Tony Reinke has assembled a nice little collection of quotes from Spurgeon on this sin. Here's my favorite:
“Leave Christ out? O my brethren, better leave the pulpit out altogether. If a man can preach one sermon without mentioning Christ’s name in it, it ought to be his last, certainly the last that any Christian ought to go to hear him preach.”
8 comments:
My knee-jerk reaction is that it's a bit extreme to call 'Christless preaching' (defined as a sermon that doesn't mention Christ's name) a sin - can you help me see biblically why it's sinful?
Sam
Acts 4:12 comes to mind.
2 Corinthians 4:1-6 contributes to that thought, as well.
Paul pronounced "woes" upon himself if didn't preach the gospel.
In Galatians he says those who don't preach the gospel should be accursed.
Apart from those strong biblical words, I suppose I would ask, as a point of logic, what would be the point of preaching anything other than Christ?
And following that logic, if the gospel is of first importance (1 Cor. 15) and someone of Paul's intellect and renown says he resolves to know only Christ and him crucified, wouldn't holding these truths but withholding them in our preaching be sinful?
What about preachers who still manage to speak the name of Jesus but might as well leave him out altogether? I'm going to take the high road here and not mention any names, BUT I go to a certain Bible college where a certain seminary president got the axe (actually more of a slap on the wrist) for lying himself into the job. But often I have felt his teaching and many others like him still say Jesus' name but might as well just be talking about Him because of what He can do for you.
So they are not guilty of not saying Jesus' name. But in my book they are guilty for using Jesus in a myriad of ways.
It's guys like this former seminary prez who I once timed his usage/reading of scripture with a stopwatch. He clocked in at a whopping 13 seconds. I stopped going to hear him from then on. A year later he got the axe.
Thanks Jared.
My question on those references is whether Paul is saying there that you have to mention Jesus in every sermon? And that if you don't it's sinful?
Obviously if a ministry is not preaching Christ Jesus as Lord, risen from the dead, offspring of David, died on the cross, the kingdom of God then let them be accursed.. but in my thinking there is a lot of content in the gospel, and so there are lots of sermons that could be gospel proclamation without explicitly going through the whole shebang.
So if it's ok to just preach a part of the gospel in a sermon, maybe it's ok to just preach the part about how we're all sinful and need a saviour (ie most of the OT)?
So I'm hesitant to call a sermon sinful just because Jesus isn't explicitly mentioned in it.
My question on those references is whether Paul is saying there that you have to mention Jesus in every sermon?
How do you preach the gospel without preaching Jesus?
Paul defines the gospel in the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15, but any other way you slice it: no Jesus, no gospel. You might have an inspirational talk that's religious -- and you can even talk about Jesus without talking about the gospel -- but you can't talk about the gospel without talking about Jesus. You might have to give me an example of how that can be done.
but in my thinking there is a lot of content in the gospel, and so there are lots of sermons that could be gospel proclamation without explicitly going through the whole shebang.
Can you give me an example? How would one proclaim the gospel without mentioning Jesus?
So if it's ok to just preach a part of the gospel in a sermon, maybe it's ok to just preach the part about how we're all sinful and need a saviour (ie most of the OT)?
The message that we're sinful and need of a savior is not good news.
Preaching the Old Testament apart from the revelation of its promise (Jesus) is not Christianity, it's Judaism. (And Christ is all over the Old Testament anyway. Christians should preach Jesus from the OT.)
The Internet Monk, God rest him, used to talk about this phenomena: sermons in Christian churches that could just as easily been given by a rabbi or a Muslim imam.
So I'm hesitant to call a sermon sinful just because Jesus isn't explicitly mentioned in it.
One or two times can be naivete or a lapse. A consistent pattern of Jesuslessness begs the question: why isn't a Christian preacher preaching Christ? Especially when he is what each of us needs every day, not merely on Sunday.
Christ says to follow him daily. He says to eat his flesh and blood to live. And a pastor can say "Well, leaving him out of one or two sermons is no big deal"? That's scary, man.
When Paul says he resolved to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified, who are we to say we can open the parameters a bit?
First up, I want to contextualise this a bit.
You I think, want to guard against legalistic or moralistic OT preaching. I completely agree.
However, I want to guard against a one-size-fits-all preaching from the OT, that often seems to happen if people think that you have to 'preach Christ' in every message. I want to guard against not listening carefully to what this OT text is saying to us.
I personally am quite keen to get to Christ as often as I can, because you're right Jesus does appear all over the place in the OT. But I am wary of creating a rule that implicitly equates not mentioning in Christ in your talk with preaching another gospel.
On to the detail, let's see how long I last:
Sam: My question on those references is whether Paul is saying there that you have to mention Jesus in every sermon?
Jared: How do you preach the gospel without preaching Jesus?
The move you've made here is to assume that we need to preach the gospel (narrowly defined as something like God's kingdom coming in Jesus) in every sermon we give.
My suggestion is that there is a place for preaching 'law' (as the Puritans called it).
You might have to give me an example of how that can be done.
How about when God preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying "In you all nations will be blessed" (Gal 3)?
Sam: So if it's ok to just preach a part of the gospel in a sermon, maybe it's ok to just preach the part about how we're all sinful and need a saviour (ie most of the OT)?
Jared: The message that we're sinful and need of a savior is not good news.
I probably unhelpfully used gospel there in a broad sense of something like the proclamation of God's plan to save and rule through Christ - of which all of scripture is a part.
But part of the gospel message is a command to repent from your sin.
I think Amos 1-2 is an implicit call to repentance. I wouldn't see the need to preach Christ explicitly if I was giving a sermon in a series on Amos.
Sorry have to go.
The move you've made here is to assume that we need to preach the gospel (narrowly defined as something like God's kingdom coming in Jesus) in every sermon we give.
Well, I do think we need to preach the gospel in every message, sure. But I made that "move" in my question b/c you suggested we could preach the gospel without preaching Jesus. I asked how you could do that. So that's why I made that "move."
My suggestion is that there is a place for preaching 'law' (as the Puritans called it).
It wasn't just the Puritans who called the law the law. But they did not preach the Law apart from grace. I don't know if you've read much of the Puritans, but I think you will find this is true if you do.
Law without gospel is not even Christianity.
How about when God preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying "In you all nations will be blessed" (Gal 3)?
But how were they blessed?
It's funny that you single out Galatians, as that letter is Paul at his most exasperated and irate about the preaching of Law without the gospel of Jesus Christ. It pretty much argues the opposite of what you're suggesting.
But part of the gospel message is a command to repent from your sin
Of course. But if the message is only repentance, it begs the question(s): For what? And to what?
Preaching repentance from sin without the free grace of Christ is the mistake of the fundamentalists of yesteryear. (Which is interesting, b/c I think today's "6 steps to success" type seeker sermons are really just the old school legalism dressed up with rock music and blue jeans.) "Do" isn't any more the message of Christianity than "don't." And "repent from your sin" helps nobody if it isn't paired with "and believe in Jesus Christ."
I think Amos 1-2 is an implicit call to repentance. I wouldn't see the need to preach Christ explicitly if I was giving a sermon in a series on Amos.
Then you shouldn't call yourself a Christian preacher. What would separate you from Judaism or Islam or even Mormonism with such a Christless call to repentance?
Ok last comment from me, thank you for the dialogue - I've appreciated it.
I completely agree that you need to preach Christ consistently etc. A pattern of ministry that is Christless is obviously disastrous.
I am only contending that it might be possible to be a faithful preacher of God's word and not introduce Christ into every sermon. Perhaps I'm straining gnats.
With the Amos example I was rushing so phrasing not great - I'm sure I'd would want to preach Christ explicitly at some point in the series, but I might want to let our sin problem hang in the air a bit. I don't know - that may not be wise, but I'm not sure it's sinful.
My main point is this: the 'bad news' of our failure to be justified through law-keeping is a huge part of the OT witness, and we need to preach it clearly where it appears. (Alongside the hope of God putting things right through his Messiah of course.) I'm sure there's room for something about the Lord Jesus, but let's trust that God knows what he's doing when he gives us a portion of his word that's pretty gloomy, and get gloomy.
Here's a sermon that I think is pretty good at that: http://audio.stag.org/pdf/amos_7.html
Thanks again for the discussion - it has been helpful.
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