(SBC) Founders Journal Article

[Rhetorician]

To all who would have an interest:

I know this is shameful, but here I do again. I had an article published in the Founders Journal this past quarter. If anyone is interested in Preaching, Charles Spurgeon's Sermons, or Rhetoric; you might be interested.

Here is the link:

http://www.founders.org/journal/fj74/article1.html

This is actually a good plug also for the Journal. Not many know of it and it is a very good resource for those who are "like minded."

The title is:
"'Compel Them to Come In':
Posture and Persuasion in the Preaching of Charles Haddon Spurgeon"

I suggest that you go and find the sermon first, then read it, and then my rhetorical criticism of the text. Believe you me, it will make a much better "read."

Enjoy! :wavey:

 

[swaimj]

Thanks for posting this link. I am at work today, but I plan to read the article later today or tomorrow.

 

[gb93433]

Whiule I like the majority of the article and believe that kind of skil is badly needed I also would add that logic is needed.

I do disagree with one sentence, "The pastor-teacher takes his Lord's command literally to go out and bring in the lost." If that were the primary focus of preaching then a congregation would hear a lot of basic sermons aimed at one audience and filling the congregation with new believers and not dealing with the totality of scripture which is also aimed at a wide variety of believers. If that were the primary aim then where does that place the evangelist in the body of believers? I see a huge difference between the evangelist and pastor-teacher.

 

[swaimj]

I enjoyed reading the article. Spurgeon was certainly a master of rhetoric. I learned a good deal about rhetoric as it applies to sermons when I was in Bible college. In seminary, there was much more emphasis on exposition and less on rhetoric. In other words, in seminary, there was an emphasis on letting the text set the form of the sermon rather than laying an rhetorical pattern over the text and making the text conform. I'd enjoy any thoughts you might have on why this emphasis has changed.

 

[Rhetorician]

swaim response

I enjoyed reading the article. Spurgeon was certainly a master of rhetoric. I learned a good deal about rhetoric as it applies to sermons when I was in Bible college. In seminary, there was much more emphasis on exposition and less on rhetoric. In other words, in seminary, there was an emphasis on letting the text set the form of the sermon rather than laying an rhetorical pattern over the text and making the text conform. I'd enjoy any thoughts you might have on why this emphasis has changed.

Thanks for reading the article. Did you go and read the sermon, makes much more sense if you read the sermon first?

I would say a couple of things just off the top of my head:

First, the educational system has changed. We have gone from a classic and liberal arts education to a technical based system, even in the professions. I hear it all the time from my nursing student, why do we have to take these Liberal Arts or General Studies course, what do they have to do with nursing? Education is more to make a living than to making a life if you will excuse the pun.

Secondly, it really does cost too much work to do word smith or crafting or writing out a mss. Handfuls on Purpose is more of the soup de jour. I got to get me a sermon for Sunday is more the way of the evangelical world.

Thirdly, deceitfulness of riches and other things. What I mean by this is that we are just too busy. We do everything the congregation wants except for studying.

I am sure there are others that will come to me, and I will add them as we go along. Maybe some of our colleagues have some ideas?

How about it you guys?:thumbsup:

 

[gb93433]

First, the educational system has changed. We have gone from a classic and liberal arts education to a technical based system, even in the professions. I hear it all the time from my nursing student, why do we have to take these Liberal Arts or General Studies course, what do they have to do with nursing? Education is more to make a living than to making a life if you will excuse the pun.

That is the emphasis today by the U.S. government.

Secondly, it really does cost too much work to do word smith or crafting or writing out a mss. Handfuls on Purpose is more of the soup de jour. I got to get me a sermon for Sunday is more the way of the evangelical world.

I call that laziness.

Thirdly, deceitfulness of riches and other things. What I mean by this is that we are just too busy. We do everything the congregation wants except for studying.

You are right. Too many see pastoring not as God's call but as a job that if they do not please the people they will get fired when already God has fired them a long time before that point.

 

[swaimj]

Where can I find the sermon. I would like to read it. If there was a link to it in the article, I missed it. My apologies.

Another issue in homiletics is the use of illustration. There is a view among those who hold to a strong, what I would call, "sufficiency of scripture" position that illustrations should not be artful or fancy. In fact they prefer to get all illustrations for one passage from other passages in the bible. People who hold this view seem to be great fans of Spurgeon, yet they reject his method.

I appreciate many of the men who hold this type of view, but I think they are missing something. A Spurgeon, a Swindoll, or a Lucado, who makes use of artful illustration can still be a very powerful speaker

 

[Rhetorician]

Spurgeon's Sermon

Here is Spurgeon's sermon:

http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0227.htm

It might be best to ead the sermon and then look at the criticism article again.

Enjoy!

"That is All!":laugh: