John Stott on Preaching

I have been dipping into an old book about preaching by the Anglican John Stott - I Believe in Preaching (1980). I am aware of his theological pitfalls but have a high regard for him due to the positive influence he had on the Keswick Convention in the UK. There were several quotable passages that I thought I would share in a thread.

On Expository Preaching

To expound Scripture is to bring out of the text what is there and expose it to view… The opposite of exposition is ‘imposition’, which is to impose on the text what is not there… The size of the text is immaterial, so long as it is biblical.

Since the resolve of the expositor is to be faithful to his text, the two main pitfalls may be termed forgetfulness and disloyalty. The forgetful expositor loses sight of his text… the disloyal expositor strains and stretches it into something quite different.

The preacher with a humble mind will avoid omissions as much as additions. He must refuse to manipulate the biblical text in order to make it more acceptable to our contemporaries. For the attempt to make ‘it’ more acceptable really means to make ‘ourselves’ more acceptable, and this is the lust for popularity. Adding to God’s Word was the fault of the Pharisees, and subtracting from it the fault of the Sadducees.

 

On the centrality of Christ (though this was not central to the book and was hard to find)

Above all else, we must preach Christ… For Christ crucified and risen has been designated by God to be all things to his people… The One we preach is not Christ-in-a-vacuum, nor a mystical Christ unrelated to the real world, nor even only the Jesus of ancient history, but rather the contemporary Christ who once lived and died, and now lives to meet human need in all its variety today.

One of the most fascinating of all the preacher’s tasks is to explore both the emptiness of fallen man and the fullness of Jesus Christ…

The main objective of preaching is to expound Scripture so faithfully and relevantly that Jesus Christ is perceived in all his adequacy to meet human need. The true preacher is a witness; he is incessantly testifying to Christ.

[Caveat - in these encouraging passages, I am uncomfortable that he seems to go to great lengths to avoid the use of the word “sin”. But maybe that’s where my non-conformist (Baptist) background clashes with his diplomatic Anglican approach…!]

 

On sermon structure

One of the chief ways in which a sermon differs from a lecture is that it aims to convey only one major message… It is true that in some congregations note-taking goes on, while in others duplicated summaries and recordings are made available… Yet the sermon, as a living word from God to his people, should make its impact on them then and there. They will not remember the details... but they should remember the dominant thought, because all the sermon’s details have been marshalled to help them grasp its message and feel its power.

We face two main dangers when developing a sermon structure. The first is that the skeleton obtrudes, like the ribs of a skinny human being. They thrust themselves before us; we cannot take our eyes off them… The second danger is that of artificiality. Some preachers impose an outline on their text which neither fits nor illumines it, but rather muddies the clear waters of truth and confuses the listeners.

 

On the theological foundation for the ministry of preaching

God is light; God has acted; God has spoken; and God has caused his action and speech to be preserved in writing. Through this written Word he continues to speak with a living voice powerfully. And the Church needs to listen attentively to his Word, since its health and maturity depend upon it. So pastors must expound it; it is to this they have been called. Whenever they do so with integrity, the voice of God is heard, and the Church is convicted and humbled, restored and invigorated, and transformed into an instrument for his use and glory.

 

Interesting question. Unfortunately there is no Scripture index so I had to skim through it manually.

He discusses C.H. Dodd’s famous distinction between kerygma and didache. He finds it helpful but also warns against over-emphasising it, showing examples from Jesus and Paul (in Acts and 1 Timothy) that preaching and teaching were not necessarily strictly delineated. He also argues against the notion that New Testament preaching (kerusso) was purely evangelistic, showing various examples including from Acts of exhortation and biblical exposition.

I have been interested myself in how Peter and the apostles seem to preach the resurrection more than the crucifixion in Acts, but have not read much about what scholars have to say about this. Is this what you were thinking about?

 

The only other references to Acts I could find are regarding pastoral ministry:

Acts 4, 20, 28 – The apostles’ model of fearless and uncompromising preaching, and also not shrinking from the message which has been appointed by God, avoiding the temptation to select texts and topics according to personal preference and fashion.

Acts 3, 17 – The apostles’ earnestness. They cared so much about the glory of God that to see it scorned made them weep.

Acts 20:28 – The lifestyle of personal self-discipline which should mark the preacher’s life beyond the sermon. “Nobody can be a good pastor or teacher of others who is not first a good servant of Jesus Christ.”

Acts 17 – The Bereans. Preach in a way that promotes maturity and critical listening.

Acts 6 – The priority of the ‘ministry of the Word and prayer’ which we would do well to reclaim