Preaching as the Word of God

Answering an Old Question with Speech-Act Theory

Sam Chan

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781498220248
  9781498220262
• eBook ISBN:
  9781498220255
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

According to the Reformers, preaching is the word of God. As the word of God, preaching is a foundation for the church. It is also vital for the personal growth of a Christian. But Christians are poorly equipped to understand how preaching is the word of God. Some Christians look for preaching that closely reproduces the text in the Bible. Other Christians look for preaching that creates maximal emotional and existential impact. And there is a lot of name-calling with Christians accusing preachers of "not preaching the word." But what type of preaching is the word of God? The purpose of this book is to equip Christians to understand how preaching can be God speaking. It accomplishes this with a survey of the problem in the history of the church, a detailed overview of key biblical texts, and finally the application of the contemporary philosophical tool of speech act theory.

1

Introduction

This book will attempt to articulate an adequate theological conceptualization of the preached gospel as the word of God. In particular, the hope is to suggest criteria for discerning whether the preached gospel is the word of God. In this introduction, the purpose is to provide an overview of the justification, purpose, method, limitations, presuppositions, and outline of this study.

Justification of Study

The “word of God” is a phrase that occurs repeatedly in the Bible. It refers to the concept that God has sovereignly revealed a divine message that is authoritative and true, for it is no less than a word from God. But if this is so, can a human proclaimer ever claim to preach the word of God? This would be an outrageous claim indeed. But this is a phenomenon to which the Bible attests, for Paul reminds the Thessalonians that they once heard the “word of God” from him (1 Thess 2:13); and Paul also exhorts Timothy to “Preach the Word” (2 Tim 4:2). But how can this phenomenon be conceptualized—a human proclaimer who claims to speak the word of God? And are there any criteria for discerning if a human is proclaiming the word of God?

These are weighty questions with important significance for the Christian church. The Reformers, when breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church, grounded the legitimacy of their church no longer upon the papal authority but upon the preached word. The Reformers argued that the true sheep recognize and gather around the voice of their Shepherd; and the voice of the Shepherd could be heard in the preaching of the word of God. As a result, the Reformers identified the preached word as a “mark” of the church. That is, when God’s people meet and hear the preached word, then this is a guarantee that God’s true church is indeed gathered. Thus, the legitimacy of the Reformation and Christian churches that come from the Reformation tradition was grounded upon the fact that preaching is the word of God.

But were the Reformers guilty of question-begging? Do the sheep really hear the voice of their Shepherd in preaching? By leaving this question unanswered, did the Reformers presume something that was not yet established? Can we conceptualize human proclamation to be a divine word? Can preaching be so readily identified as the word of God? And if so, what conditions would be necessary or sufficient to guarantee that the word of God has been preached? For surely not all preaching is the word of God. These unanswered questions demonstrate an underlying theological problem that the Reformers have raised but failed to address.

Purpose

The purpose of this book will be the exploration of the above theological problem that was raised by the Reformation, namely, how can we conceptualize preaching to be the word of God, and what conditions would be necessary or sufficient to guarantee that the word of God has been preached?

Methodology

My methodology will be to survey the theological stance of the Reformers, examine the biblical revelation regarding the phenomenon of the preached word, and utilize a contemporary philosophical tool carefully appropriated for theological use in order to answer our problem.

The philosophical tool utilized will be speech-act theory. Although there exist other appropriate philosophical tools that analyze language and communication, speech-act theory is particularly appropriate because it seeks to analyze verbal utterances. This is especially relevant for this project because the theological problem raised by the Reformers concerns the preached or spoken gospel (rather than the written word); the biblical phenomenon that this project will be exploring concerns the preached gospel; and the ultimate aim of this project is one that seeks to analyze, clarify, and suggest criteria for the theological conceptualization of the preached gospel.

Speech-act theory is a theory about the use of language. It was initially developed by John Langshaw Austin (1911–1960) in How To Do Things with Words1 and subsequently refined and systematized by his student, John Searle (born 1932).2 At its very heart, it proposes that a speaker is not merely uttering sounds, words, or statements, but is performing an action—hence the name, speech act. Over the last few decades, speech-act theory has been used to provide fresh insights in the disciplines of theological and biblical studies with many promising results. It is my hope that the use of speech-act theory may provide fresh insights in the conceptualization of the biblical phenomenon of the preached word, just as it has in other fields of theological and biblical studies. Perhaps speech-act theory will help in the understanding of how preaching is the word of God and the identification of criteria in discerning if preaching is the word of God.

Clarifications and Limitations

At this stage the task will be clarified and delimited. The term “preaching” refers to the proclamation of a message. Thus, although a message can be communicated through a wide variety of media, my task is to examine the specific medium of oral transmission, that is, the proclamation of a message. The term “word of God” in a general sense would refer to any message from God, no matter what its content would be, no matter how seemingly mundane or exciting. In this general sense, to “preach the word of God” would be to proclaim any message from God. But the term “word of God” in a special sense would refer to a salvific message from God, whose content would be the specific gospel message, which announces that Christ has come as the Savior and Lord, and that all must respond with a life of faith and obedience. In this special sense, to “preach the word of God” would be to proclaim the gospel. The focus of my task will be upon this special sense of the “word of God,” that is, the specific case of preaching the gospel. This focus is warranted because, as we will discover later, the New Testament often refers to this sense; and the Reformers usually referred to this sense when they equated preaching to be the word of God. Therefore, the focus of my task will be limited to the particular concept of the preached gospel as the word of God (in the special sense), rather than the preached word (in the general sense) as the word of God. Thus, it is not within the scope of my present task to examine the preached word of God in its general sense, although this certainly would be a fruitful area for future research.

Theological Presuppositions

The book will be conducted within the following theological presuppositions. First, I acknowledge the existence of divine revelation, that is, the self-disclosure of God to humankind. Although God’s revelation is a unity, it is useful to distinguish between general and special revelation.3 General revelation refers to God’s disclosure that is available to all persons at all times and places, and might include the information about God that is available by studying the natural world, history, and the human conscience. Special revelation, on the other hand, is only available to particular persons at particular times and places. It is conveyed by God’s actions and words, and is most clearly demonstrated in the incarnation of the Word and the inscripturation of God’s spoken word in the Bible.

Second, the Bible is the “inspired” word of God. In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul writes, “all Scripture is God-breathed” (πᾶσα γραφή θεόπνευστος). The adjective θεόπνευστος literally means “God-breathed”4 and refers to the revelatory activity of God in which Scripture has been “breathed-out” or “inspired” by God. But how did God “breathe-out” his Scriptures when they were written by human authors? In 2 Peter 1:19–21, the human authors of Scripture are described as being “carried” by the Holy Spirit. That is to say, the Holy Spirit sovereignly inspired the human author so that the author’s thoughts and words were also what the Spirit wished to express, without necessarily dictating, and without compromising the personality of the author. Thus, in the end, the “inspired” Scriptures are the product of a dual divine-human authorship. Technically, this is usually labeled the concursive theory of inspiration, and can be regarded as a subset of God’s special providence.

Third, Scripture is inerrant because of its divine authorship. Everything that Scripture affirms corresponds to truth and reality, not only in matters of faith and practice, but in all other matters such as history and science—for one cannot conceive how the divine author would lie or mislead. Thus, any matters of seeming inaccuracy are due to our misinterpretations of the text, the non-possession of all the facts or data, or the non-possession of the original manuscripts.

Fourth, a basic continuity within the canon of Scripture, between the two Testaments of Scripture, will be assumed. Old Testament themes, prophecies, and writings are understood to have been fulfilled in the person and work of Christ and the subsequent New Testament church. This is not to say that the Old Testament has been exhaustively fulfilled; but it does allow the interpreter to apply Old Testament texts to the contemporary Christian church.5

Fifth, Scripture should be interpreted using the grammatico-historical method. Each biblical text should be read appropriately to its language, syntax, literary genre, literary context, historical background, and cultural setting. In doing so, the aim is to bring out of the text the same meaning that the original writers intended to express, and that the original hearers or readers were expected to understand. Further, because each biblical text is ultimately authored by God, and each text has its placement in the canon according to God’s providence, then each text should also be interpreted appropriately according to its canonical context.6

Sixth, it is possible for a reader to interpret adequately the objective meaning of Scripture. On the one hand, the finite interpreter is influenced by factors such as language, social context, and culture; further, the fallible interpreter is also influenced by the effects of the fall. On the other hand, through the tools of exegesis, the acknowledgment of one’s presuppositions, the guidance of the church’s interpretation, and the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit, it is possible for an interpreter to approximate the objective meaning of the text.

Finally, because God’s revelation exists as both general and special revelation, it is legitimate to use a variety of sources to inform our theological discussion; further, because God’s revelation exists as a unity, it is legitimate to synthesize our findings into a coherent concept. Valuable insight may be gained through recourse to reason and...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• PART A: The Problem of the Reformers
• PART B: The Biblical Testimony
• PART C: A Fresh Approach
• Appendix
• Bibliography