...I give you this charge: preach the word... 2 Timothy 4:2
A friend and I went, many years ago, to hear a well-known preacher. He was famous for his Bible-teaching, and my friend was a big fan. I think I may still have been a teenager, only converted three or four years earlier.
As we came away my friend enthused: “See how much truth Mr X extracts from scripture!” And certainly, you couldn’t have wished for a message more soaked in the Bible.
I still remember how that expression - “extracts from scripture” - struck me. Very immature though I was, it seemed somehow slightly odd. It suggested that the Bible was like a mine or quarry, and that the preacher’s task was to tackle it with the spiritual equivalent of picks, drills and shovels and dig out of it the precious things it contained.
To this day, over fifty years later, it still buzzes around in my head, and I have increasingly wondered if it really is a fitting metaphor for preaching - or, indeed, for Bible-reading in general, whether by preachers or not.
My friend was talking, of course, about doctrine, and the preacher he was so keen on was famous for his very doctrinal preaching.
Two questions come to mind.
First, what exactly is this thing called “doctrine”?
Answer: really it’s just a rather fancy word for the “teaching” or “instruction” of the truth, with that truth couched in a systematic, structured form.
Second, how important is doctrine?
Answer: very. Just a few lines after Paul has urged his protégé Timothy to “preach the word”, he goes on to warn him about future trouble-makers, and describes them as people who “will not put up with sound doctrine.” He obviously sees such people as a danger. (As should we.) Doctrine matters!
But there comes a point where we need to be careful. The Bible itself, after all, is not a systematic, doctrinal account of God’s truth - it is, rather, a big, baggy compendium of books of various shapes and sizes: history, poetry, prayers, parables, proverbs, prophecies, letters, visions and more.
Throughout Christian history various theologians have done their best to distil its teaching into a doctrinal “system”. In the middle ages a monk called Thomas Aquinas produced his Summa Theologica, which means something like “a complete account of theology”. The great protestant reformer John Calvin wrote The Institutes of the Christian Religion (isn’t that word “institutes” a bit of a give-away!). Last century the Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth wrote his massive Church Dogmatics. (I had to read just one chapter of it once, which I assumed would be a doddle - until I discovered that it ran to 500-plus pages, some of it in tiny print.)
The human mind seems to have this need to pin things down, to dot every i and cross every t. Which no doubt is a good thing if you’re talking about science, where precision is everything.
But divine truth isn’t like that; you might as well try to pin down a beautiful fragrance as pin down the mysteries of God - matters such as predestination and free will, or the mystery of the Trinity, or exactly how Christ’s sacrifice on the cross works for our salvation.
And while I’m sure there is value in such books as those I have mentioned, I’m mightily glad (aren’t you?) that God didn’t choose to give us his word in that form. Isn’t the sheer messiness of the Bible (if I may use such a term; you know I mean no disrespect!) something to delight in? It somehow matches the kind of minds that most of us have.
I’ve come at this topic from the angle of those of us who preach - Paul, after all, was himself a preacher addressing another preacher, Timothy. But it applies to anyone who takes the Bible seriously - which I hope includes you.
The message is simple: let’s not squeeze the life out of the Bible by putting it in a strait-jacket! Let’s allow it to speak to us with its own voice, not as we would like it to: to inform, to sing, to provoke, to puzzle, to inspire, to rebuke, to soar, to... I could go on.
At risk of over-simplifying, you could say that God has given us his word for four basic reasons: to instruct our minds; to stir our hearts; to bend our wills; and to fire our imaginations.
Instructing our minds comes first, because the Christian faith is primarily to do with hard, historic facts - the facts about Jesus the Son of God who lived, died, rose again and will one day return. That’s where “doctrine” is so vital. But the other three are needed too for a rounded rather than a stunted faith.
Going back to us preachers... Perhaps it can be summed up like this: preach the word, and let the doctrine look after itself!
Lord God, thank you for giving us your Word - the living Word, your Son Jesus Christ, and the written Word, the Bible. Teach me, by your Holy Spirit, how to listen, how to read, how to understand, and above all how to obey. Amen.
A friend and I went, many years ago, to hear a well-known preacher. He was famous for his Bible-teaching, and my friend was a big fan. I think I may still have been a teenager, only converted three or four years earlier.
As we came away my friend enthused: “See how much truth Mr X extracts from scripture!” And certainly, you couldn’t have wished for a message more soaked in the Bible.
I still remember how that expression - “extracts from scripture” - struck me. Very immature though I was, it seemed somehow slightly odd. It suggested that the Bible was like a mine or quarry, and that the preacher’s task was to tackle it with the spiritual equivalent of picks, drills and shovels and dig out of it the precious things it contained.
To this day, over fifty years later, it still buzzes around in my head, and I have increasingly wondered if it really is a fitting metaphor for preaching - or, indeed, for Bible-reading in general, whether by preachers or not.
My friend was talking, of course, about doctrine, and the preacher he was so keen on was famous for his very doctrinal preaching.
Two questions come to mind.
First, what exactly is this thing called “doctrine”?
Answer: really it’s just a rather fancy word for the “teaching” or “instruction” of the truth, with that truth couched in a systematic, structured form.
Second, how important is doctrine?
Answer: very. Just a few lines after Paul has urged his protégé Timothy to “preach the word”, he goes on to warn him about future trouble-makers, and describes them as people who “will not put up with sound doctrine.” He obviously sees such people as a danger. (As should we.) Doctrine matters!
But there comes a point where we need to be careful. The Bible itself, after all, is not a systematic, doctrinal account of God’s truth - it is, rather, a big, baggy compendium of books of various shapes and sizes: history, poetry, prayers, parables, proverbs, prophecies, letters, visions and more.
Throughout Christian history various theologians have done their best to distil its teaching into a doctrinal “system”. In the middle ages a monk called Thomas Aquinas produced his Summa Theologica, which means something like “a complete account of theology”. The great protestant reformer John Calvin wrote The Institutes of the Christian Religion (isn’t that word “institutes” a bit of a give-away!). Last century the Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth wrote his massive Church Dogmatics. (I had to read just one chapter of it once, which I assumed would be a doddle - until I discovered that it ran to 500-plus pages, some of it in tiny print.)
The human mind seems to have this need to pin things down, to dot every i and cross every t. Which no doubt is a good thing if you’re talking about science, where precision is everything.
But divine truth isn’t like that; you might as well try to pin down a beautiful fragrance as pin down the mysteries of God - matters such as predestination and free will, or the mystery of the Trinity, or exactly how Christ’s sacrifice on the cross works for our salvation.
And while I’m sure there is value in such books as those I have mentioned, I’m mightily glad (aren’t you?) that God didn’t choose to give us his word in that form. Isn’t the sheer messiness of the Bible (if I may use such a term; you know I mean no disrespect!) something to delight in? It somehow matches the kind of minds that most of us have.
I’ve come at this topic from the angle of those of us who preach - Paul, after all, was himself a preacher addressing another preacher, Timothy. But it applies to anyone who takes the Bible seriously - which I hope includes you.
The message is simple: let’s not squeeze the life out of the Bible by putting it in a strait-jacket! Let’s allow it to speak to us with its own voice, not as we would like it to: to inform, to sing, to provoke, to puzzle, to inspire, to rebuke, to soar, to... I could go on.
At risk of over-simplifying, you could say that God has given us his word for four basic reasons: to instruct our minds; to stir our hearts; to bend our wills; and to fire our imaginations.
Instructing our minds comes first, because the Christian faith is primarily to do with hard, historic facts - the facts about Jesus the Son of God who lived, died, rose again and will one day return. That’s where “doctrine” is so vital. But the other three are needed too for a rounded rather than a stunted faith.
Going back to us preachers... Perhaps it can be summed up like this: preach the word, and let the doctrine look after itself!
Lord God, thank you for giving us your Word - the living Word, your Son Jesus Christ, and the written Word, the Bible. Teach me, by your Holy Spirit, how to listen, how to read, how to understand, and above all how to obey. Amen.
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