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Category Archives: John A. Broadus

It is not a Biblical Ministry

04 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in John A. Broadus, Preaching

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A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, Broadus, John A. Broadus, Preaching, Sermon

(The previous entry concerning TPDS may be found here: https://memoirandremains.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/know-to-whom-you-preach/

As Broadus (A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of  Sermons) notes, a sermon must be bound by the text:

 

TO interpret and apply his text in accordance with its real meaning, is one of the preacher’s most sacred duties. He stands before the people for the very purpose of teaching and exhorting them out of the Word of God. He announces a particular passage of God’s Word as his text with the distinctly implied understanding that from this his sermon will be drawn—if not always its various thoughts, yet certainly its general subject. … But using a text, and undertaking to develop and apply its teachings, he is solemnly bound to represent the text as meaning precisely what it does mean.

 

This would seem to be a truism. But it is often and grievously violated.

 

TPDS, 32

 

It seems strange that preacher would not consider himself bound by the text, and yet as Broadus notes, “it is often and grievously violated.”

 

Now, his diversion may not be from malicious motives (it often is not). However, by substituting his own “good” idea for the text, the preacher places himself above the text and thus above God’s wisdom. He seeks to “improve” God’s exhortations. By so doing, the preacher lays a burden upon the congregation which God did not lay; or he exhorts the congregation to an appropriate goal by an inappropriate means (and thus calls them to work with providing God’s help).

 

“That is a distorted ministry which deals in any large proportion with subjects which are not logically presented in the Scriptures. It is not a biblical ministry” (TPDS, 34; quoting Phelps).

Know to Whom You Preach

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in John A. Broadus, Preaching, Uncategorized

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John A. Broadus, John Broadus, Preaching, The Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, Uncategorized

In the course of pastoral labor, several considerations should be borne in mind when selecting texts. One is, the present condition of the congregation. Mr. Beecher1 insisted very strongly, and none too strongly, on the importance of this, and said: “You will very soon come, in your parish life, to the habit of thinking more about your people, and what you shall do for them than about your sermons and what you shall talk about. That is a good sign.”

John Broadus, The Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, 31.

Broadus: Requisites to Effective Preaching

31 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by memoirandremains in John A. Broadus, Preaching

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Jack Hughes, John A. Broadus, knowledge, Natural Gifts, Piety, Preaching, Public Speaking, Sermons, Skill, The Preparation and Delivery of Sermons

Broadus lists four requisites to effective preaching: piety, natural gifts, knowledge, & skill.

Piety: Piety will flow from knowledge and conviction of the matter of the sermon. The preacher must be convicted and in so doing, he will convey that conviction to the hearer. The conviction — if real — will create piety in the preacher. Jack Hughes one time explained his sermon preparation as his personal meditation made public: stay alone the text until it changes you. Then, bring the sermon.

Many pastors fail here, by making the sermon mechanical, their Christianity remains largely on the outside. The passion and concern of delivery will flow naturally from that which matters most.

I have noted this with men whom I have seen teach well and teach in a mediocre matter. They will typically teach in an “adequate” but not in an outstanding manner. Yet, there comes a lesson, a sermon which transforms the hearer — such sermons come from a heart which itself was transformed; that is, marked with piety.

Thought of differently: a leader can lead no one to a place where he has not gone.

As Broadus writes, piety:

inspires the preacher himself with ardent zeal, and keeps the flame alive amid all the icy indifference by which he will so often be encompassed. This gains for him the good-will and sympathy of his hearers, the most ungodly of whom will feel that devout earnestness on his part is becoming, and entitles him to respect. And to this is promised the blessing of God upon the labors which it prompts. Much false theory and bad practice in preaching is connected with a failure to apprehend the fundamental importance of piety in the preacher

TPDS, 8.

Natural Gifts must be present before they can be developed. While much development can be had, there must be a basis with which to work.

Knowledge:

There must be knowledge of religious truth, and of such things as throw light upon it; knowledge of human nature in its relations to religious truth, and of human life in its actual conditions around us. It was a favorite idea of Cicero that the orator ought to know everything. There is of course no knowledge which a preacher might not make useful.

TPDS, 8.

Skill:

This does not refer merely to style and delivery, but also to the collection, choice, and arrangement of materials. All who preach eminently well—and the same thing is true of secular speakers—will be found, with scarcely an exception, to have labored much to acquire skill.

TPDS, 9. Skill derives from effort. The skill to speak well comes as the result of serious deliberate effort. It is a shame that many preachers think that mere good intent will translate into good effect.

In this respect, I remember an exercise recommended by a well-respected attorney known for his trial advocacy: Practice speaking in front of mirrors. Look to see how your face appears from every angle. Another exercise advantage for lawyers is to read the transcript of public argument. I know many young men who record their lessons to listen and improve — but I have found they are far too easy on themselves. A transcript is brutal in plainness. If you’re going to use recordings, find a friend who loves you enough to tear you up. Very few men can speak well, at all. Most speakers are painful. The difference is often the result of developed skill:

Any one whose good fortune it has been to be intimate with some of those noble Baptist and Methodist preachers, who beginning with hardly any education have worked their way up to the highest excellence in their calling, will have seen ample proofs, particularly in their unrestrained private conversation, that their power of clear and precise expression, and of forcible and attractive delivery, is the result of sharp, critical attention, of earnest and long-continued labor. The difference between skill and the lack of it in speaking, is almost as great as in handling tools, those, for example, of the carpenter or the blacksmith. And while no real skill can be acquired without practice—according to the true saying, “The only way to learn to preach is to preach”—yet mere practice will never bring the highest skill; it must be heedful, thoughtful practice, with close observation of others and sharp watching of ourselves, and controlled by good sense and good taste.

TPDS, 9.

A final note: there is nothing ungodly with taking deliberate effort to learn how speak — it is no shame to learn Greek or theology or history by means of effort. Strangely, many young men enter ministry thinking they will automatically be good (or even great) at speaking — and yet make no efforts to actually learn to speak in public.

As can be seen from Broadus’s list, great preaching can only derive from sustained private effort to gain knowledge and piety which results from deep private devotion and constant practice in speaking. Since the sermon is the central act of public Christian worship, the preacher must dedicate himself to painful effort in this respect. Anything less is no less a crime than laughing at the time of breaking bread or joking during a baptism.

The Commonplace of Eloquence

29 Saturday Dec 2012

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Commonplace, Eloquence, John A. Broadus, Preaching, Rhetorical, Richard Baxter, The Preparation and Delivery of Sermons

Broadus explains that a sermon to be good, to be effective must be “eloquent”. At this we must be careful: Eloquence does not mean rhetorically complex or “sophisticated.” Rather, eloquence creates change: an eloquent sermon moves the hearer:

Eloquence is so speaking as not merely to convince the judgment, kindle the imagination and move the feelings, but to give a powerful impulse to the will. All of these are necessary elements of eloquence, but that which is most characteristic is the last. There may be instruction and conviction without eloquence. The fancy may be charmed, as by a poem or novel, when you would not think of calling it eloquence. The feelings may be deeply stirred by a pathetic tale or a harrowing description, but no corresponding action being proposed, we do not speak of it as eloquence.

TPDS, 5. Eloquence, thus, only appears in the effect. An eloquent sermon does something. In this, Broadus runs in Baxter dictum, Preach as a dying man to dying men. There must be a desperation in the sermon to save, to transform.

Broadus next notes that eloquence derives from that most plain and common. Although he does not examine the point, I think it fair to note that only those things which touch near our skin have the power to transform — distant, abstract matters cannot stir the emotions.

Politicians manipulatively speak of “mothers” or “apple pie” or “kitchen tables” or more recently the human body as a point of political dispute. It is difficult to get most people to care about bond yields, but they will care about death and pain.

The sermon must concern itself with such commonplace matters or it will not move, and thus it will not be eloquent:

“What is the true ground of eloquence,” says Vinet, “if it is not commonplace? When eloquence is combined with high philosophical considerations, as in many modern examples, we are at first tempted to attribute to philosophy the impression we receive from it; but eloquence is something more popular; it is the power of making the primitive chords of the soul (its purely human elements) vibrate within us—it is in this, and nothing else, that we acknowledge the orator.”2 It is impossible to be eloquent on any subject, save by associating it with such ideas as that of mother, child, friends, home, country, heaven, and the like; all of them familiar, and, in themselves, commonplace. The speaker’s task is, by his grouping, illustration, etc., and by his own contagious emotion, to invest these familiar ideas with fresh interest, so that they may reassert their power over the hearts of his hearers.

TPDS, 7. What commonplace must occupy the center of the sermon:

The preacher can be really eloquent only when he speaks of those vital gospel truths which have necessarily become familiar. A just rhetoric, if there were no higher consideration, would require that a preacher shall preach the gospel—shall hold on to the old truths, and labor to clothe them with new interest and power.

TPDS, 7.

John A. Broadus.1

27 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by memoirandremains in John A. Broadus, Ministry, Preaching

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Counseling, John A. Broadus, Ministry, Pastoral Work, Preaching, The Preparation and Delivery of Sermons

Broadus explains that nothing can supersede or substitute for physical preaching before living human beings by a present man. At his time, the potential substitute for preaching would be a book, something printed. We likely would put recordings or internet in its place — I imagine an extremely large church may create the same sort of distance between speaker and hearer. Broadus points out the persona pleading necessary for true Christian work:

But printing can never take the place of the living word. When a man who is apt in teaching, whose soul is on fire with the truth which he trusts has saved him and hopes will save others, speaks to his fellow-men, face to face, eye to eye, and electric sympathies flash to and fro between him and his hearers, till they lift each other up, higher and higher, into the intensest thought, and the most impassioned emotion—higher and yet higher, till they are borne as on chariots of fire above the world,—there is a power to move men, to influence character, life, destiny, such as no printed page can ever possess.

The Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, 2.

He compares and contrasts this work with “pastoral work”, personal ministry between pastor and congregant and notes that while such is important, it cannot substitute for preaching. And, that when preaching and pastoral are combined in one man, the work is most profitable. Thus, he counsels:

If a minister feels himself specially drawn towards either of these departments of effort, let him also constrain himself to diligence in the other.

TPDS, 3.

These two elements must be held in concert. First, a preacher who does not know the congregation, who has no pastoral relationship can do little more than preach at the people as opposed to preach to, to care for and shepherd the congregation from the pulpit. Second, as Broadus notes the preacher who counsels has a special place:

When he who preaches is the sympathizing pastor, the trusted counsellor, the kindly and honored friend of young and old, of rich and poor, then “truths divine come mended from his lips,” and the door to men’s hearts, by the magical power of sympathy, will fly open at his word. But on the other hand, when he who visits is the preacher, whose thorough knowledge of Scripture and elevated views of life, whose able and impassioned discourses have carried conviction and commanded admiration, and melted into one the hearts of the multitude, who is accustomed to stand before them as the ambassador of God, and is associated in their minds with the authority and the sacredness of God’s Word,—when he comes to speak with the suffering, the sorrowing, the tempted, his visit has a meaning and a power of which otherwise it must be destitute

TPDS, 3.

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