Preaching and Preachers

Preaching andPreacherswill be driven back to this ultimately. This is the method by whichchurches have always come into being. You see it in the New Testament,and you see it in the subsequent history of the Church, and youcan see it in this modem world.:)I: :)I: :)I:But all that has led us repeatedly to the same question, What ispreaching? I assert that when there is true preaching people will comeand listen to it; so that immediately involves us in a discussion of thequestion, What is preaching? This, of course, is the vital question forus, and I now address myself to it. My position is that most of theseproblems with which we have been dealing, and most of these situationsand difficulties that have arisen, and which are causing suchconcern, and rightly so, to those who are in the Church, are allultimately due to the fact that there has been a defective view ofpreaching, and therefore defective preaching. I do not think that thepulpit itself can escape responsibility for this. If the people are notattending places of worship I hold the pulpit to be primarily responsible.The tendency is, of course, to blame other factors. The commonestexcuse is the two world wars. Then at one time we were toldthat poverty was the explanation, and that you could not expectpeople who had insufficient food and inadequate clothing to come tolisten to preaching; poverty, we were told, was the great obstacle. Butby today we are being told that affluence is the great problem, andthat the difficulty now is that the people are so well off, and have somuch of everything, that they do not see the need of the Gospel. Themoment you begin to try to explain these things in terms of circumstancesyou always land yourself ultimately in some such ridiculousposition.My contention is that it is the pulpit itself that is ultimately responsible,and that when the pulpit is right, and the preaching is true, thatit will attract and draw the people to listen to its message. Once moreI would say that in my opinion there has scarcely ever been an era inthe history of the world when the opportunity for, and the need for,52