Peter Cockrell Peter serves as a pastor-teacher, at home and abroad, resourcing gospel-centred communities.
One thought on “Preaching: Is There a Plan B?”
YES, YES, YES, …… AND………
I am grateful to Peter for sending all this stimulating and impacting material.
I enjoyed listening to these articulate and rich orators defending their practice as expository preachers, and the ‘primacy of preaching’.
I found myself thinking, ‘Yes, yes, yes. That’s true……. and yet…’.
Is there a risk of overstating a position we passionately hold, that involves our unquestioned role and function?
Of course God has chosen words, speech communication now in a written form to transmit knowledge, to reveal His will and purposes. Jesus is the Logos, the mind/reason/communication/wisdom. The Word of God, the Bible should be central, foundational to thought, belief and practice. Are there not different kinds or genres of words, literary forms that the Bible message uses: narrative, prophecy, poetry, wisdom, analogy, parables, and letter writing and so on? Even the proclammation methods in the NT are not necessarily the honed oratory of the preachers who were in the discussion. Paul comments on this in 1 Corinthians 1,18-31, and particularly 2,1-4. ” did not come with eloquence or human wisdom …”.
There was some critique or reservation expressed about ‘bells and whistles’, but do they not themselves employ the skills and methodology of alliteration, emphasis, pause, colour, variation in tone, appeal to thinking and feeling, use of questions, illustrations, metaphors, structural techniques, as well as the tools of hermeneutics and exposition? Is not expository preaching of the type they describe a human construction with its own highly developed ‘bells and whistles’, a genre in and of itself that is one of several forms of proclammation in the Bible?
Further I wondered whether in reinforcing the importance of preaching, (explaining the meaning of the text, and applying it to our historical situation so that God can speak through the preaching to the people) that they have created an imbalance. It was Tozer who appealed to the Church in the last century to restore the Jewel of Worship. Should not the thanksgiving, the praising of God for his being and attributes and his works, the pouring out of worship and love also have primacy in sunday worship services? Can the professional ministry eclipse the ‘leaning-in’ they referred to, the participation of the Body members and the exercise of gifts they have been given for the edifying of the church?
Perhaps some readers will raise eyebrows at the questions my reflections have raised.
I humbly submit “Yes, yes, yes….. I agree with what they have said……. and yet there is more”.
Already Not Yet 
YES, YES, YES, …… AND………
I am grateful to Peter for sending all this stimulating and impacting material.
I enjoyed listening to these articulate and rich orators defending their practice as expository preachers, and the ‘primacy of preaching’.
I found myself thinking, ‘Yes, yes, yes. That’s true……. and yet…’.
Is there a risk of overstating a position we passionately hold, that involves our unquestioned role and function?
Of course God has chosen words, speech communication now in a written form to transmit knowledge, to reveal His will and purposes. Jesus is the Logos, the mind/reason/communication/wisdom. The Word of God, the Bible should be central, foundational to thought, belief and practice. Are there not different kinds or genres of words, literary forms that the Bible message uses: narrative, prophecy, poetry, wisdom, analogy, parables, and letter writing and so on? Even the proclammation methods in the NT are not necessarily the honed oratory of the preachers who were in the discussion. Paul comments on this in 1 Corinthians 1,18-31, and particularly 2,1-4. ” did not come with eloquence or human wisdom …”.
There was some critique or reservation expressed about ‘bells and whistles’, but do they not themselves employ the skills and methodology of alliteration, emphasis, pause, colour, variation in tone, appeal to thinking and feeling, use of questions, illustrations, metaphors, structural techniques, as well as the tools of hermeneutics and exposition? Is not expository preaching of the type they describe a human construction with its own highly developed ‘bells and whistles’, a genre in and of itself that is one of several forms of proclammation in the Bible?
Further I wondered whether in reinforcing the importance of preaching, (explaining the meaning of the text, and applying it to our historical situation so that God can speak through the preaching to the people) that they have created an imbalance. It was Tozer who appealed to the Church in the last century to restore the Jewel of Worship. Should not the thanksgiving, the praising of God for his being and attributes and his works, the pouring out of worship and love also have primacy in sunday worship services? Can the professional ministry eclipse the ‘leaning-in’ they referred to, the participation of the Body members and the exercise of gifts they have been given for the edifying of the church?
Perhaps some readers will raise eyebrows at the questions my reflections have raised.
I humbly submit “Yes, yes, yes….. I agree with what they have said……. and yet there is more”.