The February visit of Tim Ward (Director of the Cornhill Training Programme) to the Westminster Fellowship was a bit like Daniel wandering into the lions' den clasping a bunch of lecture notes, but it was greatly appreciated and we are grateful to Tim for putting a lot of careful thought into his paper. He gave us a comparison of the theologies of preaching of Dr Lloyd Jones and John Stott. What follows is an incomplete account taken from my notes.
We need a theology of preaching. It is not enough to say ' we preach because in certain situations it works (but in another culture/situation we'd do something different)'.
Tim wanted to concentrate on the commonalities rather than on what separates the two men. Yet we cannot ignore the cultural differences - LJ from Wales, Stott through the English public school system. Without lapsing into caricature, this difference is significant. Does this not have some bearing on what might be called their great emphases viz.
LJ : a sense of the presence of God was paramount.
Stott - clarity was paramount.
'Have I ever preached once in my life?' said LJ. This is a crucial statement.
Their great books - Preaching and Preachers - and I Believe in Preaching. The man is important for LJ - the personal element.
No mention of 'anointing' in Stott.
Four aspects to a framework to analyse their positions:
1. Church setting of preaching.
LJ hated tape recording - the individual listening is too much in control. The very presence of a body of people is a part of preaching. Faith comes by hearing - the message received in a congregation. A monologue expresses the gospel best.
Stott similar on this.
Four elements in preaching: (i) The preacher divinely called, commissioned and empowered; (ii) a shared faith between the preacher and hearer; (iii) a Word from God in which the people encounter God; and (iv) an event in which God speaks through the minister. All of these are best combined in preaching in church: 'God's people in God's presence to hear God's Word from God's minister'.
Preaching is one of the marks of the church; the Word preached creates the church.
In the west our deep rooted individualism makes us resistant to such a view of preaching. Our philosophical tradition, wealth and consumerism turn us into people who do not readily become corporate people. We have individual Bibles in church!
2. The proclamatory character of preaching.
The preacher is declaring something. All may evangelise but only the preacher proclaims. More than teaching, it is a revelation, an exhortation.
3. The Prophetic character of preaching
A man with a burden from the Lord (LJ's view) - an OT prophet. He is a mouthpiece of God, standing between God and man.
Also Stott - a bearer of a Word from God.
4. The Prophetic character of the preacher himself.
NB the significant (even if not intended) titles of the two books.
This is perhaps where the greatest difference comes. LJ speaks of the moment when the preacher is wholly taken up. Stott speaks of the preacher and people together brought face to face with God. Is this two men describing the same thing? Stott is keen for the preacher to be hidden - the best man at the wedding, self-effacing. Is this being 'English'? LJ says the preacher must hide his pride and eloquence and make no shows of cleverness, but he cannot get himself out of the way - you are part to the means of grace.
'I am here to tell you...' would never be heard from Stott who preferred 'we' in preaching, not 'you' when addressing the congregation.
In all this there is a deeper issue, the continuation in the minister of Christ's offices of prophet priest and king.
In discussion:
Is there not a important difference in theologies of the Holy Spirit? Yes said Tim - LJ's preaching is in some ways his pneumatology at the service of his ecclesiology.
It was commented that both men put a high value on godliness in the minister.
LJ it should be remembered, regarded Jonathan Edwards as the 'Everest' of theologians, who insisted on the importance of extraordinary outpourings of the Holy Spirit to revive the church.
My comment.
One wonders if a summary of the difference between the two men would be that Stott concentrates on preaching as something man can do and the Anglican tradition tends to major on that - clarity, technique, teaching how to preach - while LJ was much more conscious of preaching as something man cannot do - hence his question 'have I ever preached?'. Of course, Stott believed in the necessity of the Holy Spirit and LJ did not belittle 'ordinary preaching' or the importance of doing it well - but the emphases are in the one case on teaching men to do it better, and being content to leave the Word to do the work ( ex opere operato is perhaps too strong a phrase but it leans in that direction) while LJ leans to the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit and our inadequacy - hence leading us to pray with greater urgency and feeling that true preaching usually evades us altogether. The typical result is a striving for God in the latter case; in the former, a sense of complacency in the act of preaching.
We thank Tim for stimulating us to think these things through.
Thursday, 10 March 2016
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