I recently preached a
sermon on "Powerful Preaching" from Romans 16:25-27. I was looking
for a quote by Jerry Vines in his book Power in the Pulpit. I logged into a
digital book service, queried "powerful preaching" and clicked the
wrong link.
I opened a book by Liz Shercliff called Preaching Women: Gender, Power and the
Pulpit. I was curious and wanted to see what the lady preacher had to say about
powerful preaching. I read the book, so you don't have to.
"This is a book by a woman preacher, for women
preachers, about women’s preaching. One of my ambitions is to challenge some
traditional thinking and practice.
Thought showers among ministers and those training for
ministry tend to focus on themes of teaching, feeding, inspiring, challenging
and comforting. At root such models adopt a ‘preacher knows best’ stance.
Authority might be attributed on the basis of: knowledge: because the preacher
has studied commentaries and read erudite books and worked on the text for some
time….
The assumption is that the preacher knows more than
their hearers do about the matter in hand. And so preaching becomes the
transmission of knowledge from one person, the one who has it, to other people,
the ones who don’t. The preacher is at the centre of the preaching model, as
disseminator of the word to their hearers. The preacher decides what needs to
be said. The preacher chooses what points to make.
It is a patriarchal privileged power paradigm of
preaching.
I define preaching as ‘the art of engaging the people
of God in their shared narrative by creatively and hospitably inviting them into
an exploration of biblical text, by means of which, corporately and
individually, they might encounter the divine’. Here, the preacher is host. The
table to which people are invited has been carefully laid, taking into account
who will be there and what they need. A meal has been carefully selected and
meticulously prepared. It is both a communal and a personal event. Guests are
welcomed in, conversation will flow – sometimes among just a few, sometimes as
community. It will be a unique experience for all."
Jerry Vine's book was about powerful
preaching, but her book is about power (authority) in the pulpit. She's not in favor of it. Paul, the arch villain of
liberals everywhere, said people would be strengthened and changed by
preaching in Romans 16:25-27. The Greek word Paul used does not mean "the
art of engaging people in their shared narrative," but rather, "that
which is proclaimed by a herald or public crier, a proclamation by herald."
It doesn't surprise me in the least that a rebellious woman, who chose, as a profession,
to rebel against God and His order, redefines preaching in her own image. It's
hilarious to me that her woke feministic example of a woman preaching is her in
the kitchen making supper.
"As a woman preacher, I have found the idea of
preacher as declarer of truth, possessing words from God to be delivered
direct, hard to espouse."
As a Christian, I found
the idea of a lady preacher hard to espouse.
Doesn't the Bible speak
about women being silent in the church in 1 Corinthians, and isn't 2nd Timothy
pretty clear on the matter? HA! You would say that wouldn't you. One simply
cannot read the Bible and believe what it says. One must insert the text into
a historical construct, only then can you understand the text is saying the opposite
of what anyone with reading comprehension can clearly see in the text. She
finds the idea of a preacher as a declarer of truth a difficult pill to
swallow. So rather come to the conclusion that she wasn't made to do the job,
she decided it was better to continue her rebellion and twist the scriptures.
It's the Bible that must be wrong, not her.
"Paul, on the other hand, was an old-school
Pharisee. He had been raised with a patriarchal narrative – he was a Roman
citizen, structure and hierarchy were important; he was a Pharisee, keen on
racial purity. Perhaps there was more than theological concern alone behind
Paul’s instruction. Given that we have only one half of the conversation, it is
impossible to put the whole into a context, but I wonder whether we take
seriously enough Paul’s call, to both his sisters and brothers, to be mature in
thinking: ‘Brothers and sisters, do not be children in your thinking … in
thinking be adults (1 Cor. 14.20).
Despite this, by the time the second letter to Timothy
was written (at least 60 years after Paul’s death), an imperative against
women’s leadership had crystallized. Canonization of the New Testament worked
against women, for it came at a time when they had no voice; they were trapped
in a vicious circle."
You don't deny Paul said
what he did, you shake your head at his old fashioned notions. Had Paul lived
today, I'm sure he would have been more sophisticated. Besides, we don't know
what the Corinthian Church asked him, so it's really a mystery. As for Second
Timothy, that wasn't Paul (don't read 2 Timothy 1:1) because it disagrees with
my paradigm, so it had to be written after the Patriarchy had already got their
death grip on the churches.
"It is not enough to dismiss [the Bible] as hopelessly out of date or
irredeemably sexist, as some have done. It will not do to accept some bits but
not others. Even if we fail to see it, others will surely notice a lack of
integrity in a position that encourages us to ignore some biblical texts while
taking others at face value. Taking the Bible at face value, we surely conclude
that women should neither lead nor preach. Between these two poles, we must, as
women preachers, find a coherent, authentic stance about the Bible."
At least she is honest
about her approach of deception. She uses Christian Feminist Theology as a
system to interpret the text. Some of the terms she uses come from Critical
Theory. She comes to the Bible as a "victim" of the patriarchy, and
filters everything through that context. You read yourself into the Bible and if
the Bible disagrees with you, find a way to explain it away, or just blame man,
preferably a white man. Don't ignore the Bible, she says, rather reinterpret in
a different light.
Satan didn't deny what God
said to Eve, that if she ate the fruit she would die, but he just said God was
wrong. Eve had to look at the command of God from a different "power
paradigm." God had power and didn't want Eve to have it too. You just have
to adjust your way of looking at things, and then do whatever it is you want.
The only problem with this
approach, is it's wrong. Sooner or later, you'll come face to face with the
Truth, and give an answer to Him.
