The Preaching Secret

And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, by whom we may enquire of the LORD: but I hate him; for he never prophesied good unto me, but always evil: the same is Micaiah the son of Imla.
~ 2 Chronicles 18:7

How to not lose friends and anger people.

If you set about the preaching task with determined assiduity, it’s going to happen. You are going to say something that upsets someone, and maybe many someones. After this happens, if you still have the ginger to declare, “Thus saith the Lord,” it will happen again. Just to be clear, I’m not referring to times when the preacher goes off script and pours out offenses on the congregation. I’m talking about when you are preaching a hard passage. If you are determined to preach what the Bible says, as the Bible says it, you will run into hard passages.

Preaching Hard Passages

By hard passages, I don’t mean passages hard to understand like Ezekiel’s wheels. I’m referring to passages that are hard to explain publicly for different reasons. Some passages are hard because they deal with delicate or sensitive subject matter, like some of the laws in Leviticus, events in Judges, the strange woman in Proverbs, the entire Song of Solomon, Isaiah’s ministry of nakedness, etc. Some passages are hard because they deal with a widely debated subject that the congregation could be divided over, like marriage and divorce, women in church, etc. Some passages are hard because they tip sacred cows and rebuke cherished traditions. Some passages are hard because they address some recent or historic problem within the congregation. Varying circumstances could make a passage hard to preach in that place and time. Of course, you have to allow for the outliers, like when you’ve preached some genealogy from the Chronicles and Sister Sally stomps out in a huff afterward. Sometimes you won’t know a passage is hard until after you’ve preached it, because it will step right on someone’s pet sin and they might accuse you of spying on them.

We need to know how to preach such passages without upsetting people. That’s the secret, but we will get to that in a moment. First, let’s think about some wrong ways of preaching hard passages that you’ve probably seen before.

  1. Evasive maneuvers
    This strategy simply tries to avoid hard passages. If you’re a random, shotgun preacher, you can pick your way around the Bible and avoid any passages that will cause trouble. The downside to this strategy is that any length of time using it will stunt the growth of the congregation by leaving them malnourished in the Word, and it will also not fulfill the ministry you’ve been called to for preaching all the counsel of God.
  2. Selective hearing
    This strategy relies on parallel passages in the Bible. Sometimes a passage has a parallel passage in another book and sometimes the parallel doesn’t have the troubling word or phrase. The preacher can select the innocuous version and still deal with the general subject while acting like that other passage doesn’t exist. One of the downsides here is that the congregation probably knows that other passage is there and their interest was piqued when they discovered the subject, because they wanted to know how the troubling parts were to be dealt with. The preacher who doesn’t even acknowledge the difficulty loses credibility with the congregation and his argument is weakened.
  3. Bait and switch
    This strategy involves warming up the crowd with strong expressions of how controversial your subject matter is and how hated you will be for daring to utter it publicly. You have to sell it, “Y’all will probably run me out of here after you hear what I have to say.” That’s the bait and the switch comes in when the preacher proceeds to preach something that congregation well knows and believes. Not only will they not be upset, but they will be cheering him on. The biggest downside here is that you’re not being honest. You’ve made it out like you’re playing the man before Bloody Mary, but really you’ve only preached to the choir and might get the fellowship hall named after you.
  4. The revelation
    This strategy involves properly setting up a message likely to offend by lengthy explanation that the preacher has been given a message from God and has no choice but to deliver it. Various phrases are employed: God gave me this message, God told me to preach this, the Lord laid this on my heart, etc. Effort is made to let the preacher off the hook for delivering a hard message because he was only the messenger. There are a few downsides here. The blow is never really softened in these situations and the preacher only sought to cover himself for a message designed to upset. Aside from this, the preacher has purchased cover for himself at the expense of preaching serious error. When he prefaces his message by saying God has given it to him in some way, he has denied the sufficiency of Scripture and the closed canon. He has dared to speak revelation to the people and the looming threats of Revelation 22:18-19 hover near.

What is the Secret?

Now we’ve come to it. How do we preach hard passages without upsetting people? First of all, we must preach hard passages if we are to preach all Scripture, which is the duty of the faithful preacher. We must understand there is no getting out of it. Second, preaching the whole counsel of God will upset people. Have you read the Bible? God’s Word tends to upset people and when people are upset, they tend to lash out. Since there is a great gulf and they’re unable to grab and pillory God himself, they will do the next best thing. They will seize his preacher and do what they will with him. Read the lives of the prophets and apostles. People got upset when those men spoke the Word of God.

We do want to avoid unnecessary offense and we do want to help the people we preach to. What is the secret for preaching hard passages in the most helpful way? The answer is: expository preaching. Expository preaching is preaching the meaning of a passage in its context. Topical exposition is preaching a subject from selected passages that explains those passages in their context. Sequential exposition is going verse-by-verse through a single passage in a sermon, or through a book in a series of messages. Expository preaching seeks to make the meaning of God’s words plain. Expository preaching endeavors to show people what God has said and meant in the words he inspired to be written.

People will still disagree and get upset with the preaching of hard passages. However, when you demonstrate care for God’s Word and care for their souls in carefully expounding the Spirit’s words, you will have credibility and do the congregation good in the long run.

About Jeff Short