preaching: a biblical concept or a modern construct?

To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:8)

The power that is in the gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher; otherwise men would be the converters of souls. Nor does it lie in the preacher’s learning; otherwise it would consist in the wisdom of men. (Charles H Spurgeon)

A while ago I was at one of those evangelical churches where the young people all look alike - very clean - and the annual gift giving exceeds one and a half million a year.

The preacher was a 'nice' man. He stood in the pulpit and he toed the party line. He said exactly what the large, healthy and wealthy congregation wanted to hear: that they were saved, God loved them and thank His glorious name that we weren't like those poor Godless souls living outside these walls.

And yet he was preaching from the Sermon on the Mount, one of the most radical speeches on equality, liberty and fraternity ever recorded. Specifically he was preaching on Matthew 7: 13-14

Don't look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don't fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.

First of all, there is so much scope here for a brief sojourn into first century Palestinian life. What is Jesus referring to when he talks about "the market"; what kind of life were these "crowds of people" living and were they likely to have been 'Godless' or religious hypcrites; surely it was Jesus' Judaism that informed this statement rather than a prophetic form of Christian asceticism?

This preacher, however, did not even pay lip service to the historical context of the passage. He launched immediately into how it was relevant, in its unexplored entirety, to 'us'. Like an English teacher explaining why Chaucer's ribald stories are funny without ever mentioning that they're set in the forteenth century.

Secondly, how wonderfully contraversial a passage for a congregation whose lives are, by and large, very successful in the eyes of the world. How can an investment banker on three quarters of a million a year live a 'vigorous' life? According to this preacher, by contributing to the church's hefty gift kitty every month and coming to church once a week. Would Jesus, who said if a man asks you to carry his bag one mile you should carry it two, agree that this is vigorous enough?

A vigorous life cannot wholly be measured in actions and it cannot be prescribed in a twenty minute sermon. A vigorous life should be one that is challenged, with total attention, at every turn by the word of God, by the conscience of the individual and the interpretation of other people.

The preacher should have taken the opportunity to challenge us listening as to whether our lives were examples of shortcuts to God, whether we were living in a way that was too easy to sit well with the words of Jesus or we were giving our total attention to the 'narrow path'.

There is no word for 'preach' in New Testament Greek. The words that are translated as 'preach' mean either 'tell good news' or 'proclaim' or 'herald'. The word that most accurately encompasses the term 'preaching' is propheteia, which is the root of the English word prophecy. Few preachers today would be confident enough to describe what they do each week in the pulpit as prophecy.

These days, if someone is described as a good preacher, they are probably intelligent without being academic, articulate without being longwinded, holy without being pious and always reliable to throw in a few laughs. They are rarely described as heralds of God's glory on a weekly basis. But are they prophets?

Prophets are not people who see and predict the future, they are people who speak for God and interpret His will. They are people who see what is wrong with the world and challenge it loudly and forcefully.

Some people might argue that prophecy is a spiritual gift. In which case preaching must be also, especially if you consider what congregations ask of their preachers each week - a little wisdom perhaps understanding - and then read the verse from 1 Corinthians above.

Perhaps it is too much to ask for words of prophecy every week, but complacent teaching is an insult to the words of Jesus. There has never been a rosy age of history when things were right with the world. Ever since his resurrection, Jesus has empowered us to seek the things of God, which does not mean hiding behind religious walls and patting ourselves on the back for our ability to find faith. This means looking at the world that God has made and challenging others but most of all ourselves to recognise what is wrong and what needs to be changed.

If individually we don't have the gift of speaking for God and interpreting His will, then we must rely on our preachers to do this for us. And then we listen vigorously and with total attention to what they say.

Crowds of churchgoers fall for allowing complacent preaching that neither exhorts nor exalts and this is nothing but a shortcut to God.