A Mandate for Preachers
I am thoroughly enjoying Spirit Empowered Preaching by Azurdia. This particular quote is helpful and instructive, especially if you are strolling into the pulpit this weekend.
Preachers ought never to approach the scriptures with a mere token consideration that suggests, ‘I’ve got a sermon idea in my mind and a creative outline from which to preach. All that remains to be found is a text to lend some credibility to my ideas.’ Instead, the burden of the preacher is to experience the power of the scriptures in his own life before he stands at the sacred desk. ‘The Word must become flesh again; the preacher must become the vehicle of the Holy Spirit, his mind inspired and his heart inflamed by the truth he preaches.’ It is this experience of truth that fires the motivation of the preacher. As he awakens on the Lord’s Day it is this that leads him to conclude, ‘This may be the most important message I have ever preached.’
Then he goes on to quote John Owen:
“It is not to learn the form of the doctrine of godliness, but to get the power of it implanted in our souls. And this is an eminent means of our making a progress in the knowledge of the truth. To seek after mere notions of truth, without an endeavor after an experience of its power in our hearts, is not the way to increase our understanding in spiritual things….Men may have in their study of the scripture other ends also, as the profit and edification of others; but if this conforming of their own souls unto the power of the word be not fixed in the first place in their minds, they do not strive lawfully nor will be crowned.”
May preachers never, ever, ever, loose the blessed sense of self-inadequacy that drives us to our knees in humble dependence for supernatural light into the text, a personal experience with that beloved truth, and then the blessed unction that unites the word with its power so as to explode in the hearts of those whom God has called.
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9 Responses to “A Mandate for Preachers”
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Excellent. Can you give the source for the Owen quote?
[...] blog highlighted what Arturo Azurdia says in his book Spirit-Empowered [...]
Greg, according to Azurdia, it is volume 4 pp. 205-206.
‘I’ve got a sermon idea in my mind and a creative outline from which to preach. All that remains to be found is a text to lend some credibility to my ideas.’
Wow. I hate to admit it, but for a number of years that was the way I approached teaching the Bible. Not consciously or overtly, and I never would have said it in those terms, but in a practical sense taht is what I was doing. By God’s grace I have learned that lesson, and continue to learn it. Thanks for the quotes.
I have heard Azurdia preach, definitely preaching with passion.
Too often our method of preaching lends itself to the “audience” either feeling smarter in their theology or smugger in their sin. Good reminders, and Piper’s piece is excellent.
It is heartbreaking that many pastors have made the Word “friendly” instead of making it come alive, in the flesh. They have chosen comfort over conviction. Big buildings and large sancturaries filled with people, yet it all is still empty, lacking desperately in substance and the Spirit.
They have no longer become vehicles the Holy Spirit can use either. The vehicle they use are the resource centers from people such as Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, Ed Young Jr., Joel Osteen and others.
Thank you for posting these quotes from this book. It is definitely one I will want to add to my library.
[...] HT: Irish Calvinist [...]
[...] HT: Irish Calvinist [...]