Piper on Machen, Doctrine, and Preaching
August 13, 2008
Amidst all the hoo-hah out there about whether my pal Trueman is really a chinless theology-lite liberal, why anyone would want to study Lederhosen, whether Schleiermacher would really have spoken cockney dialect with a German accent, and other matters of equally pressing importance to the kingdom, I did some reading on old Machen and came up with this interesting quotation from John Piper:
`This skepticism about the value of doctrine is owing to bad preaching that is not passionate and clear and interesting and suspenseful and authentic about the glories of God and his way of salvation, and how it all connects to real life. "The dogma is the drama," as Dorothy Sayers said, and the reason we don't show this to people in our preaching and teaching and writing is that we have not seen and felt the greatness of the glory of God an all his teachings. Preaching doctrine should not be confusing or boring. Machen says: That error, unquestionably, should be avoided not by the abandonment of doctrinal preaching, but by our making doctrinal preaching real preaching. The preacher should present to his congregation the doctrine that the Holy Scripture contains; but he should fire the presentation of that doctrine with the devotion of the heart, and he should show how it can be made fruitful for Christian life.'
`This skepticism about the value of doctrine is owing to bad preaching that is not passionate and clear and interesting and suspenseful and authentic about the glories of God and his way of salvation, and how it all connects to real life. "The dogma is the drama," as Dorothy Sayers said, and the reason we don't show this to people in our preaching and teaching and writing is that we have not seen and felt the greatness of the glory of God an all his teachings. Preaching doctrine should not be confusing or boring. Machen says: That error, unquestionably, should be avoided not by the abandonment of doctrinal preaching, but by our making doctrinal preaching real preaching. The preacher should present to his congregation the doctrine that the Holy Scripture contains; but he should fire the presentation of that doctrine with the devotion of the heart, and he should show how it can be made fruitful for Christian life.'
