Green - Cutting to the Heart

This is a book that both young and seasoned preachers will find themselves returning to again and again. Here is real practical help which is theologically informed on one of the great challenges in preaching. Those who want to understand just what we mean when we talk about applying the text of the Bible in teaching and preaching, and how to do this in a faithful and effective way, will benefit greatly from Chris Greens labours.

Mark Thompson, Principal, Moore College, Sydney

The word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword. (Hebrews 4:12)

For Dick, who persistently asks what is in the text, and for Richard, who persistently asks what he is supposed to do with it.

To be invited to give the annual Moore College Lectures is a daunting honour. These public lectures, inaugurated in 1977 by F. F. Bruces series on biblical theology and later published as The Time Is Fulfilled ,

Runias and Adams books reflect on and feed into the enormous range of contemporary literature on preaching, from the dauntingly complex issues of hermeneutics, through careful exegetical practice, to current debates about communication and style.

But I accepted the invitation to lecture about preaching because in that range there is still only a handful of books on the issue of application; and if we ask what God intends to do through his inspired Word, the comparative gap on the shelves becomes rather obvious and embarrassing. My goal is to place something at that point in the preachers study, and to encourage the discussion further. As I hope to show, the issues that application touches range both deeply and widely, and will need many more conversation partners. I have deliberately kept the focus on personal and corporate application to Christians; the questions of application to wider society or to those who are not Christians (other than in evangelism) are significant in themselves, but are distinguishable from how God changes his people to become like his Son. Similarly, I have not explored issues of pastoral counselling, although a number of books I refer to have that issue at the forefront and it is a directly related issue.

I was also keen that the format of the lectures did not turn into a forbidding book that would not help the normal preacher preparing normal sermons in a normal church. So I have split the lectures into short chapters, given the ideas more room to breathe, put in material I did not cover in Sydney and included a number of diagrams. These are tools I use myself whenever I prepare a sermon, and I hope others find them useful. I have also included discussion questions at the end of each chapter, because many churches have small teams of preachers, and these issues are helpful to work through together.

So I am enormously grateful to the faculty, students and graduates of Moore College who listened to and engaged with this material, and showed me such warmth and hospitality. I am particularly grateful to the then principal, Dr John Woodhouse, both for extending the invitation and for being such a kind and warm host, together with his wife, Moya.

Much of this material has been developed over the years at Oak Hill Theological College in London, and I am also grateful to its principal, Dr Michael Ovey, for giving me the permission to use the material, and encouragement to accept the invitation, and then to bring it to this point. Now I have moved back into a regular preaching ministry, I am thankful to the members of St James, Muswell Hill, for their continued encouragement and support as we learn from Gods Word together.

My wife and children put up with extended absences from me, and managed not to be too obviously envious of my trip to Australia; it is a privilege to know their love and support in ministry.

But opening Gods Word before his people is an even more daunting honour than flying in to give some lectures, and it is one that many of us know well and could easily become familiar with. My prayer as a preacher is almost always the same: Lord, would you open your Word to our hearts, and open our hearts to your Word. Amen.

Chris Green

Sydney 2012, London 2014

The words of the wise are like cattle prods...

(Eccl. 12:11)

It was a humid summers evening at the end of a long summers day, and the people had come to church. They fanned themselves cool with their notice sheets, stood a little further apart than usual when they sang, and tried, unobtrusively, to separate themselves from their sticky clothing. They dozed.

I cannot remember what passage I preached on that night, but the details are still painfully clear to me. Because halfway through the sermon my minds eye saw a little banner scroll across the bottom of my eyesight, and like the breaking news element on a website it told me quite clearly, This is very boring.

I could see it in their faces. I could feel it in my head. I can still see the page of my notes in my minds eye to this day, because although I cannot remember what I was preaching on I do know I was midway through an illustration about a Russian tsar of which I was very proud. But just as I remember seeing the newsflash, so too I remember going home and vowing that never ever would I allow myself to preach like that again. I have failed on many occasions, of course, but that experience has burned into me my dreadful responsibility for preaching the worst sermon I have ever heard.

What had gone wrong? Theologically, it is hard to say. The word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword (Heb. 4:12), and God was no doubt waiting to wield it that evening among his people. The church was one with a long history of faithful Bible teaching, and the members were keen and well taught. I had spent my time in my study, reading, thinking and praying, and I had written it carefully. I know that because it is what I always did. That raises the rather discouraging thought that maybe I was equally as bad on every other occasion as well.