Are We There Yet?

T. David Gordon, professor of Religion and Greek at Grove City College, is the author of the short but penetrating book entitled Why Johnny Can’t Preach:  The Media Have Shaped the Messengers.  It’s a book that both encourages and challenges.  I finished it yesterday and have been mulling over its contents ever since.  I’m a product of my generation it is without doubt.  I grew up an avid TV watcher and still gravitate toward what we used to call the “boob tube” (now with flat panel TV’s that descriptive phrase is dated).  Gordon argues that few pastors today preach really good sermons.  Many are products of this technological age and thus are more image than text driven.  He believes most sermons preach moralism, are “how-to” sermons (be a good father, husband, etc.), are introspective sermons, or preach only social change.

Gordon says that what is most needed in this or any age is Christ centered preaching.  Gordon says that when Jesus exhorted Peter to feed His sheep in John 21, he and all pastors do so by “proclaiming the fitness and competence of Christ in His mediatorial work.”  Gordon goes on to say:  “When we ‘feed’ God’s flock, we feed their faith.  We nourish the part of them that has the need and capacity to rest on Christ and have confidence in his work of redemption.” (p.74)  Oh that I might be a pastor that truly feeds Christ’s lambs in just that way Lord’s Day after Lord’s Day!

Let me finish with this great quote from Why Johnny Can’t Preach that is along these lines:

I believe that as people’s confidence in Christ grows, they do, ordinarily and inevitably, bear fruit that accords with faith.  Thus, there is no need for some trade-off here, or some alleged dichotomy suggesting that we need to preach morality if we are to have morality.  No; preach Christ, and you will have morality.  Fill the sails of your hearers’ souls with the wind of confidence in the Redeemer, and they will trust Him as their Sanctifier, and long to see His fruit in their lives.  Fill their minds and imaginations with a vision of the loveliness and perfection of Christ in His person, and the flock will long to be like Him.  Impress upon their weak and wavering hearts the utter competence of the mediation of the One who ever lives to make intercession for them, and they will long to serve and comfort others, even as Christ has served and comforted them. (p.78)

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