Preaching in Another Man’s Suit

I was embarrassed the moment I heard myself do it. I had listened to a Paul Washer sermon about 4 hours before I was going to preach to a group of teenagers. About half way through the sermon is when it happened….

I turned into Paul Washer.

I started using his unique phrasing. I started preaching the way that he preaches to drive home the sermon points. There wasn’t anything terribly wrong with it but I realized I was now someone that I had previously made fun of. I was now “that guy”.

That guy that tries to preach like Billy Graham. Or to preach with the tear in your voice like David Platt. Or to be a slow and methodical thinker like John Piper. Or to talk really fast and humorous and yet pointed like Matt Chandler.

Though we have more source material in the 21st century this is not a new phenomenon. Even in the 1700s there were preachers trying to be like other preachers. Students trying to be like the scholars who were teaching them. They were as Newton would often say, “trying to wear someone else’s armor”.

What Happened to Mark?

Yesterday, we looked at the fictional-but all too familiar—case of Mark. A young man who is passionate about the Lord but comes back to his old church as a terrible pain. What happened to Mark?

Newton would say that he was David trying to wear Saul’s armor:

Furnished with books and notions,
And arguments and pride
I practised all my motions,
And Satan’s pow’r defied
But soon perceived with trouble,
That these would do no good;
Iron to him is stubble,

And brass like rotten wood.
I triumphed at a distance
While he was out of sight;
But faint was my resistance
When forced to join in fight:
He broke my sword in shivers,
And pierced my boasted shield;
Laughed at my vain endeavors,
And drove me from the field.

(From Olney Hymn 28)

In his own experience Newton began the Christian life leaning too much upon other men. His celebrity of choice was revivalist George Whitefield. Some even mockingly called Newton “Little-Whitefield”.

Newton, a man who never had a formal education, was often disconcerted by the things he saw coming out of the Academy. Even remarking once to John Ryland, Jr. that he thought “the orthodoxy and life of the English Presbyterians received their death wound from academical studies” (Gordon, 351).

The problem, in Newton’s mind, was that young men like Mark were only getting notions in their head. As such they could only conquer Satan “from a distance”. As he would later say,

“If you lean upon books or men, or upon your own faculties and attainments, you will be in fear and in danger of falling continually.” (From Letter 2)

The Solution

The problem with young men like Mark is that they are trying to preach in another man’s suit. For Newton his solution was to preach Christ in your own suit. He provided two simple solutions to a student of divinity who wrote Newton enquiring about preaching.

First, this young man should diligently seek the Scriptures, prayer, and meditation through the power of the Holy Spirit. Rather than trying to preach like other people he ought to be himself, pursue the disciplines with vigor, and preach in full reliance upon Christ. Because, “if you lean upon books or men, or upon your own faculties and attainments, you will be in fear and in danger of falling continually” (Letter 2).

Secondly, let Christ always be your “capital subject”.

If you discuss some less essential topic, or bend all your strength to clear up some dark text, though you should display much learning and ingenuity, you will probably fall short of your main design, which I dare say will be to promote the glory of God, and the good of souls.

For Newton, the glory of God and the good of souls was the chief goal in preaching, anything else was likely pride and just notions in the head.

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Do you agree with Newton’s view of the academy? How much do you believe his own lack of a formal education influenced his take on the academy? How did his lack of education hinder him? How might it have served him?

How would you counsel someone like Mark?

Is there anything else in your reading of Newton that you would like to share?

For Next Week:

Jan 23 Sermon on the Constraining Influence of the Love of Christ & Olney Hymn XLI
He-Man option: Wise Counsel 303-307, Letters p168-171 (Free as Letter 1 to Joshua Symonds here)