Scripture reading in the service is often reduced to the reading for the sermon. Contrast this with
the Eastern Orthodox liturgy. For instance, Robert Letham lists the readings in the EO liturgy for
Good Friday — John 13:31-18:1; John 18:1-28; Matthew 26:57-75; John 18:28-19:16; Matthew
27:3-32; Mark 15:16-32; Matthew 27:33-54; Luke 23:32-49; John 19:25-37; Mark 15:43-47;
John 19:38-42; Matthew 27:62-66 and, quite literally, these are just starters. There are probably a
couple of dozen more Scripture readings in addition to those already mentioned.
This brings to light one of the deepest problems with preaching as understood and practiced
within conservative evangelicalism. This problem is the priority that it tends to give to our own
words in worship, over God’s words. Our words gradually squeeze out God’s words. Rather than
letting preaching be the handmaid of God’s Word, we will reduce the Scripture readings far
sooner than we will cut down the length of the sermon.
The responsive and receptive character of Christian worship becomes downplayed and our words
become less and less controlled by God’s Word. The Scripture content of the liturgy and prayers
plummets, to be replaced by evangelical clichés. The texts for sermons become ever shorter.
Some evangelical preachers pride themselves on preaching huge sermons on a couple of words in
a text. This often has the effect of leaving preaching largely uncontrolled by the Scriptures. For
many sermons the ‘text’ is merely a pretext or springboard to explore a dimension of systematic
theology or the like.
Evangelical worship is full of the noise of our own voices. We continually speak at God but
don’t take the necessary time to attend to and to digest what He might be saying to us. Having
more times of silent response to readings of the Word of God, for instance, would be a huge step
in the right direction, as would having more lengthy readings that are not preached on (throwing
out the technology that eclipses the simplicity of worship would also be helpful). Sometimes we
need to resist the urge to continually rush to say what the Scriptures mean and just allow them to
work on us, practicing the art of listening to Scripture together (which means that we do NOT
read along in our own Bibles). Contemporary evangelical worship, with all of its technological
bells and whistles, provides us with dozens of distractions from the simplicity of the Word of
God and from the terrifying silence that might actually lead to personal or theological epiphanies.
Preaching has come to be understood as a great rhetorical event. I believe that significant changes
in popular evangelical preaching styles would have to take place in order to bring them more in
line with Scripture. Calm Scriptural exposition should replace many of the impassioned
rhetorical displays that one hears from evangelical pulpits (rhetorical displays that often disguise
a depressing lack of content). The pastor should teach the congregation as a father teaches his
children. This means that the ideal position is sitting, not standing, and that shouting and the
raising of voice for rhetorical effect is generally unnecessary.
The pastor should also remember that he is like a father teaching children, something that many
evangelical preachers forget. If unbelievers attend worship they are eavesdroppers; the gathered
worship of the Church is not for their benefit, but is about the relationship between God and His
people. The fact that preaching in the Church is for children means that preaching is for the
converted. Sin and unbelief are still addressed, but they are addressed as issues in the lives of the
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