Preach the Word - Part III - The Context of Preaching

Second, Paul paints a picture of the CONTEXT of preaching in verse 1: "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom..." In painting this picture for us Paul places preaching with the eternal context of Christ, his Second Coming, the final judgment, and the kingdom to come. Today, if you were to ask a seminarian about the context of preaching, he (or she!) would surely respond with comments about preaching to a postmodern culture and how the preacher needs to adapt his message for postmodern ears (narrative preaching, etc.). The student would speak ad nauseam about this need for "contextualization," and there is no doubt that there would be some helpful tips to learn from him. After all, even the Apostle Paul "contextualized" his message for a pagan audience at Mars Hill (Acts 17:22ff.). Even though this sort of "contextualization" has its place within our understanding of preaching, it is instructive that Paul provides no primer on "cultural contextualization" for Timothy. Instead of making the temporal context the focus of the preaching imperative, Paul makes the eternal context the driving force behind the command to preach the word. John Piper came to Covenant Seminary some time ago (before I was a student), and he delivered a couple of messages about preaching for the seminary. I have listened to these "lectures" (of course, they are really sermons, not lectures), and my favorite is the message entitled, "Preaching in the Presence of God." Piper addresses the context of preaching in this message, and he emphasizes the fact that the charge to preach and the act of preaching both occur within the presence of the risen Christ who will return and judge the living and the dead. So then, when we, preachers, enter the pulpit, we should be aware of this stunning reality. We should endeavor to picture Jesus Christ enthroned and exalted. We should emply our sanctified imagination in order to see him on his throne. We should think about men, women, and children from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation standing before him and giving an account for every word, thought, and deed. This should sober us. It should provoke a holy tremble in our hearts and perhaps in even in our speech and demeanor. We cannot be trivial in the pulpit or cute or clever when eternity is at stake. Moreover, the sermon becomes much more than a speech, and the preacher becomes much more than a public speaker. In a very real sense, the sermon becomes the message from the mouth of the cosmic judge, Jesus Christ, through his messenger, the preacher. Likewise, the preacher becomes the man who stands in the presence of this Jesus and seeks to bring him and this eternal reality to bear upon the hearts of his people. He seeks to unveil this reality by means of expounding the written word (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16). Thus the context of preaching is the eternal reality of Jesus Christ, his Second Coming, and the final judgment, and this context should shape both the sermon and the preacher.