From time to time I’m asked to teach others how to preach. This unsought privilege comes with unsought dangers! As I hone my own skills and try to help others develop theirs, a healthy tendency to analyze can actually become a critical spirit. Instead of listening for the voice of the Shepherd, I can find myself distracted by the sometimes-flawed voices of under-shepherds. Likewise, a Bible college student can become critical or arrogant as he compares all he’s learned with what other preachers do. And any Christian, really, who has been exposed to good preaching—or maybe even to a preaching style he just personally prefers—can struggle with a critical attitude when he hears preaching that isn’t all he hoped for.
Let’s be honest. Sometimes the preaching we hear disappoints us. I can think of recent examples. In one case, the outline was appropriate and connected to the text, but the preacher so elaborated each point that he strayed from the safe ground of the Bible into the weeds of personal opinion. In another case, the brother opened with a passage that doesn’t actually teach what he used it to say. These are genuine problems! But they’re problems we’ll leave for another venue. What do we do, as hearers, when we find ourselves in these situations?
We have several options. We can daydream. Or we can decide we’ll get more profit from sitting and reading our copy of the Bible. Maybe we resolve to try to learn from a bad example. These choices are better than nurturing a critical spirit. But there really is a better way, and it’s not profound: We can deliberately listen for the voice of God. (I said it was simple!)
I tried this the last time I heard one of those sermons. I decided I would intentionally listen for the voice of the Shepherd, and I tried to write down what I heard. Do you know what I found? The sermon, which I could easily have dismissed as inferior, was full of God! God, speaking to me. I needed what the preacher was preaching. After all, shouldn’t we expect the one who did not withhold his own Son to freely give us all things? He plans the preaching we hear to be the preaching we need to hear. And, as it occurred to me later, what I had heard in that one, simple, less-than-perfect sermon was more truth than many in this world are graced to hear in their entire lives.
I’ll probably continue to struggle with this. And I’ll also continue to encourage my students as we seek together to improve. But I really do believe that I’ll be greatly helped when I remember to listen for, discern, and respond to the voice of the Shepherd, even when his spokesmen may falter. jms
This article first appeared in Listening to God through the Preaching of His Word, book three of a four-part series on listening, published by the Man of the Word program for Mount Calvary Baptist Church (Greenville, SC).
