A friend asked the question recently on Facebook “What do you think preaching is?” They offered three options:
- A man’s interpretation of Scripture
- God’s Word (same authority)
- Other
I opted for “other”, or perhaps a slight modification of the first option. Preaching is the application of Scripture to the hearts of a congregation assembled together. The prompting for the question was a new book, “Preaching as the Primary means of grace” by Julius E Santiago. The main thesis of the book is that if we think of certain things such as baptism and communion as “means of grace”, i.e. the instruments by which we experience grace, then preaching is the primary means.
To some extent I agree with this, if by preaching we mean the proclamation of God’s Word, applied to human hearts. In other words, I want to be careful about not narrowly restricting it to specific cultural forms of oratory. In other words, I think that there is a distinction between hearing God’s Word taught as part of a congregation and reading or listening to teaching privately. However, that distinction and the distinction between exposition and other forms of preaching are more important than the distinction between preaching and for example a Bible study.
The two crucial things are that it needs to be the application of Scripture, faithful to it with God’s Word setting the agenda and it needs to be a corporate event because God calls us and assembles us together as a people. Preaching is not for individuals and private faith but for the public faith of a church together.
However, Santiago goes beyond this in two ways, one implicit and the other explicit. Implicitly, when talking about preaching, it would seem that he is talking about a specific cultural style where one man speaks through monologue to gathered hearers. It is worth noting that preaching is often then distinguished from teaching in some reformed circles though often without a precise definition of the distinction.
Secondly, explicitly states that:
preaching is not merely men speaking to men, but God speaking through men to save his people. When the Word of God is faithfully handled, it carries the same authority and power of the Bible itself.[1]
Later he adds:
Thus, the preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God and is authoritative and powerful.[2]
Santiago’s basis for this claim is 1 Thessalonians 2:13:
And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.
Now, you will notice three things about 2 Thessalonians 2:13. First, it doesn’t say anything about preaching. What we have here is a conflation of the idea of God’s Word being proclaimed and the specific technical concept of preaching. Secondly, you will notice that Paul is talking about how people responding to him as an apostle bringing the Gospel. Thirdly, observe that it does not say that preaching or even that Paul’s Words generally were received as the Word of God. It simply states that those words meant to be heard as God’s Words were heard as such.
In other words, the text doesn’t say anything at all to support the author’s claims. This is a classic example of eisegesis where we read our own ideas into the text. It is saddening that a book about preaching offers such a woeful example of poor exegesis.
This is important because we need to be clear about what it means to suggest that preaching carries the same authority as God’s Word. It is fascinating that people who make such grand claims are often the first to object to contemporary examples of prophecy or fear that these might undermine the authority of Scripture. I have consistently argued that prophecy and words of knowledge do not rival Scripture’s authority because they are examples of general rather than special revelation. The person prophesying is not, or should not be, claiming infallibility.
The authority that Scripture itself has is that because it is God’s Word, it will disagree with us and when it disagrees with us, challenges, corrects, rebukes then our response is not to disagree back but rather to accept the challenge and to change in response to God’s Word. When a human disagrees with us then we are free to check, validate, discern, disagree back. So, if a preaching has the same authority as Scripture then this means that the preacher must be heard unchallenged, unquestioned.
Would we really expect this of preaching. Perhaps in some circles but I would hope not. In fact, this raises numerous questions about what Santiago means. In fact, he seems a little uncertain or confused himself. He later insists that he does not mean that the preacher has infallible authority and cannot err. In that sense, the preacher’s authority comes from the Word itself.[3] We would want to insist that the only authority in preaching is the Word of God itself. Indeed, Santiago seems to equate authority to faithfulness to the Word.[4]
Yet, as soon as a preacher expands on the text, offering an illustration to help with understanding a point, suggesting an interpretation of Greek of Hebrew and particularly when they move to specific application then they are offering their own words. Those words may be shaped by Scripture and they may be assisted by the Holy Spirit but it is clear, surely that they have begun to offer fallible human wisdom and so cannot offer the same authority of Scripture by any stretch of the imagination.
Sadly I have heard a form of public address in churches (I am not sure that it comes close to anything we might truly call preaching) where the speaker works through the text, repeating and rephrasing in different words orders and with different emphasis. If there is any application at all it is kept vague and general. I wonder if such approaches arise out of a presupposition that they ate seeking to bring the authority of the Word into the pulpit. Unfortunately, we may observe that even their choice of intonation, inflection and emphasis, even their ordering of words are acts of human interpretation and so carry only fallible human authority. They have succeeded only in being dull and failing to say anything whilst still being fallible. They would have done better to read the Scripture, pray and then sit down again.
When preachers faithfully apply God’s Word to the hearts of the congregations, it is truly an incredible thing. I agree that the Holy Spirit uses this powerfully so that the hearers experience God’s grace to them. However, preaching is not the Word of God and does not carry the same authority. It is concerning that there seem to be some in reformed circles making such arguments.
[1] Santiago, Julius. Preaching as the Primary Means of Grace (Broken Wharfe. Kindle Edition, 2024), 21.
[2] Santiago, Preaching as the primary means of grace, 28.
[3] Santiago, Preaching as the primary means of grace, 92.
[4] Preaching as the primary means of grace,87.
Faithroots 