Wherever Paul traveled, revolutions broke out. Wherever I go, they serve tea.” So said an Anglican bishop lamenting his perceived lack of impact upon people.
We all know what he’s saying. Particularly in the area of preaching. You spend hours in preparation: both spiritual and scholastic. You seek stories and illustrations that ooze meaning and significance. You search your own life to make sure that you are as transparent as possible. Then, when the moment arrives, you preach your heart out. Words flow, thoughts build, stories produce laughter or reflective silence, decision time comes, and you expect … Pentecost!
Moments later the people file out with opaque comments such as “Nice sermon, Pastor” or “You gave me something to think about” or “You were really ‘on’ today.”
On the drive home, your nerves are raw. Indeed, it was a nice morning … but didn’t anything happen? Like a revolution, for example? Or did we just serve our usual tea?
I’ve made that trip home countless times. I’ve entered the pulpit feeling that I possessed the spirit of a John Wesley and come out of the pulpit feeling like Cedric the Entertainer. It’s a blue moment.
Preaching in the Bible seems, at first glance, always to have provoked powerful reactions. Ezra and the Levites, for instance, taught the Law to the people, and the crowd could not stop weeping. Imagine being John the Baptist when the crowds cried out, “What shall we do?” Then there’s Peter preaching on Pentecost, and the hearers are “cut to the heart.” What happened when Paul preached at Philippi and “the Lord (opened) Lydia’s heart”? Impressive moments, which set a high expectation for any preacher.
Some speak of “anointed” or “Spirit-filled” preaching as they reflect on the origin of preaching power. On the other end of the transaction, where words are received by the listener, I would describe it as soul-deep preaching.
Soul-deep preaching is several steps beyond brain-deep preaching or feelings-deep preaching or guilt-deep preaching. The former provokes conviction, conversion, brave new actions. The latter: a momentary experience of good feelings or an intellectual appreciation of a solid point well made. But not much more.
An old cartoon features a preacher saying to another, “When you come right down to it, I’m just a collection of clichés, but I think I’ve managed to combine them in a rather exciting way.” That’s probably not said by a soul-deep preacher.
Soul-deep preaching is several steps beyond brain-deep preaching or feelings-deep preaching, or guilt-deep preaching.
Soul-deep sermons reflect the description of the “word of God” in Hebrews 4: “it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” You don’t get any deeper than that.
It’s important to observe that not all biblical preaching got to the soul, apparently. Take the words God spoke to Ezekiel: “Your countrymen are talking together about you … saying, ‘Come and hear the message that has come from the Lord.’ My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they won’t put them into practice. With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice … for they hear your words but do not put them into practice” (Ezek. 34:30ff).
Sounds like a pretty resistant crowd to me, people beyond “convictability” (a word I think I’ve coined).
Those of us with the call of a preacher long to preach soul-deep sermons. We know of preaching moments where scads of people responded to Jesus Christ or opened their lives to God’s love. And we want God to use us similarly.
Of course that kind of preaching—the soul-deep kind—does not necessarily invite the kind of praise that satisfies the ego. But it might instigate various kinds of revolutions. Change of heart, change of mind, change of attitude, change in relationships, change of behavior. It elicits worship, repentance, gratitude, submission. It might galvanize people to march together in new directions with a fresh sense of Kingdom purpose.
Our role in the soul When I reflect on soul-deep preaching as I’ve read about it, seen it happening, and—dare I say—experienced it (a few times), a few thoughts come to mind.
Let me start with the obvious: soul-deep preaching is an act of God. It shouldn’t (and probably couldn’t anyway) be reduced to mechanics or techniques. “Stand up and say to them whatever I command you,” God says to a young Jeremiah.
A soul-deep sermon can come from the lips of a simple, stammering, uneducated person, or from the heart and mind of a Rhodes scholar. God is not limited when vetting his messengers. Intellectually, Paul was at the top of his class; Peter was a working man. But both were tops in the soul-deep preaching department. Go figure.
But the person does matter. We do not live in a day when a person can separate from the crowd and assume something like an actor’s persona at pulpit time. We’re talking about a believable person whose personal holiness and practical faith are clear to see in the nooks and crannies of real life.
Gerald Kennedy quotes Luther: “When I preach in the stadt-kirche, I stoop down. I do not look up to the Doctors and the Masters of Arts, of whom there are about forty in my audience, but I look upon the crowd of young people, children, the servants, of whom there are several hundred. To them I preach. To them I adapt myself. They need it. If the Doctors don’t care to hear that style of preaching, the door is open for them to leave.”
I was 27 years of age, a senior in seminary, when I was asked to preach in a Baptist church in St. Paul, Minnesota. A few moments before I was to go to the pulpit, the host pastor suddenly leaned over and whispered, “See those guys in the second and third row? That’s most of Bethel Seminary faculty.”
I felt the inner regions of my abdominal area rearrange, for the folks in the second and third row were a formidable, austere looking bunch. What in the world, I asked myself, could I conceivably say to such a group that would compel their attention? Luther’s words would have helped me then.
Then I heard what seemed a direct message from heaven: “Don’t preach; just talk out of your heart to them about what you’ve been hearing me say. You’re prepared; you’re ready; just talk to them.”
A moment later I stood up and talked, quietly, personally, and as sincerely as I knew how. I didn’t pretend that I was anything more than a 27 year old who had been gripped by what the Scripture had to say.
“Talk to them.” I’ve been trying to do that ever since. No stain-glassed voice, no laundered vocabulary, no attempt to be much different than if we met in the Dunkin’ Donuts line.
A.W. Tozer wrote 50 years ago: “There are preachers looked upon by their people as divine oracles, who wag their tongues all day in light, frivolous conversation. Then before entering the pulpit … [they] seek a last minute reprieve in a brief prayer. Thereby they hope to put themselves into the position where the spirit of the prophet will descend upon them. It may be that by working themselves up to an emotional heat they may get by, may even congratulate themselves that they had liberty in preaching the Word.
“But they deceive themselves. What they have been all day and all week is what they are when they open up the book to expound it to the congregation.”
The Word made fresh A soul-deep sermon has to do with one’s insistence on taking scriptural truth and casting it in a twenty-first century frame. A challenging but not impossible task. Scholarship and imagination work together here to cultivate the curiosity of the congregation so that they are willing to crawl into the text with the preacher and appreciate why and how it was written and what the author was trying to say as he responded to the impulse of the Holy Spirit.
Having done that, it’s to work with the assumption that ancient truth is trans-cultural: it speaks to the present time. And what does it say? How will that truth translate into life on Tuesday or Thursday in the marketplace, in the home, at school? What difference will it make? What does life for the biblical person look like?
I have loved telling the story of a ferret named Bandit that our college-aged son brought home years ago. After some months we had to ask Bandit to leave (behavioral problems), but no one could tell us how to appropriately evict him. When I suggested to the pet store people that we simply let Bandit go in the New Hampshire forest, they were horrified.
“He can’t defend himself or survive,” they said. “He’s trained to live in a cage.”
We must beware of sermons that teach people to survive only in the protected cage of the church and among Christianized people. Soul-deep sermons take the powerful gospel and place it in the context of the streets of this world where life is tough and people need courage and wisdom.
Urgency (I think we prefer the word passion today) is an interesting word when it comes to the consideration of soul-deep preaching. It is used to describe a preacher who really believes that the eternal destiny of human beings is caught up in the issues a sermon might address. This is a scary thought. Truth be told? I don’t get the feeling that most preachers really believe that eternal issues are in the balance when they preach.
Readying the crowd You get the possibility of soul-deep sermons when congregations are prepared to listen at soul-depth. An Augustine, a Luther, a Calvin, a Wesley, a Spurgeon, and a Graham were effective when their audience was strangely ready. But here’s an opposite case in point: “(Jesus) could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith.” So Mark writes of a preaching day in the life of Jesus that could be labeled (forgive me, Lord) a strike-out.
A strange readiness, I say. Because there are times when God—for reasons we cannot understand—cracks through the hardness of souls and sends a sermon deep within. People repent; people change; people become, well … wonderful people. What readies a congregation? These moments are most often prefaced by large amounts of prayer.
A worshiper in a Welsh church (1859) writes of such a strange moment when people would have been satisfied with a routine meeting. The pastor, having read some Scripture, made “a few passing remarks thereon, (and) an influence was felt by all present, which we had never experienced in the like manner before. There was a beauty, a loveliness about the Holy Word which we had never hitherto perceived. New light seemed to be thrown upon it. It electrified us, and caused us to weep for joy. The feeling became general. All present were under its influence. The hardest hearts were forced to succumb … and then we sang, aye, sang with the spirit, and repeated the hymn again and again—we could not leave off. Every heart seemed inspired to continue, and the last two lines were sung for full a quarter of an hour.” Poof! The second Welsh revival was under way.
Results of soul-deep preaching We must not load on to the idea too much, but certainly some of the following attributes must be among its distinctive marks. A sense of the holiness and majesty of God might be one mark. This is a God with whom we must not trifle. He is to be respected and heard.
Then we might look for a sense of the deep, deep love of Jesus—a love that is virtually irresistible and which overcomes every barrier of the hardened soul. Jesus must be preached so that one cannot imagine living without a relationship with him.
Add to that the imperative of repentance. How could people leave a soul-deep sermon without being impressed with their unrighteousness and their need to make things right with God? Beyond that: the intent to change—a realization that this attitude or that conduct must be altered under the guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
One more result: the listener imagines a way to go out the door and make a difference in the name of Jesus. Serve people; introduce someone to Jesus; right a wrong; protect a vulnerable person. Categories like these.
I wonder if soul-deep preaching isn’t also characterized by a persuasive close. Salespeople use the word close to describe the moment when they ask a customer for a sale. Crass words for a preacher, but there does have to be a defined closure to a sermon, a clear description of the kind of response the preacher believes God expects. It has to be spelled out so that no one can escape the challenge.
Joshua had a great closer: “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve … as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” He got a good response.
There’s a spectrum in closing. At one end is the immediate response—when a preacher ends the sermon with an invitation. I like to do this occasionally. But I always warn people ahead of time. At the beginning of the sermon I say: “You need to know that at the end of this sermon I am going to give an invitation. It means that I’m going to invite you—if God is speaking into your life—to leave your seat, come to the front, and kneel and let someone pray for you. So as you listen to this sermon, keep in mind that I’m going to challenge everyone of you to think through whether or not God is speaking and if you are one of those who should respond to my invitation.”
I have never had such an invitation go without response. People so warned are people thinking with great seriousness. And they come, and often it becomes a milestone in their spiritual journey.
At the other end of the spectrum is an open-ended response, when you tie a truth to something people will experience during the coming week. Here the key is provocative questions or ideas linger in their minds.
Not long ago, I preached a sermon on perseverance and quoted Yogi Berra, “It’s not over until it’s over,” and then made some appropriate applications. A few weeks later a couple approached me with a family story.
“Our ten-year-old daughter,” they said, “was in a soccer game this week, and they were losing by a goal in the last five minutes. She heard the opposing team’s coach say to his girls, ‘It’s almost over, and you’re going to win.'”
After the game—which ended in a tie—she told her parents, “I heard that coach say that the game was almost over, and I remembered when Pastor Mac said, ‘It’s not over until it’s over.’ So I decided to play harder.” She went on to score the tying goal.
Maybe that’s not exactly the best illustration for soul-deep sermons, but if a ten year old can make a direct application days later, then anything’s possible.
Remember why you’re there The founder of the Quaker movement, George Fox, was a soul-deep preacher. When he reflected upon what made him a person like this, he simply answered, “I took men to Jesus Christ and left them there.”
There was a time years ago when (I’m embarrassed to admit this) I grew a bit bored with preaching. While it was important to me to preach good sermons, I began to forget that there was a purpose behind it, that there were results to seek.
“I’m not sure that anyone’s going to change because of what I say,” I told my wife, Gail. “I need to remind myself to preach for change.”
She heard me. And from that point forward, whenever I arose from my seat next to her to go to the pulpit, she would (and you would see her do it this next Sunday if you were with us) grab my arm as I stood up and say in a half-whisper, “Be a man sent from God; preach for change!”
She makes sure I remember the purpose of our preaching.
Gordon MacDonald is editor at large of Leadership and chair of World Relief.
Copyright © 2004 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information onLeadership Journal.
