What Is the Place of Eloquence in Christian Preaching?

00:00:00.000 | Well, on Monday, we talked about what makes a good sermon.

00:00:07.040 | And today we have a question about what place eloquence has in the pulpit, if any.

00:00:12.680 | And it's a question from a seasoned preacher who asked to remain nameless.

00:00:16.800 | Pastor John, thank you for this podcast.

00:00:18.720 | What is the role of creativity, imagination, and rhetoric in preaching?

00:00:23.580 | I'm thinking of things from alliteration and assonance to structural and

00:00:28.760 | organizational devices to the use of metaphors, imagery, and illustrations.

00:00:33.740 | What would you say, Pastor John, to this preacher?

00:00:35.380 | This question has weighed on me for decades.

00:00:40.920 | So much so that maybe he knows, we did an entire Desiring God National

00:00:48.420 | Conference, I think in 2008, under the title, "The Power of Words and the Wonder

00:00:56.280 | of God," and the next year, Justin Taylor edited those messages into a book by the

00:01:02.400 | same title, and my talk in that conference was, "Is There Christian Eloquence?"

00:01:10.840 | And my burden was 1 Corinthians 1.17, which says, "Christ did not send me to

00:01:20.680 | baptize, but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest

00:01:30.840 | the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."

00:01:34.800 | And I think that is the key issue.

00:01:38.680 | How do we reconcile the pursuit of creative, imaginative, compelling uses

00:01:47.200 | of language in preaching and writing with the biblical warnings against

00:01:52.120 | replacing the power and offensiveness of the cross with human finesse or

00:01:58.400 | human art or human cleverness?

00:02:00.960 | Nobody can escape this problem.

00:02:03.360 | So nobody out there should say, "Oh, I don't even come close to that problem.

00:02:06.760 | I'm not eloquent at all."

00:02:07.760 | No, no, no, no, no.

00:02:08.400 | You do come close to this problem every time you open your mouth for Jesus.

00:02:12.880 | Yes, you do.

00:02:13.800 | Nobody escapes this because everybody in preaching or teaching or

00:02:19.000 | witnessing has to choose words.

00:02:20.880 | And when you choose words, they are more or less grammatically correct,

00:02:27.840 | more or less interesting, more or less striking, more or less traditional,

00:02:36.600 | more or less concrete or abstract, more or less evocative, more or fewer

00:02:44.960 | analogies and illustrations, which may be more or less captivating, and on and on.

00:02:52.280 | Nobody can evade the issue that when we choose our words, we are hoping that

00:02:59.160 | they have an effect for the glory of God and the salvation of sinners.

00:03:04.640 | And we make choices and we're never quite sure, was that the right choice?

00:03:10.400 | So this preacher is asking, is it fitting, helpful, legitimate, faithful to turn on

00:03:18.600 | like a faucet in your brain, to turn on the mental juices of creativity and

00:03:25.600 | imagination and make efforts at alliteration?

00:03:30.320 | He mentions like big bad bellicose bully.

00:03:34.000 | That's alliteration and assonance like men sell the wedding bells.

00:03:39.040 | You hear the sound that's assonance men sell the wedding bells.

00:03:43.880 | I got that off the internet as an illustration of assonance and metaphors.

00:03:49.160 | Jesus is the lion of Judah or similes.

00:03:52.400 | He will come like a thief or imagery.

00:03:56.200 | The sun crosses the sky like a bridegroom leaving his chamber.

00:04:00.840 | And illustrations like Jesus parables, the kingdom of God is like, and so on.

00:04:06.200 | It's not a simple question.

00:04:09.080 | And let me point our pastor friend to the fourth part of the

00:04:13.880 | new book, expository exaltation.

00:04:15.840 | I've got an entire part of this book devoted to the question of, is there such

00:04:22.240 | a thing as a legitimate Christian eloquence?

00:04:24.840 | My answer is yes.

00:04:26.520 | But chapters eight and nine really tried to tackle and show that the use of our

00:04:31.880 | natural powers, our natural brains, our natural creativity with verbal effort to

00:04:38.480 | say things effectively may cross the line of emptying the cross of its power.

00:04:44.080 | Or they may not cross the line.

00:04:46.120 | And here's what I've, I've concluded, and you'd have to go to the chapter

00:04:50.080 | to see the whole argument, but I've concluded the Bible itself is filled

00:04:56.400 | with every manner of literary device to add impact to the language.

00:05:02.600 | Acrostics, alliteration, analogies, anthropomorphisms, assonance, cadence,

00:05:09.680 | chiasm, consonants, dialogue, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, meter, onomatopoeia.

00:05:17.160 | Look it up.

00:05:17.880 | Paradox, parallelism, repetition, rhyme, satire, simile.

00:05:23.640 | They're all there.

00:05:24.480 | And more, lots, lots more.

00:05:26.960 | The Bible is just explosive with varieties of effort to make the

00:05:34.080 | language different from ordinary hum, drum, traditional speech.

00:05:41.520 | And it seems to me that not only is there an example for us in the Bible for what

00:05:48.800 | to do with language when we're handling sacred things, but also that God Himself

00:05:54.440 | invites us to join Him in this creativity of compelling language with words like

00:06:03.760 | these, this is Proverbs 15, 23, "To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a

00:06:11.840 | word in season, how good it is."

00:06:16.720 | Or Proverbs 25, 11, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of

00:06:25.720 | silver."

00:06:26.520 | Or Colossians 4, 6, "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so

00:06:34.320 | that you may know how you ought to answer each person," and on and on.

00:06:39.560 | So my answer is yes, we should use our creative gifts to say things in

00:06:47.600 | interesting, non-boring, clear, truthful, biblically faithful, emotionally

00:06:55.640 | engaging, memorable, striking, compelling ways that are suitable to the subject

00:07:02.040 | matter.

00:07:03.080 | So when I seek to guard against the misuse of creativity or the misuse of

00:07:09.240 | Christian eloquence, which I don't think is a bad thing, I think mainly of two

00:07:15.880 | criteria that would show something out of bounds or in bounds, protecting the

00:07:22.280 | cross with its power and its offensiveness.

00:07:25.160 | The first criteria is this, does my way of speaking or writing feed boasting?

00:07:34.560 | Does it come from an ego in search of exaltation through clever speech, and

00:07:42.520 | would it lead to that?

00:07:43.600 | Oh, how prone we are to want to get accolades for the way we put words

00:07:53.800 | together, and that's what Paul considers so deadly.

00:07:58.320 | Paul rejects it.

00:08:00.280 | Here's the second criterion, does my use of creative language in speaking and

00:08:06.040 | writing exalt Christ, especially the crucified Christ?

00:08:12.840 | The most helpful word I ever read on this outside the Bible is James Denny's

00:08:21.160 | dictum, which I think expresses these two criteria in a nutshell.

00:08:27.240 | He says, "No man can give the impression that he himself is clever and that

00:08:35.480 | Christ is mighty to save."

00:08:37.200 | I read that early on in my ministry, and it has held me fast.

00:08:44.040 | So hold fast to that and be as creative and compelling as you can be for the glory

00:08:53.640 | of Christ and the good of souls.

00:08:56.920 | So good.

00:08:57.480 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:08:58.400 | And this week we are talking about preaching to celebrate Pastor John's new

00:09:02.640 | book, Expository Exaltation, which is the capstone of his 1000-page trilogy.

00:09:07.560 | Asking and answering three really critical questions.

00:09:11.040 | Question number one, can we trust the Bible?

00:09:13.200 | That was answered, of course, back in book number one, A Peculiar Glory.

00:09:17.160 | Question number two, how should I go about reading the Bible to get God's meaning?

00:09:20.920 | That was answered in book number two, Reading the Bible Supernaturally.

00:09:24.600 | And now finally, question three, what should I expect from my church and my

00:09:28.040 | pastors when they proclaim this book to me?

00:09:30.400 | That is now answered in book three, now out, titled Expository Exaltation,

00:09:35.360 | Christian Preaching as Worship.

00:09:38.120 | Well, our week of episodes on preaching ends on Friday next time, and I'll ask

00:09:42.800 | Pastor John, how do we know if our sermons are too short or too long?

00:09:46.880 | That should generate an interesting answer.

00:09:49.600 | That's on Friday when we return.

00:09:51.560 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.

00:09:52.360 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime

00:09:54.920 | author and preacher, John Piper.

00:09:56.480 | We'll see you then.

00:09:57.040 | [End of Audio]

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What Is the Place of Eloquence in Christian Preaching?

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