I plan on reading a lot about preaching over the coming weeks, so I’ll be using this space to air some brief thoughts on the subject.
You know a book is going to be good when you’re underlining stuff in the preface. Such is the case with Tom Long’s Preaching from Memory to Hope. Writing about the kindness of a stranger that affected the life of his great-grandfather and all who came after him in the family line, Long says,
I think one of the central tasks of preaching is to bring people to this perspective. If we are not at a vantage point where everything we see is the stuff of grace, then we do not see as we ought to see and we do not know as we ought to know. Good preaching should lead us to the humble knowledge of a world graced by God -- a world “charged with the grandeur of God” -- for this is the kind of knowledge that produces love.
And as with all preaching, this counteracts some things deeply ingrained into our minds and hearts - our misguided sense of entitlement and our delusions of self-sufficiency. The gospel of the kingdom works against such things, for it announces to us that at the heart of reality is a God of self-giving love who calls us to freely receive that love and to freely give it to those around us, enemies and friends alike.
You know a book is going to be good when you’re underlining stuff in the preface. Such is the case with Tom Long’s Preaching from Memory to Hope. Writing about the kindness of a stranger that affected the life of his great-grandfather and all who came after him in the family line, Long says,
The more we know of life, the more we know that all that we have is gift, all that we are is grace.
I think one of the central tasks of preaching is to bring people to this perspective. If we are not at a vantage point where everything we see is the stuff of grace, then we do not see as we ought to see and we do not know as we ought to know. Good preaching should lead us to the humble knowledge of a world graced by God -- a world “charged with the grandeur of God” -- for this is the kind of knowledge that produces love.
And as with all preaching, this counteracts some things deeply ingrained into our minds and hearts - our misguided sense of entitlement and our delusions of self-sufficiency. The gospel of the kingdom works against such things, for it announces to us that at the heart of reality is a God of self-giving love who calls us to freely receive that love and to freely give it to those around us, enemies and friends alike.
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