Speaking of Preaching...
December 20, 2011
Last Sunday each of our slated morning and evening preachers had originally chosen the same text for his sermon--the song of Simeon in Luke 2. I know because I was the evening preacher. Now hearing two (hopefully) biblical sermons on the same text in a single day certainly won't harm a congregation. It might even memorably demonstrate the richness of Scripture. But it certainly runs the risk of being unnecessarily redundant. After all, a tasty breakfast need not be reheated for dinner when another meal could be prepared.
So I was thankful that our morning preacher--Dr. Carl Trueman, in fact--heard about the textual coincidence, spent half the week preparing a sermon on Mary's Magnificat instead, and kindly left Simeon's song to the mercy of yours truly. What struck me was that Dr. Trueman did not merely transpose his Simeon sermon onto Mary's song (as I might have done). He explained and unfolded the Magnificat in its own context, pointing to specific verses in order to extol the glory of the incarnation.
Which leads me ask, how many pastors preach essentially the same sermon no matter which text lies open before them? Of course, the central themes of God's character, sin, the person and work of Christ, and redemption ought to reappear week to week. But each of these realities is richly variegated and should lead the preacher, text by text, to an endless number of focused treatments and applications. By contrast, doesn't the sufficiency of Scripture take a hit when, by the end of the sermon, the average listener (a) can't remember which text was read at the beginning but (b) knows he has heard this sermon before?
Consider well the charge given by John Murray to the recent champion of Christ-centered preaching, Dr. Edmund Clowney, when the latter was installed as Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary on October 22, 1963. May it be a charge to all those who seek to honor Christ from the pulpit this Sunday:
"Your work is concerned with homiletics, the exposition and effective presentation of the Word of God. I charge you to continue to press home, as you have done in the past, the necessity of discovering, unfolding, and applying the particularities of each text or portion of God's Word. Few things are more distressing to the discerning, and more impoverishing to the church, than for a preacher to say much that is scriptural, indeed altogether scriptural, and yet miss the specific message of the text with which he deals. It is by the richness and multiformity of God's revealed counsel that the church will grow up into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, and the witness of the church will be to all the spheres of life and to all the obligations of men" (John Murray, "Charge to Edmund P. Clowney," Collected Writings, 1:108-9; emphasis added).
So I was thankful that our morning preacher--Dr. Carl Trueman, in fact--heard about the textual coincidence, spent half the week preparing a sermon on Mary's Magnificat instead, and kindly left Simeon's song to the mercy of yours truly. What struck me was that Dr. Trueman did not merely transpose his Simeon sermon onto Mary's song (as I might have done). He explained and unfolded the Magnificat in its own context, pointing to specific verses in order to extol the glory of the incarnation.
Which leads me ask, how many pastors preach essentially the same sermon no matter which text lies open before them? Of course, the central themes of God's character, sin, the person and work of Christ, and redemption ought to reappear week to week. But each of these realities is richly variegated and should lead the preacher, text by text, to an endless number of focused treatments and applications. By contrast, doesn't the sufficiency of Scripture take a hit when, by the end of the sermon, the average listener (a) can't remember which text was read at the beginning but (b) knows he has heard this sermon before?
Consider well the charge given by John Murray to the recent champion of Christ-centered preaching, Dr. Edmund Clowney, when the latter was installed as Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary on October 22, 1963. May it be a charge to all those who seek to honor Christ from the pulpit this Sunday:
"Your work is concerned with homiletics, the exposition and effective presentation of the Word of God. I charge you to continue to press home, as you have done in the past, the necessity of discovering, unfolding, and applying the particularities of each text or portion of God's Word. Few things are more distressing to the discerning, and more impoverishing to the church, than for a preacher to say much that is scriptural, indeed altogether scriptural, and yet miss the specific message of the text with which he deals. It is by the richness and multiformity of God's revealed counsel that the church will grow up into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, and the witness of the church will be to all the spheres of life and to all the obligations of men" (John Murray, "Charge to Edmund P. Clowney," Collected Writings, 1:108-9; emphasis added).
