Monday, September 19, 2016

What is Preaching, Anyway?


Contrary to popular wisdom, good preaching has little to do with eloquence, fashion, or the length of a sermon. Good preaching is all about content and posture. By content, I mean, "What is the message about?" and by posture I mean, "How is it about it?" Film critic Roger Ebert has said that a movie is not what it is about but how it is about it. In other words, what makes a movie bad or good is not mainly what it's about but how it presents its content.

Similarly, a preacher can preach on nearly any subject found in the Scriptures so long as he does so in a Scriptural posture. Good preaching goes with the grain of the Bible. So we are not flippant where the Bible is not flippant. We are not angry where the Bible is not angry. We smile where the Bible smiles, and we yell where the Bible yells. (Some preachers only preach smiling sermons or angry sermons, which shows they aren't really preaching the Scriptures faithfully.) Good preaching is dependent on content (the Scripture's words) and posture (in their Scriptural sense). That is what good preaching is.

But what is preaching itself?

Lots of theologians and ministers define preaching in different ways, but I tend to think that preaching is proclamation that exults in the exposing of God's glory. Read More

Related article:
The Mystery of the Gospel

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