Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. (Isaiah 58:1)

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

By turning the oral tradition of the apostles into scripts, the Gospels provided for a more permanent and thus more powerful rendition of Jesus’ life, which guaranteed the confidence and efficacy of the church’s spoken word. (Stephen Webb)[2]

Acoustic space implies presence far more than does visual space. . . . It is essentially inhabited space. (Walter Ong)[3]

The principle of sola scriptura “devours every dilemma that one might want to place between oral and written transmission.”[4] The preacher must continually be improving his oral skills as a communicator. This requires the preacher to engage people with the content of the Word, with a convincing earnestness, and with a compelling directness. The original meaning of propaganda was to propagate an idea (Latin “to sow”). This is persuasion in a positive sense. Preaching is a form of divine persuasion which intends the good of its hearers, while propaganda is mass persuasion which intends the good of the persuader.

As a preacher you must learn to distinguish between oral and written. As preacher and homiletician Dave McClellan reminds us:

In the last three hundred years we can trace a move away from oral roots toward an increasing literary structure of the sermon. . . . While reading and writing were certainly not rare skills in the first century AD, their purpose was fundamentally different. Communication was primarily oral with literacy serving in a backup role. To a large degree those tables have turned. We now think of generating sermons in literacy and then converting them to some form of orality on Sunday.[5]

The written is for the eye, while the oral is for the ear.[6] The greatest problem for the seminary-trained preacher—few men can do without such training—is its rigorous literary training, which often translates into an academic approach to the preparation and the delivery of preaching. We are book-, text-, and lecture-oriented. Lectures are content-heavy and meant basically to inform, not to move or persuade. Listen to J. C. Ryle: “English composition for speaking to hearers and English composition for private reading are almost like two different languages, so that sermons that ‘preach’ well ‘read’ badly.”[7] Perhaps there is some truth to the provocative statement that “people today are not tired of preaching, but tired of our preaching.”[8] Thielicke observes that “the man who bores others must also be boring himself.”[9]

Luther insisted that the gospel should “really not be something written, but a spoken word which brought forth the Scriptures, as Christ and the apostles have done.”[10] Preaching thus, according to Luther—sounding very much like a similar assertion in the Second Helvetic Confession—“must be viewed and believed as though God’s own voice were resounding from heaven.”[11] As Walter Ong reminds us, “Sound is the medium that best carries a supernatural message, because it delivers something external without putting us in control of its source.”[12] As we consider the use of manuscripts, we should remember that whatever we bring into the pulpit as an aid to memory should be designed for the ear—to be heard, not silently read. The best way to insure this is to preach the sermon aloud to ourselves in the study beforehand. As orator Quintilian observed, “The best judge as to rhythm is the ear . . .”[13]

Poet Donald Hall laments the disappearance of recitation and oratory from primary and secondary education:

We did not speak pieces competitively as our parents and grandparents had done; entertainment by movies and radio had replaced recitation of poems and oratory. A pity. Loss of recitation helped to detach words from the sounds they make, which is the castration of reading. . . . educators threw out . . . the practice of reciting and performing literary work, and with the habit of understanding literature by hearing it, by absorbing the noises it makes.[14]

Thus, we need to offset and counteract one of the negatives of the written or printed word. It privatizes the experience of the reader and impresses the visual rather than the aural memory. We need to reconnect the written and the oral if we are to be effective preachers. One way is memorization, which modern pedagogy discourages. But memorizing the best literature, especially poetry, furnishes the mind with vocabulary, phrasing, cadences, and ideas. The earliest formally organized work on rhetoric, Rhetorica ad Herennium, dealt with the importance of memorization as well as techniques to achieve a systematic structure of memory, known as the memory house.[15] Plato feared that the phonetic alphabet would undermine memory. Printing and computing have put several more nails into memory’s coffin. But orality requires a well exercised memory. Memorizing Scripture, especially your preaching pericope, and the Westminster Shorter Catechism will help mold this connection, both for you and your hearers. In the last chapter we saw how poetry has a special place in this department.

Proclamation and the Use of Manuscripts[16]

Does the nature of preaching as proclamation bear on the perennial debate over the use of manuscripts in the pulpit? Yes, because for one thing emphasis on delivering the message of another might lead preachers to believe that the quality of their oral presentation is irrelevant. In describing the role of a herald in Paul’s world, David Wells informs us that besides understanding his role as delivering the message of the king, “the most important qualification for the task was simply ‘a loud and clear voice’!”[17]

It should be of paramount concern that today the church often allows men to preach who have neither mastered good public speaking nor the ability to exposit a passage of Scripture clearly. The first should be a given, like piety; the second should be a high, and non-negotiable, demand. The exposition of Scripture has fallen on hard times. Our understanding of the nature of media should lead us to conclude that this medium—preaching—is all about what God has to say in his infallible Word. Thus, whatever we helpfully glean from ancient rhetoric, the Hebrew prophet, and not the Greek orator, is our model for preaching. This was the fundamental oral tradition of Jesus and his apostles.[18] Classics professor George Kennedy concludes regarding 1 Corinthians 1:17–2:16:

This passage may be said to reject the whole classical philosophy and rhetoric. For rhetoric the Christian can rely on God, both to supply words and to accomplish persuasion if it is God’s will.[19]

Should I use notes, or should I not use notes in preaching?[20] That is the question every preacher struggles with. A prior question will help to determine the answer: What are we seeking to achieve? Are we seeking good oral communication, including eye contact, rhythm, proportion, and passionate proclamation of God’s Word? Are we seeking to communicate God’s Word directly to God’s people? My answer then would be that whatever helps the preacher achieve those goals, whether it is a full manuscript, full notes, a bare outline, or no notes at all, is what they should practice. But remember, eye contact reinforces pastoral connection.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each way. In most cases men will benefit from changing their use of notes as they grow in preaching experience. It is no doubt very helpful to begin with the discipline of writing a full manuscript,[21] although I do not think it wise to bring a full manuscript into the pulpit, due to the difference between written and oral linguistic construction. Because each preacher is different in training and disposition, I think dogmatism in this matter is unwarranted and may even be harmful to the young preacher’s confidence. To insist that one cannot preach properly with notes is like saying a conductor cannot conduct properly with his score in front of him. The world’s best conductors sometimes use scores and sometimes do not.

I continue to use notes because I find that they help me to stick to the point, but I use no more than basic notes to remain free in the preaching moment. Excellent cases may be made for the two opposite poles of the discussion: a full manuscript or no manuscript at all.[22] I will present, not so much as a compromise, a third way. A slavish commitment to either extreme is simply unsupportable biblically and practically.

There are several things that we need to keep in mind when considering the use of notes in the pulpit. First, let me plead that preachers should be at liberty to determine what they bring into the pulpit by way of notes as long as the goal is achieved. John Hills recommended that the young preacher discipline himself to write out his sermons in full for the first five years of ministry. Several sermons were written out in full even nine years after his ordination. His outline notes became briefer as the years wore on. While the discipline of producing a full manuscript is useful in developing good preaching, we should avoid dogmatism when it comes to the use of notes in the pulpit, as long as good preaching is the result.

Manuscript preachers tend to be weak in distinguishing between oral and written language. Thus, it is my belief that the best sermon notes are structured as a set of visual cues, not a manuscript to be read or memorized, as I will discuss further below. This structure keeps the preacher on the track of the text. For some, preaching without notes is desirable, but not necessary. What is crucial is communicating clearly and directly to God’s people as God’s spokesman. In the absence of this, while the preacher spends most of his time looking down at his notes, he will seem distant to his congregation. Whatever aids good eye contact in terms of manuscript or no manuscript will vary from man to man.

Advocates of manuscript preaching properly extol the verbal discipline this regimen exacts from the preacher. Although not advocating manuscript preaching per se, I would insist that the discipline of precise, well-ordered, and interesting speech can only be learned through deep reading and careful writing as I have discussed in Chapter 11.

Transcribed sermons of preachers who use few or no notes read very differently than manuscripts that were first written to be read.[23] Seminary training, as I have said above, makes us book-, text-, and lecture-oriented. This indispensable fountain, from which the content of preaching flows, however, must not be confused with preaching itself, which occurs only in the preaching moment. Furthermore, whatever aid to the memory the preacher may bring into the pulpit, this is not the sermon. The sermon is the Word proclaimed in the presence of the congregation.

Contrary to popular misconception, extemporaneous preaching is fully prepared for, but exclusively oral in presentation, not rooted verbatim in a written manuscript. Should the manuscript be composed in literary as opposed to oral form, it will be poor pulpit communication. Quintilian distinguished between extemporaneous and impromptu speech. The latter is unprepared.[24] Extemporaneous preaching, as we shall see below, requires careful preparation but gives the appearance of being impromptu. Ancient “oratory assumes an extemporaneous delivery.”[25] In his monumental history of the reading and preaching of Scripture, Hughes Oliphant Old makes a convincing case that the entire Bible is essentially a preaching document.[26] Thus, the oral form preceded the written.

Much of what I have said above about appreciating and cultivating orality may seem to indicate that I see no place for the full manuscript. That is not the case as long as the manuscript is itself a document written in oral form and used in the pulpit in a way that does not impede vital visual and personal connection with the congregation. Something else a manuscript should not restrict is the openness of the preacher in the preaching moment to add to or subtract from the manuscript as the moment demands. Quintilian observes that student orators who have been exposed to good examples

will have at command, moreover, an abundance of the best words, phrases, and figures not sought for the occasion, but offering themselves spontaneously, as it were, from a store treasured within them.[27]

Dave McClellan insists:

A reader may be a good reader but can never match the communicative intensity of an orator discovering out loud. . . . To preach well we need to be in a sort of discovery mode, which is categorically different than a reporting mode.[28]

Quintilian insisted that “premeditation is not so accurate as to leave no room for happy inspiration [fortunae locus]: even in writing we often insert thoughts which occur to us on the spur of the moment.”[29]

On the other hand, one of the great weaknesses of preaching without notes is straying from the theme of the text and expanding minor points in a distracting way. It is all too easy to become so enamored of one’s own facility in speaking without notes that the preacher forgets that his expansion of the sermon may lose or even bore his hearers in the process. I recommend with Quintilian an “artful spontaneity.”[30]

Put the results of your study into an oral form. Homiletics is the art of translating the meaning of the text, in the context of systematic and biblical theology, into a form designed to transform God’s people in the act of preaching. Theology serves homiletics not vice versa. Think of your preparation as soil for the sermon, not the sermon itself. Do not bring your study into the pulpit. Bring the results; and bring them in oral form. Extemporaneous preaching is live preaching, fully prepared for, but exclusively oral, not rooted in the manuscript itself. “The written text of the New Testament itself is ordered to . . . oral activity.”[31] It is important to recognize that the structure of divinely persuasive speech is critical to its effect of the memory and thus the heart of the hearer.

Thus, your sermon notes, if you use them, should be structured, as I have said, as a set of visual cues, not a manuscript to be read or memorized. Use two manuscripts, if necessary: one is a written summary of your exegesis and application put in the order of your sermon; the other is a one page abbreviated form for the pulpit. Near the end of my first decade of ministry I had a young summer intern armed with the latest laptop computer. He had taken all of his seminary notes with this wondrous new device. I had just begun using a simple Apple 2C, which was a dinosaur compared to his. Of course, he prepared his sermon notes on his word processor and suggested I try the same. After some resistance my intern prevailed upon me to try word processing my sermons. I did so, much to my regret. Hitherto I had religiously used my beloved Mont Blanc fountain pen to write my sermons in full five page outlines, highlighting the main points in yellow and red. I had learned early on not to be a slave to my notes. They are useful to keep me on point, but not to keep me from adding thoughts and illustrations as they come to mind.

My only experience with word processing had been creating documents to be read, not preached. Book reviews, along with essays, periodical articles and the like, require an attention to grammatical and structural detail which preparation for oral presentation does not. In fact, as I learned through my first painful experience, preparing for preaching with precise writing is deadly to oral delivery, if that is the manuscript brought into the pulpit. Word processing, of which electronic mail is a type, while it allows non-typists like me to produce documents, has a tendency to encourage sloppiness of spelling, grammar, composition, and thought. The old handwritten manuscript and the more recent typewritten manuscript encouraged care and thoughtfulness, because revision was difficult. That was my approach to my first word processed sermon. Because I had put so much effort into composition, I felt naturally tied to the manuscript in my delivery. For written productions one must be, because that is the final medium of communication. After one awkward sermon I vowed never to use the computer again for sermons.

It was not until half a decade later that I made the attempt again. Meanwhile, since I had begun my doctoral work just after the first negative encounter with word processing sermons, I had reflected on the nature of orality and preaching in connection with the electronic media. With much more sophisticated software, I realized the potential of putting an entire sermon on one folded page, so that I could avoid turning pages in the pulpit. I began by rewriting old, five page sermons in the one page format. This enabled me to pay attention to the manuscript as a vehicle of oral communication rather than as a written record of a sermon. The highlighting and underlining had saved me from becoming a slave to the paper. Now I reworked the outline with directness and oral impact in mind. Few complete sentences, fewer quotations, highlighting vivid phrases in italic bold; everything was aimed at affecting the congregation. The difference was monumental. The effect has been dramatic. But it really all began with my reflection on my use of media, in this case the printed word, the written word, the word processed word, and the preached word. All of this was inspired by a passion to be a better preacher, a goal to which every preacher should never stop aspiring.

It is foolish to try extemporaneous preaching without careful preparation and experience. Richard S. Storrs’s Preaching without Notes is a classic on the subject.[32] Extemporaneous preaching requires as much, if not more, careful preparation as does preaching with a manuscript, just a different kind of preparation. We should distinguish between two kinds of extemporaneous preaching. Some write out a full manuscript and then memorize it word for word. A better way is to memorize the outline, markers guiding you in the right direction, and leave the articulation of the content to the preaching moment, based on your study of the text. But, if one uses a manuscript of some kind, what kind should it be? Quintilian insists that sticking to a manuscript does “not allow us to try the fortune of the moment.”[33] That fortune, of course, in the case of the preacher, is directed by the Spirit. Dave McClellan in his excellent treatment of orality in preaching, Preaching by Ear, sums up his thoughts on the subject: “It is this balance of both preparation and spontaneity that Quintilian upholds as our standard.”[34]

Clyde Fant’s Preaching For Today (1975) is especially helpful in this department.[35] He deals with some of the unique mechanics of oral preparation. Write like you speak; do not speak like you write. If you have ever read a written transcript of one of your sermons, you will be horrified at how badly it reads. That is as it should be. Listening to your recorded sermons with the manuscript you used is a helpful exercise.

This does not mean that poor speech patterns or bad grammar are acceptable orally. While no single method is universally helpful for each preacher, Fant’s point is that, like charity, orality begins at home. In other words, we must prepare orally. This means preparing our sermons “out loud.”[36] After exegesis and the discernment of the point of the text, begin communicating it out loud, and then write down the main points of the logic of what you have said. Fant calls this the “rough oral draft.” Then go back after more reflection on exegesis and the rough draft and make a “final oral draft.” From this he recommends a final one page “sermon” brief.[37] A more recent book advocates “natural scripting,” that is writing notes that sound exactly the way we speak.[38] Those who use limited notes in the pulpit, or only pay attention to highlighted full notes, already practice something similar. This is required to become an effective preacher.

Dave McClellan in his quest for true extemporaneous preaching takes issue with Fant’s “sermon brief,” as resembling an outline, which McClellan views as artificial. Instead, he advocates a “roadmap as the visual and iconic sense to the thought blocks that portrays a sense of destination toward a specific end, and the resultant ease of transfer to memory.”[39] I think he overstates his rejection of outlines, since his roadmaps function in a similar way. Fant seeks a slightly different means to achieve much the same end, which is a truly oral set of notes that map a progression of thought. But this is what a good outline does.[40]

The value of McLellan’s work is his extensive application of Quintilian’s pioneering treatment of the principles of rhetoric in Institutio Oratoria, to preaching. He works with a dimension of Quintilian which has been largely ignored: the place of improvisation in rhetoric.[41] The function of memory in preaching must not be confused with memorizing a sermon text, but rather, as McClellan insists, remembering the pathway of the sermon like the main points of a story, which can then be told without notes.[42] Quintilian observed, “[T]he crown of all our study and the greatest reward of our long labours is the power of improvisation [ex tempore dicendi facultas].”[43] For Quintilian, improvisation was the sine qua non of oratory, “The man who fails to acquire this [faculty] had better . . . abandon the task of advocacy.”[44] But improvisation for Quintilian was a learned and high art, acquired only after years of disciplined study and practice, never to be confused with the effusive efforts of mere talent.[45]

Furthermore, each genre of biblical literature requires a different approach, a varied use of outlines. The systematic announcement of “headings” may be helpful in preaching from the logically argued epistles of Paul, but the narrative of Judges may be better preached by following the story sequence and leaving the logical divisions “invisible” in the preaching moment. Headings, however, do also help the listener to remember the sermon. The recent discovery of the oral structure of ancient texts can be of immeasurable help to the preacher. Especially helpful in this area are the works of Robert Alter and J. P. Fokkelman on the literary structures of biblical narrative and poetry.[46] The distinction between oral and written logic should not be exaggerated in this discussion. No one can think, speak, or write, without logic. But the logic of narrative and the logic of epistles are quite different. They require different ways of ordering our thoughts, not a logic different from the way we think. The text itself dictates this. Much more work needs to be done with this area of homiletics.

The Public Reading of Scripture

If the public reading of Scripture is an essential part of the ministry of the Word, as we have seen in Chapter 8, then the same great care we give to sermon preparation should be given to reading Scripture aloud in public worship. Hughes Oliphant Old has titled his multi-volume history of preaching The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church because of the essential difference between the written  Word of God and its public reading in worship. When we read the Scripture we are saying, This is the inspired source of what you are about to hear.[47] We are reading the word of the King.

The synagogue and the ancient church read the Scriptures through, seriatim (lectio continua), on a regular basis. Copies of the Scripture prior to the Gutenberg era were rare and expensive. The average person did not have a copy to read privately. For most of the church’s history, God’s people have received the Word only orally. In the electronic age we must not assume that people are reading their Bibles regularly or at all. Even when they are, they may not be reading the “whole” of Scripture. So there is a unique value for God’s people to receive the Word with their ears, especially since it was written to be heard. The writing of Scripture was simply to preserve the revealed oral Word. The entire Bible is essentially composed as an oral and aural book. Israel’s Shema calls God’s people to hear, not read: “Hear O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4). The Bible ends on the same oral note, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 3:6).[48] The immediacy of the effect when Scripture is read properly has a unique place in the life of the church. But we must cultivate this. The way that we read Scripture aloud, as well as our entire demeanor surrounding the reading, will determine the attitude of our hearers, especially in their reception of what we preach after we read.

Remember the immediate power of the human voice in orality, especially when what is read aloud is the very Word of God. The power of Josiah’s reform is attested by the writer of 2 Kings:

And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD. (2 Kings 23:2, KJV, emphasis added)

Read to catechize, sounding in the ear! Imagine how the Word sounded after being lost in the Temple for so many years, heard for the first time (2 Kings 22:8). The Word read poorly in the ears of God’s people is tantamount to its being lost in the church today.

In Nehemiah 8:8 we read: “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” And in Acts 13:15: “After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying, ‘Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.’” Also 1 Timothy 4:13: “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” We normally consider this “reading” private, and silent. Its connection with exhortation militates against that individualistic interpretation, and that is why the ESV has modified “reading” with “public.” Consider Revelation 1:3: “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near” (emphasis added). This is public reading as the ESV indicates. The public reading of Scripture does not replace private reading or preaching, nor does preaching replace the reading of Scripture. Rather, the public reading of Scripture demands the preaching of it. In both, the oral dimension is its special power. The immediate presence of God in the voice of the reader/preacher of his Word is subversive to the sinner’s rebellious position in the First Adam, and it represents a living call to repentance and faith in the second and last Adam.

Trust the Power and Presence of God

As I have said, whatever human forms of help the preacher brings with him into the pulpit the presence of the Author of the Word is indispensable.[49] All of our preparation will be to no avail, unless the Lord is present in our preaching. For this he must be asked, even in the act of preaching. Trust the Holy Spirit in the preaching moment. The greatest folly of our age is trusting the means, the techniques of accomplishing things. The means of preaching, unlike any other form of public speaking, is uniquely dependent on God’s blessing in both preacher and hearer. Reformed preachers know the folly of trusting the Spirit without preparation; but we need to deal with the equal folly of trusting our preparation without trusting the Spirit, as if the delivery and effect of preaching were a merely human production. Pray for the only power that can make the medium effective: the power of God’s presence in your preaching through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Your special and general preparation will be used in the act of preaching in ways you will never be free enough to experience if you are a notes-slave. The Holy Spirit brings illustrations, ideas, and applications to mind in the act of preaching.

Unction is not a human attribute, it is the secret and mysterious influence that God’s Spirit bestows on faithful preaching. I love the subtitle of a recent book on preaching: “The mysterious act of preaching.”[50] There is no formula for effective preaching, because the effect is produced by the Lord. Thus, it is not a tone of voice, or style of delivery, or the notes we bring into the pulpit. The sovereignty of the influence is meant to move us to pray and depend humbly on God’s power in our preaching. He alone has access to the secret recesses of the human hearts of our hearers. Paul knew this well when he asked the Ephesian Christians to pray for his preaching:

praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. (Eph. 6:18–20)

Prayer is no substitute for study, but it must also not be a mere article of our faith, unpracticed in our private preparations for the pulpit. The effectiveness of our preaching will always be directly related to our dependence on God’s power through all our studious, intellectual efforts in opening God’s Word. The Spirit influences the hearer and the preacher alike. As Augustine insists, the true preacher “is a petitioner before he is a speaker.”[51]

As we have seen in the Reformation conception of preaching as witnessed in the Second Helvetic Confession, “the preaching of the word of God is the word of God.” Our Lord, the incarnate Word, has identified the preaching of his ordained spokesmen with his Word: “The one who hears you hears me” (Luke 10:16). Herman Hoeksema correctly insisted that the Greek of Romans 10:14 should be translated as the American Standard Version has it: “And how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard?” as opposed to, “him of whom they have not heard?”[52] Thus, it is “the preached Word rather than the written Word” which is the primary means of grace.[53] Christ is immediately present as the true Speaker in the preaching moment. “The implication is that Christ speaks in the gospel proclamation.”[54] So Calvin comments on the same passage: “This is a remarkable passage with regard to the efficacy of preaching . . .”[55] Preaching is not speaking about Christ but is Christ speaking. Haddon Robinson goes so far as to insist that even the inspired letters of Paul were no substitute in his ministry for the preached Word: “A power comes through the word preached which even the inerrant word cannot replace.”[56]

Anticipating the new covenant, Isaiah connects the voice of God with the human herald:

Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here am I. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice; together they sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the LORD to Zion. (Isa. 52:6–8)

In his biography of James I. Packer, Alister McGrath gives Packer’s excellent definition of preaching:

“The event of God bringing to an audience a Bible-based, Christ-related, life-impacting message of instruction and direction from himself through the words of a spokesperson.” Preaching was thus defined, not in terms of human performance or activity, but in terms of divine communication.[57]

Paul said it clearly to the Thessalonian church: “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Thess. 2:13). The preacher should never be satisfied with anything less than a congregation that is “taught by God” (1 Thess. 4:9).

While recognizing that you are a mere man like each of your congregants, and a sinful man at that, you must have the confidence that God has connected with his preaching ministry. If, as an ambassador, you stick to God’s message, and depend upon the power of his King, you may be assured that God’s Word, and not your own, is what the church receives. Calvin recognized God’s condescension in this arrangement in commenting that God “deigns to consecrate to himself the mouths and tongues of men in order that his voice may resound in them.”[58] The egalitarianism which favors dialogue does not favor faith, as Peter Berger notes: “Ages of faith are not marked by ‘dialogue’ but by proclamation.”[59]

*          *          *

Finally, as I have explained in Chapter 10, the deep well from which true preaching comes is biblical meditation. Our age does not provide either the atmosphere or the motivation for careful, nuanced reflection. The pragmatic bent, reinforced by our sophisticated Bible software, tends to propel us into gathering information in a mechanical way, leaving the illusion of having “studied” a text. Word and phrase searches have a beguiling power over the student. While I am not advocating the abandonment of these useful tools, they are never a replacement for quiet meditation in thought and prayer, especially in a place designed with little or no electronic distraction. Take time to pray and think and pray some more before you switch on the machine.

Above all, spend all your life’s energy in being a faithful herald of the Good Shepherd.

Endnotes

[1] Adapted from Gregory E. Reynolds, The Word Is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Preaching in the Electronic Age (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2001), 378–85.

[2] Stephen H. Webb, The Divine Voice: Christian Proclamation and the Theology of Sound (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2004), 68.

[3] Walter J. Ong, The Presence of the Word (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967. Reprint, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), 164.

[4] C. Trimp, “The Relevance of Preaching.” WTJ 36, no.2 (fall 1973): 18.

[5] Dave McClellan with Karen McClellan, Preaching by Ear: Speaking God’s Truth from the Inside Out (Wooster, OH: Weaver, 2014), 36, 38.

[6] Clyde E. Fant, Preaching for Today (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 162.

[7] Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1990), 345.

[8] John W. Doberstein, Introduction to Thielicke, The Trouble with The Church, viii, referring to a statement by Paul Althaus, emphasis added.

[9] Helmut Thielicke, The Trouble with The Church (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 9.

[10] in Webb, The Divine Voice, 144. Luther’s Works, vol. 35, Word and Sacrament I, ed. Theodore Bachman (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1960), 123.

[11] in Webb, The Divine Voice, 188. Luther’s Works, vol. 24, Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, Chapters 14–16, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis: Concordia, 1961), 66–67.

[12] Ong quoted in Dave McClellan with Karen McClellan, Preaching by Ear: Speaking God’s Truth from the Inside Out (Wooster, OH: Weaver, 2014), 102n41.

[13] Quintilian, The Institutes of Rhetoric, 9.4.116, in McClellan, Preaching by Ear, 138n17. Loeb Classical Library, 4 vols., Latin text with English translation by H. E. Butler (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1921).

[14] Donald Hall, Principal Products of Portugal: Prose Pieces by Donald Hall (Boston: Beacon, 1995), 51–52.

[15] The Rhetorica ad Herennium is the oldest surviving Latin book on rhetoric, dating from the late 80s BC. While attributed to Cicero (106–43 BC) its authorship is unknown. Cicero’s De Inventione is incomplete; only two of four volumes survive. Loeb Classical Library, vol. 403, Latin text with English translation by Harry Caplan (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1954).

[16] Adapted from Reynolds, “A Medium for the Message: The Form of the Message Is Foolish, Too,” in Confident of Better Things: Essays Commemorating Seventy-five Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, eds. John R. Muether and Danny E. Olinger (Willow Grove, PA: The Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church), 329–32. See also Gregory Reynolds, “On the Matter of Notes in Preaching,” Ordained Servant 20 (2011): 16–20.

[17] David Wells, “The Theology of Preaching,” 23, quoting L. Croenen, “Proclamation,” Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. Colin Brown (3 vols; Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1979), 49.

[18] Clyde E. Fant, Preaching for Today (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 36–37. Cf. Reynolds, The Word Is Worth a Thousand Pictures, 374.

[19] George A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 131–32.

[20] Adapted from Gregory E. Reynolds, “On the Matter of Notes in Preaching,” Ordained Servant 20 (2011): 16–20.

[21] I recently gave a box full of the late John Hills, Jr.’s manuscripts and outlines to the historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. They may be accessed in the archives in the OPC offices.

[22] F. Allan Story, Jr., “Without a Manuscript,” Ordained Servant 20 (2011): 35–38; Matthew Cotta, “A Brief Defense of Manuscript Preaching,” Ordained Servant 20 (2011): 38–41.

[23] Portions adapted from Gregory E. Reynolds, The Word Is Worth a Thousand Pictures (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2001), 378–83.

[24] McClellan, Preaching by Ear, 147–48.

[25] McClellan, Preaching by Ear, 50.

[26] Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church: Volume 1 - The Biblical Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 19–110.

[27] McClellan, Preaching by Ear, 148, fn. 4.

[28] McClellan, Preaching by Ear, 106.

[29] Chris Holcomb, “‘The Crown of All Our Study’: Improvisation in Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 31, no. 3 (2001): 66; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 10.6.5–6.

[30] McClellan, Preaching by Ear, 147n1.

[31] Walter Ong, Review: Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion (William A. Graham) in America (Mar. 4, 1989): 204.

[32] Richard S. Storrs, Preaching without Notes (New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1875).

[33] McClellan, Preaching by Ear, 149.

[34] McClellan, Preaching by Ear, 150.

[35] Fant, Preaching for Today, 159–173.

[36] Fant, Preaching for Today, 165.

[37] Fant, Preaching for Today, 166–69.

[38] Gary Millar and Phil Campbell, Saving Eutychus: How to Preach God’s Word and Keep People Awake (Kingsford, Australia: Matthias Media, 2013), 45.

[39] McClellan, Preaching by Ear, 133n11.

[40] Timothy Keller advocates the use of the outline, contrary to those who believe it hinders orality. Timothy Keller, Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Viking, 2015), 223–28.

[41] Chris Holcomb, “‘The Crown of All Our Study’: Improvisation in Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 31, no. 3 (2001): 53–72 in McClellan, Preaching by Ear, 147, fn. 1.

[42] McClellan, Preaching by Ear, 97–98, 132, 136–37.

[43] Holcomb, “The Crown of All Our Study,” 53; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 10.7.1.

[44] Holcomb, “The Crown of All Our Study,” 53.

[45] Holcomb, “The Crown of All Our Study,” 56–58.

[46] Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981); The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1987); Jan Fokkelman, Reading Biblical Narrative: An Introductory Guide, trans. InekeSmit (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1999); Reading Biblical Poetry: An Introductory Guide, trans. InekeSmit (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001).

[47] Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, vol. 1, 52, 58.

[48] McClellan has a fine summary of what the Bible teaches about its own oral and aural nature, Preaching by Ear, 61–82.

[49] This section is adapted from Reynolds, The Word Is Worth a Thousand Pictures, 384–85.

[50] John Koessler, Folly, Grace, and Power: The Mysterious Act of Preaching (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011).

[51] Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 141.

[52] David H. Schuringa, “The Preaching of the Word as a Means of Grace: The Views of Herman Hoeksema and R. B. Kuiper,” Th. M. thesis (Theological Seminary, 1985), 18–22. Later in chapter III (34–43) a convincing case for the grammatical correctness of this translation is made.

[53] Schuringa, “The Preaching of the Word as a Means of Grace,” 33.

[54] Schuringa, “The Preaching of the Word as a Means of Grace,” 43.

[55] Schuringa, “The Preaching of the Word as a Means of Grace,” 44; John Calvin, Epistle to the Romans, Calvin’s Commentaries, vol. 19 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 398.

[56] Haddon Robinson, Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980) 17, in Heck, The ERS: The Five Steps of Bible Exposition, 12. Cf. Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, vol. 1, 52.