COMMENTS ON THE SELECT SERMON SERIES1Andrew W. Blackwood, Professor Emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary, was professor of homiletics from 1930 to 1935, and head of the practical department 1936–1950. He is author of 22 volumes, 10 of which were book club selections. Among those for ministers 17 are still on the active list.
During the current year CHRISTIANITY TODAY has from month to month published a series of sermons by representatives of various denominations and “newer churches.” These eleven sermons were chosen independently by professors of preaching from different evangelical seminaries. Partly for this reason the successive messages do not conform to any one pattern. As a whole they set forth clearly and strongly what the evangelical movement in America stands for today. The stress falls mainly on use of the Bible in preaching doctrine to meet the spiritual needs of men today.
Each message carries a terse and able comment by the professor who sponsors the sermon. These comments stress mainly what we used to call homiletics. In view of what these professors commend, we as evangelicals ought to expect among their students the right sort of training about what to preach, as well as why, and how. In addition to biblical content and Christian spirit, the professors call special attention to sturdy structure of sermons, and to clarity of style.—ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD.
This discussion will mean more to any reader who works through the 1961 files of CHRISTIANITY TODAY and once more reads the monthly sermons with the comments. At the end of such a second perusal every reader should give thanks to God for the strength of evangelical preaching today. The ministerial reader should dedicate himself anew to these same ideals, and the layman should resolve to pray for the man of God in the home pulpit. What then will the reader find in the second perusal of the 12 sermons?
First of all, note the evangelical stress on the Bible as “the only inspired and infallible rule of faith and practice.” While no one sermon deals with the authority of the Bible today, all of the preachers evidently base everything on the Book. For example, Pastor Alfred M. Engle (Baptist) preaches about “The Glory of God” (Ps. 19) as He reveals himself today in the heavens above, in the pages of the Bible, and in the believing heart through his redeeming grace. So it seems that not all orthodox folk tend to ignore the First Person of the Trinity, as Paul Tillich declares that many of us do.
The one doctrinal truth that stands out most often in the sermons is the person and work of Christ. About his person, General Superintendent Gideon B. Williamson (Church of the Nazarene) preaches winsomely on the subject, “Author of Eternal Salvation” (Heb. 5:9; 13:8). The main headings have to do with him as Sinless—Changeless—and Timeless. And yet the message all seems timely! So does the one by a professor of theology, Wayne H. Ward (Southern Baptist Seminary): “The Gospel of Jesus Christ” (Mark 1:1–3, 14–15). Here the stress falls, successively, on his incarnation, his atonement, and his resurrection. Let us thank God for the theologian and the church leader who preach about the person of Christ, doctrinally, clearly, and effectively!
Under a unique heading, former President Charles W. Roller (Northern Baptist Seminary) preaches about “The Living Plus Sign” (2 Cor. 5:14–20). What a royal text! As for the topic, the import appears in the opening sentence: “We have not really seen the Cross of Christ until we have seen it as a great plus sign by which God and man are drawn together in holy reconciliation.” Would that almost every sermon began directly with its topic. The body of the sermon deals with God’s Plus Sign for the unreconciled, and for the reconciled. As with the others so far, this professor shows how to be simple without seeming shallow.
Vice President Frank B. Stanger (Asbury Seminary, Methodist) deals with “The Way into the Kingdom” (John 3:3). He would agree with Dwight L. Moody that the only way to get into the kingdom of God is to be born into it. In the words of a Presbyterian colleague and the sponsor, James D. Robertson, “This is redemptive preaching of a high order.” It is “intellectually respectable” and “structurally clear.” “Before his final word the preacher takes his truth and, setting it squarely in our times, makes us face up to it.” “It bears a message of eternal relevance.” This comment calls for a Methodist Amen!
As a rule, evangelicals, here as elsewhere, preach about the Gospel for the individual. But they also give a worthy place to the Church. Pastor W. Carter Johnson (Baptist) has a message about “The Church that Triumphs” (Acts 4:1–31). It must have an Irresistible Compulsion—an Irrefutable Evidence—and an Inexhaustible Power. According to the sponsor, Lloyd M. Perry (Gordon Divinity School), “The sermon was selected because of its principles of sermon construction, persuasive appeal, practical application, progressive development, positive emphasis, pertinence to present-day living, and plain presentation of biblical truth.” All this about a man only 31 years young!
Practical Application
Evangelicals today do not neglect the practical application of Christian truth to believers. College President Robert B. Reardon (Church of God, Anderson, Indiana) has a message both inspiring and heart-searching. Toward the end he utters words of wisdom to our seminaries. The comment comes from his predecessor, John A. Morrison, who heard the message before he asked for the manuscript. He commends it for simplicity, sincerity, timeliness, and a heart-warming quality, so that “the hearers respond like flowers in a sunny garden when a shower has fallen.” “The beauty of the Lord our God!”
Do we as evangelicals keep away from preaching Bible ethics? Not all of us! Former President Howard J. Hageman (General Synod, Reformed Church in America) has a searching message on a topic that did not at first appeal to me: “Religious Boom and Moral Bust” (Rom. 1:21). As a leader in a body that has a mighty creed, the Heidelberg Catechism, the interpreter bases his message in part on a question and its answer about why believers should engage in good works. The resulting message has to do with the vast gulf between the professed beliefs and the pagan practices of many church members today. Seldom does one read such an appeal to conscience. As James Stalker used to insist, no man can preach strongly unless he can arouse and move the conscience of the hearer.
Less directly ethical, but likewise heart-searching, is the sermon by Board Secretary Robley J. Johnston (Orthodox Presbyterian Church): “Who Can Stand Christmas?” (Mal. 3:1–3). After a “life situation approach,” the preacher comes to his message: ‘We talk and sing of the coming of the Prince of Peace on earth.… But, I wonder, can we really stand Christmas?” Then the sermon deals with three Bible reasons for such a question: The Coming of Almighty God; The Coming of the Kingdom; The Coming of the King. Toward the end, “Who can stand such an appearance as this?” Then follows a moving appeal to put the Christ of the Bible into all of Christmas. Amen!
The series fitly includes a message about “The Christian Ministry” by Pastor R. G. Riechmann (United Lutheran Church). Here the working pastor of a large congregation addresses 30 young seminary graduates just before they go out into the active ministry. He sets up a lofty ideal for their chosen work: a Glorious Calling—a Holy Calling—a Rewarding Calling—and an Exacting Calling. Note here the order of the four main parts, and figure out the reason. Many Lutherans as evangelicals have excelled as pastors and pastoral preachers. Now these brethren are turning more largely to pastoral evangelism, and to mastery in up-to-date methods of communicating the Gospel. Thank God!
Once again, evangelicals give a worthy place to preaching about eschatology, which fills many a page of Holy Writ. According to William Sanday of Oxford, in the Gospels the center of gravity lies beyond the grave. So if a man’s pulpit work includes little teaching about the Last Things, he ought to think of his total pulpit work as “eccentric.” But here is an eschatological message for the second Sunday in Advent. Pastor Manfred E. Reinke (Missouri Lutheran) preaches about the subject: “Christ is Coming!… Soon!” The warp of the sermon he takes from Holy Scripture, especially from the passage in hand (Luke 21:25–28); the woof from black and bleak facts about our world today. According to the closing words of the sponsor, William G. Guebert (Concordia Seminary), here are “clarion calls to repentance, and a powerful appeal to step [up] to the cradle at Bethlehem and accept Jesus as Saviour.” What a blessed way to preach in Advent!
In addition to matters of content and spirit, the majority of the sponsors commend various sermons for structure and for clarity, as well as for relevance. Somehow the stress does not fall on beauty, though beauty marks more than a few of the Bible passages, and is not lacking in the sermons. Some of the appraisers also speak about having heard the respective messages with abiding satisfaction. The immediate popular effectiveness of a spoken sermon often depends on the delivery more than on anything else (Isa. 50:4, KJV).
With practically everything thus far I personally agree most heartily. If the series could have been planned in advance there might well have been a popular message about the Holy Spirit, as well as a number of other Bible truths, or duties. But still I see in this series of independent sermons all sorts of reasons for thanksgiving. As for what I think about the evangelical pulpit today, pro and con, much of that appears in the early portions of two volumes that I have recently edited: Special-Day Sermons for Evangelicals (1961) and Evangelical Sermons of Our Day (1959).
Here I offer only three suggestions. All have to do with how to preach today among people not biblically literate or theologically minded. First, I suggest that like more than a few liberals we as evangelicals should become more keenly aware that both pulpit and sermon exist for the sake of the hearer. The man in the study does not prepare a message for the satisfaction of the preacher, the salvation of his sermon, or even the explanation of the Bible passage.
Whenever he plans to preach, he should make ready to meet a vital human need today. Like Spurgeon, Jowett, or Truett, as well as more than a few evangelical divines today, the local spokesman for God ought in the study to “see faces.” While speaking from the sacred desk he should never let the hearers feel that he is talking abstractly, or impersonally, with no concern for the souls of the auditors. In order to preach well to human beings, a man needs somehow to have the heart of a pastor.
Furthermore, there is much to be said for a pastor’s giving the preference to specific sermons. One passage each time, with light from other passages, but so as to illuminate this one. One vital truth, or else a commanding duty. Better still, some vital aspect of such a vast truth as the Incarnation. Once as a young pastor I found that our people did not appreciate the wonder and the mystery of the Incarnation. Neither did I! So I began anew to study the Bible teachings, with well-known books of theology by Charles Hodge and W. G. T. Shedd, as well as books about the Incarnation by Charles Gore and Robert L. Ottley. After a while, without announcing any series or course, I began to share with others what I had learned for myself.
Later I did much the same with the still more wondrous and difficult subject of the atonement, or reconciliation. Each time I kept on for a dozen successive sermons, one on each Lord’s Day. Like Robert W. Dale in his sermons about the living Christ, I found that I could keep on preaching about the very same doctrine, each time from a different passage, and from a different point of view, as long as the truth in view caused my own heart to burn. All the while I have felt that we ought to give thanks for a master of theology who in an occasional survey sermon can help laymen to see Christianity in the large, and within their limits to comprehend it as a whole. Still I feel like insisting that such pulpit work is not as a rule the best way for a busy pastor to preach today. I have heard many laymen complain that while they love their dominie, often they do not know what he is talking about, and they wonder if he knows. Only an exceptional man excels in synthesizing power.
The third suggestion has to do with the choice of a text. Unlike some present-day writers about preaching, who scoff at the older labels, I have studied Alexander Maclaren, William M. Taylor, Campbell Morgan, and other master evangelical preachers long enough to know that each of them dealt with a fairly long passage in a way that differed from the same man’s treatment of a text. For many reasons, I believe that once every Lord’s Day, at one of the two public services, a pastor who believes the Bible may well deal with a part of it the way it was written, with the paragraph as the unit, or else the poetic strophe.
Still I question the wisdom of telling the people that the text consists of Psalm 139. In his volume The Way Everlasting (1911), James Denney deals with this most difficult of all the major Psalms. One by one he singles out each of the successive strophes, and handles it superbly, as only a master theologian-preacher could do. But in the beginning he uses as a gateway into the 24 verses only these nine words: “O Lord, thou hast searched me” (v. la). As a consequence, no doubt every hearer went home with another illuminated text forever burning in his heart. So, young pastor, if during the year you prepare 48 or 50 morning expository sermons, be sure each time to single out from each Bible passage a text so short, so strong, so striking that every hearer will remember it with joy and live in its light until traveling days on earth are done.
