DOES YOUR PREACHER RIDE HIS HOBBY HORSE?

The Christian preacher is a steward (1 Cor.4:1,2). The steward is the trustee and dispenser of another’s person’s goods. So the preacher is a steward of God’s mysteries, that is, of the self-revelation which God has entrusted to men and which is now preserved in the Scriptures.

The stewardship metaphor indicates the content of the preacher’s message…the preacher does not supply his own message; he is supplied with it…Our task is ‘the open statement of the truth’ (2 Cor.4:2). This is a good definition of preaching. Preaching is a ‘manifestation’ of the truth which stands written in the Scriptures. Therefore, every sermon should be, in some sense, an expository sermon. The preacher may use illustrations from political, ethical, and social fields to illumine and enforce the biblical principles he is seeking to unfold, but the pulpit is no place for purely political commentary, ethical exhortation or social debate. We are to preach ‘the word of God’, and nothing else (Col.1:25).

Moreover, we are called to preach the whole range of the Word of God (Acts 20:27). How few preachers could advance the same claim! Most of us ride a few of our favorite hobby-horses to death. We pick and choose from the Scriptures, selecting doctrines we like and passing over those we dislike or find difficult….Some not only subtract from, but add to the Scriptures while others presume to contradict what stands written in God’s Word.

The household of God urgently needs faithful stewards who dispense to it systematically the whole Word of God, not the New Testament only but the Old as well, not the best-known texts only, but also the less-known, not just the passages which favor the preacher’s particular prejudices, but those which do not.

Only such faithful exposition of the whole Word of God will deliver us and our congregations from little whims and fancies (whether ours or theirs) and from a more serious fanaticism and extravagance. Only so shall we teach them to discern between what has been clearly revealed and what has not, as we do not fear to be dogmatic about the former but are content to remain agnostic about the latter (Deut.29:29). Nothing can bring about this happy state of affairs but the solid, systematic, didactic preaching of the whole Word of God. Such conscientious teaching is not possible without careful planning months in advance. We shall need to examine the scope of our sermons to see if there are whole areas of truth which we have been avoiding and others on which we may have been concentrating too much. One way to escape extremes of neglect and over-emphasis is to work steadily through books of the Bible, or at least whole chapters, expounding everything, shirking nothing. Another way is to plan regular or occasional courses of sermons, giving a balanced and comprehensive of some aspects of revealed truth. And do not let us be faint-hearted and imagine the congregation could not endure such things!

The wise steward varies the diet which he gives to the household. He studies their needs and uses his discretion in supplying them with suitable food. It is not enough for the preacher to know the Word of God; he must know the people to whom he proclaims it so he may seek to present it to the people in such a way as to commend it to them. For one thing, he will make it simple. The expository preacher is a bridge-builder, seeking to span the gulf between the Word of God and the mind of man.

 THE PREACHER’S PORTRAIT, John Stott