Sermon Tone Analysis

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

[1]

For the average Christian, the study of theology appears to be about exciting as watching grass grow.

That is a shame; knowledge of the Holy One and the study of His work in the world that He created should be more exciting than anything we could ever imagine.

Annie Dillard has written, “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions.

Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?

Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it?

The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.

It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets.

Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.

For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”

[2] When we worship, we are coming into the presence of the Living God!

He is wild, unpredictable, exciting enough to make the head spin while taking away our breath!

That we are not awed by knowledge of the Holy One testifies to the intensity of our focus on the things that must pass away with this dying world.

We live for just one more day so that we can perform some duty or continue the routine we have carefully crafted for ourselves, unconscious of the fact that as those who are born from above we are standing in the presence of the Living God.

We Christians have living within our bodies the One who declared Jesus to be the Son of God by raising Him from the dead [see ROMANS 1:4].

We who believe in the Risen Christ of Glory are now living in the presence of Him who conquered death and who has brought us life and given us immortality [see 2 TIMOTHY 1:10].

We followers of the Christ have immediate access to the throne of Him “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” [see ROMANS 4:7].

Coming before His holy presence we should be prepared to be transformed.

That we are not so prepared testifies to our preoccupation with the death we call “life.”

If members of the flock are not prepared to be transformed, it may well be the fault of the Pastor.

Of all people, pastors are responsible to be theologically perceptive; they are constantly to strive to inform themselves of the nature of God and to exalt the work of Christ the Son of God in securing salvation.

Pastors are to labour in the Word, accurately dividing the Word, so that the people will be awed by the majesty, the grandeur, the glory of the True and Living God.

Never has it been more critical that the Pastor function as the church’s theologian than in these days near the end of the Age of Grace.

As ominous clouds forebodingly presage the Laodicean Era, the need for the Pastor to speak boldly and clearly grows more urgent all the while.

It seems as if many are drawing back, succumbing to the siren call to be those pitiful creatures that Paul describes in the text—teachers to suit the passions of those to whom they speak.

Pastor and parishioner have complementary roles to play to ensure that the truth is declared.

First in importance is the need for the Pastor to be the church’s theologian.

*THE MESSENGER AND THE MESSAGE* — “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word.”

The pastor must not have a private agenda.

He is appointed by God as a herald.

In his first letter to Timothy, Paul speaks of himself as a preacher.

In his first missive to Timothy, Paul wrote “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth” [1 TIMOTHY 2:5-7].

The Apostle refers to himself as a preacher in this current letter, as well.

“Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do.

But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me” [2 TIMOTHY 1:8-12].

The concept of preacher in our mind differs significantly from that which Paul uses in the Word.

A preacher (a /kêrux/) is defined as a “herald, whose duty it is to make public proclamations.”

He is also said to be “a messenger from God.” [3] Perhaps that doesn’t sound so terribly different from our concept of a preacher; however, what distinguished this concept Paul used from our understanding is the stature and lack of freedom in declaring a message that the preacher might have.

One scholar notes this of the word Paul used.

“The /kêrux/ was always under the authority of someone else, whose spokesman he was.

He himself was immune.

He conveyed the message and intention of his master.

He had … no liberty of his own to negotiate.

His office had in every case an official character, even when he appeared in the market place as a public middleman or auctioneer… He was, therefore, also the announcer of judicial verdicts.

What he announced became valid by the act of proclamation.”

[4]

I have taken some pains to emphasise the New Testament concept the preacher precisely because it is bounded by the Word.

The preacher is not appointed to engage in speculation, to present specious philosophical arguments or to digress into fields of sociology, psychology or economic theory.

He is to “Preach the Word.”

I am always amazed, and somewhat perplexed, by those preachers who say they have nothing to preach, or who crib a sermon from some well-known expositor and deliver the sermon as though it was their own, or who resort to book reports, or pretend they are experts in economic theory.

God has revealed Himself through this Word.

The Infinite God has given us a perfect revelation of Himself in His Word.

Therefore, the Apostle commands the young theologue, “Preach the Word.”

There is a truth that is obscured by translation into English that demonstrates this point.

In 1 TIMOTHY 5:17 the Apostle states, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.”

This is the translation that addresses what was literally written: “Give double honor to spiritual leaders who handle their duties well.

This is especially true if they work hard at teaching the word ⌊of God⌋.” [5] The elders are expected to “work hard at teaching the Word.”

People do not come to church to hear economic speculation, nor are they particularly interested in some individual’s scientific suppositions.

The man who just heard his physician say, “I’m sorry, it’s cancer,” wants to know if there is hope from God.

The wife who just heard her husband mutter, “I never did love you,” wants to know if God loves her.

The husband and father who is struggling to provide for his family in uncertain times isn’t interested in whether the speaker has a grandiose idea for wealth redistribution; he wonders if God will speak to encourage him not to give in to despair.

The people come to the House of the Lord to hear, “Thus saith the Lord.”

Therefore, the preacher is commanded, “Preach the Word.”

If the preacher is so rushed in his workweek that he hasn’t sufficient time to prepare a message to fill the time normally allotted, let him focus on a smaller portion of the Word and reveal the mind of the Lord to the congregation.

Five minutes of solid meat are superior to an hour of cotton candy.

Nor should he be overly concerned that he may neglect spiritual infants; there will be enough milk delivered with the meat to ensure that the toddlers are well fed and to allow the mature to wash down the solid food.

Let the listeners leave sated by having feasted on the meat of the Word.

Those who find themselves discomforted by solid food may well discover themselves convicted by the Spirit of God as He works through the message that was delivered.

The preacher prepares himself through study of the Word.

He must steep his life in the Word, investing great amounts of time in the presence of the Living God listening to hear the divine voice directing his steps.

He must labour to be on speaking terms with heaven, ready at a moment’s notice to speak with the Risen Son of God.

The preacher must be a student of the Word, reading until his spirit is flavoured by the Word of the Lord and his blood is bibline—the very essence of the Bible flowing in him.

The preacher must be a scholar; he must always strive to educate himself so that he speaks with clarity and with authority.

He must not be pretentious or hold an exaggerated opinion of himself; but he must labour to train himself in the knowledge of the Holy One.

Paul urged Timothy, and thus urges all who would bear the title of a preacher, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” [2 TIMOTHY 2:15].

I know that some people are concerned that the preacher’s language may betray too much education or even that he may be uneducated.

The learned scholars of ancient Jerusalem disdained Peter and John as “uneducated, common men,” but they recognized they had been with Jesus [see ACTS 4:13].

Consequently, they could bluster and threaten, but they could say nothing against them [see ACTS 4:17].

What is missed by many is that the Apostles were scholars, always seeking to know more of Christ and of His great salvation.

I’ve heard some church members complain that a preacher had poor grammar; and to be sure, grammatical faux pas can grate on the ear.

Preachers need to work at speaking well to ensure they communicate effectively.

However, I want to address this matter in pointed fashion.

I would rather a preacher say, “I seen him when he done it” and know that he did see someone, than to hear a preacher say, “I saw him when he did it” when he saw nothing.

I am all for education.

I have a few letters I can write after my name.

Nevertheless, I would rather a man learned his ABCs in heaven than spouted Hebrew and Greek in hell.

It is essential that the preacher be a master of the Bible in the vernacular; he needs to know what is written in the language in which he preaches.

He must study constantly, however onerous the task of reading may be.

If possible, he needs to endeavour to be conversant with the Bible in the original languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

There was a day when those choosing to attend seminaries would be expected to come out with a working knowledge of these ancient languages in addition to having been trained in homiletics and hermeneutics in addition to more than a passing understanding of biblical and/or systematic theology.

Today, few seminaries require students to master biblical languages or even gain competence in systematic theology.

Instead, today’s seminarians are trained in self-actualisation (whatever that is), counselling, music theory, worship strategies and sociology.

Consequently, these graduates may be capable of generating a particular feeling from a crowd and they may be well versed in making people feel good about themselves, but they are unable to speak with authority.

The flock of God looks up expecting to hear the voice of the Chief Shepherd echoing through the biblical words of the under shepherd, only to hear the hollow clanging of a noisy gong.

The man who would be God’s messenger must prepare by consuming the Word, always striving to ensure that the flock of God receives rest, refreshment and restoration from the Word that God has given.

Sheep that are prone to stray must be confronted by their wayward movement by being confronted by the Word.

Note that it is the Word that is the message.

Paul commands, “Preach the Word.”