had no comfort, till I heard that sweet saint . . . Doctor Sibbs, by whose means and ministry I was brought to peace and joy in my spirit. His sweet soul-melting Gospel-sermons won my heart and refreshed me much, for by him I saw and had much of God and was confident in Christ, and could overlook the world. . . . My heart held firm and resolved and my desires all heaven-ward.”