Tuesday, March 15, 2005
What Are We Talking About Here?
I am taking a little heat from my skepticism concerning Adrian Warnock's claim to transformative preaching. In the original post on this topic Adrian said this:
Today, Brad at 21st Century Reformation has left me a comment saying:
When I said "YES!" to Jesus I began a journey, a journey of transformation that continues to today. When I began the journey if you had asked me to make a word association with "sex" -- well, let's not talk about it. But when I first read Adrian's original post and he asked what I thought of when I read that word -- I thought of my wife. But it has taken many, many years of the journey to come to that point.
Preaching did in fact produce that initial "YES!" in me, but it took a whole lot more than preaching to get me to the point where my word associations were so changed.
There is indeed a transformation that occurs at that "YES!" moment, a huge one. But in my experience, that transformation is not the kind of transformation that Adrian described in his original post, that is all I am saying. I do not want to lessen in any way the importance of the spoken Word, or the necessity of such ministry.
If I ask you to play a word association game what is the first thing that comes to your minds with the following words-I responded here by saying that I was not sure that preaching could result in changes that deep. Adrian continued with this post, to which I responded with this one, quoting in part this post from 21st Century Reformation.
sex
money
God
If for example the first word that springs to mind when you think of sex is "dirty" or "sin" or even "lust", dare I say that maybe your mind needs transforming. If the word sex is associated with marriage, fun, and happiness then perhaps your mind is already transformed in that area....
Today, Brad at 21st Century Reformation has left me a comment saying:
I think Adrian's position and mine are not contrary at all. Paul says this meeting with God happens through the Gospel preached.Adrian has put up this post
The point is that it is God speaking through the preaching that is key. I wrote a post "part 2" of the one you are referencing on "God speaking through the preacher"
It is vital to understand that it is the gospel preached that is the power of God to change lives. As Paul puts it in Romans 1 "I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes" Paul seems to believe that there is something in the proper preaching of the proper gospel that brings salvation to people. Spurgeon believed it, and my slow progress blogging through his soul winner book has thrown up some wonderful quotes. I believe that the biggest problem today is the absence of true preaching. There are some sites online that you can listen to preaching that is beginning to get close to what it should be. Personally like Lloyd-Jones did, I sometimes wonder whether I have ever really preached- although I am grateful to God that I have seem some fruit from my sermons.Look, I do think preaching is important, really important. I also think preaching, in this day and age, is not in general what preaching should be. I also agree that preaching can produce salvation. But that said I differentiate between salvation, shall we say ascent to the simple gospel, and transformation and renewal-sanctification-which is what I think is necessary to produce the kind of shifts in thinking that Adrian illustrated in his first post and I quote in part above.
There is something wrong with our preaching if it doesn't produce salvation. Perhaps there is something wrong with the content...
When I said "YES!" to Jesus I began a journey, a journey of transformation that continues to today. When I began the journey if you had asked me to make a word association with "sex" -- well, let's not talk about it. But when I first read Adrian's original post and he asked what I thought of when I read that word -- I thought of my wife. But it has taken many, many years of the journey to come to that point.
Preaching did in fact produce that initial "YES!" in me, but it took a whole lot more than preaching to get me to the point where my word associations were so changed.
There is indeed a transformation that occurs at that "YES!" moment, a huge one. But in my experience, that transformation is not the kind of transformation that Adrian described in his original post, that is all I am saying. I do not want to lessen in any way the importance of the spoken Word, or the necessity of such ministry.
