Mark Abdelmessieh, Author at Refcast

Eloquence and the Heart, Part 2

Who deserves the presence and the empowerment of the third person of the Godhead? We surely can do nothing to merit His blessing. “God doesn’t use people because they are gifted. He uses people (even preachers) because he is gracious… If we do believe (this), then we will pray – we will pray before we speak, and we will pray for others before they speak.”[17] Indeed, we can only ask humbly and earnestly and ask (and even teach) our audience to pray for this unction upon us as we bring God’s Word to them.

How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34)

In the first part, we saw how eloquence can have a place in Biblical preaching only when it takes the role of servant not master. The master is the Bible. Any form of eloquence that will hinder the message is must be done with. Any form of eloquence that will hone the Biblical message can be used for the glory of God and the benefit of God’s people. Now we turn to the important truth that the seat of eloquence is the heart.
Too often when the word “eloquence” is mentioned we think first of the gift, the skill, the art, the tongue, the will and the mental abilities. However, the truth that Jesus binds speech primarily to the heart should inform all our thinking about God glorifying eloquence.
William Perkins penned, “Gracious speech expresses the grace of the heart.”[1] It is not a surprise then that when people heard Jesus, they said “no one ever spoke like this man!” (Jh. 7:46; cf. Lk. 4:22). Jesus was the most eloquent man who ever lived because He owned the purest heart ever existed.
If the main telos of preaching is not merely to deliver information, but to seek the transformation of the hearers, then the preacher’s heart must be first transformed by the content he preaches.[2] In other words, if the goal of preaching is “to bring people face to face with the living God”[3] then the preacher’s heart must experience this encounter first. It is this transformed heart that is filled with the reality of God’s character and God’s messages that best sees and exhibits Him (Matt. 5:8).
The prophet Jeremiah knew something of this truth when he said, “there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it (that is God’s Word) in, and I cannot” (Jer. 20:9). Paul echoes the same truth in saying, “I believed, and so I spoke.” (2 Cor. 4:13). It is only when the heart is filled with living faith and burning zeal for the truth that the mouth will speak with true eloquent. This principle is behind the fact that “beggars are often eloquent”, A. Alexander expressed. For, “The most important point in true eloquence is to be absorbed in the subject so as to think of nothing else. He who understands and feels his subject and lets nature give the expression, possesses the eloquence of which I speak.”[4] In another place he adds, “To have the heart of the preacher duly impressed with the importance of what he delivers, is better than all rules, and will in great measure cover defects, or rather remove them. Nature teaches the proper tunes to those who have strong feelings much more effectually than any rules of rhetoric.”[5] No doubt the two disciples on the road to Emmaus had burning tongues because they had burning hearts (Lk. 24:31-35)!
How then can your heart be kindled with the truth you seek to preach? It must be admitted that this is primarily the gracious work of God’s Spirit. However, when the Spirit works, the preacher will seek “not only to cultivate piety generally,” but to prepare his heart “for every discourse” he is seeking to deliver. Unfortunately, many preachers fail in the due preparation of their own hearts before preaching.[6] One way to prepare one’s heart is by preaching every sermon to one’s own heart first. Without savoring and digesting the truth first, one cannot deliver it with power for others to taste it.[7] The heart (and the preaching) cannot be dull if the glory of God is manifest to it. “A pastor who is not manifestly glad in God does not glorify God… A bored and unenthusiastic tour guide in the Alps contradicts and dishonors the majesty of the mountains.”[8] If the heart is kindled with the majesty of God, the tongue will follow.
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Eloquence and the Preaching of the Gospel, Part 1

By Mark Abdelmessieh — 4 months ago

The power[14] comes from the gospel message itself, not any manmade formulations. Hence Paul’s consistent emphasis on the content of his message: “We preach Christ” (1 Cor. 1:23). “Him we proclaim” (Col. 1:28). “What we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord” (2 Cor. 4:5). “To me . . . this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8).[15] The savior is Christ, not eloquence.

Moses said to the Lord, ‘Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent…I am slow of speech and of tongue.’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? … Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak…’ (Ex. 4:10-12, cf. Jer. 1:6-9)
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
(1 Cor. 1:17; cf. 2 Cor. 10:10).
Moses, the greatest prophet in the Old Testament, and Paul, the greatest apostle in the New Testament, were unparalleled spokesmen of God. Both of them had something to say about eloquence. Moses, at the beginning of his calling, saw his lack of an eloquent tongue as a hindrance for God’s commission to him.[1] Paul throughout his ministry saw a form of human eloquence (“cleverness in speaking”[2]) as a hinderance to the power of his message.[3] However, both men exhibited an exceptional from of eloquence in their preaching, teaching and writing ministries. Moses is “the first preacher whose ministry is described for us”[4] in the Scripture. At the last part of his ministry life, the Scripture records for us three of his unequalled sermons filled with exposition, exhortation and application (Deut. 1:5ff; 5:1-21; 29).[5] Throughout the second half of the book of Acts, we meet with Paul the effective preacher (Acts 13:16-47; 17:22-31; 20:18-35; 22:1-12; 24:10-21; 26:1-29). In addition, one cannot mention Paul’s comments on eloquence without thinking of the description of his co-laborer Apollos who is described as “an eloquent man (λόγιος) competent in the Scriptures” (Acts 18:24). Yet, as Herman Bavinck wisely affirms, the prophets and the apostles read nothing of the works of rhetoric (i.e., Cicero or Quintilian) yet they were eloquent. However, their eloquence was “not by their own practice, but by divine gift… not by human calling, but by the power of divine right. Eloquence for them was not design but nature, a gift rather than art.”[6]
How then can we understand Paul’s comment that he desired “to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power”? How are we to make from the Scripture’s favorable description of Apollos as “an eloquent man”? How can rhetoric or eloquence[7] play the role of servant not master in preaching? Is eloquence only a gift, or is it an art as well? How can the preacher’s eloquence go hand in hand with a genuine dependence on the Spirit? This series of articles attempt to discuss these questions and present some practical ways eloquence can be used in the service of the Gospel’s preaching.
Man Speaks because God Speaks
“In the beginning was the Word…” (Jh. 1.1)
Before diving into the topic of eloquence it is suitable to first consider the truth that it presupposes: the ability of humans to speak. It is part of being created in the image of God that humans are able to communicate with language (Gen. 1:26-27). God created the world by his Word. Speech is one of the first actions attributed to God in Scripture (1:1-3). The first activity attributed to created man is also the powerful speech by which he named the animals (2:20). Animals cannot speak and cannot name themselves. “Language is the Rubicon between the animal and the human.”[8] However, naming the animals was just the beginning of man’s experience of how powerfully his speech as image bearer can reflect God. When Eve was created, Adam celebrated her as God’s gift by exceptionally eloquent poetry (2:23). In the fall, Adam’s God honoring eloquence was degraded (3:10-13). Yet, it is God’s desire that all who are redeemed in Christ, the logos, reflect a redeemed speech (Col. 4:6; 3:16; Eccl. 10:12). If this is the case for all God’s redeemed, how much more would it be for the tongues of the men that God will graciously grant the honor of being his spokesmen, the preachers?[9]
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