Preaching and Preachers

Preaching and PreachersThat is prostitution again. I knew a preacher who always kept a littlenote-book in his pocket, and when he heard a good story he alwayspulled out his note-book and made notes of the story. Then, after hegot home he wrote it out fully; and then he put this story into a certainfile in a cabinet. It would be a good illustration for a certain theme.So he was always collecting stories and dividing and classifyingthem into various categories and filing them. Then when he came toprepare a sermon on a certain theme he would pull out the appropriatefile and select the stories that he needed. He urged others to do thesame.To me, that kind of thing is not only professionalism at its worst, itis, as I say, the art of the harlot, because it pays too much attention to,and is too much concerned about, enticing people. What is even worse,of course, is when preachers repeat other preachers' stories and illustrationswithout acknowledgment; and even yet worse when they buybooks of sermons mainly in order to find such stories.Why am I opposed to this? It is because I feel that it makes an endin itself of the story or the illustration. These should never be an endin and of themselves. A too free use of them also panders to thecarnality of the people who are listening. I have often noticed this. Iremember preaching on one occasion in a certain place and how aminister who had been listening came to me at the close of the serviceand said, 'Thank you for your sermon. But you did not give us anyillustrations this time.' That made me think and ask myself, 'Whatwas that man listening for?' The previous time he had heard me, andI remembered the previous time, as it happened I had used moreillustrations than I normally do. But here it seemed to me was a manwho came to listen not so much for Truth as for illustrations. Is notthis a serious perversion?Stories and illustrations are only meant to illustrate truth, not tocall attention to themselves. This whole business of illustrations andstory-telling has been a particular curse during the last hundred years.I believe it is one of the factors that accounts for the decline in preachingbecause it helped to give the impression that preaching was an art,23 2