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There is overwhelming evidence that congregations want two competencies in their pastors. First, they want persons who are able to explicate and apply the Word of God with power. Second, they want pastors who know how to incorporate persons into the worshiping, believing community and bring to them the treasures of the gospel in the passages and crises of life as well as support when life is routine and boring. With amazing unanimity, pulpit committees want a pastor who can preach.
There are good reasons to insist that the recovery of theological preaching, especially in the Reformed pattern, is crucial to the renewal of the church. This preaching responds to the crisis of a pluralistic secular society by providing a coherent vision of reality, rooted in the theological reflections of almost two millennia, and by enabling the Christian to find a theologically intelligible place in the world and in society.
Calvin’s preaching was a clear, unadorned proclamation of God’s works in creation and redemption as set forth in scripture and in a framework established by the Christian community’s reflection on scripture. It called people to decision, created them a community, and gave them an overarching vision of reality in which they could understand their own lives and their place in society.
John H. Leith, From Generation to Generation, pp. 83, 85, and 89. |
It was Hughes Oliphant Old, in his Worship That Is Reformed According to Scripture, who first opened my eyes to the history and importance of lectio continua preaching, which is reading and preaching through the Bible, book by book, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse, in order, without omitting sections. He also gave me courage to pursue such preaching yet today. Old’s book has been reissued in a revised and expanded edition as Worship Reformed According to Scripture. Here is some of what he has written about our goodly heritage of lectio continua preaching . . .READ MORE |
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