Proclaimer Blog
When the word provokes
Scripture is useful for all kinds of things. And we must expect our preaching to sometimes teach, sometimes rebuke, sometimes correct and sometimes train in righteousness so that God’s people are thoroughly equipped for every good work. But increasingly we live in a culture where people crave and expect affirmation. People want to hear something good and encouraging; they don’t want to hear words of correction. Even on The Voice the most awful contestants are affirmed.
Not surprisingly, this echoes in church life. A good sermon – people say – is one which builds, encourages and affirms. I happen to think that preaching which holds out Christ to people should do this a lot. And – for sure – it is easier for preachers to be negative than positive and we want to work hard at presenting the tone and application of the text.
But increasingly, I see people reacting badly against rebuke and correction – even though these are part of the Spirit’s stated aim of the Scriptures. I saw this in action just the other week when I sat under a message which gently rebuked (appropriately so, I thought). It really stirred up a storm. What should have happened is that listeners should have thought, pondered and prayed through what they heard to see if it really did apply to them and, if it did, respond humbly with repentance and a crying out to God for help to change. Instead I saw a lot of negative response. “How dare the preacher….” Interesting.
Deep down, people (and we too, probably) don’t want correction and rebuke. We want warm affirmation. I’m not saying all preaching needs to be tub thumping sin-bashing. It needs to reflect what’s in the text. But we also, as preachers, need to help people respond to those harder sermons when God is changing us into the likeness of Christ.
How do we do that? One idea – just one. We need a little more after the sermon. Not just a closing song. We need to help people through humble repentance step by step because it is so alien to the world. The rather abrupt endings to many of our services do not really help people fight this battle with the world.