Preaching from the Head or the Heart.
We find the following pungent words in the Atlanta Advocate:— Preaching now-a-days is not always accompanied by the manifest power of God. It is too often dry, formal, abstract, uninteresting, uninstructive, powerless. It frequently fails to secure the attention of the audience, leaving the majority of those present, listless, drowsy, or asleep. It more frequently fails to reach the understanding or to arouse the conscience. It does not move, affect, and save, the people, as God intended it to do. Something is wrong. It ought not to be that way. Either the people have not the faith—which is too often the case—or the preacher does not handle the word of God skillfully—possibly, both. Is it preaching simply from the head? Intellectual preaching, if that is all there is to it, will not do. Men may gain, from a careful study of the Scriptures, a tolerably clear and distinct idea of many of the important truths of revelation. They may be able to present these truths which they apprehend in perspicuous and appropriate language. Their rhetoric and grammar may be faultless, their logic sound and perfect. They may be fluent in the ready use of words, apt in illustration, and present abundant adornments to gratify the imagination and the taste, but if it all springs from the intellect alone, it is simply “head-preaching,” and is powerless to move and affect the heart. Do any of our readers listen to such preaching? Do any of them preach that way? If yes, what a pity! If no, how fortunate! We have no objection to preaching being intellectual. We like it all the better for that, if it have in addition one other qualification. The greatest, most cultivated, and best-furnished minds are none too great, or too refined, or too well stored with knowledge, to preach the gospel. But the strength of the preacher’s bow is in his heart. The arrow, to be effectual, must start from that point. If God, by his Spirit, tips the word with flame, or fills it with mighty power, he does it in the heart of the preacher, not in his brain. The truth of God’s word which the intellect comprehends, needs the fresh anointings of God’s power in the heart of his chosen speaker. Then it gets the attention, excites interest, and reaches, also, the hearts of the auditors. If preaching only comes from the heart, the more intellectual, the better. It may be packed as full of thought as an egg is full of meat, and every thought thus surcharged goes with telling effect to its mark. The more straight and polished the shaft, the more unerring its aim, and the deeper it will strike into the soul of the listener. Beautiful feathers fluttering at the end as it leaps from the string will not injure the effect of the arrow when sent by the strong bow of the heart. No sermon is thoroughly prepared until it is baptized in the love and sympathies of the heart. Till then, it should not be preached. That should, by every preacher, be regarded as the most important part of his preparation for the pulpit. Much study, attended and followed by much and earnest prayer, should be each minister’s favorite and practiced motto. The man who has tested the word in his own experience, who knows and feels its truth and power, is the effective and successful preacher.