New Warhorn Media post by Aaron Prelock:
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… Not long ago I listened (after the fact) to a sermon series a pastor was preaching in one of the schemes in Edinburgh. He preached a much more theologically and intellectually rich sermon than I had heard even at the conferences I attended for church leaders, yet the language was accessible to the people to whom this pastor was preaching.
If it’s the scheme (=housing project) I think it is, it’s a rough area indeed. Well-done to whoever it was who preached this. And you’ve also highlighted CS Lewis’s point that ordinands should be asked to take some piece of theological writing and be able to translate it into the vernacular.
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It was the two pastors at Niddrie Community Church as they were preaching through Genesis. They didn’t pull any punches, it was a theologically weighty but also exegetically careful series, and they didn’t shy away from controversial issues or hefty application. There was no dumbing it down or skirting the issues. And the sermons weren’t short either. Around 45 minutes if I remember correctly.
Yet all of it was still very accessible. They were preaching God’s word to God’s people. Many churches in their broader circle of churches are perpetually tempted to simplistic preaching - ‘just preach the gospel’ mentalities abound, yet this church, a church reaching genuinely illiterate people, was giving the sheep real meat. And not just information, the life-changing meat of the word.
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This is such an important skill to develop. I never read extracts of Puritans to my sheep untranslated. Even using Valley of Vision in services I usually adjust it on the fly…the concepts are phenomenal, but it’s just not the language we use today. There’s a huge need today for pastors to read and digest deep theology and rich ethics, but then to regurgitate it in language normal people (not book nerds) can comprehend and apply.
I remember someone once saying the mark of genius is being able to take complicated ideas and explain them simply. What do you call the gift of taking simple ideas and overcomplicating them? That’s the the gift I have!
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I recently included an Owen quote in my sermon. As soon as I looked at it while standing in front of the people, I knew it was a mistake. And I said so. I don’t remember whether I read it and summarized or just summarized at that point…
I thought the quote was a nice simple contrast of two things, but that was when I had been reading a bunch of Owen. Owen is generally harder to understand than this, and requires longer sections to make sense. But this was self-contained and simple. Until I realized it wasn’t simple enough. Anyway, here’s the quote (from his Hebrews commentary, somewhere in Hebrews 2:9-13).
He consecrated Aaron to be priest of old, but by the hands of Moses, and he was set apart to his office by the sacrifice of other things. But the Lord Christ must be consecrated by his own sufferings and the sacrifice of himself.
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Just came across this in the Lloyd-Jones biography:
Further, Dr Lloyd-Jones believed that the Scripture reveals the kind of preaching which is owned of God, and it was his persuasion upon this matter which was to render his own ministry so significantly different from that of many of his contemporaries. Much preaching, in his judgment, was controlled, not by Scripture, but by prevailing fashions of opinion and especially by the wishes of those in the pew. So-called ‘intellectual preaching’ was patently at variance with the Bible: ‘As I read the Gospels,’ he told his congregation as he began his second year in Aberavon, ‘any man who gives the impression that “the mind of Christ” is open only to scholarship and learning is false to the very fundamentals of Christ’s teaching. The words “absolute”, “reality”, “values”, “cosmos” “Christology” and “Logos” are not the every-day words of our vocabulary, and yet, in reading contemporary literature and in listening to religious addresses in these days, these things seem to be vital and essential."’ Yet despite its uselessness, this ‘learned style’ was sometimes treated with respect, and in another sermon he gave an illustration of this from his own experience in Llangeitho:
'I remember a man who used to come to preach in the country and who preached in such a way that no one could follow him or had the slightest idea as to what he was talking about. The general verdict about this man, especially by the deacons who considered themselves intelligent men, was this: “No, he is not much of a preacher,” they said, “but no doubt he is a great thinker”! Great thinker indeed! The great thinkers are those whose thinking is so great and so clear that they can express in a simple and lucid manner the greatest things of all, namely, the Mystery of God and His love. Great thinkers? Was there ever anyone who thought as Jesus of Nazareth did - was there ever such great thinking as that? Was there ever so much of the mind of God revealed as in His sermons and addresses? And yet it was delivered to ignorant, uneducated people and - wonder of wonders! - they actually understood Him and grasped His message. The same applies to the great disciples who have followed Him, with this qualification - that none of them have been as simple as He was. Here they are, St Paul, St Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Pascal, Wesley and so on. Giant intellects every one, and yet any man who wishes to do so can follow their reasoning and their argument.’
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