Have you ever heard this most famous of sermons preached? Today I came across a recording of Mark Dever preaching "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" at the Capitol Hill Baptist Church a few years ago. You can listen to the sermon online or read the transcript. I strongly recommend listening to it; Dever offers a very good introduction, and I was surprised at how much more compelling the sermon is when it's preached out loud rather than merely read.
Listening to this sermon called to mind a question I've wondered about before: why don't pastors recycle classic sermons of the faith? Every week, my pastor spends hours researching and preparing a sermon to deliver, and I certainly don't object to that; his sermons are inspiring and insightful. But with the vast catalog of public-domain historical sermons at our disposal—check the massive Sermon Index if you think I'm exaggerating—I wouldn't mind if my pastor periodically chose a relevant or particularly insightful classic sermon to deliver (giving due credit to the original author, of course). Obviously, many classic sermons are outdated for some reason or another; but there must be plenty that would speak just as powerfully to a modern audience as they did to their original audience.
What do you think? Would you happily listen if your pastor periodically preached a "classic" sermon from church history? Pastors, have you ever considered preaching classic sermons, perhaps as a short, experimental series, or as part of a Sunday school class? Would you benefit from cutting back on the amount of time you spend doing original research for your own sermons?
And am I hopelessly naive to imagine that churchgoers today would sit through a sermon with a couple of "thee"s and "thou"s scattered throughout?
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Comments (18)
Here's a thought: do sermons have to be public-domain to be available for this kind of thing? Would it be like a band doing the occasional cover song?
Sermons are an odd art form, closer in Spirit to Greek oration or sophistry. The pressure of picking a topic, studying all week, rehearsing and delivering a formal 30 minute sermon every Sunday morning must be intimidating and exhausting. And then to see people nodding off or tuning out must be discouraging. Most sermons contain several jokes, humorous anecdotes, a few sports references “how about those Bulldogs last night?” a scriptural pretext, ending with a call for a response. Often I see people scribbling away in notebooks and I always wonder why. I think these are the same people who suffered through college lectures madly scribbling notes and missing the spirit of what was being said.
How about we just stop these lectures? Perhaps a pastor is better at counseling, leadership, administration or teaching. Why force them to give sermons? How about if we allow more variety in a church meeting, perhaps a short biblical teaching, a word of exhortation from someone, a word of encouragement from another, or if your tradition permits it, a short prophetically inspired message speaking to what the Lord is doing in the congregation given by a trusted member.
There is plenty of room for a lecture hall, a Bible class, a seminary or even an evangelistic rally where sermons are important. But perhaps not as a steady diet at every church gathering. What do you pastors think?
I would love a series like this is an instructional setting, such as a class, but not as the main sermon.
http://edwards.yale.edu
This has a full set of JE's sermons and a curriculum based on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" directed at high school students.There is a Billy Graham rendition of this sermon in his Los Angeles 1949 crusade;Dr.Ken Minkema describes the events in Los Angeles and Enfield,MA.
http://sermonsaudio.com
This site has a reading of the sermon by David Bruce Sommer ;it was ranked second last week to a sermon about Joel Osteen.
I agree! I think the short answer is: Pastors want/need to be original, they want/need credit, if reading classic sermons gets the job done, what do we need them for? What do we need to spend all this money on their salary for?
As I've gone through crown, and been poor, and thought about the lack of effectiveness of the Church in America - I feel like we're not being good stewards of our resources by paying for a large church staff, and paying a person to talk at us for an hour each week - all the while barely helping the poor, squandering 10% of our income on maintaining a broken system.
Yes, let's have church at my house (or your house). We can take turns reading classic sermons to each other, sharing encouragement, and use 10% of our income to love our community.
My suggestion (which I have admittedly not thought through very thoroughly) is just that by dropping the requirement that pastors come up with a fresh, brand new original sermon each week, pastors might actually be freed up to do MORE ministry during the week.
There are commands in scripture to preach the word. I believe that is what Edwards was doing when he wrote this masterpiece. Edwards developed his points from the scriptures and laid them out to his people in the way best suited for them. You and I were not his target audience. Along those lines, if you read someone else's sermon to a congregation, you remove that portion of the pastoral role of shepherding the flock entrusted to them.
There are other descriptors of what a sermon is, such as Ezra reading the law and the elders helping the people understand what it entailed in Nehemiah 8. At this point in history, Jewish culture had changed to the point where the people didn't understand what was being told to them with the clarity of their ancestors, not unlike us today.
The word of God was read and then explained by a contemporary of these people. When the people understood how they had fallen short, they wept aloud and were told by the Levites not to weep, for the joy of the Lord would be their strength.
I am not opposed to the citing of a famous sermon or other work in a weekly sermon, but nobody can contextualize the scriptures for your congregation the same way that your pastor can.
Are you not underestimating the power of God? The power is in the seed not in the sower. How do you know how God used this sermon to impact the lives of people that hear it?
I encourage other church leaders to consider doing the same. Let's get back to a 'pre-humanism' Christianity.