Eating off another preacher's plate
At Preaching Today, Lee Eclov considers the difference between pure and impure sermon preparation:
How do we keep from preaching impure sermons? "Continue to pursue holiness and purity in every area of your life."
Update: For an exceptionally well crafted rebuttal, please see Jericho's response in the comments section of this post.
I've been troubled to read how often preachers are preaching someone else's sermons. I'm not sure it is a sin, but I believe it is spiritually uncouth, like eating off someone else's plate.
The main problem isn't using truth that another preacher has mined. The Hope Diamond is beautiful and priceless no matter who owns it or looks at it. The problem is using truth that has passed through someone else's personality. Instead of being preachers, we become actors. We are taking another person's voice, and putting on another preacher's heart. Preachers impersonating other preachers.
How do we keep from preaching impure sermons? "Continue to pursue holiness and purity in every area of your life."
Update: For an exceptionally well crafted rebuttal, please see Jericho's response in the comments section of this post.
posted by Milton Stanley at 7:47 PM
7 Comments:
Noticed this entry and couldn't leave it be. I have a BA (Rhetoric) from Wheaton and an MA (Philosophy of Religion) from Denver Sem.
Counterpoint 1: If "the problem is using truth that has passed through someone else's personality," what sort of preaching are we doing if we use scripture, especially the NT, whose books are often formatted as logoi, cases in sermon form aimed at persuading an audience of theological truths and the application thereof? Paul's letters' truths have passed through Paul's personality; James' letters' truths have passed through James' personality; and the list goes on. Thus, ironically, the quoted biblical words at the end of your entry have passed through several personalities on their way to me.
Counterpoint 2: There cannot be a problem with rearticulating truths, and it would seem that rearticulating them verbatim is a virtue in some cases. For instance, Jesus' words as conveyed by the gospels are fairly consistent from gospel to gospel in some accounts that are covered by more than one gospel. Would we begrudge these men the fact that they have authored their books so that the words they used belonged to Jesus, from one of his sermons? Hardly. Their rigorous adherence to Jesus' original words--his own "material," we might say--is exactly what validates their own testimony about the content of Jesus' teaching.
Counterpoint 3: Preaching others' material was once looked upon with favor. There is a tale about the great Spurgeon, who used to preach on Sunday with a stenographer present, and have his sermons published on Monday for distribution to country preachers who would come into town to acquire copies of the book. These would in turn preach (read) the same material to their respective flocks. As time wore on, the practice grew increasingly obsolete. One Sunday morning, however, a young preacher revived it by preaching one of Spurgeon's sermons to his little parish. After the service, an older gentleman approached him and said something to the effect of, "Son, it blesses me to see someone young like you preach the word with such passion and poise. Seldom do I hear God's word exposited so profoundly anymore, as it was in the words you presented to us today." Not having yet met the gentleman, the young preacher introduced himself and inquired about his admirer. "Spurgeon," the man said. "Charles Spurgeon." So you see, this was not always "spiritually uncouth."
Counterpoint 4: Preaching another's timeless words reminds us of the truth that has transcended time. This holds true in many areas, not merely Christian pulpit practices. It is why the Classics are still taught in some colleges. It is why Shakespeare is still taught in AP English classrooms. It is why we continue to teach the bible to our children. If a person has grasped the truth in his or her own words, and if our own fall short of accomplishing the endeavor, why ought we be ashamed to convey what is true and right in words not our own? Perhaps the shame is in our own ineptitude. And perhaps such insufficiency is good for us. Perhaps it humbles us, drives us from our self-righteous pharisaism once in awhile, reminds us that our abilities are sometimes (often, usually) insufficient.
Analysis: It is possible that Eclov's assessment is more a product of our time and culture than of any hard and fast moral principle. The fact is, we live in a society at a time when one of the cardinal virtues of any art (and preaching is often considered an art, just as rhetoric is) is originality. Think about it: his statement only makes sense if there's a copyright involved. It only makes sense if we stand to gain financially off of the produce of our minds. But if we do not pursue the truth for the money, but for the truth itself, and for the love of God whose nature we discover in the truth, then the idea of stating the truth in another's words is totally acceptable. Speak, and may the best speech echo in glory to God. The great Justin Martyr said, "All truth is God's truth," and to this we hold.
Of course there is potential for insincerity, but this is not intrinsic to preaching another's material; far from it, insincerity is the product of the preacher's sin nature. Thus the distinction between preaching another's material because it is solid food, good for nourishing those for whom we are responsible, and preaching another's material out of flippant sloth or dramatic insincerity is as wide as that between night and day. "Man looks at the outside, but God looks at the heart."
Amen, Phil!
Wow, Jericho. Thanks for the exceptionally thoughtful response. I especially appreciate your noting how much the valuing of originality is not as timeless as we may think today. Thanks also for making the distinction between preaching others' material and preaching from a dishonest heart.
You may be interested in today's link to an article about the value of preaching another man's sermon.\
Once again, I appreciate the thoroughness of your reply. I'll be updating the post momentarily to point to it. Peace.
I think Jericho does help us reflect a bit more about a swift, hostile reaction to eating off another preacher's plate (an action I think is FAR less than ideal for preachers and for the church), but I think Jericho's points ignore the centrality of context.
Counterpoints 3&4 have some legitimacy, but I think counterpoints 1&2 make a false parallel between Scripture and modern day sermons. Scripture and sermons of today are texts of two different kinds and we handle these texts differently. When handling Scripture, we are always seeking to understand its original context and the original personality it came through and then to re-proclaim that text in a new context and through a new personality.
I think this is the central problem with eating off of other preacher's plates. It skips the process of contextualizing Scripture for a particular time and audience.
Thanks, Justin. This is one of the most in-depth comment discussions on this blog. Peace.
A comment on Justin's reply to Jericho's counterpoints. Using Scripture and sermons of others do not necessarily have to be handled differently. I enjoy Spurgeon's sermons and refer to them weekly but rarely use his material directly because his context and personality don't usually come through to me. There are others that I refer to just as often and I do often use some of their material because it fits both my preaching context and personality. The difference, of course, is that Scripture is inspired of God.
By the way, how Spurgeon's sermons most often help me is by waking me up to a pertinent point that I missed in my preparation process. That is just as valuable as (and sometimes more valuable than)getting a few paragraph's of great usable material.
I know what you mean about helping you find a point you've missed. That happens to me frequently with the work of Ray Stedman and Bob Deffinbaugh. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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