How Important Is Preaching?
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Why is preaching considered a central means of grace in the Christian life?
On this week's Things Unseen, I want to reflect together with you on the subject of preaching. We've sometimes thought about that in passing on the podcast, but this week we're going to do it each day. It's a subject that's relevant to all of us, whether we're preachers, or as all of us are, preachers included, whether we're listeners. And no doubt we've all got our own opinions about preaching and about the preaching that we regularly listen to. So it's important that we don't just react to preaching in a I like it, I don't like it kind of way, or take it for granted, but that we think about it, what it is and what it should be. And apart from anything else, that should help us to do what Paul asked the Ephesian Church to do, to pray for the preaching of the mystery of the gospel.
I wonder if you do that. But first a question someone asked me quite recently. How important is preaching?
What does the Shorter Catechism say about the effectual power of preaching?
Here's something interesting in the shorter catechism. If you're not familiar with it, it's the old catechism that begins with the famous question about man's chief end. Later in Question 89, the Catechism asks this question: How is the Word of God made effectual to salvation? That is, how does it point us to Christ and then transform our lives? And the answer is very striking. The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of God's word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation. I wonder if you yourself would say that bit, especially the preaching. I get the feeling that many Christians today think that their own Bible reading or the home house group that they go to makes a far bigger impact on their Christian lives and therefore is far more important to them than the sermons they hear.
So were the men who wrote the catechism wrong or just living in a different season? Was that true in their day centuries ago? While we live in a different day, a technological day?
Why do many believers today think personal Bible study outweighs the impact of sermons?
Things have changed. Maybe preaching was much more important in their yesterday than it is in our today? I suspect that Christians who draw these conclusions do so almost entirely on the basis of their own experience. But the fact that someone gets more out of the neighborhood Bible study than they do out of the preaching they hear is Doesn't mean that that's how it should be. Remember how Jesus told us that we need to take heed what we hear? And he also said that we need to take heed how we hear, as well as what we hear. So we need to probe things a little deeper, I think. What if the problem is in the preaching we hear? Or what if it's really in the way we're listening? Or not listening for that matter?
or the way we are praying or not praying. Then it wouldn't be surprising if we thought that preaching was at best secondary to our spiritual growth, or hardly important at all. Muddle headed views about preaching seem to come round every decade or so. Some time ago there was a lot of talk to the effect that what we need is not sermons but more dialogue.
How have modern trends like dialogue‑driven preaching and drama challenged traditional sermons?
And in fact, some preachers started having dialogues in their pulpits instead of sermons. I remember when I first heard this, I thought, people who say this kind of thing have never heard true preaching. Because when you hear true preaching in the Spirit of Christ, you find yourself entering into the most intense dialogue of soul that's possible. True preaching takes you to levels of dialogue with God that nothing else can. And then there was a call for drama. People have dramatic gifts, it was said, so we should have less preaching and more drama. I remember when this became the call thinking to myself. If this weren't so muddle headed it would be amusing. Don't these people know that the Apostle Paul, the preacher, lived in the age of Greek drama?
Don't they know that the great Puritan preachers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries lived at the high point of English drama? In fact, in the age of Shakespeare? And then there were those who said, People don't want to listen to preaching anymore.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Why is preaching considered a central means of grace in the Christian life?
0:08–1:11
2
What does the Shorter Catechism say about the effectual power of preaching?
1:11–2:29
3
Why do many believers today think personal Bible study outweighs the impact of sermons?
2:29–3:48
4
How have modern trends like dialogue‑driven preaching and drama challenged traditional sermons?
3:48–5:34
5
What counsel does Paul give Timothy for a time when people reject biblical preaching?
5:34–5:52
6
When was the last time you prayed for the preaching you hear?
5:52–6:02