The Preacher Deals With Diamonds
The Preacher Deals With Diamonds
This past week I started reading J. Kent Edwards’ book, Deep Preaching. The introduction caught my attention and caused me to reflect. Edwards begins with a story of listening to a student preacher preach. Let me share his own words as he reflects on the reality that the preacher deals with diamonds.
“It was one of the worst experiences I have ever had in the classroom… As I listened to to the message I heard the student follow the “steps to preparing a sermon” that I had outlined earlier in the semester. This was a technically perfect message. He had based his message on a legitimate natural unit of Scripture. He had. clear “big idea” that arose legitimately from that unit of Scripture and was reflected in a clear homiletical outline. And my student was delivering the with a level of polish seldom seen in an “Introduction to Preaching course.”
What Was Wrong?
Given the performance of the student, you would expect that I, as a professor of preaching, would be beaming with pride. After all, my student had followed my rules. He had immersed himself in my template. I had to acknowledge that, according to the syllabus I had written, this sermon deserved the highest grade possible grade. I was going to give it an A. That realization made me want to weep. Why? Because that sermon being well organized and sporting only the soundest of exegesis, was trivial. Superficial. Emotionally vacuous.
My student was handling one of the most profound truths in Scripture with the respect typically accorded to a trash container on its way to the curb. What my student was preaching was true, but banal. The truth of Scripture didn’t overwhelm him. The truth was in his hands, but, unlike Jeremiah, he had not eaten it. He knew God’s Word externally, but not internally. The sermon was shallow.”
J. Vernon McGee once told a story of a trip he made to South Africa. As he travelled along, he saw a group of children playing a game McGee was familiar with. It was marbles. In their hands, however, the boys held small stones that were quite common in that area. However, when he got closer, McGee realized that they had substituted diamonds for the glass marbles common in North America. The children were unaware of the value of what they were playing with.
The Preacher Playing With Diamonds?
I am at an interesting phase of my preaching life. I have a fireproof file that holds thousands of sermons that I have written over the past 50 years. I’ve begun going through them to clean them out so that my children won’t have to do that when I’m gone. To my great regret, I’ve found some that made me feel like I was making the precious Word something common. I obviously hadn’t been overwhelmed by its truth.
I’m preaching again this coming Sunday as the guest in a local church. This morning I did a “run-through” of the message. In the back of my mind was the subject of this blog post. As I realized the truths in the passage I was sharing, I was once again driven to my knees, asking to be overwhelmed by the Love of God.
Conclusion
The preacher deals with diamonds when he writes a sermon. In the next posts I’m going to explore the amazing challenge of approaching the Word of God with the intention of preaching truth to our people.
