We need to return to a true preaching to the heart, rooted in the principle of grace and focused on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.…And when you have experienced such preaching, or seen its fruit, you will know what true preaching is.

No more poignant or instructive description of the work of the minister of the gospel exists than Paul’s “defensive excursus” in 2 Corinthians 2:14–7:4. Every Christian preacher should aim to possess a good working knowledge of this seminal part of the New Testament, in which Paul simultaneously describes and defends his service as an Apostle of Jesus Christ and a minister of the new covenant. He uses this language explicitly when he affirms, “God has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant” (2 Corinthians 3:6). In what follows, he takes us from the outside of his ministry to its deep internal roots:

Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

It is written, “I believed, therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:1–18)

All truly biblical preaching is preaching to the heart. Therefore, it is important that we have a clear idea of what “preaching to the heart” means.

The Heart

In Scripture, the word heart only rarely denotes the physical organ. It characteristically refers to the central core of the individual’s being and personality: the deep-seated element of a person that provides both the energy and the drive for all the faculties (e.g., Deut. 4:9; Matt. 12:34). It denotes the governing center of life.

Interestingly, of the 858 occurrences of the Hebrew terms that are translated as “heart,” leb and lebab, almost all have reference to human beings (in distinction from either God or other creatures). Indeed, “heart” is the Old Testament’s major anthropological term.

Modern Westerners tend to think of the heart as the center of a person’s emotional life (hence its use as the symbol of romantic rather than volitional love). But the Hebrew conceptualization placed the emotional center lower in the anatomy and located the intellectual energy center of a person in the heart. Hence, the word heart is frequently used as a synonym for the mind, the will, and the conscience, as well as (on occasion) for the affections. It refers to the fundamental bent or characteristic of an individual’s life.

In this sense, when we think about speaking or preaching to the heart, we do not have in view directly addressing the emotions as such. In any event, as Jonathan Edwards argued with such force, the mind cannot be so easily bypassed. Rather, we are thinking of preaching that influences the very core and center of an individual’s being, making an impact on the whole person, including the emotions, but doing so primarily by instructing and appealing to the mind. Such a focus is of paramount importance for preachers because the transformation and the renewal of the heart is what is chiefly in view in their proclamation of the gospel (cf. Rom. 12:1–2).

This, in fact, is already implied in Paul’s description of himself and his companions as “competent ministers of a new covenant” (2 Cor. 3:6). Built into the foundation of the new covenant is the promise of a transformed heart: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart. . . . I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:25–26).

No matter what circumstances under which we preach the Word of God, no matter to whom we are speaking, insofar as we too are called to be “competent ministers of the new covenant,” our preaching must always have the heart in view.

Threefold Openness

Paul speaks more fully here about his own preaching ministry than anywhere else in the New Testament. One of the key notes he strikes is that his preaching to the heart was marked by a threefold openness:

1. It involved an openness of Paul’s being, a transparency before God. “What we are,” he says, “is plain to God” (2 Cor. 5:11).
2. It also implied an opening out of the love that filled his heart toward the people to whom he was ministering. “We have . . . opened wide our hearts to you” (2 Cor. 6:11).
3. Within that twofold context—his own heart opened vertically toward God and horizontally toward those to whom he was seeking to minister—Paul’s preaching to the heart was also characterized by a disclosing (an opening up) of the truth. He expresses this in an illuminating way when he describes it as “setting forth the truth plainly” (2 Cor. 4:2), what the King James Version describes more graphically as “the manifestation of the truth.”

Thus, just as he is an open book in the sight of God, so also the preacher lays open the integrity of his life to the consciences and hearts of his hearers as though he were a letter to be read by them (cf. 2 Cor. 3:2). But these characteristics are never isolated from the way that we handle the Scriptures, opening up and laying bare their message in both exposition and application. The Corinthians had seen these hallmarks in Paul’s ministry. They were a large part of the explanation for his ministry’s power and fruit. They are no less essential to the minister of the gospel today, if he is to preach with similar effect on the hearts of his hearers.

Preaching to the heart, then, is not merely a matter of technique or homiletic style. These things have their proper place and relevance. But the more fundamental, indeed the more essential, thing for the preacher is surely the fact that something has happened in his own heart; it has been laid bare before God by His Word. He, in turn, lays his heart bare before those to whom he ministers. And within that context, the goal that he has in view is so to lay bare the truth of the Word of God that the hearts of those who hear are opened vertically to God and horizontally to one another.

Paul had reflected on this impact of God’s Word in 1 Corinthians 14, in the context of his discussion of tongues and prophecy in the Corinthian church. Prophetic utterance always possesses an element of speaking “to the heart” (Isa. 40:2). Through such preaching, even someone who comes in from the outside finds that “the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming ‘God is really among you’” (1 Cor. 14:24–25).

In the last analysis, this is what preaching to the heart is intended to produce: inner prostration of the hearts of our listeners through a consciousness of the presence and the glory of God. This result distinguishes authentic biblical preaching from any cheap substitute; it marks the difference between preaching about the Word of God and preaching the Word of God.

The presence of this threefold openness, then, is most desirable in preaching. When there is the exposition of the Scriptures, an enlarging and opening of the preacher’s heart, and the exposing of the hearts of the hearers, then the majesty of the Word of God written will be self-evident and the presence of the Word of God incarnate will stand forth in all His glory.

Man Small, God Great

There is a widespread need for this kind of preaching. We have an equal need as preachers to catch the vision for it in an overly pragmatic and programmatic society that believes it is possible to live the Christian life without either the exposing of our own hearts or the accompanying prostration of ourselves before the majesty of God on high.

It is just here that one notices a striking contrast between the biblical exposition one finds in the steady preaching of John Calvin in the sixteenth century and preaching in our own day. It is clearly signaled by the words with which he ended virtually every one of his thousands of sermons: “And now let us bow down before the majesty of our gracious God.” Reformed biblical exposition elevates God and abases man. By contrast, much modern preaching seems to have the goal of making man feel great, even if God Himself has to bow down.

So a leading characteristic of preaching to the heart will be the humbling, indeed the prostration, of hearts before the majesty of God on high. This is simultaneously the true ecstasy of the Christian, and therein lies the paradox of grace: the way down is always the way up.

But if, through the preaching of the gospel, we want to see people prostrated with mingled awe and joy before God, the essential prerequisite is that we ourselves be prostrated before Him. John Owen’s words still ring true even after three and a half centuries: “A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul. . . . If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.”

Preaching to the heart—through whatever personality, in whatever style—will always exhibit the following five characteristics:

1. A right use of the Bible. Preaching to the heart is undergirded by our familiarity with the use of sacred Scripture. According to 2 Timothy 3:16, all Scripture is useful (Greek ophelimos) for certain practical functions: for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

If it were not for the fact that a chapter division appears in our Bibles at this point (giving the impression that Paul is now changing gears in his charge to Timothy), we would not so easily miss the point implicit in what he goes on to say. In 2 Timothy 4:1–2, Paul takes up these same uses of Scripture (teaching, rebuking, correcting, encouraging in godly living) and applies them. In effect, he says to Timothy, “Use the God-breathed Scriptures this way in your ministry!”

Those who love the richer, older theology of the Reformation and Puritan eras, and of Jonathan Edwards and Thomas Boston, may be tempted to look askance at the modern professor of preaching as he hands out copies of his “preaching grid” to the incoming class of freshmen taking Homiletics 101. But the fact is that here we find Paul handing out the last copy of his own “preaching grid” to Timothy. This is by no means the only preaching grid to be found, either in Scripture or in the Reformed tradition, but it certainly is a grid that ought to be built into our basic approach to preaching.

Thus informed, we come to see that preaching to the heart will give expression to four things: instruction in the truth, conviction of the conscience, restoration and transformation of life, and equipping for service. Let us not think that we have gained so much maturity in Christian living and service that we can bypass the fundamental structures that the apostles give us to help us practically in these areas.

Preaching, therefore, involves teaching—imparting doctrine in order to renew and transform the mind. It implies the inevitable rebuke of sin, and brings with it the healing of divine correction. The language of “correction” (Greek epanorthosis) is used in the Septuagint for the rebuilding of a city or the repair of a sanctuary. Outside of biblical Greek, it is used in the medical textbooks of the ancient world for the setting of broken limbs. It is a word that belongs to the world of reconstruction, remedy, healing, and restoration.

This brings us to another characteristic of the Apostle Paul: a masterful balance between the negation of sin and the edification of the Christian believer, “so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” If we are going to preach to the heart, then our preaching will always (admittedly in different kinds of balance) be characterized by these four marks of authenticity.

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