Can Old News Be Good News?
It was well-intentioned advice.
I had just finished my sophomore year as a Bible major at ACU, and I was serving in my first ministry internship over the summer. While most of my time was spent with the youth group, I had one opportunity to preach on a Wednesday night. As I was preparing, I decided to speak to the preaching minister and see what advice he might have for me. I’ve never forgotten it.
He told me about another preacher he knew who had a particularly bad habit in the pulpit. Every Sunday, no matter what text he was preaching from, he made it his mission to share an obscure detail about the text that no one had ever heard before. Some nuance of the Greek grammar, an insight drawn from a recent archaeological discovery, irrelevant trivia about ancient cutlery—anything his audience may not have heard before. His sermons, without exception, always contained the phrase: “Did you know…?” My mentor’s advice was simple: “Don’t be that guy.”
As I said, it was well-intentioned advice. What I was being warned against was the seductive draw of novelty and gimmick in preaching. To speak before a crowd of people is to be made immediately and precariously self-conscious. And while the temptation to entertain a church may be beyond our oratorical talents, it would be nice if we could at least keep them awake and engaged. So, we turn to the one thing that is proven to make people sit up and pay attention: newness.
It doesn’t take a rhetorical genius to figure out that people stop listening when they’ve heard something a thousand times before. The stories and ideas we hear repeated can become like white noise, like something buzzing in the background. We may be vaguely aware of something being said, but we don’t really hear it. We’ve tuned it out.
This puts tremendous pressure on a preacher, doesn’t it? Our job description is literally to re-tell a story that has been told and re-told for two millennia. Even though parts of our audience may be new, our telling of the story must be in continuity with the way the story has already been told. Christianity is a received faith, after all.
Add this to the list of reasons preaching is such an impossible task. Can you tell the old, old story in a new way? Can you be both faithful and fresh? I think we must try.
The reason is simple: preachers have something to say. Specifically, it is our job to say this:
Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.
That is the Gospel passed down to us through the ages. The Gospel we seek to find in every text. The Gospel we invite our congregations to entrust themselves to. That is what we must say.
And yet, that very same Gospel is articulated in numerous ways, even within the pages of Scripture itself. It’s not just that we have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We have the Paul of Romans, and the Paul of Philippians, and the Paul of Philemon—all of whom are the same man, called to the same gospel, by the same Lord—but each letter rings with a sort of relevance and urgency that cannot be ignored or tuned out.
I think Robert Jenson was right when he wrote, “In order for the gospel to be properly itself, it can never be heard the same way twice.” The Gospel actually requires both faithfulness and freshness. Fidelity to what has been said, and creativity in how it can be newly said. Why? Because it is our responsibility not only to preach the Gospel, but to preach it in such a way that—as far as it depends on us—it can be heard.
Think, for example, about what Jesus himself is doing in the Sermon on the Mount. After clarifying that he has not come to “abolish the Law or the Prophets,” (Matt. 5: 17), he then goes on to tell the crowds no less than six times: “You have heard that it was said… But I tell you…” And you might wonder, is he gaslighting the crowds? He just told them he wasn’t abolishing the Law or the Prophets—but it sure sounds like he is telling them to ignore what the Law and the Prophets say!
Or perhaps he’s helping the crowds hear what the Law and Prophets have been saying from the beginning. Because they missed it, somehow. They couldn’t hear it. Perhaps they had heard the same sermons so many times, they had lost the ability to hear what Scripture was actually saying. So, here’s Jesus, trying to help them hear again. By saying the same old thing, in a completely new way.
Because the Gospel can never be heard the same way twice.
