Proclaimer Blog
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers #7
Chapter 7. The Congregation
MLJ has two errors in view in this chapter. On one side, he is critical more than once of young preachers he knows who became so enamoured with the Puritans that they modelled themselves on their preaching as closely as possible. On the other side, he rejects the notion that the preacher can’t seriously expect to communicate well in the modern world until he has (say) worked for six months in a factory in order to get alongside people there, or dropped language such as ‘justification’ that unbelievers don’t understand. He grasps the nettle of 1 Cor 9.19-23, and says that its main thrust is that ‘we are to do our utmost to make ourselves clear and plain and understood’. He enjoys recounting an occasion when his preaching at an Oxford University mission was described by a student as suitable for ‘a congregation of farm labourers’, which was meant by the arrogant young man as a criticism and taken by MLJ as a compliment!
What runs right through the chapter is this:
– man’s basic problem is his deadness in sin before God, and every kind of person has the same problem;
– the gospel ought to be proclaimed clearly to mixed congregations;
– the preacher can be confident that the Holy Spirit will apply to each person what they need to hear from the sermon.
Reflections
Forty years on, some of us may find some of MLJ’s illustrative anecdotes quaint and dated, but his simple point is a real tonic for the preacher: no gimmicks; no cleverness on display. Instead straightforward simplicity is needed that isn’t ashamed to set out a doctrine like justification, acknowledging that it seems alien, but then expounding it so that all can understand and be drawn to Christ.
For myself, the Oxford mission anecdote was telling. Would I really have taken the intended criticism as a compliment? I can think of an occasion some time ago when a more educated church-member told me that my preaching was too simple, and wasn’t feeding them the way they wanted. If I’d read this chapter on that occasion, I would have been urged to press on and not be swayed (which I was, for a while), since the truly spiritual intellectual will want a clear, understandable message. Preachers who have not had much formal education can be encouraged; those with lots of letters after their name might need to be chastened.