Evangelical theologian Timothy George has written a fascinating and illuminating post entitled โHow the Reformation Recovered Preaching.โ
Prof. George shows not only historical facts about how the Reformation put the sermon back into the worship service. ย (Before, sermons were only given on special occasions, and often outdoors instead of in the sanctuary.) ย Drawing deeply on Luther, He also explores the theology of the sermon, which is a โsacramental event.โ
Read highlights after the jump.
(Painting by Lucas Cranach, Altarpiece at St. Maryโs Church, Wittenberg. ย Reproduction byย Torsten Schleese (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.)
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From TImothy George, How the Reformation Recovered Preaching, The Gospel Coalition:
The preaching of the gospel as a sacramental event is at the heart of Reformation theology. Preaching is also at the heart of Reformation faithโpreaching as an indispensable means of grace and a sure sign of the true church. Where is the church? According to Article VII of the Augsburg Confession (1530), the church is that place where the Word is purely preached and the sacraments are duly administered. The Second Helvetic Confession (1566) went even further when it declared that โthe preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.โ
Of course, preachingโunlike the printing pressโwas not a new invention of the Reformation era. Far from it. Think of Augustine and Chrysostom in the early church, Bernard of Clairvaux, John Hus, and the many mendicant friars who fanned out across Europe in the Middle Ages.
St. Francis preached the gospel to a Muslim sultan, and Savonarola declared Godโs judgment on the sinful leaders of Florence. Bernardino of Siena, the great Franciscan herald, preached to throngs in the 15th century, calling on his listeners to repent, confess their sins, and go to Mass. The Protestant reformers knew this tradition and built on it, but they also transformed it in two important respects.
Central Act of Worship
First, they made the sermon the centerpiece of the churchโsย regular worship. Prior to the Reformation, the sermon was mostly an ad hoc event reserved for special occasions or seasons of the liturgical cycle, especially Christmas and Eastertide. Most sermons were preached in town squares or open fields. The reformers brought the sermon back inside the church and gave it an honored place in the public worship of the gathered community. The central role of preaching in Protestant worship can be seen in the way pulpits were raised to a higher elevation as families gathered with their children to hear the Word proclaimed.
Second, the reformers introduced a new theology of preaching. They were concerned that the Bible take deep root in the lives of the people. The Word of God was meant not only to be read, studied, translated, memorized, and meditated on; it was also to be embodied in the life and worship of the church. What might be called the practicing of the Bibleโits embodimentโwas most clearly expressed in the ministry of preaching. Martin Luther believed that a call to the preaching office was a sacred trust and shouldnโt be used for selfish purposes.ย โChrist did not establish the ministry of proclamation to provide us with money, property, popularity, honor, or friendship,โ he said. . . .
Three Marks of Reformation Preaching
In an important essay published in Theology Today in 1961, Heiko A. Oberman set forth the distinctive marks of Reformation preaching in terms of three interrelated aspects.
1. The sermon is an apocalyptic event.
Not quite in the sense of Savonarolaโs preaching of impending doom to the people of Florence, but in the sense that the sermon unveils and makes present the last judgment here and now. Without demythologizing Christโs future coming, gospel preaching existentializes the final will of God for every hearer by calling for a decisive response here and now. โIn the sermon,โ Oberman observed,ย โChrist and the Devil are revealed, Creator and creature, love and wrath, essence and existence, โYesโ and โNo.โโ
2. The sermon is not an isolated speaking part in an otherwise sterile liturgy.
The sermon is a vital and integral part of corporate worship. Praying, singing, confessing sins, declaringย forgiveness, baptizing, gathering around the Lordโs Table to receive in faith Christโsย body and blood โin, with, and underโ (Luther) and โexhibited byโ (Calvin) the earthly elements of bread and wineโall of these activities presuppose, and are supported by, the lively preaching of Godโs Word. Woven into the texture of the whole worship event by the dynamic operation of the Spirit, the Reformation sermon, Oberman noted, is โnot legalistic but redemptive;ย not only directed to individual souls but especially to the corporate existence of the congregation;ย not elevating but mobilizing;ย not a refuge but a starting point; and, finally, not holy and vertical, but secular and horizontal: time, space, and dust.โ
3. The sermonย is similar in one respect to the role of the eucharist in medieval Catholic theology.
The preaching event has an utterly objective character that transcends the weak and sinful status of the preacher himself. Whenever Godโs Word is proclaimed, the Lord truly speaks and is truly present in judgment and in grace. There is, to say it boldly, an ex opere operato presence of Godโs Word in the preached Word. For this reason, God has chosen what Paul called โthe folly of preachingโ to bring sinful men and women to new life in Christ, to nourish the flock of God, and to sustain the pilgrim church on its way to the heavenly city.
In the final analysis, the Reformation was a recovery of biblical preaching.
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