Note: The following article represents the third in an 11-part series on “Characteristics
of Great Preachers.” The series was commissioned by the Louisiana Baptist
Message from Austin Tucker of Shreveport, a former Louisiana Baptist pastor
who now teaches and writes on religious subjects. He also is a frequent pulpit
guest in churches and serves as a member of the Louisiana Baptist Convention
Executive Board.
Note: The following article represents the third in an 11-part series on “Characteristics
of Great Preachers.” The series was commissioned by the Louisiana Baptist
Message from Austin Tucker of Shreveport, a former Louisiana Baptist pastor
who now teaches and writes on religious subjects. He also is a frequent pulpit
guest in churches and serves as a member of the Louisiana Baptist Convention
Executive Board.
Austin B. Tucker, Freelance writer
Great preachers tend to feel deeply, and they are not likely to be bashful
about expressing those feelings.
They are passionate souls.
Their love is focused in two directions – toward their fellow man and
Godward. They especially have a devout love of Christ.
Take Bernard of Clairvaux, for example. He was a monk, a theologian and a mystic
who lived 1091-1153 A.D. By preaching, he enlisted thousands to go on the second
(and ill-fated) crusade to free the Holy Land.
This assignment took him throughout his native France and through Italy and
Germany. He had to preach through an interpreter in Germany, yet people were
moved to tears even before the translation. Someone has said, “Painted
fire never burns.” With Bernard, it was real passion.
He also was a hymn writer who gave the church hymns of deep pathos still in
our hymnals nearly 1,000 years later. Churches that have not abandoned the hymnal
in favor of frothy choruses still sing:
“Jesus, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills my breast,
But sweeter far Thy face to see
And in thy presence rest.
No voice can sing, no heart can frame,
Nor can the memory find
A sweeter sound than Thy blest name,
O Savior of mankind.”
Baptists and other evangelicals could learn a thing or two from this eloquent
Roman Catholic about devotion to Christ and about passionate preaching. We would
not want to follow him in his minute allegorical treatment of texts, of course,
but Bernard was an excellent preacher.
Richard Baxter (1615-1691 A.D.) often described his own pulpit ministry as
that of one who “preached as never sure to preach again and as a dying
man to dying men.”
He was in poor health nearly all his life, but he considered his physical frailty
an advantage. It more easily brought his soul to seriousness. He urged his fellow
pastors to give priority to evangelistic preaching and personal soul winning.
“The first and greatest work of ministers of Christ is acquainting men
with the God who made them, …” Baxter wrote. “Focus on the great
work of evangelism whatever else you do or leave undone.”
Baxter earned the right to be heard on Sunday by ceaseless daily labors in
the care of his flock. He insisted that a pastor link pulpit work to a personal
pastoral ministry.
At Kidderminster, he spent two days each week, seven hours each day, instructing
families in his flock. He devoted one hour per family to their spiritual needs.
Part of the hour he gave to one-on-one interviews with each member of the family.
Then, he taught them the doctrines of the church.
They knew he loved them.
He wrote in The Reformed Pastor:
“He that will blow coals must not wonder if some sparks do fly in his
face; and that to persecute men and then call them to charity is like whipping
children to make them give over crying. … I saw that he that will be loved,
must love; and he that rather chooseth to be more feared than loved, must expect
to be hated, or loved diminutively. And that he that will have children must
be a father; and he that will be a tyrant must be contented with slaves.”
Great preachers love God and they love people. They weep for lost souls. They
are sensitive to hurting hearts around them, and as Christs undershepherds
they love the sheep of his pasture.