Some time ago, I began noticing a growing passion in me (which is actually be a restored passion because it has been there before) to proclaim the gospel through preaching, teaching, speaking, etc. It has drawn me to reading books on preaching and articles on gospel centered ministry. I read at one point and author’s comment that a good Biblical preacher can arrive at the gospel from preaching any part of the Bible. That is a great challenge.
So, I am sitting in church while on vacation in the north. It was a small mainline denomination that I am not part of (just to clarify that it was not one of the churches a reader here may be part of). The preacher gave a sermon titled “tainted wells” with the description in the bulletin “based on James 3”. He started by reading verses 3 thru 5 and then skipped down to verses 9-12. Why he skipped the middle bit I will never know. I can only guess that he did not feel it relevant to what he was going to preach on. His sermon was on gossip. He started by sharing how he grew up in a devoted and active church going family. Then while in college, his parents divorced and he never felt comfortable in that church again because he sensed that his family was the subject of gossip whenever he showed up. He went on to define gossip and referenced a few other passages in the New Testament about our speech and how we need to build up the body. He spoke of the effects of gossip as well. Overall, it was a good talk on the topic but I kept waiting to see if he was going to preach the gospel. Part way into it, I read through the James 3 passage to see what he missed out. At that point it struck me that had he preached the passage instead of the subject of gossip, we could have heard a great gospel sermon. How do I figure that? The verses he spoke of talked about the effect of the tongue on others and how the tongue reflects what is internal. Hence his title and a closing illustration about tainted water wells. What he left out held an opportunity to proclaim essential truths that would have led to a gospel message. The passage was about the power of the tongue and gossip is a negative aspect of that power. What the other verses shed light on (and this is my interpretation) is the extent to which the tongue reflects the heart and by nature that is all tainted. In other words, he could easily have launched into preaching on the sinful nature of man and how gossip is a reflection of that but Christ paid the price for our sin. Then the focus moves from “don’t gossip” (a moral lesson) to ‘watch your tongue but even more importantly watch your heart and fill it with the love of God so that spills out rather than gossip’. The missed point lies in reminding us that we are depraved and in need of God’s grace and we must watch what we say so that we don’t hurt one another all while filling our minds and hearts with God’s gospel truth.
While I felt that this preacher missed the gospel opportunity in the passage because he was so focused on a topic, it would only be fair to point out that he did make a few passing references to gospel truth about salvation, grace, and redemption. This sermon was a great example of why I have become convinced that we need to teach and preach a passage of scripture rather than topics (generally speaking). When we do teach/preach a topic, we need to examine a passage of scripture and reveal the whole truth from it rather than just a small portion.
Next Sunday I get to put my convictions into practice and face the challenge of preaching the gospel from an Old Testament passage. I chose Nehemiah 8 and am excited to show the connection between this narrative and God’s redemptive work.
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