# The Art and Science of Preaching



## valiant4truth (Jan 8, 2011)

It seems that in the past several years there has been a renewed interest, in the wider church, in the science of preaching. What I mean is that there has been more care given to hermeneutical precision, or the faithful interpretation of a given passage or set of passages than was the case a few years earlier. With this with this renewed interest in faithful interpretation has come a resurgence of "expository" preaching, which I advocate as probably the method method of preaching.

Having said that, it also seems that there is very little consideration these days concerning the art of preaching. By the art of preaching I mean a good homiletic. 

Do you feel that delivery is important in the preaching of the gospel? If so, how important? If not, why not?


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## Kevin (Jan 9, 2011)

Yes. Very.


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## Jack K (Jan 10, 2011)

Delivery matters. God has wired people to respond to the spoken word, spoken well, in a different way than they respond to, say, something they've read. Preachers should develop the art of good delivery and use it, along with well-considered and biblical content, to the glory of God.


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## Reformed Roman (Jan 11, 2011)

I think you can definitely get too wrapped up in stuff like delivery though. I think great caution should be taken of that as well.

The main point is to preach what the word says, period. Some people have a better delivery then others. 

(Just wanted to post a small other side to the story also, though I agree that it matters)


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## valiant4truth (Jan 11, 2011)

Pardon my insistence, by WHY does it, or doesn't it matter? We are people of the book. Has the book anything to say about HOW to preach the Word?


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## VictorBravo (Jan 11, 2011)

Scripture certainly says things about how the Word was preached. For example:

Acts 2:14, But Peter, standing up with the eleven, _lifted up his voice_, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:


Acts 13:16, Then Paul _stood up, and beckoning with his hand _said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God, give audience.

Nehemiah 8:4, And Ezra the scribe _stood upon a pulpit of wood_, which they had made for the purpose. . . .

Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that these passages are normative, but rather that Scripture provides details of how the message was preached (in terms of circumstantial means), and that such things are worth thinking about and improving. If we want to preach well, we should at least note that Paul used his hands, Peter raised his voice, and Ezra stood upon something to make himself more noticeable, etc.


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## greenbaggins (Jan 11, 2011)

I have thought rather a lot about this issue. On the one hand, we do not want to be saying that the delivery is essential to whether it will be effective or not. We locate the power of the message entirely in the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, poor delivery constitutes an obstacle for people to hear. They will get distracted by mannerisms in the pulpit. I think the reason for having a good delivery is not so that we can call attention to ourselves, but rather the opposite: our goal as preachers is to be completely transparent, so that the message of God comes through us with minimal interference from us. Good delivery should have as its goal the elimination of all distractions so that God's Word will not be impeded. Good delivery can, of course, be too good, in which case it becomes bad, for then the focus is once again on the messenger. My goal is to get out of the way of the text, and let the text speak as clearly as possible. We emphasize what the text emphasizes. We say it in the mood that the text has. We try in everything to match what the text is doing, so that people will see the text clearly. Then, if they reject it, they won't be rejecting it because we got in the way. They will be rejecting it because of their own hard hearts.


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## TomVols (Jan 23, 2011)

Greenbaggins said it all.


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## Pergamum (Jan 23, 2011)

Delivery is part of communication, communication is part of understanding, understanding is essential. Poor delivery=poor understanding. 

E.g., If God urges us to do good works and stirs us up to depart from sin and live holy lives, this is some major stuff.....reading these passionate truths like a monotone robot simply will not do.

We communicate by the content of our speech, but also by our tone, posture, mannerisms, etc.


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## bpkantor (Jan 24, 2011)

greenbaggins said:


> our goal as preachers is to be completely transparent, so that the message of God comes through us with minimal interference from us. Good delivery should have as its goal the elimination of all distractions so that God's Word will not be impeded.


I think that is a really good point. Good delivery will make the messenger completely transparent and put the focus on the message. This also means something that we might not think about right away.

To preach a text that is true, as if it is not true, is to have a problem with delivery. In other words, to talk about eternity without a sense of that reality is to have the messenger get in the way of the message. To preach on God's holiness without a real sense of it is to impede the message by delivery.

Let's say I'm in the kitchen and I put my hand on a pot resting on top of the stove. If I touch that pot, move my hand away casually, and say in a monotonous tone, "I've just been burned." You will not believe me at all, you will think the stove is off, or that it is broken. On the other hand, if I touch that pot, and really am burned, quickly withdraw my hand and shout, "Ouch!" You will probably come to attend to my burn. What is the difference? It is the reality. Although it is also important to note here one more option: that if I was trying to play a joke on you and pretend that I was burned, if you paid close attention you could probably tell if I was faking it and I wasn't really burned. That is why a sense of God's presence, His character, His attributes is necessary to make a message real. Anything less than conveying the reality of a message by means of it being real to the preacher in his heart and in his delivery will impede the message. If that pot really is hot yet I respond in the monotonous tone and gradually draw my hand away, that will inspire in nobody a caution before that stove.

What the preacher is preaching must be a reality for him. There is a great quote from George Whitefield...


> “You go to plays! And what do you see there! Why, if you will not tell me, I will tell you what you see there! - When you see the players on the stage, you see the devil's children grinning at you; and when you go to the playhouse, I suppose you go in ruffles – I wonder whether St. Paul wore ruffles? No; there were no ruffles in those days. I am told,” he continued archly, “that people say I bawl, and I will bawl – I will not be a velvet-mouthed preacher, I will not speak the word of Gud in a sleepy manner, like your church preachers – I'll tell you a story. The Archbishop of Cantebury in the year 1675, was acquainted with Mr. Butterton the player. One day the arch bishop … said to Butterton … “pray inform me Mr. Butterton, what is the reason you actors on the stage can affect your congregations with speaking of things imaginary, as if they were real, while we in church speak of things real, which our congregations only receive as if they were imaginary?” “Why my Lord says Butterton, the reason is very plain. We actors on the stage, speak of things imaginary, as if they were real, and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary.’



God bless,
--Ben


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## reformedminister (Jan 24, 2011)

"Preachers are born, not made. This is an absolute. You will never teach a man to be a preacher if he is not already one. All your books such as _The A. B. C. of Preaching_, or _Preaching Made Easy_ should be thrown in to the fire as soon as possible. But if a man is a born preacher you can help him a little - but not much. He can perhaps be improved a little here and there." - D. Martyn Lloyd - Jones


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## TomVols (Jan 25, 2011)

reformedminister said:


> "Preachers are born, not made. This is an absolute. You will never teach a man to be a preacher if he is not already one. All your books such as _The A. B. C. of Preaching_, or _Preaching Made Easy_ should be thrown in to the fire as soon as possible. But if a man is a born preacher you can help him a little - but not much. He can perhaps be improved a little here and there." - D. Martyn Lloyd - Jones


 
And he said this lecturing to preachers at Westminster Theological Seminary, and these lectures are now contained in the homiletics book _Preachers and Preaching_


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## raekwon (Jan 25, 2011)

Lane & Ben,

I get what you guys are saying regarding transparency, but I think that the way you're stating it might feed the erroneous notion that God doesn't want to use a preacher's unique gifts, personality, experiences, etc in the transmission of a sermon. If what we were truly after was "transparency," then why not just have scripture read and then expounded by an emotionless robot or something, right? (Of course, some preachers might not be too far off!)

Maybe a better term -- while not as ready on the tongue as "transparency" -- is "conductivity." As preachers of the Word, we certainly don't want to get in the way of the Spirit's work, like you said, but we *do* want to be conduits for the Spirit's work -- not in some disembodied, disengaged way, but in a way that utilizes the people that God made us to be, and all of the uniqueness that comes along with that. Our mannerisms and personalities aren't necessarily "interference."

Am I making sense?


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