LETTING LISTENERS MAKE THE DISCOVERIES
Telling people as much as possible may not be the best way to get the message across.
Earl Palmer
April 1, 1992
Whenever I stand before a congregation, I have to suppress my natural instinct to preach. We preachers have a tendency- some innate drive-to offer answers to our listeners before they've even heard the questions. We want to help, but sometimes we forget the process required.
No wonder preaching has gotten a bad name. "Don't preach at me!" a teenager shouts at his parents. "I don't need your sermon," a wife says to her husband. And we know exactly what they mean. People resist answers others have found for them. Now-l'm-going-to-fix-you sermons make my congregation's eyes glaze over. When I pontificate, they cannot contemplate.
J. B. Phillips, while translating the New Testament, discovered its truth to be pulsing with life and power. He felt like an electrician, he said, working with wiring while the power was still on. This was no dull routine, grappling with the dynamic, living Word! Phillips felt the awesomeness-both the dread and the excitement-of the electric charge of God's truth.
I've found over the years that I cannot merely preach if I want to convey the power in God's Word. If I want my listeners to handle the electricity of living truth, I must somehow bring people to touch personally the power surging through the gospel. I have, then, always tried to make sure my preaching is really teaching, not so much telling people what the truth is as helping them discover truth for themselves.
Teaching: Risking Discovery
Historically, the church has preferred highly controlled teaching, often choosing the seemingly safe methods of instruction. A catechism, for example, sets up a limited number of predetermined questions to be answered. It's a weak teaching device, however, because it does not help people discover the source ...
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