Right now I’m preaching through Acts on Sunday mornings, the second time for me. Last Sunday, I finished the body of Peter’s sermon in Acts 2. Peter is a good example of preaching in Acts 2. He was taught well by his Teacher. Preachers should well consider what Peter did on the Day of Pentecost and how he did it.
My first sermon was in 1976, my Freshmen year in high school. I knew I would be a preacher in 1977. I wanted to preach. There was no mystical, bright light, shudder blowing experience. It was a desire. It started with hearing preaching.
I became an enthusiast or devotee of preaching. I took pages of notes on most sermons I heard. I became convinced that that a true preacher, an actual preacher, preached what scripture said. I enjoyed the analysis of different sermons or some that perhaps were only speeches. I began to conclude what I liked and didn’t like. The liked became smaller and the didn’t like became much bigger. I was more discerning of a bad sermon.
When I was in high school through college, I heard preaching most days, most of the time more than once every day. It wasn’t until the end of college that I began to understand what right preaching was, and even now I’m far different as a preacher than I was then. I had heard expository sermons, not many in college. However, I started to listen to radio preachers. Some of them did exposition of texts.
I was preparing to exegete. I started Greek in high school, two years, majored in biblical languages in college, took languages all four years, kept them up in three years of graduate school. I heard several preachers on the radio who also referred to original languages. I heard J. Vernon McGee, Chuck Swindoll, D. James Kennedy, and John MacArthur. I read W. A. Criswell, Warren Wiersbe, and Haddon Robinson. I bought exegetical and expository commentaries.
My favorite of what I heard was John MacArthur. I listened to him a lot. I thought what MacArthur did was close to what preaching should be. I didn’t have all the same beliefs as him. He wasn’t strong enough as a preacher. However, he had a lot of influence on me, because I wasn’t hearing anyone else who preached like him. I was very open minded to MacArthur. He impacted me a lot, but I didn’t follow him in my belief and in practice, just in the type of preaching a preacher should do.
What’s different between what I did and do than MacArthur? He has become more strong in his preaching through the years, but he doesn’t make strong applications. He does very little in the way of strong applications. He leaves too much to the listener in the way of applying what the passages say. He gives a good example of how to go about explaining what a passage says. His process is good. He would say, I believe, that he mainly leaves the application to the Holy Spirit, while I believe that the Holy Spirit Himself wants the preacher to make that application. This is a major difference between evangelical preaching and separatist preaching.
MacArthur is not a separatist. He has a wrong view on the church. He has become more and more Calvinistic in all the years I have heard or read him. He doesn’t believe in the perfect preservation of scripture. His church is worldly.
I ask myself if MacArthur overall has done more damage than good. It’s hard, because I think he has had a major good impact overall. God has used him. However, I think the bad has outweighed the good. I attribute his numbers and his influence to compromise. His permissiveness and lack of separation have allowed for a lot of the wrong belief and practice that even he himself is against. He has produced weak people, men much weaker than himself, and with permission. When Jesus said, by their fruits ye shall know them, he was speaking of the fruit of a teacher’s work. MacArthur’s fruit is weakness.
I heard Swindoll often when I was young too, but I couldn’t stick with listening to him. He turned me off to him. His emphasis was too much on the communication, the craft, and cleverness in preaching, not enough on the Word of God itself.
MacArthur was different than Swindoll. He centered on the words of scripture. I’m happy for all the good that has come through John MacArthur. I’m thankful for what his preaching did for me. If someone could take the good without the bad, he could be a help to them, like he was me. I can’t recommend him because of his bad influence. I still read him myself, but I always put a strong disclaimer on him for reading of him by others. Many times I wouldn’t even mention him, because I was afraid of the result for someone who wasn’t settled in his belief and practice.
I know someone could become stronger than what he was, if he started in some weaker form of evangelicalism to move toward the conservative evangelicalism of MacArthur. However, in general, even though he is a good model for important aspects of the right kind of preaching of God’s Word, people, who start stronger than MacArthur and then begin listening to him and follow in his path, will become weaker and weaker. A lot of fundamentalists were at one time much stronger than they are today and they took their path leftward by listening to MacArthur.
The most important trait for a biblical preacher, I believe, is courage. He has to preach and apply exactly what God says in His Word. This includes following through in leading in the discipline of the practice of God’s Word. There are some unpopular parts to scripture and those have to be represented just like God expects and like the original authors meant when they wrote them. The application can’t be conformed to what will allow to keep the bigger crowd of people. A preacher is not doing his job if he doesn’t take the application and practice of the passage all the way to its end.
John MacArthur on explanation and implication vs application.
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/GTY117/john-macarthur-on-sermon-application
Hi Micah,
Thanks. That link agrees with what I've said about what MacArthur does in preaching, and I'm assuming you're helping out that point and agreeing with me. If the Holy Spirit will actually do that work, then the preacher can and should do that work. It's obvious that a lot, a lot, of the application of scripture goes undone. You can see it easily in the ministry of MacArthur. If he made those applications, his congregation would shrink. I don't think it is a theological point, but a pragmatic point. He should be making a strong application like the apostles did, rather than leaving that to the listener to figure out. As a result, MacArthur has belief and practice, that he does personally, but the people hearing him are much weaker and they are confused and disobedient on the application of the Word of God. This is his fruit as well, which in Matthew 7, means this is how he is judged.
On the bright side for MacArthur, a lot of IFB make applications without telling you what scripture is saying. They twist the passage and just go directly to telling you what to do. MacArthur is the pendulum swing to the other side, but the most important part of preaching is explanation, which he does. Not having the application, however, is inexcusable.
Thanks.
Kent,
I posted the link to show that you *almost* accurately describe what MacArthur attempts to do in preaching. Yes, he leaves the role of application to the Spirit. But MacArthur does place the responsibility of exhortation and implication to the on the preacher. That distinction did not appear in your article. And I think it is an important distinction and when considered, MacArthur's approach is the biblical one.
That being said, in the daily life of the church, you'll find the elders at GCC applying God's word while shepherding the congregation through specific circumstances. But in the pulpit, relying on the Holy Spirit to apply the implications of a text results in the diverse application to many individual hearts. It's an amazing thing to see.
And no, this does not result in people being "weaker" or "confused" or "disobedient." In fact, from my own observation, the result is just the opposite.
Hi Micah,
I would think from a perspective inside of the barrel, so to speak that it looks like the barrel, and I understand your defense. What do you have to compare with? There is also the question of whether this is the scriptural method of preaching.
I would hope that you could take into consideration what I'm saying. I'm especially regarding the so-called "cultural issues." A church can be disobedient on these issues, and not know or why, because they aren't hearing these issues preached. Is church discipline going to be involved in applications of scripture? In other words, could you be in incessant disobedience to scripture, by not applying it, and not be disciplined by the church?
Where does the Bible say that, for instance, abstain from fleshly lust or deny worldly lust and conform not to this world are merely implications, of lesser value or importance to other biblical teachings? I'm giving these just as examples. There are many more.
Even when it comes to areas that MacArthur comes off clearly about, saying that rock music is incompatible with worship, says it in preaching, and then the church uses rock music in worship, not necessarily as the norm, but allowable and done. I've seen it and heard it. This results in "sensual worship." MacArthur says that this music is the gateway into the Charismatic movement, the gateway not being doctrinal, such as continuationism, but the music, the experiential. Yet, this is not applied.
As bad as amillennialism is and MacArthur says it is, why is that not a matter of separation? It perverts thirty percent of the Bible.
Much more could be said. I'm happy where GCC is biblical and practicing true spiritual worship, but overall, I see this as a bigger problem than the ones MacArthur focuses on, many, if not most, of which I agree with him.
What do I have to compare with? I grew up in an IFB church, was a long standing member of a Ryrie-like dispensationalist church in college and into my late 20s, and am now a member of a church where the lead pastor trained at the Master's Seminary. There is a stark contrast to the churches I grew up in regarding obedience to scripture. It’s quite a faithful church I might say, not to mention my growth in sanctification.
You keep linking application in preaching to separation, but you've not made the logical connection. MacArthur and those of his ilk are separatists (read their doctrinal statement), just not the kind and to the degree you'd like for them to be. Amillennialism, for example, is not an issue worth separating over because it's not a gospel issue.
MacArthur recently did a series on "social justice" by using Ezekiel 18 and applying it to cultural Marxism. He applies scripture to cultural issues plenty enough when appropriate.
It appears to me that you simply want MacArthur to apply scripture in a particular way and to areas you think are important. Take "rock music" as an example. Such a highly subjective area requires discernment of biblical principles in the realm of Christian liberty, not in specific application of texts which have nothing to do with the subject of rock music. And no, the kind of music played at GCC does not result in "sensual worship."
"Abstaining from fleshly lusts" is not merely an implication. Rather, it is an exhortation that has a specific meaning in a specific context and has implications to a variety of situations. If I have a problem with pornography for example, the preacher only needs to explain the meaning of this text and exhort me to obey it. The Spirit will apply it to my sin of pornography, while at the same time applying it to someone else who is struggling with the sin of materialism, or pride, or drugs, etc. Now, if I go to a pastor, confessing my need for help in the area of pornography, it is then the pastor's duty to apply that text to my specific situation.
Honestly, I think you're just misunderstanding MacArthur's approach to application.
Micah,
Thanks.
I understand your trajectory and that it could have improved where you came from, especially since IFB could mean a great many thing. MacArthur is better than Ryrie type.
I think I have MacArthur right. Maybe I'll write more about preaching related to this subject matter to be more clear.
I've read the MacArthur statement on separation and it is akin to most Bob Jones University, FBFI, style fundamentalist. The actual practice is a problem when I see who he associates or fellowships with and doesn't break fellowship with. The statement is more than just "gospel" oriented doctrines, but sin and worldliness (worldly and sinful practices). What is a worldly and sinful practice? This needs application. A continual pursuit of holiness is separation, because holiness in the most fundamental way is separation. That makes a logical connection for you. Not separating itself is a sin, because it is taught as a practice in the Old and New Testaments.
Let's consider just one thing else though, that is, amillennialism. Scripture doesn't teach separation over just "gospel issues." This is a doctrine, originating out of Catholicism, that messes up the entire ending of the Bible and the prophetic texts, which are thirty percent. Why is that not an unfruitful work of darkness?
I'll leave it at that for now.
Kent,
I didn’t say the statement on separation relates to *just* gospel oriented doctrines. There are two categories of separation: separation from the world and separation from (professed) Christians. The scripture is clear as to what constitutes “worldly and sinful practices” and what is considered “apostasy.” As to the latter, we are strictly speaking of gospel oriented doctrines, or any doctrine or belief that undermines the gospel. As to what would be considered worldly or sinful, I have a feeling you are desiring to apply scriptural texts to areas where the scripture itself is silent, or where Christians must use discernment in the realm of their liberty. Likely, the difference between you and MacArthur is not merely in the application of separation, but in Christian liberty.
Amillennialism predates Catholicism by a long shot. I’m not an amillennialist, but I’m willing to show some grace towards those brothers in an area where the scripture is not as perspicuous.
And here is a perfect example of misapplying a biblical text. “Unfruitful works of darkness” in Ephesians 5:11 is not about eschatology, but about our “walk” (v.15) (behavior, lifestyle, conduct, etc., in particular covetousness, idolatry and filthy speech verse 5). Once the passage is explained in context, the implications are pressed, and the hearer is exhorted, the application becomes self-evident. And in this case, it has nothing to do with eschatology.
I'm not against application, but I am against applying text in a legalistic fashion.
Thanks for the discussion.