Paul´s Way of Preaching

I never forget the words of a good preacher friend (now with the Lord) who humbly confessed before his audience, “For a long time I´ve been preaching, not to save souls but to save my own sermons.”  That was an honest concession from a humble man. 

By the way, he´s the only one I´ve ever heard say this.  That doesn´t mean that such a confession hasn´t been made before God by others. In fact, I´m sure it has.  And yet I can´t help feeling that many deliver their sermons for the sake of their mere romance rather than for the sake of delivering souls..

What´s the idea of preaching anyway?  To convey Bible knowledge?  That´s certainly part of it.  There´s more to it, however.  When Paul delivered his message at a “breaking-of-bread-meeting”  at Troas I don´t visualize a sophisticated or dignified pulpit.  Do you?  He probably sat down among the believers and talked freely and relaxed to them. The word used in Acts 20:7 is the word dialegomai, which means he had an open dialogue with them – or an informal conversation if you will.

There´s very little of that today.  An informal, edifying talk is not necessarily equivalent to a solemn pulpit lecture but will rather be “on the floor” at eye level, -  i.e. a  longing to be a blessing to one another. That  happened in Troas, and it went on and on “until midnight” (Acts 20:7).  In other words, Paul wasn´t always standing on an Areopagus platform to address a big audience.

How can we cultivate that kind of talk?  By talking to one another and not just saying “How are you doing?”  But it presupposes hearts filled with thoughts communicated to us by the Spirit of Christ in stillness. He never teaches us to become just mechanical “How are you doing?” Christians.  Think about it.

I once had a sick aunt, my mother´s sister.  She used to give me a ring time and again.  She didn´t call just to say, “How are you doing?” She would say, “Jørn, I have a word for you!”  And then came a word, maybe from the Psalms, and strangely enough, it was often a word in time of need.  She´s the only one, as far as I can remember, who would give me a call like that.  She was sick (manic depressive), but what a healthy, refreshing practice and a good example she exhibited.

-jn-

July 5, 2010