Preaching Christ or preaching about Christ?

There is a difference between preaching Christ and preaching about Christ. Preaching Christ is presenting him so clearly and directly that the people experience the sermon this way: “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified” (Galatians 3:1). Preaching about Christ is presenting ideas related to him. It’s a good thing to do. But preaching Christ is more profound, more daring and more helpful.

In Intellectuals, page 31, Paul Johnson wrote of the poet Shelley, “He burned with a fierce love but it was an abstract flame and the poor mortals who came near it were often scorched. He put ideas before people and his life is a testament to how heartless ideas can be.” It is not enough for us preachers to burn with a fierce love. We must burn with a fierce love for Christ the crucified Friend of sinners and for the sinners right there before us who need that Friend. Ideas about Christ can even be heartless. But Christ crucified befriends sinners, and they feel it.

Calvin comments on Galatians 3:1, “Let those who want to discharge the ministry of the gospel aright learn not only to speak and declaim but also to penetrate into consciences, so that men may see Christ crucified and that his blood may flow.” Christ’s blood flowing into the human conscience, setting people free as they sit there listening to the sermon – that is preaching Christ.

One way to test ourselves is to ask, What are the people who hear me preach walking away with? Have they seen Christ himself during this sermon, or have they only interacted with ideas about Christ? As a preacher, I cannot make people engage with him. I wouldn’t want to try. But I can and must preach in such a way that he stands forth as obvious and available to the people right then and there.

-Ray Ortlund

Additionally, he provided this for further explanation:

"Preaching Christ includes ideas and concepts, of course. But it goes beyond that by presenting him, displaying him and offering him as a living reality and presence in the moment. This is rare and wonderful. A grace."

Preaching Christ

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“My friends, I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to give people a batch of philosophy every Sunday morning and evening, and neglect the truths of this Holy Book. I do not believe it is preaching Christ and him crucified, to leave out the main cardinal doctrine of the Word of God, and preach a religion which is all a mist and a haze, without any definite truths whatsoever. I take it that man does not preach Christ and him crucified, who can get through a sermon without mentioning Christ’s name once; nor does that man preach Christ and him crucified, who leaves out the Holy Spirit’s work, who never says a word about the Holy Ghost, so that indeed the hearers might say, ‘We do not so much as know whether there be a Holy Ghost.’ And I have my own private opinion, that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism. I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism. Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in his dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable conquering love of Jehovah; nor, I think, can we preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the peculiar redemption which Christ made for his elect and chosen people; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation, after having believed.”

-Charles H. Spurgeon, Christ Crucified
Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. 1, pg 88-89

Spurgeon on Preaching Christ

Spurgeon on Preaching Christ

“I believe that those sermons which are fullest of Christ are the most likely to be blessed to the conversion of the hearers. Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the gospel. As for myself, brethren, I cannot preach anything else but Christ and His cross, for I know nothing else, and long ago, like the apostle Paul, I determined not to know anything else save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. People have often asked me, “What is the secret of your success?” I always answer that I have no other secret but this, that I have preached the gospel,—not about the gospel, but the gospel,—the full, free, glorious gospel of the living Christ who is the incarnation of the good news. Preach Jesus Christ, brethren, always and everywhere; and every time you preach be sure to have much of Jesus Christ in the sermon. You remember the story of the old minister who heard a sermon by a young man, and when he was asked by the preacher what he thought of it he was rather slow to answer, but at last he said, “If I must tell you, I did not like it at all; there was no Christ in your sermon.” “No,” answered the young man, “because I did not see that Christ was in the text.” “Oh!” said the old minister, “but do you not know that from every little town and village and tiny hamlet in England there is a road leading to London? Whenever I get hold of a text, I say to myself, ‘There is a road from here to Jesus Christ, and I mean to keep on His track till I get to Him.’” “Well,” said the young man, “but suppose you are preaching from a text that says nothing about Christ?” “Then I will go over hedge and ditch but what I will get at Him.” So must we do, brethren; we must have Christ in all our discourses, whatever else is in or not in them. There ought to be enough of the gospel in every sermon to save a soul. Take care that it is so when you are called to preach before Her Majesty the Queen, and if you have to preach to charwomen or chairmen, still always take care that there is the real gospel in every sermon.”

-CH Spurgeon, The Soul Winner.

Bible Story

Ed Clowney -
"There are great stories in the Bible ... but it is possible to know Bible stories, yet miss THE Bible story. The Bible has a story Line. lf we forget the story line ... we cut the heart out of the Bible. Sunday school stories are then tol...d as tamer versions of the Sunday comics, where Samson substitutes as Superman. David...becomes a Hebrew version of Jack the Giant Killer. No, David is not a brave little boy who is't afraid of the big bad giant. he is the Lord's Anointed..God chose David as a king in order to prepare the way for David's Great Son, our Deliverer and Champion..

If we ever tell a particular Bible story without putting it into the Bible story (about Christ), we actually change the meaning of the particular event for us. It becomes a moralistic exhortation to 'try harder' rather than a call to live... by faith in the work of Christ. There is, in the end, only two ways to read the Bible: is it basicallv about me or basicallv about Jesus? In other words. is it basically about what I must do, or basically about what He has done? If I read David and Goliath as basically giving me an example, then the story is really about me. I must summon up the faith and courage to fight the giants in my life. But if I read David and Goliath as basically showing me salvation through Jesus, then the story is really about Him. Until I see that Jesus fought the real giants (sin, law, death) for me, I will never have the courage to be able to fight ordinary giants in life (suffering, disappointment. failure, criticism. hardship). The Bible is not a collection of 'Aesop's Fables", it is not a book of virtues. It is a story about how God saves us."

Real Preaching

From Tim Keller:

Dr. D.M.Lloyd-Jones, hardly a trendy type in article on how Edwards effected him, makes a major critique of evangelical-expository preaching as currently taught many places. "The first and primary object of preaching is not only to give information It is, as Edwards says, to produce an impression. It is the impression at the time that matters, even more than what you can remember subsequently. In this respect Edwards is in a sense. critical of what was a prominent Puritan custom and practice. The Puritan father would catechize and question the children as to what the preacher had said. Edwards, in my opinion, has the true notion of preaching. It is not primarily to impart information; and while you are writing your notes you may be missing something of the impact of the Spirit (He mentions how discouraged people taking notes preaching--'this is not a lecture' Welsh growl.) As preachers we must not forget this. We should tell our people to read certain books themselves and get the information there. The business of preaching is to make such knowledge live."

Edwards Thoughts on Revival fits in: 'The frequent preaching that has lately obtained has in a particular manner been objected against..It is objected that..so many sermons in a week is too much to remember and digest Such objections against frequent preaching. if they be not from an enrmty against--re1igion are for want of duly considering the way that sermons usually profit an auditory. The main benefit obtained by preaching is by impression made upon the mind at the time, and not by an effect that arises afterwords by a remembrance of what was delivered. And though an after-remembrance of what was heard in a sermon is oftentimes very profitable; yet
for the most part. that remembrance is from an impression the words made on the heart at the time: and the memo y profits. as it renews and increases that impression' (Thoughts on revival).

Sum: If it is true that auditors are now less rational and more interested in 'encounter' and 'experience', and so on--Edwards and Lloyd Jones' advice is even more on target than ever before. Not iust to make the truth clear, but to make the truth real