The Difficulty of Preaching the Text

I have good friends in ministry who often describe preaching as "explaining the Bible". I've felt uncomfortable with this and have been averse to using such a description myself.

Part of the reason I think is that, at its worst, it sounds so terribly patronising! "I, the great and knowledgeable one, and going to explain this complex and mystifying matter that my mind has penetrated through hours in the study, with my knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, and which clearly your minds are not able to do."

I wonder what such a view makes of the perspicuity of Scripture, and of the fact that John tells us that "we all know the truth" or "we know all the truth" (1John 2:20-21) as we have been given the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The clarity of God's word, and the ministry of the Spirit to lead us into all truth means that whenever we hear a preacher we have both an outer guide (Scripture) and an inner one (Spirit) that enables us to assess the speaker. It is not that we need the preacher to enable us to get the meaning of the Scripture.

The problem isn't an intellectual one. Sure, the study and learning of a godly preacher will surely bless and benefit a congregation, but something much more important is going on.

The real task of a preacher is to wrestle with the text as one who is simultaneously saint and sinner, and then proclaim that to a congregation in the same spot! The real problem in our hearing of the word of God is a moral one and not an intellectual one.

A preacher has the task of exposing the false readings we prefer to the actual meaning of the text which makes a moral claim on us. The one who really hears the word of God is he or she who does it. Being sinners still, we tend to be like the son in Jesus' parable who hears the word of the Father, cheers it as wonderful and then goes away and does whatever he intended in the first place (Matt. 21:28ff)!

There are a number of ways that sinners dull the claim of the text whilst still feeling some degree of piety for doing so!

• We reduce the text, refusing to see it in its full Trinitarian and salvific glory. The preacher has the task of making us see the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of the glory and the love of God that every word brings to us.
• We manipulate the text, discarding either the moral claim of the text upon us on the one hand, or else reducing the text simply to a "to do list" on the other. The preacher must remember God's solid foundation which remains firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.” (2Tim. 2:19) The preacher must expose the legalist and the libertine in us all.

Who is equal to such a task, himself being the sinner who comes to the word of God in the same way?

The preacher must himself let the searching word of God do in him what he is hoping the searching word of God will do in his congregation. Pain, agony, sweat, blood, tears must mark the hours of the preacher's preparation. Only then will he come with the love, joy, grace and goodness that will be necessary in the pulpit.