Preaching as Cultural Engagement
What role does preaching play in cultural engagement and cultural formation?
“Cultures are shaped by communities, and communities are shaped by individuals. Consequently, engaging and forming cultures through preaching begins with engaging and forming individuals with God’s Word. Several years ago I developed some concentric circles to help me think through how preaching affects life change in an individual and ultimately in his or her community.[1] Consider this development:
“The idea goes something like this. Behavioral change takes place first when the spirit of a person is being transformed into the image of Christ. And I believe the primary agent the Holy Spirit uses to affect this life change is the truth of God’s Word. So when the Word is preached, and listeners embrace it, then transformation begins. That truth then affects a person’s conscience. This is sometimes referred to as the soul, or the mind, will and emotions. When an individual begins to think, feel and desire like Jesus, then transformation begins to affect conduct. And when the conduct of a group of people begins to reflect the person of Christ, then a community is transformed.
“We can easily add one more circle beyond these four — culture. When enough communities are true reflections of the body of Christ, then culture is going to be affected positively. So, we engage and shape cultures by first engaging and shaping individuals into the image of Christ. The issue is not about simply speaking to warped cultural values (e.g., gay marriage, sexual identity, abortion rights, etc.). Certainly we need to speak prophetically to those and all cultural norms that God addresses in his Word. But cultural change primarily is going to come about as individuals and communities are moved to embrace and reflect the values of Christ. Preaching needs to be directed first and foremost to that end.”
Practically, what does this look like?
“V. L. Stanfield once said that preaching can be defined as giving the Bible voice. When we preach, we speak for God. And, therefore, we speak only what God says in His Word. God has ordained the truth that is necessary to bring about transformation, and He’s written it down in His Word, the Bible. Shortly before His death Jesus asked the Father to ‘sanctify them in the truth; your Word is truth’ (John 17:17). He understood that God’s ordained truth was the secret to people being shaped into His image. Preachers must understand the same thing. The only hope we have of seeing transformation in the lives of people is to expose them to the truth of God’s Word.
“That’s why I’m committed to expository preaching and believe it’s the most practical way to engage and shape individuals — and ultimately cultures — into the image of Jesus Christ. Expository preaching is simply laying open every Bible text in such a way that the Holy Spirit’s intended meaning and accompanying power are brought to bear on the lives of contemporary listeners. When the truth of the Bible is interpreted with integrity and preached accordingly, then God’s supernatural power is applied to the lives of those who hear it. And when people receive His truth and gladly align their lives with it, Christ begins to be formed in them. And as they are re-created into Christ image, the communities and cultures they inhabit began to be influenced.
“Preaching is not the only thing pastors do, but it better be the first thing they do. We have no greater medium through which to bring about life transformation than the faithful exposition of God’s Word. Consequently, every preacher must give himself to the disciplines of Ezra, who ‘set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel’ (Ezra 7:10). Practically speaking, we engage and shape culture by studying God’s Word intently, obeying what he says entirely, and teaching others to do the same through the regular exposition of the Bible. And all of this must be done against the backdrop of utter desperation for and dependence upon God’s Holy Spirit to attend to this work.”
What are some dangers to preaching and cultural engagement? How can we avoid these dangers?
“When seeking to engage culture, preachers must be aware of several potential pitfalls. One of the biggest is neglecting it! As I indicated earlier, preaching for life transformation in individuals must be our priority and our primary approach to pastoral preaching. But our prophetic role as preachers demands that we bring God’s Word to bear on cultural issues and norms that are contrary to the gospel. And the pastor can’t shy away from confronting the culture about sin by using his expositional sermon series as an excuse.
“Pastoral preaching can be organized into three types. Systematic exposition ought to be our bread-and-butter, where we’re methodically working through books of the Bible or extended portions of it. This helps people become biblically literate and exposes them to God’s ordained truth in context. Doctrinal instruction is where we teach people the great doctrines of the faith and ground them therein. This ought to be an intentional part of a pastor’s fare. But we also are responsible for prophetic response, and that’s when we bring God’s word to bear on specific cultural values and circumstances. The faithful pastor won’t neglect any of these three kinds of preaching.
“Another danger of preaching for cultural engagement has to do with the starting place for our sermons. We can get sermon ideas from just about anywhere. But just because we have a sermon idea doesn’t mean we have something to preach. We always need to ask the question, ‘Did God talk about this subject in His Word?’ If He did, then we’ve got something to say and a sermon to preach. If He didn’t, then we have no authoritative basis on which to proclaim, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ We may have some opinions about certain cultural characteristics that God didn’t address, but our opinions are vastly different from preaching God’s Word. And preachers must be very careful to distinguish between the two. Many a topical sermon has been born out of a preacher’s desire to address a particular subject for which he had no direct biblical teaching.
“Anytime we start with a cultural issue, and fail to determine whether or not God addressed the subject, we run the risk of giving people our opinions instead of His Word. And whenever we present our unfounded opinions — even under the guise of preaching — we still end up saying what God did not say. Preachers must remember that it is a high crime to put words in God’s mouth. Neither culture nor the individuals who inhabit it will be transformed with our thoughts and opinions that are not driven by God’s Word. So whenever we start with a cultural issue that we think needs to be addressed, we need to search the canon of Scripture to see if God talked about it. On the other hand, when we are faithful to preach systematically through God’s Word, we are always sure to address the cultural norms that He has determined to address, whether directly or with theological implications and timeless truths.
“Another pitfall of cultural engagement that preachers need to keep on their radar is the tendency to adopt pet peeve topics and turn them into hobby horses and bully pulpits. All of us will have particular issues about which we are especially burdened. If we’re not careful, however, we can find ourselves addressing those subjects in every sermon, or at least preaching sermons on them on a regular basis. Doing so can create imbalance in our people’s spiritual diets, as well as undermine our integrity as prophets of God. Again, systematic exposition as a regular preaching diet will guard us from this danger. If we allow God’s Word to dictate the amount of time we dedicate to any given subject, then we are sure to provide our people a proper balance of the various spiritual food groups He has ordained.”
What preachers do this well? Who would you recommend?
“I’m thankful for the many faithful expositors who are prophetically engaging and shaping our culture through good exposition of God’s Word. Neither time nor space allows me to mention them all. But I would commend Tim Keller, David Platt, Tony Evans and John MacArthur as just a few representative examples of preachers who are expounding God’s Word and influencing culture. All of these men have wed systematic exposition and cultural engagement throughout their ministries, and have been good examples of balanced prophetic voices in pastoral contexts.”
This article was originally published here on March 13, 2017.
