Don't Waste Your Pulpit
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posted by JT at Monday, May 05, 2008
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8 Comments:
this posting really got me to examine myself in my own preaching ministry. thanks for a great posting.
"The best way to waste your pulpit is to preach your own thoughts, instead of preaching God's thoughts"
Isn't this another way for a preacher to say...
"Don't think, just check your brain at the church door."
Is Piper suggesting that when he "thinks" it is God's thoughts and when other Preachers "think" they are actually misguided?
I guess if Jesus listened to John Piper he wouldn't ever have told a parable since those stories were not in his Bible.
Mike I.
I don't know if you are a pastor, but you really seem to miss the point of what John Piper is saying. Having preached almost every Sunday for 25 years, I know that I am frequently tempted to "preach my own thoughts, instead of preaching God's thoughts." I am thankful that, by God's grace, I have often (though not always) resisted that temptation. May God fill the pulpits across our globe with more Bible saturated, Christ-exalting preaching!
Dan Erickson
Mike, I don't know how familiar you are with Dr. Piper's ministry in general, but he would never encourage anyone to check his brain at any door. What he means by "your own thoughts" is, I think, "your own ideas which originated quite independently from scripture." When someone preaches "their own thoughts" that way, they may refer to scripture, but it becomes more of a hat rack on which the preacher hangs ideas, as opposed to the spring out of which the preacher's thought flows.
As a layperson, it isn't difficult for me to tell the difference between a scripture-saturated sermon and a scripture-lite sermon. The former kind of sermon is always more challenging and thought-provoking, because scripture is interesting and understanding it requires a good deal of mental attention and energy
One example of preaching your own thoughts is to approach the text and ask this question: How can this passage help me say what I want to say?
Many preachers think that expository preaching is just going through a book sequentially. They come to a passage, see the points it makes, and then use those basic points to preach a message that may or may not be true, but isn't the message of the text.
The right question to ask is, "How does this text, amidst all of God's revealed Word, communicate what He intended to communicate to His people by giving us this passage?
The latter reflects Bible-centered, expositional preaching. The former is me- or man-centered preaching, with the Bible as my springboard.
Let's pray to be clay pots.
WOW! What a great post. Thanks John and thanks Justin.
Sola Scriptura, Sola Deo.
Mike L.
You said: "I guess if Jesus listened to John Piper he wouldn't ever have told a parable since those stories were not in his Bible."
An interesting thought. But assuming your analogy even gets out of the gate, it breaks down really fast. I think I can safely say that Piper's intention was to admonish modern men who preach. An important distinction between man and Jesus needs to be observed. That distinction is Jesus is GOD. Whenever Jesus spoke, what was uttered were the very thoughts of God.
“What people won’t find out anywhere else except in the pulpit is what does God have to say.”
The Christian no longer hears what is biblical. We are not Bereans. We live out a Christian experience that is not found in the scripture, and then wonder why the church is in such despair.
Listen! Listen to what John said. How many of you cough it. Not many I suspect. Wake up from you slumber. Cast of the doctrine of men and live free in Jesus. His word is our lamp, not the words of men trained by men for men. Give Jesus back his rightful place as head of His Church. That relationship with God that you have been longing after for some time now is found in His word, not at the pulpit.
The pulpit is not found in the New Testament. But it is found in the heart of men who think other men need a man to lead them instead of the Spirit of the living God.
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