A little while back, a preacher told the story of a pastor he once sat under. The context was a very brief aside about preaching the same sermon several times. This original pastor, it was said, would privately joke about being able to preach the same sermon twice and people wouldn't even notice! He would sometimes change the illustrations, sometimes the introduction, and other times, to be even more sneaky, he'd even change the text itself, but always preach the exact same sermon, and they'd think it's a completely new one! The preacher who was relaying the story found this to be hilarious. All around, the congregation that day was laughing and snickering at the thought of the "clever preacher" who could pull such a brilliant trick over on his people.
But, was it really that brilliant of a trick?
Years ago, my homiletics teacher, who still travels around preaching in churches across the US, recalled that he almost always changes the introduction and the application of a sermon to best fit the audience and setting. Of course, without question, this is an admirable practice. So far, the original preacher is safe; he even has at least one amusing joke.
The ultimate goal of preaching is that "...the people of God will have aligned themselves to the will of God for the glory of God..."(1) This demands some adaptation for each and every delivery of a chosen sermon. The application of a sermon must change to best point that particular group of people, on that particular day, in that particular place, to further their Christ-likeness. This will be unique every single time the sermon is delivered.
To move on, the primary intent of introductions is to draw the listeners attention and begin to reveal main idea, or our need for the main idea. Different people will be drawn in different ways. Therefore, to best help them understand the main point, or frankly, any point of any sermon, the audience must first be listening. It is the duty of the preacher, then, to find what introduction will best help them to listen, or best help them begin to understand and accept the main idea. Yet again, these are steps that directly touch people. They need to adapt to best touch the people they are addressed to and to best help them, directly or indirectly, become more like Christ.
So far, all is good.
But the preacher didn't stop there.
That's when the bemusing joke became so utterly sad.
This man admitted to changing his text, without changing the sermon outline at all, and thought that to be nothing short of hilarious. Now, lest we be distracted by the excuse that "it was only a joke" I can assure you that, a few months later, I found myself listening to that original preacher give a sermon that confirmed this "ability." That sermon hardly even mentioned the proclaimed "text" after the first few minutes. This joke was, though delivered as something amusing, completely, and horrifyingly, serious.
Upon hearing the "joke" one may be confused on why, exactly, it is what I would consider one of the saddest jokes I have ever heard. Perhaps this will clear things up. If a preacher can shift the base text that the sermon will spring from, without changing the sermon at all, one or more of three possibilities must absolutely be true. any one of which is equally depressing when truly meditated on.
1- The sermon in question is so utterly generic to fit several texts that it cannot possibly make any specific change in one's life nor is in any way respectful of the details and nuances of the Bible.
2- The sermon is question is so utterly removed from the Bible itself, and thus any text, that the preacher alone is supplying the lesson, rather than God from his Holy Word, which is an abuse of the preacher's calling and also highly disrespectful and dismissive of the Bible.
3-The sermon so utterly warps the meaning of the Biblical texts to fit the preconceived ideas of the preacher that he has, as a result, elevated himself above God and imitated the behavior of the Devil himself in his mention of Scripture only to fit it firmly int he mold of his own will rather than God's.
If the first is the problem, the sermon is hardly more than a powerless and generic moralistic/motivational ranting. If a sermon does not tap into the power of God, nor allow God's Word to make a difference in the lives of souls, it is nothing more than an inspirational speech at best and a complete rejection of the power and moving and mind of God at worst. Either way, it is sad that one who claims to preach the Word of God misses it by such a wide margin.
If the second, the preacher is so utterly ignorant of the Bible, or so drunken on his own ideology, that he uses his high and holy calling solely to prop up his own philosophies in the stead of God's truth. Perhaps, he may not know better, but in this day of multiplied and readily available resources and training materials, that excuse swiftly devolves into nothing more than mere apathy or carelessness or ignorance. As one writer put it, "...the sermon must unfold according to the natural flow of the thought of the biblical author." (2) However, rather than allow the Bible to speak as God intended and wrote it and arranged it, that preacher acts as if he knows better than God himself, or else, leaves God so far out of the picture that he does not think twice about what God was actually trying to say with what God actually said and would rather take what God said, use it to back up what the he, the preacher, says, and then say that to an unsuspecting audience while claiming that it comes from the mouth of God.
If the third, he has become, not a "Little-Christ" but a "Little-Satan" by following the Father of Lies into twisting the Scripture to say something they never said nor ever meant to say. This is sin, regardless of how good the moral being taught may be. Preachers rant and rave that "two wrongs don't make a right" and "the end does not justify the means" yet they justify the means of cruelly twisting Scripture to seemingly teach good morals and call that good. (I call it being a Pharisee) Satan himself used Scripture, even seemingly motivating Christ himself to trust to it's promise, yet he was wrong to do so. (3) Handling the Word of Truth with a mouth of lies betrays either woeful ignorance on how to study and preach it, or willing intention to manipulate even the Bible for his schemes.
Now, this "joke" is sad because it reveals that the preacher, either knowingly or unknowingly, is betraying his call to preach the Word of God by preaching his own words and either forgetting the Bible wholesale or reinforcing his ideas by twisting Scripture to fit what he thinks instead of fitting what he thinks into what the Bible actually says.
In this particular case, I believe firmly that the man in question loves God, has done many deeds in his service to God, and would not knowingly dishonor or disregard the Bible. I do not hate that man. I pity him. In this case, he fits, albeit unknowingly, into category 2. He said many good things, and elaborated on many good morals, and bounced hither and thither and yon in the Bible, but never once returned to his supposed "text" and did every other verse he consulted a disservice by integrating it into his sermon however he saw fit, rather than exegetically seeking the meaning and detail that God gave it in its context. He masterfully manipulated proof texts into propping up the tent of his own ideas...good ideas, but not God's Ideas. God's Ideas come from his Word, in its context, as it was written, for his purposes. Not another's.
Sadly, the sermon that day fit perfectly with Hadden Robinson's description of some sermons: "...The biblical passage read to the congregation resembles the national anthem played at a baseball game-it gets things started, but is not heard again during that afternoon."(4) Though regrettably I cannot find it, somewhere I stumbled upon a lovely quote, perhaps from Charles Spurgeon, though I can't recall the specifics. In it, he said something along the lines of "If the text had a cold, some preachers would never catch it." This preacher was like that. He wasn't anywhere near the text, and thus, nowhere near the Word of God.
In a future post, I would love to elaborate on the difference between preaching "Bible truth" and actually preaching "The Bible." I am comfortable with humor in the pulpit. I am comfortable with preachers telling stories. In fact, I am comfortable with other preachers having different standards and different practices than my own. I am comfortable even, though to a lesser degree, with men and women who have a different interpretation than my own. I am not comfortable in any sense of the word with men who through excuse-less ignorance or incredible apathy use the Bible to further their own agenda and therefore mismanage, manipulate, mangle, or mutilate the Bible. Handling God's Word is a serious matter before God and man. It is not to be abused. It is not to be taken lightly. It is not to excused. The very fact that this abuse is so prevalent, yet so deceitful and so unrecognized that it can be publicly unmasked to nothing but an auditorium full of mindless laughs is damning. Let us all examine ourselves, examine our hearts, our study, our lessons, our lives, that we consistently and consciously preach sermons drawn through study and prayer from our Bibles, not from the depths of our own wicked hearts. Let us not turn our treatment of the Word of Life into a cheap joke.
That is no laughing matter.
End Notes:
(1) Kuruvilla, Abraham. Judges: A Theological Commentary for Preachers (Kindle Locations 9236-9238). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
(2) Sunukjian, Donald R. Invitation to Biblical Preaching: Proclaiming Truth with Clarity and Revelance. Kregel Publications, 2007.
(3) Matthew 4:1-11
(4) Robinson, Haddon W. Biblical Preaching: the Development and Delivery of Expository Messages. Baker Academic, a Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2014.