The work of the preacher; a study of homiletic principles and methods

Preface

It was only toward the end of his active service of twentytwo years (1885-1907) as teacher of Practical Theology at Yale that Dr. Brastow was persuaded to put some of the material of his lectures into books. "Representative Modern Preachers" appeared in 1904, and contained essays on nine of the most famous preachers of the recent past. "The Modern Pulpit: a Study of Homiletic Sources and Characteristics," was published in 1906. It undertakes to analyze the character and tendencies of the modern world, and in this light to understand the present ideals and achievements of various Christian communions in Germany, England, and the United States. These biographical studies and historical interpretations prepared the way for a more theoretical treatment of the principles and methods of the preacher's art. The present book was finished in 1908. A year and a half of travel, and then two years of illness delayed its publication, and it now appears as a memorial of a finished life.

The three books form indeed together a memorial fitting and worthy of this preacher and teacher of preachers. They indicate the range of his studies, the variety and freshness of his methods as a teacher, and the striking qualities of his mind. They are books which in an unusual measure embody the personality of their author ; and his was a personality of unusual force and distinction. It is not granted to many men to leave in books so characteristic and adequate an expression of their spirit and of their life work. These are not books on the art of preaching only, but on the contents of the preacher's message as well. They deal with the nature of vi PREFACE

the Christian religion, with its fitness and sufficiency for the moral and spiritual needs of our own age, and with the ways in which it can be wisely and effectively applied to those needs. To discover and develop in his pupils all the capacities, physical, mental and spiritual, that serve to make wiser and more effective such application of the Gospel to living men and to actual conditions, was the one aim of his life. For the present volume his first and final wish would be that it may help his many former pupils and others "to win men to Christ and to build them into his moral completeness."

Frank C. Porter.

Yale University, May, 1914.

Section First * Pre-suppositions Of Homiletic Science

I. The Christian Conception of Preaching. ... 3

1. Christian Preaching as Related to Subject Matter,

2. Christian Preaching as Related to the Preacher, p. 6.

3. Christian Preaching as Related to the Audience, p. II.

4. Christian Preaching as Related to Form, p. 14.

II. The Aim of Christian Preaching 18

1. The Importance of Homiletic Aim, p. 18.

2. The Central and Inclusive Homiletic Aim, p. 24.

III. The Gifts of the Preacher, 33

1. Classification of Gifts, p. 34.

a. Mental Gifts, p. 34.

c. Spiritual Gifts, p. 41.

d. Rhetorical Gifts, p. 42.

2. Culture of Gifts, p. 44.

IV. The Study of Homiletics 50

1. The Value of Homiletic Study, p. 50.

2. Methods of Homiletic Study, p. 60.

a. Study of Homiletic Principles, p. 60.

b. Study of Living Preachers, p. 63.

c. Analysis of Published Products, p. 64.

d. Personal Experiences and Criticism, p. 64.

Section Second Sources Of Homiletic Material

I. Biblical Sources of Preacher's Message. ... 69

1. Canonical Genuineness and Authenticity, p. 70.

2. Use of the Old Testament in Preaching, p. 73.

viii CONTENTS

3. Use of the New Testament, p. 81.

II. Christian Quality of the Preacher's Message. . . 84

1. Presentation of the Personality of Christ, p. 86.

2. Presentation of the Personal Character of Christ,

3. Presentation of the Official Character of Christ, p. 88.

4. The Interpretation of the Teachings of Christ, p. 89.

III. Textual Basis of the Preacher's Work. 93

1. The Significance of the Text, p. 93.

2. The Value of the Text, p. 97.

3. Logical and Rhetorical Qualities of the Text, p. 103.

IV. EXEGETICAL BASIS OF THE PREACHER'S WORK. . . . 108

1. The Historic Sense, p. 108.

a. A Textual Question, p. 108.

c. A Contextual Question, p. no.

d. A Doctrinal Question, p. in.

e. A Historical Question, p. 112.

2. The Truth of the Text and its Value for Homiletic a. Historical and Biographical Texts, p. 117.

c. Typical Texts, p. 119.

d. Allegorical Texts, p. 120.

e. Doctrinal Texts, p. 121.

V. Homiletic Correspondences in the Use of the Text. . 123

1. Correspondence of Thought, p. 123.

2. Correspondence of Tone, p. 135.

VI. Considerations Regulative for the Choice of Subjects. 140

1. The Needs of the Congregation, p. 141.

2. The Claims of Christian Truth, p. 144.

3. The Needs of the Preacher, p. 145.

Section Third Types Of Homiletic Product

I. The Expository Type j-n

1. The Conception of Expository Preaching, p. 152.

CONTENTS ix

2. Homiletic Peculiarities of Expository Preaching,

3. Qualifications for Effective Expository Preaching,

4. The Value of Expository Preaching, p. 162.

II. The Doctrinal Type 172

1. The Conception of Doctrinal Preaching, p. 172.

2. Methods of Doctrinal Preaching, p. 176.

3. The Importance of Doctrinal Preaching, p. 185.

4. The Handling of the Doctrinal Sermon, p. 195.

III. The Ethical Type 202

1. The Conception of Ethical Preaching, p. 202.

2. The Christian Quality of Ethical Preaching, p. 206.

3. Methods of Ethical Preaching, p. 214.

4. The Need of Ethical Preaching, p. 218.

IV. The Evangelistic Type 230

1. The Conception of Evangelistic Preaching, p. 230.

2. The Need of Pastoral Evangelism, p. 231.

3. Evangelistic Culture, p. 236.

4. Evangelistic Motives, p. 247.

V. Types of Sermon Delivery 258

1. The Manuscript Type, p. 260.

2. The Extemporaneous Type, p. 266.

3. The Memoriter Type, p. 273.

Section Fourth Methods Of Homiletic Art

I. The Introduction. 279

1. The Object of the Introduction, p. 279.

2. Methods of Introduction, p. 284.

3. Qualities of Introduction, p. 293.

II. The Theme 299

1. Its Significance and Importance, p. 299.

2. Its Formulation, p. 302.

3. Methods of Statement, p. 307.

4. Qualities of Form, p. 313.

III. The Outline. 318

1. Its Significance, p. 318.

2. The Methods of Outline, p. 320.

x CONTENTS

3. The Necessity of Outline, -p. 326.

4. The Topics of the Outline, p. 329.

5. The Value of, the Outline, p. 336.

IV. The Development. 349

1. Methods of Development, p. 349.

2. Production of Material, p. 367.

V. The Conclusion 381

1. The Value of the Conclusion, p. 382.

2. Qualities of the Conclusion, p. 386.

3. Methods of the Conclusion, p. 391.

VI. The Rhetorical Form 402

1. The Claims of Rhetorical Culture, p. 403.

2. Professional Factors in Rhetorical Form, p. 413.

3. Methods of Rhetorical Culture, p. 421.

I

Chapter I The Christian Conception Of Preaching

Homiletics is that branch of practical theology which concerns itself with the science and art of preaching. As a science, or "way of knowing," it deals with the theory of preaching, or the principles on which it rests. As an art, or "way of doing," it deals with the methods by which it applies its principles. In entering upon our investigation of these principles and methods, let us at the outset note some preliminary considerations touching the character of the preacher's work, and his fitness and training for it. And in the first place a proper Christian conception of his function seems necessary.

Preaching is speech, but not all speech is preaching. It is a specific type of speech. To get at what is distinctive of it, we must look at it in its different aspects. Christian preaching has a fourfold interest, and must be contemplated in four different relations. As related to its subject matter, it has a specifically Biblical interest, or, more comprehensively, a distinctively religious and theological interest. As related to the preacher, it has an official, or representative, and at the same time a strongly personal, interest. As related to the audience, it has a liturgical and an evangelistic interest. As related to its form or method, it has an organic and a rhetorical interest. All of these elements enter into our conception of Christian preaching, for they are necessary to conserve the interests of Biblical religion, of the preacher's personality, the rights of the church, the edification and conversion of men and the laws of logic and rhetoric.

I. Christian Preaching as related to Subject Matter

Preaching is properly a function of the Christian Church, and homiletics, as its science, is, as already suggested, a branch of practical theology. From this point of view only can it be adequately conceived and defined. If it were defined as only a branch of general rhetoric, it might consistently exclude all reference to the Christian subject matter of preaching and all relation to the work of the church. But it has for its background the thought and life of the church. Every branch of Christian theology makes its contribution to the preacher's science, and to his work. Exegetical and Biblical theology take us into the original sources of the Christian preacher's message. They reveal and interpret the substance, the spirit, the aim and the method of the preaching of Jesus and of his consecrated messengers, and they furnish guidance and inspiration to the preacher in his work in every age. Exegesis and homiletics have been closely allied in every period of the history of the church. Historical theology takes us into the lives and the activities of the great preachers of the church. It makes known the great commanding truths that have held sway in different periods of Christian history, reveals the influences that, in the changes of time, have wrought upon the preacher in modifying his teaching and his method and discloses the results that have attended the proclamation of his message. Doctrinal theology interprets and formulates the great central facts and truths of redemptive religion, of which the preacher may and may well avail himself in his effort to give intellectual expression to his Christian message.

And practical theology, having supreme reference to the present practical, moral and religious needs of men, forages for its material in all these realms of theological science and in all other available realms of knowledge, and adjusts the preacher's work to the conditions of thought and life of the age in which he lives. Christian preaching thus presupposes a background of Christian truth, of Christian history and of Christian science. It is not the utterance of personal opinions based on the intelligence or on the experience of the individual preacher alone. Preaching thus based would have no authoritatively valid message and no accredited messenger. Preaching is in the true and accepted sense of the term by authority. Of course it makes its appeal to the individual and common human conscience and experience. It presupposes a moral and religious sense, without which it were fruitless. But it is precisely the content of Christian fact and truth that quickens and enlightens this moral and religious sense. Preaching, therefore, reaches far back in to the very heart of Christianity. This conditions the preacher's message. But by conditioning the content of preaching, it also conditions our conception of its nature, of its aim and largely of its form. It yields a worthy conception of what it is to preach, why we preach, and to a considerable extent it suggests how we should preach. Even the question of form is far more than an ordinary rhetorical question. If we examine the preaching of the early church, if we look, in fact, at the preaching of the most Christian type in any period, we shall see at once how it is that its Christian content conditions the aim which the preacher has in view and the form which his message takes. In the first place, it will take the form of announcement. It is the work of heralding. Christianity is the story of redemption. It is the good news of the redeeming grace of God. It is first of all a revelation of redemptive facts. The preacher's primal aim is to bear witness to the facts. Preaching is first of all a presentation of the message of grace. But it also takes the form of teaching. For the facts and associate truths of Christianity must be interpreted. Their significance, their mutual interdependence and their adaptation and adjustment to the intelligence of men must be made known. Preaching is and always has been to a large extent the expounding of the inner significance of the great facts and truths of Christianity; i. e., it has taken the form of teaching.

It all ultimates, however, in the form of persuasion. For promulgation and interpretation must have reference to practical results. They must aim at the production of character and the regulation of conduct. This practical enforcement of the truth is persuasion. These three elements belong to any worthy conception of Christian preaching. The mission of Christianity itself demands them. Christian preaching, therefore, may be provisionally defined as the declaration, interpretation and persuasive application of Christian facts and truths, that have been given in the religion of redemption and are Biblically fixed. The effectiveness of preaching, therefore, must depend largely upon its content. It is not altogether how we preach, but it is first of all what we preach that conditions its power. Without preaching the truth itself would indeed fail adequately to reach men. But it is this very truth that is the primal condition of the preacher's power. Without the pulpit the truth would fail. But without the truth the pulpit itself would fail.

II. Christian Preaching as related to the Preacher Preaching has a personal and an official or quasi-official interest. The personality of the preacher includes what he is and what he represents. He is a man but he is also a churchman. He utters the truth of personal experience, but it is common truth. Preaching is a strongly personal, but not a private utterance.

i. Preaching is a representative utterance. Explicitly or implicitly, the preacher speaks for others. His message has an official or semi-official character. The function of the preacher is at once prophetic and priestly. He speaks for God and he speaks for men. As prophet, the preacher is the

CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OIF PREACHING 7

mouthpiece of his Master. He brings a message. The message presupposes an accredited messenger. Note the terms that are applied to him in the New Testament. He is an Apostle, — a man sent; one commissioned to speak the word and do the work of another. He is an ambassador ; one who represents a government; bears its credentials and speaks and acts for it. He is a herald; one authorized to make a public announcement. We may not over-press these terms, nor overaccentuate their official significance. But they clearly suggest a representative character in the preacher.

As prophet he represents God. The term has no adequate meaning if it be not true that he speaks for God. It is God who gives him his message and He who calls the messenger. Whether one speak as evangelist, missionary or pastor, he is a messenger and minister of Christ and holds his credentials from him. But he is also a representative of the church. As such his utterance has, in the proper sense of the term, a priestly quality. He is as really a servant of the church and speaks for it, as he is a servant of Christ and speaks for him. Many of our Protestant churches hesitate to use the word priestly as applied to the work of a Christian minister. But in so far as he ministers worthily in the name of the church and mediates the grace of which it is the depository, his function is nothing less than priestly. The Reformed churches have laid full accent upon the preacher's representative function Godward. They have held in supreme honor the prophetic function. But in minimizing the representative function churchward, they have underestimated the priestly function. In this the Lutheran and Anglican churches stand nearer the truth of the matter. Every true preacher should in some way be accredited by his church. His proclamation should not go forth as a merely private utterance. The preacher himself needs to feel that he speaks for the church, speaks for those who share with him the common Christian truth and life, as he needs to feel that he speaks for God. The dignity and sacredness of his work are conditioned by its priestly, as well as by its prophetic quality. The church is responsible for its message. It should not allow it to fall into the hands of private individuals, who have no endorsement, explicit or implicit, official or quasi-official, from it. This representative character should be recognized in some appropriate way, as in fact it generally is recognized even in the case of the lay evangelist, at least by substantial endorsement. It fails, however, of fullest endorsement without official recognition. Doubtless Christ has commissioned many a man to bear his message, who has not received the formal credentials of the church. Undue emphasis of the preacher's dependence on and limitation by the church may involve an undervaluation of Christ's own primal commission, and may endanger the freedom and power of preaching. But the claim that the preacher speaks only for Christ and that as regards the church he speaks mostly as a private individual and without responsibility to it, would ultimate in the introduction of fanaticism and caprice and would endanger the purity of public teaching and produce schism between Christ and his church. The pastoral and official quality in preaching, therefore, needs emphasis. The distinction between preaching and prophesying is valid. Prophesying may be a true lay-function. Preaching is an official function.

2. But true preaching is an intensely personal utterance. It is the expression not only of what is mentally appropriated, but of what is cherished as a sacred moral and spiritual conviction. We sometimes satirize a man by saying that he preaches. But we pay him the compliment of recognizing the earnestness and genuineness of his advocacy. Preaching has never been, and can never be, a mere exposition of objective truth, but is a presentation of truth vitalized by personal moral and religious experience. The truth may be taught after a fashion, without being spiritually appropriated, but it cannot be preached. "We believe and therefore speak," "We speak that we do know and testify that we have seen." Preaching is testimony now as at the first. The spirit of God works through truth as appropriated by a living soul. Apostolic preaching was a charism. For this reason the personal element was prominent. In I Cor., Chapter II, Paul gives us the apostolic conception of preaching. The two elements are knowledge and utterance. Knowledge of God's revelation is product of the working of God's spirit in the soul of the believer. "We know the things that are freely given us of God." "The spiritual man discerneth * * * judgeth all things." And this knowledge is communicated in words that are also product of the working of God's spirit. "Which things [i. e., things freely given of God] we also speak [speak as well as know], not in words taught by man's wisdom [logic and rhetoric] but [in words] taught by the spirit, combining spiritual things with spiritual" [i. e., uniting a spirit-prompted utterance with a spirit-taught knowledge]. Spirit-taught knowledge may not be combined with a merely man-taught logic and rhetoric. The meaning is clear. Experimental knowledge of God's truth, product of God's spirit working within, expresses itself in words that bear the marks of the same power that makes the truth known. The preacher's words become fit instrument for the transmission of the truth. The spirit of God is active, not only in revealing the truth to the soul but in those emotions and moral convictions and spiritual susceptibilities as well that find utterance in communicating the truth. This is the truth of verbal inspiration. It is not the inspiration that fixed the record of revelation, but the inspiration that gave power to its communication. It was not wholly the truth communicated but the mighty energy of the communication itself, that made apostolic preaching so effective. But shall we assume that this inspiration was limited to the first Chrisio THE WORK OF THE PREACHER

tian preachers? How then shall we vindicate the prophetic quality in the preaching of our own day? How shall we justify the claim that in every age the utterance of the true preacher is a message ? We need not over-press the term, but trie preacher who spiritually discerns and personally appropriates the truth and who utters it with the power of a sympathetic moral conviction has the primal elements of inspiration. It was not merely the re-discovery of the saving truths of Christianity, but their fresh appropriation in Christian experience that made the preaching of the Reformation so powerful. It was the divorce of the objective truth, that was formulated in the creeds of the church, from Christian experience and the disproportionate importance that was attached to doctrinal formularies that devitalized the preaching of the post- Reformation period. It is the restoration of the subjective and personal element that gives character to the preaching of our own day. The subjective and personal element is the individualizing power in preaching. Individuality of form is one of the marks of the preaching of all the great reform preachers of the church. Preaching that is not the product of vital, interior force tends to a formal, stereotyped method. Christian oratory is the highest type of oratory, for the reason, in part, that it is a product of such reverence for and sympathy with the truth that it becomes a personal power in belief and conviction and thus imparts personal force to the utterances of the speaker. Classical oratory laid supreme accent upon the relation of the speaker to his audience; Christian oratory lays proportionate stress upon the relation of the speaker to his subject. It was enough for the classical orator that he seem to be interested in his subject, convinced of its truth and honest in its enforcement. This is of supreme importance chiefly in order that he may persuade his hearers. But the Christian orator speaks to the moral judgments and convictions of men, and he must not only seem to be moved

CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OP PREACHING n

by the truth, he must be possessed by it and must speak what he believes. It is this note of reality, of truth in the inward parts, that has individualizing and supreme persuasive power.

III. Christian Preaching as related to the Audience

Preaching is public address, not private conference. Etymologically it suggests publicity, the presence of an assembly. It presupposes an audience. This is generally a mixed assembly. The original Christian assembly was homogeneous, and preaching was an address to this Christian assembly by one of its members on a subject of common Christian interest. This element of common Christian fellowship gave character to the address. It was a congregation of believers. The speaker was identified with his audience and voiced the common Christian feeling, faith, conviction. Hence the significance of the word "homily" ( otuXCa ) as applied to the preaching of the early Christian church. It means primarily companionship, then conference among companions, and then an address to an assembly of companions. Thus the notion of homogeneity in the audience is recognized. It is this primitive conception of Christian preaching which limits it to the work of teaching and impressing a Christian congregation, to which German homiletics has attached itself. It does not presuppose a heterogeneous audience, and it treats evangelistic preaching as an exceptional type of preaching and as demanding separate consideration. But it is impossible for us to treat the question in this manner. It ignores the miscellaneous character of the ordinary congregation. If it were admissible to assume thaf all our religious assemblies are composed of baptized church communicants and that all these communicants represented in full measure the realities of Christian experience, there would be no call for any type of preaching other than what may be designated as the pastoral type, whose aim is edification. But the miscellaneous character of our congregations conditions a call for two types of preaching.

i. The nucleus of every religious assembly is a body of Christian worshippers. The audience is primarily a worshipping congregation. Preaching must recognize that fact. It should have a liturgical quality. It should regard itself as a part of public worship. It should know itself as an offering of Christian faith and should aim at the promotion of a devout spirit and at furthering the interests of the worshipping assembly. We do not separate preaching from worship as we do not separate the preacher from the liturgist or the pastor. Even in mission preaching, we recognize the element of worship. No street preacher would detach his address from song and prayer and Scripture. The effectiveness of preaching, even its rhetorical effectiveness, is conditioned largely by its association with a Christian assembly, and by the influence of Christian worship. Preaching is the better for the worship, and the worship for the preaching. In the best periods the close connection between preaching and worship, between the pulpit and the altar, has been recognized. Divorce between them has marked a degeneracy in both. Luther insisted that there should be no worship without preaching. "Where God's word is not preached, it is better neither to sing, nor pray, nor come together.'' Calvin laid stress upon the demand for preaching in connection with the Sacraments. These reformers recognized preaching as the centre of the worship. The value of worship was conditioned by preaching. We need to recognize the reverse as equally true. Preaching will be more simple aid sympathetic, more spiritual and earnest and practical in its tone, more free and unconventional, in a word more Christian. Worship will dignify preaching and preaching will make worship more intelligent and real and substantial. In a word worship conditions devout preaching and preaching conditions intelligent worship. To make preaching and worship mutually helpful is an important homiletic problem. Something is gained at the outset, to say the least, by recognizing the fact that the liturgical interest is an important part of the homiletic problem, that preaching presupposes a Christian assembly and that it has for its object the promotion of the religious interests of that assembly.

2. But the entire audience is almost never a Christian congregation in the full evangelical sense of the word. Hence preaching should have an evangelistic as well as pastoral quality. Evangelism is a homiletic problem. To win men to the Christian life is as truly the preacher's aim as to edify them in it. It is a false conception of preaching that would limit it to the edification of a Christian congregation and would rule out evangelism as a distinct and exceptional interest, never to find place in the ordinary church service. It is based upon the erroneous conception that the congregation must always be a baptized community and that preaching is for it alone. The missionary element is essential to the complete Christian's conception of preaching. It should never be permanently divorced from pastoral preaching. Men must be won as well as built. It is the commission of the church to present the Gospel through its servants to those who have not received it into their practical lives. It is not an exceptional work to be done by an exceptional class of men. It is not necessary to divide the congregation in a formal manner. The two types of preaching play into one another. Each influences those for whom it is not primarily designed. But failure to distinguish between the two types and to recognize their distinctive objects and aims is a serious failure. Evangelistic preaching will secure warmth and cogency to pastoral preaching and pastoral preaching will condition the permanent value of evangelistic preaching. Edification supports evangelism. Evangelism gives incentive to edification.

IV. Christian Preaching as related to Form In material, spirit and aim, as is already apparent, Christian preaching has certain distinctive qualities. And even in method or form it demands some adaptation to these distinctive qualities, just as in substance it demands adaptation to Christian thought and as in spirit and aim it demands adaptation to what is distinctive in Christian principle and character. But in its formal aspects in general, homiletics belongs to the department of rhetoric and Christian preaching is, as to its method, not substantially different from any secular oratorical product.

I. The first rhetorical element demanding consideration is structural order. The sermon is an address to be heard and remembered. It must, therefore, have an orderly development. Otherwise it would not fully satisfy the demands of public address. It would lack rhetorical impressiveness. Religious themes call for elevated, comprehensive and orderly discussion. Unity of impression is dependent upon coherent exposition. Fragmentary and desultory discourse fails to meet the needs of our time and is unworthy of the great themes of religion. It is inadequate to the needs both of preacher and hearer. It is of course to be conceded that the preaching of the early church was artless, and yet it moved men. The discourse was delivered for the most part to small congregations within a limited area and was a free, spontaneous, unartistic utterance. It was like a prayer meeting address or a Bible reading. Possibly there were more elaborate addresses. The tendency was increasingly in the direction of such addresses. It is probable that the discourses commemorative of the martyrs, of which unfortunately we have no adequate record or illustration, promoted this tendency. But the discourses recorded in the New Testament, although probably inadequate to illustrate worthily apostolic preaching, are without rhetorical order. They did their work doubtless and met the needs of the time. But they are not models for a later age. Homiletics was an undeveloped science. In the changed relation of Christianity and of the church to the world at large, a better method was demanded. Patristic preaching was less unelaborate than apostolic preaching. Cyprian and Tertullian were orators. Origin marks another modification, Augustine and Chrysostom still another, all in the direction of a more orderly method. Without these changes preaching would not have done its work. Nor without orderly method will it do its work today. We are heirs to it. We are in reaction, it is true, against the stately elaborateness of our homiletic ancestors, and greater simplicity of method is advocated. But simplicity is not incoherence. An effective pulpit demands something more than the homily. The mind is not at home in chaos. The heart as well as the mind craves an orderly world. Truth goes home along the lines of law. Orderly method is more than a rhetorical interest. True rhetorical interests subserve religious interests. There never was a time when effective preaching was in greater demand than now. There is as good a field as ever for the true preacher, and a rational method is one of the most important problems. No man can ignore the laws of the human soul and make his speech effective.