Conviction 2: The Bible, in its entirety, is God’s testimony concerning his son Jesus.
Preaching the Word is indispensable to Christianity
(John Stott, Between Two Worlds).c
Sunday after Sunday, two pastors stand before their respective people and deliver a message. They have spent many hours in the study in preparation. Afterwards, their listeners approach them and say, “Good sermon, pastor.” They say to their friends, “Our pastor is a good preacher.” But only one of these pastors is a preacher. The other, despite the helpfulness of the Talk, is not.
What is preaching? That is, what constitutes a good sermon? We have said in the introduction to this book that preaching is the accurate declaration and explanation of the Bible to an audience. What does this mean?
Accuracy
Some things do not need to be accurate. If a wristwatch is fast by three minutes, it does not really impact our day-to-day life. No police officer will ticket a driver for driving three miles per hour over the speed limit.
However, some things do require absolute accuracy. Unless a rocket approaches the earth at a precise angle, it will either burn up on its descent into the atmosphere or be deflected into space. Olympic sprinters measure their time to the hundredth of a second. The slightest nick of a scalpel in brain surgery has serious consequences.
Likewise, preachers need to be accurate in their preaching. Paul exhorted Timothy to be one who rightly handles the Word of Truth1. Peter instructs those who speak, to speak as one speaking the Word of God. To be sure, not one of us can say with absolute certainty that we speak ex cathedra when in the pulpit, but we always seek to, again in Paul’s words, “Do [our] best to present [ourselves] to God as one[s] approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the Word of Truth.”2
Good preachers will continue to improve at discerning the meaning of the Word, through study and prayer, and deliver that to their people. God will honor the preaching of a faithful preacher who seeks to hear God speak through his Word. Be encouraged. But God will never honor a lazy preacher.
Listeners to accurate preaching will find their knowledge of Christ increasing, both through information about Christ and through knowledge of inner transformation through Christ. Accurate preaching will leave listeners knowing their Bibles better at noon than they did at 10 o’clock. It will also change their lives, even if only incrementally. Both the head and the heart will be impacted.
Inaccurate preaching will also have an impact, but a negative one. Hearers of this preaching may be hurt by teaching that teaches a false message, like works righteousness, prosperity theology, or worse. They can be hurt by a preacher who says God will immediately heal if we “just have faith”. These things are abhorrent to the God of the Bible.
God has entrusted preachers with the responsibility of communicating his Word to his people. We dare not misrepresent him or be unfaithful to him. Striving for accuracy will prevent that. There is much grace extended to faithful preachers, to be sure, but they will nonetheless study the Scriptures continually to be right handlers of the Word.
Declaration
In the 2019 Boston Marathon, Lawrence Cherona of Kenya and Lelisa Denisa of Ethiopia were running neck and neck as the finish line came into view. They had run for more than two hours. In a finish closer than any in the last twenty years, Cherona inched forward and beat Desisa by a mere 2 seconds. Cherona was declared the winner.
After an election, ballots are carefully counted and whoever has the most votes is declared to be the next president or prime minister.
To declare is to state publicly that what is proclaimed is true. It is true that Cherona was the winner at the finish line, and it is true that the incoming president was the winner at the ballot box. If one favored a different runner at the marathon or voted for a different candidate, it does not matter. It does not change the fact that the run or the election is finished and the victors have been declared. A declaration is true, whether or not it is accepted.
The Bible is also true and is declared by the preacher as such. To declare is not to invite debate or discussion. It has been declared because it is true. It is a public declaration, a proclamation of that which is trustworthy, factual, and authoritative.
Preachers declare the truth they find in God’s Word. They confidently declare the dependable facts or principles to which listeners are to submit their lives. There is no room in the preacher’s vocabulary for, “I think,” but only for, “I declare to you the Word of God.”
Explanation
To simply declare is not sufficient, however. There must be an explanation.
It is quite useless to give someone a car, declaring, “This is your car,” without an explanation of how to drive one. It is equally useless to appoint someone to a new position, declaring, “This is your new job,” without explaining their new responsibilities.
To explain is to make clear what might otherwise be obscure to the listener. If the meaning or implication of what has been declared is elusive, the preacher will take that which is elusive and clarify it, to make the listeners certain. “I get it now!” says the congregation.
The preacher simply follows the lead of Scripture, which also declares and explains. It declares that we are to live holy lives and then explains how to live that way. It declares that we are to love God, each other, our neighbor, and our enemy, and then explains how to show that love. It declares that Jesus is Lord, but also explains what is meant by lordship, and how to live in light of that truth.
The Bible, of course, does not come to us in a simple “Declaration Followed By Explanation” equation, and there are occasions when the preacher can only say that the deep things belong to the LORD. But the preacher must be able to proclaim with confidence, “Here is what the Bible says and this is the way to respond to it.”
In the Old Testament book of Ezra, a number of Jews return to Jerusalem and surrounding area after having been exiles in Babylonia. In the seventy years that follow, the returning generation dies and a new generation is raised up, a generation unfamiliar with the Law. Ezra the scribe, accompanied by a number of Levites, is sent by the Persian emperor to teach the people. He gathers them and reads aloud the words of the Law and, in this, is assisted by Levites, who helped the people to understand the Law while the people remained in their places. They read from the book (declaring) the Law of God clearly, and they gave the sense (explaining), so that the people understood the reading.
To remain grounded in the Word of God, it is necessary for people to hear the Word declared and explained. This is the preacher’s task: to give the audience God’s truth as revealed in his Word, and to facilitate understanding by declaring and explaining.
Of the Bible
The Bible is the bestselling book of all time, with over five billion copies worldwide. It is also the most unread and least understood (which acceptable heresies and cults, who claim the Bible as their source, support). There has never been a time when preaching God’s Word was so needed.
Since the church’s reformation more than five hundred years ago, Protestants have considered the Bible their only source of authority in matters of faith and practice, for everything we believe and do. The Bible reveals the totality of Christianity. It is the inspired Word of God and, even though it has human authors, behind it all lies God’s revelation. His fingerprints are on every page.
The Bible is fundamentally God’s testimony concerning Jesus Christ. Jesus is its center, as we contended in the previous chapter. He is the main character in the stories of David, Elijah, and Peter. He is the figure standing at the heart of all its poetry, narratives, and letters in the Old and New Testaments. It is about Jesus and God’s redemption of the world, with Jesus as its central figure.
To preach the Bible, it is necessary to preach Jesus. Conversely, to not preach Jesus is to not preach the Bible.
To an audience
It is asked, “If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?” If a preacher preaches and no one is present to hear, did he truly preach?
To declare is to declare to someone. To explain is to offer an explanation to someone. To preach is to preach to someone, to an audience of those present to hear.
Imagine a herald in the Middle Ages, commissioned to declare news that the people have a new king, but there are no people to hear the news! Heralds who spoke on behalf of someone else also spoke to someone.
Preachers speak on behalf of God to the people. They take God’s Word and declare it to those who desperately need to hear it. (The hearers might not even be aware of their need. At Pentecost, Jews mocked the disciples. They had no expectation of Peter addressing them, but address them he did as he preached the gospel of Jesus in such a way as to convict and lead them to faith!)
“How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” asks Paul.
People need to hear a word from God, and preachers need people to whom they deliver it. They can declare and explain the Bible, but unless there are people to hear, they do not preach. Preaching demands an audience.
A preacher is one who accurately declares and explains the Bible to an audience. Nothing else is preaching. At the beginning of this chapter only one of the preachers preached Jesus from the Scriptures; the other gave his people an encouraging Talk using the Bible (or not!) as his starting place. One preached; the other did not.