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Preaching: Truth in Human Personality

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

Contributed by Paul Szobody

Nothing is so precious, yet so rare, as effective preaching. By “effective” I mean a ministry of God’s Word that does what it says. Also known among evangelicals as “anointed” preaching, it comes with an unexpected divine presence, a holy hush, an inward work in hearers that truly changes them. By it sinners repent. Saints are sanctified. Light shines from heaven into the darkness of terrestrial life and the dust of death is blown away. Weak are strengthened, depressed encouraged, the sorrowful find comfort, the intelligence enlightened, the hard heart made sweetly pliable, and the disinterested and complacent shocked by a direct encounter with the living Son of God. Under the influence of its voice, the prodigal comes home and the faithful are sent out equipped for mission. The church’s life, health, and mission depend on it. Her dogma is a footnote to it (an idea attributed to K. Barth). If a history of humanity be written from God’s perspective, it just might be a history of preaching and its effects.

I believe therefore that there is no more precious and worthy calling than to preach and teach God’s holy Word. There is no formation, no continual education, higher and more worthy of the best labor than that of a preacher. “You know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” Jesus said to the religious leaders. They failed their ministry and God’s people who depended on it. The remedy was simple: a right relationship to, and understanding of God’s word, and the quality of spiritual life whose work is accompanied by God’s own effectual presence.

Yet due to the four-fold complex dynamics of text-God-speaker-audience, it may well be that preaching is likewise the most difficult vocation in this world, if it be fulfilled in an efficacious manner. In it all the intellectual, spiritual, personal, and socio-cultural knowledge, experience, and skills come into inter-relational play; and these components of ministerial life need to be worked out with much wisdom and great spiritual and human sensitivity, if the work is to be worthy of its calling. In the final analysis, if God takes it all up into his own work, it will minister life. If not, nothing of value will result. It is all of God, but it is worth our all.

For the above reasons it is both tragic and saddening to observe preachers, confident in themselves, in their intelligence, training and skills, whose preaching is not biblical, or evangelical, or effective. To use the French Jansenist Saint-Cyran’s phrase, it “lacks unction.” The world and the church move on as if all is good and normal. But severe famine has set in, a famine of the hearing of God’s word (to borrow the words of the prophet). And most don’t know it. The church has no idea what she’s missing, how banal and malnourished is her life. Her bane is mere perfunctory religion: on time, well planned, perhaps esthetically pleasing, but with undiscerned empty cupboards. There’s no bread on the table. John Stott pointed out the serious culpability of preachers who waste people’s time with ineffective sermons. Unless one has witnessed and tasted preaching as a divine voice in the wilderness, as living bread from heaven, ignorance and self-satisfaction set in: we don’t know our own abject poverty. For this reason it’s important that the preacher study and note continually what constitutes effective preaching

The Idolatry of Doing Good

Posted by Nathanael Szobody on

On what basis is a good deed good? We might say that whatever has the effect of benefiting our neighbor is a good deed. But what if that deed was done out of selfish motive? Generally we do not call such deeds good, but rather self-aggrandizing.

What about the deed done out of guilt? If we act out of a sense of self flagellation, or a desire to atone for our wrong, then have we not put ourselves in the place of the only One who has the power to atone? Indeed, guilt itself was atoned for on the cross. Guilt offerings and sin offerings were done away with because Christ himself is the guilt offering.

Why then do we still find ourselves acting out of guilt? We act out of guilt when our condition becomes the motivation for our actions. We are guilty of all sorts of wrong, so when our condition becomes motivation, good cannot but be done out of guilt. But that is what we are freed from by the cross of Jesus. He died in order that we might now live in relation to him, and not according to our human condition.

Therefore, when we do good for someone out of guilt, we are idolaters. We are turning from a life that is lived according to Jesus and his relationship with us, and turning to a life that is lived according to our human condition.

Now the human condition is such that if we are thorough in the examination of our motives we might likely find that nearly all that we do has a self-referential motive. This might by some short-sighted line of thinking cause us to hesitate to do the good that we might if it is so motivated by guilt. But is not that consideration itself one that is self-absorbed? To the one who hesitates to do good because he is afraid of doing it for the wrong motive, Luther writes “sin boldly”. Because fear is also something from which we are set free.

If we are to answer the first question “On what basis is a good deed good?” then we must answer that a good deed is good when it is a forgiven deed, and so does the will of God.

Sin is a fact and it taints our motives; fear of that sin is yet another sin! What is the solution for such a comical self-defeat? We know that sin is forgiven, so its fact cannot produce fear any longer. While some may do good because of guilt for past wrongs, Christians do good because they are forgiven of all wrongs. Any other reason is idolatry.