“As Bullinger asserts in the Second Helvetic Confession, ‘The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.’ This is an astounding claim to make for the speaking of mere mortals like us preachers and for the hearing of mere mortals like our congregation” (Willimon, Proclamation and Theology, p. 16).
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Write to the Editor
He got a bit carried away with his confessing and overstated things.
Do God’s living decrees lose their power, because men affirm them?
The assertion isn’t about power. It’s about what a statement is. When God says a thing, that is the Word of God. When a preacher interprets it and discusses it with an audience, that’s what he says it says. Not the same thing.
It’s vital to maintain that distinction. Men who mistake their own words for God’s are a grave danger. It’s a mistake to let exaggeration or lack of precision to feed that error.
Bro Steve — you’re right if he’s preaching just his interpretation.
But we have Biblical evidence that some preachers have added His Word to His Word.
Any real good preaching has to do that & be that, don’t you think?
(Not that the little preacher himself makes that happen.)
Otherwise it’s just opinionating.
“If you say to that mountain: ‘Jump!'” — is a form of Word preaching.
Eric,
When we start our services with public Scripture reading, our reader always says, “This is the Word of God.”
The Scripture must always be distinguished from what the preacher says it says.
That is important in every age, but especially now when some in the Charismatic movement are so casual about saying that “Jesus told me” this or that.
What is revealed is a different thing from the act of passing along what is revealed.
Bro. Steve
Eric,
When we start our services with public Scripture reading, our reader always says, “This is the Word of God.”
The Scripture must always be distinguished from what the preacher says it says.
That is important in every age, but especially now when some in the Charismatic movement are so casual about saying that “Jesus told me” this or that.
What is revealed is a different thing from the act of passing along what is revealed.
Bro. Steve