March 05, 2006
A Shepherd Reflects on Respected Shepherds
My personal opinion is that the preaching this year was better than last year. It seemed like every man was at the top of his game. It seems that the Holy Spirit empowered each speaker to maximize the usefulness of his particular personality and gifts. Philips Brooks, the celebrated preacher of the 19th century opined that preaching is truth through personality. While I am not completely satisfied with that definition, I concur that preaching, by virtue of the fact that its subject is truth and its medium is a preacher with all of his attendant strengths, weaknesses, quirks, and virtues is indeed truth through personality.
Preachers are pastors, preachers, teachers, theologians, philosophers, and/or statesmen in style. These styles are developmental, declarative, didactic, dogmatic, dialectical, and directive in function. These functions are critically important. The blend of these necessary functions varies depending on the style that most naturally emanates from the personality of the preacher. I think the best of preachers generally manifest strength in one or two of the styles and therefore contribute a necessary preaching function to the Body of Christ. A good conference joins a variety of styles and offers the full spectrum of quality preaching to the conferees. A good conference guarantees the subscribers a good return for the price.
Again, before I categorize this year’s speakers, take note of the categories of preaching:
A Preacher’s Style Is That Of
A Pastor. His emphasis is Developmental. He is concerned about growth and maturation.
A Preacher. His emphasis is Declarative. “Thus saith the Lord.”
A Teacher. His emphasis is Didactic.
A Theologian. His emphasis is Dogmatic.
A Philosopher. His emphasis is Dialectical.
A Statesman. His emphasis is Directive.
My unprofessional opinion about the five speakers for the general sessions (I didn’t hear Ligon Duncan) is that we were treated to the full panoply of styles, the whole array of preaching function by some of the finest preachers in the land. Here is how I categorize these men. I think each preacher displayed three dominate styles. I have listed each with his strengths as I see them in order of most dominate to least dominate. You are free to disagree.
John MacArthur - Pastor/Teacher/Theologian
Steve Lawson - Pastor/Preacher/Teacher
Al Mohler - Statesman/Theologian/Teacher
R.C. Sproul - Theologian/Teacher/Philosopher
Mark Dever - Pastor/Theologian/Teacher
This entry was posted in the following categories: Conferences , Preaching
I greatly appreciate the freedom you have allowed for me to dissagree. That was very kind..however…I think you are more or less right on, so please say something I can dissagre with. I want to test out my new found freedom…lol… Anyway, I also greatly appreciated the preaching and teaching from last week.
Posted by: NeoFundy at March 5, 2006 10:58 PMBob,
Thanks for this article. I was wondering as I looked over your assessment about your use of the category “Pastor.” I thought at first you were using it interchangeably with “Preacher”, but upon further review, you used both categories for Lawson.
I was just wondering.
Thanks,
Pastor Frank Sansone
Posted by: Pastor Frank Sansone at March 5, 2006 11:08 PMFrank,
Good eye. I was operating on memory of an idea that struck me a few days ago and I forgot to insert the pastoral (“developmental”) function of preaching.I made the change/insertion. I realize that the “preaching” function of preaching sounds a bit redundant, but I think the distinction I’m trying to make should be relatively obvious.
I hope.
Anyway, these are just raw ideas. Very raw!
Posted by: Bob at March 5, 2006 11:53 PMBob,
Thanks for the clarification. I like your categories. I would guess that many of us move between modes depending upon the nature of what we are presenting and to whom we are presenting it.
From your descriptions, I guess my style would be most like the combination you listed for Steve Lawson, although I had not heard of him until you and one other blog I read mentioned him this last week. I will have to find his web-site and see if he has any free sermons available to hear.
Thanks again for the clarification.
Posted by: Pastor Frank Sansone at March 6, 2006 08:48 PM
