It’s funny that you posted this article when you did.
It ties in with the sermon delivered in our church
yesterday.

This sermon was on the life giving power of God’s word.
One of the things were were asked to think about was the
following:

“Do you regard what others say about the word of
God more highly than we regard the word of God
itself?”

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

I think Tim Keller is the shizzle. And the reason is that he preaches and pastors to a contemporary New York audience. He does not spend his time rehashing the theological disputes of other eras. He does not preach to the concerns of a century ago. He does not go to the pulpit planning to quote 5 Reformed Big Daddies to prove his point.

IOWs, the sermon is shaped by the text, and by the contemporary situation. I BELIEVE THOSE ARE TWO OF THE PRIMARY ARENAS IN WHICH THE HS WORKS. (The third being the preacher’s own life.) Making the text contemporary is important. Addressing the people in front of you is important.

Do you realize that thousands of reformed preachers and teachers go to the pulpit to do their 24th sermon in a series on Limited atonement? That Reformed Preachers often preach theology right out of the systematic with no application? That saying “Spurgeon said X” is considered “good preaching” in a lot of these quarters?

It is ironic that all the books Reformed preachers buy of preaching by other reformed preachers may wind up making them worse preachers.

I can say without hesitation that the Lectionary preaching I read among mainline preachers CONSISTENTLY takes the text more seriously for a CONTEMPORARY audience in the pews in front of them than most reformed preachers take the text they are expounding to their congregation.

Good reformed preaching is born in the contemporary experience of preacher, text and congregation. Read Eugene Peterson and Robert Capon on preaching. And if we read the greats of the past, let them be preachers to their own day…not ours.

I certainly agree it’s possible (even likely) that one can become submerged in past Christian writers or theologians to the point of unhealthy veneration (i.e., Merton). But my read on why many do this has nothing to do with nostalgia and/or despising our times. Rather, I think many are driven to the writers of our past (Edwards, Spurgeon, Puritans, Augustine, etc.) because they long for the present to be better than it is. I don’t think such people are uncomfortable with the present day as much as they are BROKEN for it.

I understand your point here: “… my own soul must be sustained by the God who meets me in the present, in the shape and contours of my own life experience, not someone elses.” Good thoughts …

Maybe I just hope some of that genius will transfer over. Maybe it will be my most precious memory of him. But in any case, I will treasure those notes (and grieve mightily when I receive them).

What is on my mind here is the difference between sacred history- which I think is an aspect of the unity of the church, the oneness and catholicity of the church- and nostalgia, captivity by the past, idolatry of the past, etc.

The point has been well made- and I’ve made it- that the teachers of the church are there for all of us in every age, but I’m convinced there is a kind of “virus” in Christianity that is so uncomfortable with the present (and there is a lot to be uncomfortable with) that we wind up DESPISING OUR “DAY.” We wind up despising our own lives and looking backward far too much.