No Boring and Predictable Preaching
The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church
(Vol. 4 The Age of the Reformation) Hughes Oliphant Old, Eerdmans pb. 556pp

John Westendorp

Someone from the wider community asked me recently: "How do you manage, over a period of more than ten years in the same congregation, to preach twice a Sunday week after week without endlessly repeating yourself and becoming totally boring and predictable?" I was tempted to say: "Maybe you should first ask my congregation how much I'm beginning to repeat myself and becoming totally boring and predictable." I didn't say that because that's not the vibes I'm picking up from the congregation at large. Nevertheless it's a good question to ask and the issue is a very real one for those of us who are called to preach Sunday by Sunday.

One of the overall thrusts of Old's study of preaching in the age of the Reformation is that when the preacher simply opens the Scriptures and allows Scripture to speak for itself then preaching is never boring and never predictable. The era in question certainly saw many different kinds of preaching, from moralistic to topical, from evangelistic to catechetical, from penitential to prophetic. It's obvious however that while Old appreciates the different kinds of preaching it is especially expository preaching that he sees as the finest form of preaching.

While the title of this book seems to indicate that it covers only the preaching of the Reformation it actually ranges far wider than that. The preaching of Martin Luther, John Calvin and Hugh Latimer takes up the opening 150 pages. Old then moves on and gives us an overview of the preaching that took place under Catholicism during the Counter Reformation. After that he turns his attention to the Puritans, later Anglican preaching, preaching by the Huguenots and then preaching during the "flowering of Protestant Orthodoxy" in Germany and the Netherlands. He concludes with Roman Catholic preaching in France in the lead up to the French Revolution.

Obviously the Reformers themselves are of special interest. What was it that made John Calvin such a highly regarded preacher? Old points out that it was because he drew his hearers into the text of Scripture, he knew how to use language, he had a constant concern for application, he was relevant in that he preached justification by faith in a world that was tired of the outward forms of religion, and his sermons had a high sense of the authority of Scripture.
One of the strengths of Old's book is that he deals with history without losing sight of the present. So, for example, he discusses Zwingli's view of Biblical authority but links that to the transformation that the Word of God is bringing about today in Africa and South America.

Apart from giving us a good overview of a broad spectrum of preaching over a period of two hundred years there is also the constant grappling with the nature of preaching itself. In addition there are the occasional gems that give food for thought: "The secret of prophetic preaching is to select the right text for the right occasion."

So what about that opening question about preaching twice a Sunday without becoming boring and repetitive? Old offers advice from a number of great preachers, and sometimes from surprising sources. For example, from the period of the Counter Reformation he quotes Cardinal Bellarmine who asked why so few preachers actually come up with nourishing fare for their congregations. "The reason is that they are too much concerned with cooking up delicacies of eloquence and learning. They want to appear theologians, philosophers or historians. The true bread of life... is the knowledge of salvation, which teaches humility, patience and charity. The good preacher is able to feed his congregation with this bread only by the sweat of his brow, only by imploring God for it with tears, prayers and meditation. But of course, not only must the preacher give this kind of labour to his preaching of the Word; it is just as much the responsibility of the hearers of the Word to chew it and digest it."
 

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