Preachifying is a discipline prosecuted across the country on a regular basis. Some of its practitioners take it as an opportunity for blasphemy. Some restrain themselves to mere heresy. A few have a higher standard; they make an effort to, in God’s grace, speak only the truth. By God’s grace, these can succeed, in the main (for all men err). The question is: is truth enough? See, ‘truth’ is sufficient if the entire point of preaching is to get information across. If the goal is different, however, something more than technical accuracy must be attained to, if the preaching is to be successful.

Now, Scripture gives (to my memory) not much direct instruction on preaching, in its institutional form. It gives us instead three sorts of instruction which we’ll look at today: examples of preaching and teaching (particularly in the Old Testament); instruction on the mode of teaching generally; and instructions on what is desired, not just from preaching, but from the Christian generally, the end goal which preaching’s goal must be a subset to. In all three cases, we will find, mere doctrine is not enough. Application, the doctrine taking grip on the hearer’s life, is a necessary part of teaching and of preaching.

Examples

We must differentiate here between two genres of preaching. One is to the pagan; the other is to the Christian. Preaching’s norm, inside the church, is to address the (presumed) Christian, though on some occasions (and in the case of particularly perverse institutions) the preacher is justified in addressing his audience as more pagan than not. The genres, of course, are not quite separate; the injunction emphasized perpetually to the pagan (‘Repent and believe’) is properly declared at regular intervals to the Christian, though often as a buttress or conclusion to another point, as the milk to another instruction’s meat (1 Cor. 3:2; Heb. 5:12-13; 1 Pet. 2:2¹).

Preaching to the unbeliever is naturally dominated by a single message, the milk and foundation of Christianity: ‘Repent and believe’ (Mark 6:12); “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (1:15).  This message is the foundation of preaching, and it is blatantly application of doctrine. The doctrine must in some way be explained. All men know their own sin, but they must be confronted with it. They must learn what true repentance is; they must learn in Whom they are to believe. But at the end of the day, the point of such preaching is intensely applicatory.

Not that this application stays in the realm of the purely spiritual. To ‘repent’ is to turn back from sin; it is the most comprehensive applicatory instruction possible save ‘believe’ (as shall be later shown). This call is a call to repent of sin in the soul (Ps. 10:4), in spiritual traffic (Acts 8:22), in the body (1 Cor. 7:1), in the family (1 Cor. 5:1²), in business (Prov. 20:23), in the church (1 Cor. 5:2), and in civil government (Ps. 2). Every part of life is included (1 Cor. 10:31), sometimes more particularly and sometimes in the whole.

Indeed, we see in Acts 7 how Stephen focuses on a particular sin which his audience ought to repent of: their hostility to the prophets. The culmination of his death-sermon is to reprove his audience for a particular ecclesiastical, spiritual, and political sin, saying “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you…. [You] who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it” (v51,53).

Other times the address to the pagan is more general, but always it is applicatory. Paul is here our example, standing before the Areopagus (Acts 17). There the summit of his speech there is to define the sort of belief and repentance they should have: “Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent…” (v29-30).

But what if we speak to the Christian?

Acts 15 gives us what is not precisely a sermon but is certainly teaching to the brethren, in verses 7-11. Here Peter makes a clear doctrinal point- the salvation status of the Gentiles- in order to make an application. James, soon after, speaks with a similar course. He marshals the Divine witness- Peter’s vision and a passage of Scripture- and he makes an application of them to the circumstance.

Perhaps, though, Peter’s speech is not close enough to preaching to convince you. Then what of Nehemiah 8-10? In this passage, we see a common Old Testament pattern. The people of Israel find the law; it is read to them; they repent and take action. In Nehemiah 8-10, though, we receive confirmation that this reading was not merely the reading of the bare text; 8:8 states that, “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” ‘Understanding,’ in the Biblical lexicon, is not merely apprehension of the facts; it is comprehension, at least starting, of the implications thereof, and the tools to act upon the knowledge (Deut. 32:28; Job 12:13; Prov. 2:3; 1 Chr. 12:32³). We can see the fruit of this teaching and its nature implied in what follows: obedience to His law (Neh. 8:9-17); repentance (8:18-9:38); commitment to real-world action (9:38); and applicatory action (10:28-39).

Preaching, as shown in Scripture, deals heavily in application. It not only prompts it but calls for it explicitly, crossing the barrier from merely spiritual to whole-life with utmost enthusiasm.

Teaching

Scripture’s method of teaching, moreover, is intensely applicatory, something which appears also in the command it makes as to how we ought to teach. Scripture does not simply provide us with spiritual doctrines and let us figure out the implications for day-to-day. No, Scripture provides us with a plethora of practical commands and injunctions, most famously the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount. Romans 13, 1 Corinthians 5, Revelation 2-3, much of Numbers, Deuteronomy, and so many other passages, including the sum of the prophets, exhibits clear applicatory intent and instruction.

The command given to us as to the method of our teaching comports with this. Speaking in terms of that love which is to fulfil the law (Rom. 13:8-10), Deuteronomy 6 tells us, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might…. You shall teach [these words] diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deut. 6:4-5,7). Ephesians 6:4 is even more clear in commanding doctrine to become application: “Fathers…, bring [your children] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” The teaching enjoined upon the family here is intensely applicatory.

But can we apply this nature to the church? Assuredly yes, for the command is extended to the believer as a whole, not just in Deuteronomy 6:7 (which is not limited to the family, though it picks it out, and assuredly applies to the Levitical preachers (Deut. 33:10)). Matthew 28:19-20 gives us in plain words the goal of the Christian conquest of the earth: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” The term ‘disciple,’ of course, has implications in context of Christ’s disciples; it refers to an ongoing, active, applied commitment. More, it means to teach (and therefore preach) so as to create that ongoing, active, applied commitment. If this were not enough, verse 20 emphasizes the point: “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” These words come from the Christ who said, “I have not come to abolish [the Law or the Prophets]” (Matt. 5:17). The only possible conclusion is that Christ intends His disciples to disciple others in the full-life application of His law, learning what and how to apply, then applying.

Incidentally, this command of Christ is obviously applicatory. He gives doctrine in it, yes, but its fundamental point is to spur to action. Preaching this passage in purely doctrinal terms, without drawing out its connection to the here and now, is hobbling the listener and avoiding the meat. Stopping at the ‘spiritual’ aspect or flinching from the practical realities of discipling and living a holy life, such is inexcusable folly and dereliction of duty.

The Goal

Last of all, let us consider what the goal of all this actually is. What sort of faith do we want to produce? What does it mean to be His disciple? I have not been able to avoid this point’s weight, as you may have noticed, in the preceding sections. God’s word without applying God’s word to life is merely condemnation (Luk. 12:48; Rom. 1:18-25). The end-goal of all preaching must be a Christian who does not merely believe but acts. After all, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic. 6:8). Doing justice, loving kindness, walking humbly, these are all application, and preaching which avoids application avoids even the hint of their fullness.

Doctrine is great and beautiful, but doctrine which is not let out of the intellect and the mystic experience is dead. Faith in it means nothing (James 2:19). “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (2:17). Application, in preaching, is bridging from doctrine and intellect, from the internal material, into the external, into the justice and kindness and humility which the Lord loves (remember Romans 13:8-10).

The sermon which does not erect that bridge may do no harm in itself. God’s grace is good, and the refusal of the preacher to edify his congregation in that area does not stop that congregation from doing the application for themselves, as indeed they should regardless. But consider what is taught when the absence of application repeats, when it becomes the norm or the rule of the preaching before which the church sits. Are they not being taught to abstain from application? Are they not being called to a faith which, even if it implies works, never manages to voice that implication? The lack of meat will not damn the Christian, but it will weaken him. Instead of meat, instead of milk-and-meat (the proper diet of the church⁴), he is being fed skim milk (for even the pagan was given an application to his specific life, to stay his hand from the prophet and to keep to just measurements and to submit to God’s rule). The gospel-without-application is malformed.

Conclusion

Preachers have an outright duty to delve into application. The greats were masters of this; John Calvin’s sermons, those I’ve read, are practically dripping with practical connection of the doctrine and passage to life. The cerebral and the intellectual has its place. Many a sermon will benefit from a portion of high doctrine.⁵ But the preacher must beware of the sermon and particularly the sermon-habit which does not connect the eternal to the particular temporal, to the actual here-and-now of the preaching. Ezra’s preaching was not thus. Peter and James did not preach in that way. Paul and Stephen went for the application. The end-goal of all preaching can only be served by the substance and method of teaching which is enjoined by Scripture: to disciple in the fear of the Lord (Prov. 9:10, 14;2,26).

God bless.

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Footnotes

1. I went to look up the reference for the verse I remembered, and what-do-ya-know, every New Testament verses returned by searching ‘milk’ bar one was applicable in some significant way. ↩︎
2. Still better than the PCUSA. ↩︎
3. These citations cross multiple Hebrew words but deal with heavily interrelated concepts. ↩︎
4. Because a mature church has many in it who benefit from meat and a fair number, mostly children and a few new converts, who need first to have milk. Moreover, even the most mature Christian needs to remember the milk-teaching as he gets into the meat-teaching- debates on supralapsarianism cannot eclipse basic repentance and faith, and complex soteriology contains a core of “Repent and believe” (Mark 1:15). The meat is, as a rule, the explication and exploration of what was summarized in the milk. ↩︎
5. Are you supralapsarian or infralapsarian? I can never remember which is which…. ↩︎