What’s with All the Preaching Gestures?

00:00:00.000 | I suppose we had to address this at some point, and today is the day that we talk

00:00:09.280 | about preaching gestures. Behind the pulpit, Pastor John, you'll hop, you

00:00:13.640 | twist, you point, you chop, and I think for every Greek preposition there's at least

00:00:16.960 | one trademark Piper gesture. Have you always used gestures? Where did they come

00:00:21.840 | from, and what role did those gestures play in your preaching? I think I better

00:00:25.400 | preface anything I say about my gestures by pointing out that my hero, Jonathan

00:00:31.220 | Edwards, in the two or three contemporaneous descriptions of his

00:00:36.960 | preaching was known for being amazingly still. Edwards scarcely gestured. At

00:00:47.720 | one point in his ministry he would put his elbow on a cushion, hold his notes in

00:00:52.120 | his right hand, and read them. Same thing with Thomas Chalmers, who had

00:00:58.000 | such a great effect in Scotland. One of the Princetonians, and I

00:01:02.760 | forget who it was, Alexander maybe, went to Scotland and listened to Chalmers, and

00:01:08.960 | when he came back they said, "Now what is the key to Chalmers' effectiveness in

00:01:12.720 | preaching?" And he said, "His blood earnestness." In other words, Chalmers read his

00:01:19.320 | manuscripts, and if you're reading your manuscripts you don't have a lot of

00:01:22.080 | freedom to move around or do very much. So it is possible to leap and wave and

00:01:29.240 | holler and entertain and say nothing, and entertain people and be

00:01:36.400 | useless. And I don't want to do that, and therefore gestures in my mind are not

00:01:44.640 | of the essence of the demonstration of the Spirit and power. That's just not

00:01:49.280 | what they are, because you know that, because people can listen to

00:01:53.520 | sheer audio of messages and have their lives changed. They can't see you

00:01:59.120 | at all when that's happening. So with regard to me, I just have almost

00:02:05.760 | nothing to say about this, because I don't think about it. I have never planned

00:02:11.960 | a gesture. I never stand in front of a mirror and try to figure out what

00:02:16.680 | would be an effective move here. I just never, ever do that. And when I'm

00:02:20.080 | preaching, to the degree that I'm aware, I'm in trouble, because then it's

00:02:27.240 | artificial, then it feels really phony to me. "Well, what would be the next best move

00:02:31.120 | to do here?" If I'm watching myself preach, I'm lost. Self-consciousness is the

00:02:37.520 | curse of the preacher. It's horrible to think, "What am I going to say next?

00:02:42.880 | What am I going to move next?" And to be outside yourself, watching yourself

00:02:46.160 | preach, is just a curse. And therefore, whatever I do in the pulpit just comes

00:02:54.360 | naturally. And I've never studied gesture. I've never planned gesture. I

00:02:59.600 | don't think about gesture while I'm preaching. And I had a woman say to me

00:03:06.000 | one time, Hazel, she's still there at Bethlehem, one of our older Saints. It's

00:03:10.120 | back on the left. Actually, she doesn't come anymore, because she's not quite

00:03:13.240 | able to get out. But until last year or so, she came, and she took my arm one time,

00:03:19.600 | like older people do, drew me in close, and she said, "Pastor John, I just love to

00:03:26.440 | watch you preach. I understand you because of your hands." That's what she

00:03:32.920 | said. "I understand you because of your hands." Now, that was a compliment to me,

00:03:38.000 | because in my mind, what my body is doing is twofold. It is simply spontaneously

00:03:47.000 | trying to clarify. I'm doing it right now, believe it or not. I'm trying to clarify

00:03:56.440 | what I'm saying, and this is why I'm doing it right now. It's just part of the

00:04:01.120 | energy, right? It's part of the expressiveness. It's the soul becoming

00:04:05.440 | visible and not just hearable, and that's what you want. You want the

00:04:10.680 | significance of what you're saying to be seen and felt, and I suppose it's a

00:04:18.000 | largely personality thing as to how much expressiveness you give with your voice

00:04:23.360 | and how much expressiveness you give with your body. But for me, it's just

00:04:29.560 | who I am and what I do, and it's part of the language. I don't think

00:04:35.560 | we have a video of you preaching circa 1980 in the early days, but do you

00:04:39.880 | suspect that you would have used the same gestures 30 years ago, or were you

00:04:43.840 | more reserved? I think I'm less reserved and probably more expressive. You'd have

00:04:51.720 | to ask some people that have been around a long time. I know Char, she's still

00:04:55.360 | around. You can ask Char. Char said she liked the early John Piper better,

00:05:00.640 | but when she said that years ago, she said, "He didn't shout so much." I don't

00:05:07.160 | know whether she would say about the gesturing as much either, but my guess is

00:05:13.240 | all of us, as we become relaxed with the people we're with, as you have more

00:05:18.520 | family, you know, feeling for your people, and you're just more at ease with your

00:05:23.320 | manuscript or your notes, you loosen up and you become more who you are. And so I

00:05:28.520 | would say I haven't become more, I hope, artificially emotive, but rather I've

00:05:37.640 | just become more me, because I'm less intimidated by the situation. Thank you,

00:05:43.440 | Pastor John. Please email your preaching questions to us at

00:05:46.400 | askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. You can find thousands of other free resources

00:05:50.160 | online from johnpiper@desiringgod.org. I'm your host Tony Reinke. Thanks for

00:05:54.400 | listening.

00:05:56.480 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

What’s with All the Preaching Gestures?

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