Preach the Word

The Bible and only the Bible is the ultimate and infallible spiritual authority in the lives of believers. We have fought a series of skirmishes over the infallibility of Scripture.

But, who today believes as Calvin did? Who today treats the Bible as Calvin did? Who today thinks that the Bible opened in the pulpit is a lit stick of dynamite, one that mere mortals are ordained to just throw out into the world? How many preachers have sermons on file that they would not dare to preach without purchasing some extra life insurance first?

More preachers ought to ascend into the pulpit with the look that Wylie Coyote had on his face when he was just handed the anvil.

Spurgeon used to walk up the stairs to his pulpit, and every step he would say “I believe in the Holy Spirit”, “I believe in the Holy Spirit”…Now why was this? Is this because Spurgeon had butterflies? Why is Saint Paul after many years in ministry asking believers of his day to pray for boldness so that he could preach the Word? Why his he praying for boldness? It is not because Paul struggled with stage fright. That’s not why. He knew what happened when he preached the Word.

There was an Anglican cleric who said famously, “you know wherever the Apostle Paul went, there was either a revival or a riot. Everywhere I go they serve tea.”

–Douglas Wilson, From his talk, The Sacred Script in the Theater of God, given at the 2009 Desiring God National Conference.