Why did the sermon fail?

Apparently D. Broughton Knox used to start his review of any student sermon at Moore College with that question, ‘why did the sermon fail?’. It could be apocryphal, but if it is true, it is a good question, pastorally shattering I suspect in that classic Sydney Anglican way, but a good question.

At a basic level it seems to me there are two types of biblical preachers, firstly, those who stand behind the text and try to back light the Word of God, as to draw attention to the riches it has to say, and ensure that the text is the authority for the preacher and the people. Secondly, those who stand just in front of the text, most of what they say is good and biblical and useful, even if not always directly related to the text they are apparently preaching on, but at the end you walk away feeling they come across as the authority, not the Bible.

The Bible is far more complex and subtle than any one person can truly convey. If we stand in front of the text ultimately it will be our theological system (with a mixture of our Gospel wisdom and hobby horses thrown in) that will set the tone for our preaching and teaching.

IF someone seems to preaching the same sermon every week (even you may feel like you do?) then it’s probably because they aren’t really working hard at sitting under the authority of that particular text of scripture, instead it becomes a launching pad for saying much of the same stuff week in week out.

Unfortunately, the guys in front of the text tend to have BIG personalities that are appealing to listen to, and the guys behind the text tend to stand too far back and think that they don’t need to be appealing at all, instead it is ALL about the word.

As wiser men than me have said, ‘Biblical Truth through personality’.
Which side of the horse do you naturally fall off, and what do you need to do about it?

And another thing…
Stott points out (rightly I think) that the culture of the Bible is on one side of a canyon, and our culture is on the other side of the canyon. The preacher is responsible for ensuring they are able to move the sermon from a sound foundation upon the Bible and span the gap, so it lands concretely and meaningfully into our world today.

I think in our circles we are way too comfortable in the world of the Bible and as long as we have explained it “faithfully” we feel (and are often encouraged by others) we have done enough.

To revisit the first quote, I suspect that the sermon fails if this is all we do. It may be true, but does it really equip our people to know how to live truly in all of their lives?

If after 4 years of college I am still trying to work hard as to how to integrate my Christian faith, with all of my life as I live in a complex world that confronts me with a myriad of issues and opinions that are so opposed to God. How can we expect someone to do that in 10min on the train in the morning before work, if we are unwilling to help them think about it through our preaching on the Sunday?

I suspect we need to change.

Firstly, verbal exegesis is not preaching. It is “faithful”, and it is descriptive but it is rarely instructive, and almost never inspiring – it is almost invariably a little dull and more like a lecture. (and I am pretty certain most people in the congregation DO NOT CARE what the 3 uses of the genitive are, and what a bunch of borderline pagan’s who happen to have PHD’s thought about it!).

Do we need to know those things – yes! We should know them well enough to be confident as to their relevance to our hearers and able to leave them as ‘working’ in behind the sermon. IF we have to we need to convey their meaning to the congregation in a way that makes sense, and in a way that helps them to see why it is important to them and their Christian lives living in this world.

For example, how many Christian people do you know that work in the medical field? – personally a truck load. When is the last time you heard anyone preach from the nature of humanity to the theological implications for our view of human life? It isn’t about giving them rules for living, but about helping them to build a theological framework (including a healthy dash of Gospel wisdom) so they are able to make good decisions in the concrete realities of the life they are called to live. If we don’t equip them have we really served them as their teachers? And are we just setting them up to live a divided life (or even worse seriously doubt their faith because the Bible is consistently treated as irrelevant and simplistic in a complex world), where their Christian faith doesn’t actually have anything concrete to say on their lives, like whether they should assist in an abortion because they are on a surgical rotation or be part of stem cell research because they are trained in genetics (and these are the easy decisions!).


Preaching it seems to me is theological speech that is soundly grounded in scripture. Theology is the framework through which we are able to view the world and ourselves, to enable us to live the ethical Christian life – the life of worship.

Our preaching needs to be consciously and soundly theological, that we would not just describe the Bible, but illuminate it, instruct and inspire from it (all humanly speaking of course).

Our ethical framework and our Christian world view are our direct point of contact with life, and these are founded upon our theological framework. If we want people to live a life of worship, we need to consciously help them develop their theological understanding so they can begin to engage with this world in a God pleasing way.

Preaching is much more than verbal exegesis – and there is more to say about it!