Unction in preaching – Mike Plant
UNCTION IN PREACHING (the preaching that God desires)
Mike Plant – EFCC General Secretary (MPC 2007)
INTRODUCTION A book review summed up the greatness of the subject of a biography, and the failure of the biographer to do justice to his subject, in the words of the woman at the well to the Lord: ‘Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with and the well is deep.’ My greatest fear in relationship to the subject of preaching with unction is that the well is deep! The subject is vitally important but hard to define precisely – ‘Better felt than telt’ as David Meredith told us last year when asked about this subject at the EFCC Ministers’ Prayer Conference. I have tried to read up on it but have been left with the feeling I believe Augustine expressed about writing on the Trinity: ‘We speak only that we may not be silent.’ Some subjects are so important that they must be addressed however inadequately.
We will do three things – seek to define preaching with unction, say why it is so important for us today, and then say what we must do about it.
FIRSTLY: PREACHING WITH UNCTION – WHAT IS IT?
By preaching we mean the proclamation of God’s word – it may be in a church building and from a pulpit or it may be one to one in a front room. It may be in the open air or on a door-step – it may be to children or to adults. It may be formal and prepared or it may be responding to a situation or to a question that is asked.
By unction we mean the presence and the influence and power of the Holy Spirit. There are a number of points we need to make about the Holy Spirit and our preaching:-
1. We are preaching in the era of the Spirit Roger Wagner (‘Tongues Aflame’) comments: ‘Because the Spirit had now been given, the apostolic message could be proclaimed, and its immediate effect was the saving of some three thousand souls that day (Acts 2: 41). The intimate connection between the Holy Spirit as the personal representative of the risen Christ and the boldness and effectiveness of apostolic preaching is clear. The witness of the apostles is what it is because of the witness of the Holy Spirit. ……. The testimony to be borne to the truth by the Spirit and by the apostles is the same witness, and for that reason it is convincing (cf. John 16: 7 – 11).’
2. The effect on those proclaiming the gospel is that they are characteristically ‘filled with’ / ‘full of’ the Holy Spirit This if true of those in the upper room, of those chosen to undertake diaconal ministries in Acts 6 and of Paul, Barnabas and Stephen. This is important in terms of redemptive history but it is also something experienced by the one filled. Jay Adams: ‘What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit’? In that phrase, the idea of domination is uppermost. When the Bible speaks of being filled with amazement, with fear, with jealousy, or with joy, similarly, the idea of domination is in view. A person who is filled with fear is dominated by fear, everything he does or says in that condition is dominated by fear … The same is true of one who is ‘filled’ with jealousy, joy or amazement ………. when a person is filled with the Spirit, every aspect of his life is under the Spirit’s influence; there are no areas that are untouched by Him. That does not mean the person filled with the Holy Spirit is perfect, but it does mean the Spirit is at work in the totality of his life.’
3. Those preaching then preach with a boldness which is remarkable Look at the account of Peter and John before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4: 7 – 13: ‘They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them; ‘By what power or what name did you do this?’ // Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: ‘Rulers and elders of the people! If we are called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel. It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead that this man stands before you healed. He is: ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone’. Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved’./// When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realised that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.’ In other words they recognised that Spirit-filled men mirror the one who had the Spirit without measure. This need for bold and clear proclamation of the gospel is also marked in Paul’s requests for prayer, especially in Ephesians 6: 19 + 20: ‘Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should.’ The same applies to the apostles when ‘commanded .. not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus’, who then prayed (Acts 4: 25), ‘Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.’
4. The effect on those hearing the gospel is also marked by the presence of the Spirit This is clear in Acts – 2: 37, ‘When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ We notice the numbers added to the church in the early chapters of Acts also. In 1 Thessalonians 1: 4 Paul writes, ‘For we know, brothers, chosen by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.’ We know all too much of what it is for people to hear, ‘simply with words’ and this impact is something significantly greater for (1 Thessalonians 1: 8), ‘your faith in God has become known everywhere.’ In other words the presence of the Spirit ensures that eternal realities are perceived as true and powerful realities in the minds and then in the lives of those who hear.
5. The presence of the Spirit is not only a matter of era but also of prayer Roger Wagner (page 64), ‘The Holy Spirit came upon the apostolic preachers and the early saints when they prayed. The disciples had been told to wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the promised Spirit (Luke 24: 49). The ‘waiting’ of the apostles …. was the expectant waiting of constant and united prayer – … ‘They all joined together constantly in prayer’ (Acts 1: 13 – 14). It was as they remained there, giving themselves to prayer, that the Spirit was soon given (2: 1ff) and as a result of Peter’s first sermon, the many who were converted immediately ‘devoted themselves .. to prayer’ (2: 42). / Prayer is that which unites the historical and existential aspects of the ‘filling of the Spirit’ in the lives and ministries of God’s people, and especially the preachers.’ / We are in the era of the New Covenant, the era of the Spirit and we have a New Covenant ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5: 19 – 21), ‘that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God was making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’// Wagner (page 64 continued), ‘It is prayer, as the chief expression of this historical faith, that brings the apostolic preachers into experiential contact with the powerful fullness of the Holy Spirit in their preaching and other ministries. Though the new era is one of the presence of the Spirit, he does not work ex opere operato (i.e., mechanically, automatically) in the human witnesses. He comes to them in response to their prayers, and fills them with confident boldness, and makes their preaching effective.’
NOTE WELL It is important we describe the work of the Holy Spirit in relationship to our preaching in scriptural terms rather than anecdotal terms. For example, there are no set of physical sensations associated in scripture with the coming of the Holy Spirit on us. People may have a tingling in their spine, or receive boundless physical energy as a result of the Holy Spirit’s working but we cannot insist on experiences following a pattern not mandated in scripture. In the same way the Holy Spirit coming on a preacher may give great liberty and freedom, so that notes become superfluous, but nothing in scripture indicates this is necessarily so.
SECONDLY: PREACHING WITH UNCTION – WHY WE CANNOT AND MUST NOT BE SILENT ABOUT IT
The main reason is that eternity is more real than time. There are many things which seem of huge importance to us and seem of huge importance within the churches which are totally trivial in the light of eternity. Our lives are short and uncertain and within a comparatively short period we and our hearers will no longer be here and will be in the presence of God – either in joy or happiness or in endless misery. Only what is done by the Spirit of God will last into eternity and if we are to pray: ‘May the favour of the Lord our God rest upon us, establish the work of our hands for us- yes, establish the work of our hands’ we are factually praying for the Holy Spirit of God to do a work in people’s lives that will last for eternity. What the Holy Spirit does not do will not be achieved by our preaching!
With particular relevance to us, we have lived through times of great change in the last 40 years. I will list some of the developments which have had massive impact on the churches – I’m not numbering them because there is no particular order of priority in my mind. However despite their massive impact we are looking at something which is mainly in-house for churches rather than making a massive impact on the nation:-
• The rediscovery of the Reformed faith in which the Banner of Truth Trust has been particularly influential. Evangelicalism has been strengthened doctrinally and this is crucial when Christian truth and morality is under attack.
• The Charismatic movement has transformed worship patterns and deeply affected the devotional lives of individuals. Its anti-intellectualism has resonated with the period in which we live although I doubt its power to powerfully confront the mind of the age.
• The Proclamation Trust was set up in 1986 and was followed by the Evangelical Ministry Assembly and the Cornhill Training Course. This has tended to be a rather elitist movement and its Public School ethos is not helpful to some.
• There has been a divide between those evangelicals who heeded Dr Lloyd-Jones’ call to withdraw from non-evangelical denominations and those who did not. The division was anticipated at the National Assembly of Evangelicals in October 1966 when, following Lloyd-Jones’ call to come out, John Stott as chairman disassociated himself from his position in, as he put it, ‘the hope of dissuading some ministers from writing precipitate letters of resignation.’
Uniformly what these movements have not done – and this is in contrast with earlier movements of revival and indeed with early Pentecostalism – is powerfully impact unchurched communities and working class areas. What has not emerged from the complexities of the last forty years is a movement towards powerful preaching with unction that will face up to the realities proclaiming the gospel into the 21st Century. This is so in terms of evangelism and of seeing the hearts of evangelical Christians set on fire for the gospel.
The last forty years in the United Kingdom have seen the committed adherents of any religion drop from 71% – 34% and the church attendance figures drop to between 6% and 7%. However the pattern of church going reveals that working-class and socially deprived areas are lowest in church attendance and that the younger the age group the less the interest in and connection to the church. The common people heard Jesus gladly but apparently they are not hearing us gladly. Like the faithful remnant in the Old Testament, faithfulness to the gospel does not deliver from the effects of God’s judgment and we will, if current trends continue, see many evangelical churches closing in future years.
There seem to me to be two dangers concerning the need for Spirit-filled preaching, that is preaching with unction:-
1. The effective denial that such preaching is possible and so to be sought after Reading John Woodhouse: ‘The preacher and the living Word: preaching and the Holy Spirit’ which is in the book: ‘When God’s voice is heard’ (a symposium for Dick Lucas). I found that the Spirit’s work is virtually subsumed under the work of the Word. Although there are valuable correctives for possible misunderstandings, I would be struggling to see how the need to pray for the Spirit could be taken from the essay and yet it is absolutely clear in scripture. This seems the characteristic stance of Moore College and hence is very influential amongst evangelicals. It has been perceived as being a particular danger of the Proclamation Trust and interestingly David Jackman in particular has distanced himself from this and has asserted from the EMA platform that the need today is not just teaching from the Bible but preaching – that is the powerful Spirit-enabled proclamation of God’s word. It may be that there is a move afoot to regain a balance and I hope this is so.
2. A romanticism about the help of the Spirit in preaching which actually acts as an excuse for ineffective preaching On a certain occasion, when Oliver Cromwell’s troops were about to cross a river to attack the enemy, he concluded an address, with these words: “Put your trust in God; but mind to keep your powder dry!” He was simply making the point that we are to have faith in God but we need to realize that God works by means. So there is nothing contradictory in praying fervently for our preaching and preparing it meticulously. So you need to learn to organise your material well, you need to learn to illustrate effectively, you need to learn how to hold your congregation’s attention by the use of your voice and with eye contact and it is not un-spiritual to do this. I spent a short period of my training in an attachment to Ashford Congregational Church where Derek Swann was Minister. Now Derek believed passionately in the need for unction in preaching and that preaching is properly and encounter with the living God through his word. But he was a skilful preacher and had taught himself to be so – his wife told me his early preaching was like lecturing! When I heard him he was the best pastoral preacher I have ever heard. I can remember two key illustrations from his Sunday morning sermons 30 years after first hearing him preach at his home church and I can remember what they illustrated! You have a duty to avoid being boring, slovenly and lazy in your preaching by working hard on the skills involved. It was an observation of Dr Lloyd-Jones that you are most likely to know the Spirit’s help and presence in preaching those sermons you have prepared most thoroughly!
Which of these dangers you are most personally at risk of will probably depend on your background and influences. Basically if you are English you will tend to neglect the need to seek unction and if you are Welsh or Irish you will neglect the need to work hard at developing preaching skills. If you are Scottish – I don’t know what your problem will be!
THIRDLY: PREACHING WITH UNCTION – WHAT WE CAN AND MUST DO ABOUT IT
Firstly: we are to acknowledge God’s sovereignty as to when we minister Clearly vast numbers were converted on the day of Pentecost, and in the immediate period following. However, within the book of Acts itself, the spread of the gospel though remarkable does not continue the numerical impetus of that first period. In later New Testament letters, such as 1 John, we see the problems of heresy and defection from the faith as the church’s characteristic experience rather than the tremendous growth spurt of the early church. What are we to make of this? It is rather like the comment made about the thief on the cross – ‘One was saved that none need despair but only one was saved so that none should presume’. We see in the New Testament what is possible with God. However, even in a situation where we are in a day of small things, our ministries are to lived out faithfully, devotedly, contentedly and hopefully. We are to remember the instruction of Paul (2 Timothy 4: 1 – 5): ‘’In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.’ The words: ‘in season and out of season’ mean this: ‘when it’s going well and when it’s going badly.’
Secondly: We are to acknowledge our responsibility to seek the fullness of the Spirit so that we may preach with unction What are the things which this will involve for us? Here are some key points:-
One: we must be committed to prayer for the Spirit Jesus taught that the Holy Spirit is given in answer to prayer (Luke 11: 13), ‘If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’ As I quoted Roger Wagner on the Acts passages: ‘He (the Holy Spirit) comes to them in response to their prayers, and fills them with confident boldness, and makes their preaching effective.’ Our preaching from beginning to end is to be a prayerful enterprise and this applies to our preparation – it is not that we prepare then pray.
I confess with shame that when reading ‘Rediscovering Expository Preaching’ which comes from John MacArthur Jr. and the Master’s Seminary Faculty I was irritated by finding a chapter on prayer early in the book. I wanted to read about methods but God starts by making us men of God. One disadvantage which I think has come from systematic expository preaching is that we always know where we are next week and so our temptation is to look for a commentary and not to seek God. I want to urge you to seek God before, during and after you prepare and after you have preached. The Puritans used to say that: ‘An exercised heart is the best interpreter of scripture’. The key to Bible understanding is in personal renewal:
‘Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and his word?’
It is when we walk with God that his Spirit gives us an understanding of scripture which we could never otherwise have. It is not knowledge of Hebrew and Greek that ensures a deep and living understanding of scripture.
I remember reading Don Carson’s tribute to his late father. His father had been a minister in French-speaking Canada in very hard times when a large evangelical church would have congregation of 30. He recalls going to his father’s study to call him to lunch and finding him on his knees crying out to God for the flock he had just preached to. It left indelible impression on Don Carson of his father’s complete consistency – he was what he preached.
There are two great problems with such praying:-
1. Hope dies One great problem is that we get drawn into the sheer hard work and what can become the drudgery of ministry. We have to prepare many messages and cope with so much. We are in dark discouraging days and may be disappointed in those we had hoped would be converted and in those who we hoped would serve within the flock. Scripture teaches: ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.’ When we are lacerated by criticism and lack of appreciation it is hard to keep the vision of God’s great power and to keep praying for the fullness of the Spirit in our lives and preaching. If you doubt this then ask yourself: ‘Do I pray as earnestly for the Spirit as I used to?’ – we are always fighting spiritual decline in the ministry.
2. Hurts overwhelm When we are going through hard and barren times we pray and cry out to God. I remember once being really helped and moved to preach earnestly and, as far as I am aware, nothing happened of great significance in the congregation. I almost wished I hadn’t been given the freedom! What is the point of freedom without the blessing of seeing God at work? Even though it hurts remind yourself of what God can and may do – and realize that shrinking from the hurt of shattered hopes can prevent us praying as we should. Our reasoning is that if we don’t ask then we won’t be disappointed if we don’t get! Find someone – your wife will do just fine – and pray together earnestly for the work of God’s Spirit.
Two: we must be committed to God’s word being effective in our own lives This is so in a general and a specific sense as we preach:-
1. Generally John Calvin made a very blunt point about preaching and our own obedience to the word by saying of the preacher: “It would be better for him to break his neck going up into the pulpit if he does not take pains to be the first to follow God.” James says (3: 1), ‘Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because we know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.’ But it not simply that we will be hypocrites if we do not seek to be obedient to the word we preach – we will also automatically be far less effective because we will be obstructing the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives – 1 Thessalonians 4: 7 + 8, ‘For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject men but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.’ A well-known quotation from Robert Murray McCheyne: “It is not great talents that God blesses so much as great likeness to Christ. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.” Christ needs increasingly to be formed in us if we are to be of real value in our ministry. It is a great fear of mine that over some of our ministries might be written what is said of Samson: ‘I will go out as before … but he did not know that the Lord had left him.’ That is a terrifying prospect – a ministry where the Lord is not with us and we are unaware of it!
2. Specifically in regard to an individual message This isn’t addressed directly in this particular way in most things I’ve read but the idea is expressed in the thought that in preaching we are to know the BURDEN OF THE LORD! In other words it is not just that we have some thoughts derived from our study of a passage but that we have a message from God. Every individual sermon has a theme and a burden which we need to have taken into our own hearts and lives so it is incarnate in us. A friend of mine, an itinerant, had a sermon on 1 Corinthians 16: 22, ‘If anyone love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.’ He would only preach it if, during the service, he felt that outgoing of love to the saviour that made it possible. Have you ever chosen not to preach a sermon because you weren’t spiritually prepared?
Three: we must be committed to living with a consciousness of the presence of God This and this alone gives boldness and this is clearly the point in Acts 4: 18 – 20, ‘Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.’ This it is that enabled the extraordinary bluntness of apostolic preaching:
• Acts 2: 23, ‘you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.’
• Acts 3: 26, ‘When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from his wicked ways.’
• Acts 4: 10, ‘It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.’
We need to ask how often it is that we hold back aspects of God’s truth in order to remain at peace with people. There may be aspects of God’s truth which we are afraid to preach because of reactions that we fear! Christian preachers are sensitive to the congregation but this is so we can convey accurately God’s truth. Paul could say: ‘I have become all things to all men’ because he put every preference as regards his own lifestyle and freedom on hold so that he could effectively preach the gospel to all. The greatest adaptability personally and temperamentally must go alongside the strongest and boldest commitment to the truth and communicating it.
Four: we must seek to speak knowing consciously the smile of God Again a Dr Lloyd-Jones quote: ‘To me there is nothing more terrible for a preacher, than to be in the pulpit alone, without the conscious smile of God.’ This is simply a way of saying that our spiritual privileges in Christ; of justification, of reconciliation, of adoption don’t just work automatically but we have to appropriate them consciously by faith and so we need to have a heart that always feels: ‘the blood so freely shed for me.’ When preaching we need to have dealt with sins and those things that grieve the Spirit and to be aware of God’s love for us and how wonderfully this is expressed in the gospel.
The pressure of time means it is sometimes hard to prepare your sermon for preaching and you must discipline yourself to reflect that priority. The urgent always threatens the absolutely vital! However, you also need to prepare yourself so that you will know the conscious smile of God as you go to preach and, because the results of doing that are not as obvious to the outside eye, which is easiest to skip over?
Five: we must preach with hearts full of love It is only as we know God’s love for us in Christ that we will preach with our own hearts full of love. Nothing is more sad and sour and ineffective than an angry preacher – nothing harder to resist than a loving preacher. Frustration, and often being badly treated, can make us angry and resentful and this will show in our preaching if we do not deal with it – and this is a more common fault than we like to admit. Being in such a state of mind and preaching in such a state of mind must (Ephesians 4: 30): ‘Grieve the Holy Spirit of God’ and so set barriers to the Holy Spirit working freely and powerfully in our lives and ministries. And this is apart from the barriers in the hearts of men and women to accepting truth and correction from someone who doesn’t love them. We must then strive to eliminate bitterness and resentment and instead set our hearts on consciously knowing the smile of a loving God. This will enable you to live out the commands to love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and your neighbour as yourself! Remember this quote from Robert Murray McCheyne: ‘A loving man will always accomplish more than a merely learned one’ and strive to be a loving man.
Six: we must preach with Christ as central I think it was J I Packer who compared the Holy Spirit’s ministry to that of floodlights illuminating a church building. They are placed so that, through what they do, you are directed to gaze at the building. The Spirit’s ministry is described for us in John 16: 8 – 15, ‘When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. /// I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.’ If the Spirit’s ministry revolves around bringing glory to Christ then, if we want his influence and power and blessing, it makes sense that Christ will be very prominent in our preaching. This isn’t a question of technique but of instinct because the scriptures all testify of Christ and we always interpret them and preach them from the perspective of the gospel. In every sermon we will want to show how our subject relates to the gospel because by doing so we are relating our particular subject to the great subject of scripture – God’s gracious love to the world in Christ.
As a check on your sermons ask this: ‘What is there of Christ in this sermon? Will people love him more and trust him more fully because of what I am saying to them?’
Seven: we must be prepared to make ourselves vulnerable by seeking the prayers of others I think many of are actually psychologically, socially and spiritually isolated and see ourselves as self-sufficient or, equally dangerously, convey to our congregations that we are not like them are in fact self-sufficient. Consider Paul’s requests for prayer:-
1. Colossians 4: 3 + 4, ‘And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.’
2. Ephesians 6: 19 + 20, ‘Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.’
And now let’s enumerate the dangers he felt his preaching faced: i) lack of clarity, ii) lack of appropriate words and that iii) he may be afraid and chicken out. Now imagine members of your church praying for you as Paul wanted to be prayed for! We are not too bad about praying for doors to be opened but would we be a bit peeved if people prayed specifically that we don’t bottle it or that we don’t confuse people with jargon or that we don’t get tongue tied? Actually we don’t see these dangers as being far away from us so let us ask people to pray accordingly – if an apostle needs to then so do you!
CONCLUSION When I set out to prepare this address I had great ambitions which involved sorting out a lot of areas where I am less than clear about this subject. Specifically I have questions about God’s sovereignty and our responsibility in this matter and how the unction of the Spirit is connected to the individual preaching or to the preaching situation. I still have those questions and can’t fully harmonise certain aspects of God’s truth. Does that leave us worse off?
Without decrying the need to increase our understanding of scripture and to learn how doctrines dovetail together, I think we are not much worse off. Recently I was reading a book on systematic theology which made this point:
BIBLICAL THEOLOGY (= the truth as it is set out in scripture) IS LESS ABOUT THE MUTUAL RELATIONS OF DOCTRINES THAN ABOUT THE RELATION OF PARTICULAR DOCTRINES TO LIFE
Systematic Theology is a process which aims to relate doctrines together but Christian obedience never needs to wait for the conclusions of systematic theology. Let me put this bluntly in relationship to preaching with unction, don’t worry about what you don’t understand about preaching with unction – worry about what you do understand and put it into practise!
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