Preaching and Preachers

Preaching andPreachersthis up later on; I am dealing only with general definitions at themoment.If then I say that preaching must be theological and yet that it isnot lecturing on theology, what is the relationship between preachingand theology? I would put it like this, that the preacher must have agrasp, and a good grasp, of the whole biblical message, which is ofcourse a unity. In other words the preacher should be well versed inbiblical theology which in turn leads on to a systematic theology. Tome there is nothing more important in a preacher than that he shouldhave a systematic theology, that he should know it and be wellgrounded in it. This systematic theology, this body of truth which isderived from the Scripture, should always be present as a backgroundand as a controlling influence in his preaching. Each message, whicharises out of a particular text or statement of the Scripture, mustalways be a part or an aspect of this total body of truth. It is neversomething in isolation, never something separate or apart. The doctrinein a particular text, we must always remember, is a part of thisgreater whole-the Truth or the Faith. That is the meaning of thephrase 'comparing Scripture with Scripture'. We must not deal withany text in isolation; all our preparation of a sermon should be controlledby this background of systematic theology.It is necessary to issue a warning at this point. It is wrong for a manto impose his system violently on any particular text; but at the sametime it is vital that his interpretation of any particular text should bechecked and controlled by this system, this body of doctrine and oftruth which is found in the Bible. The tendency of some men whohave a systematic theology, which they hold very rigidly, is to imposethis wrongly upon particular texts and so to do violence to those texts.In other words they do not actually derive that particular doctrinefrom the text with which they are dealing at that point The doctrinemay be true but it does not arise from that particular text; and wemust always be textual. That is what I mean by not 'imposing' yoursystem upon a particular text or statement. The right use of systematictheology is, that when you discover a particular doctrine in your text66