And
my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive
speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 2:4 (NLT)
John Wesley, the 18th
century founder of Methodism, had a penchant for “plain preaching”. Though his written sermons were theologically
brilliant, logically-organized and academically-powerful, his so-called field
preaching was so “user-friendly” to field hands, factory workers and
the poorest, uneducated common person. But
that was not natural for Wesley; he had to work at learning to put aside the
big words!
James Kiefer has a story
that survives about Wesley which helps us understand why Wesley’s personal charm
and commitment to reaching the least of these turned into a
powerful movement for Christ:
The early Methodist meetings were often
led by lay preachers with very limited education. On one occasion, such a preacher took as his
text Luke 19:21, "Lord, I feared thee, because thou art an austere
man." Not knowing the word
"austere," he thought that the text spoke of "an oyster
man." He spoke about the work of
those who retrieve oysters from the sea-bed. The diver plunges down from the surface, cut
off from his natural environment, into bone-chilling water. He gropes in the dark, cutting his hands on
the sharp edges of the shells. Now he
has the oyster, and kicks back up to the surface, up to the warmth and light
and air, clutching in his torn and bleeding hands the object of his search. So Christ descended from the glory of heaven
into the squalor of earth, into sinful human society, in order to retrieve
humans and bring them back up with Him to the glory of heaven, His torn and
bleeding hands a sign of the value He has placed on the object of His quest. Twelve men were converted that evening. Afterwards, someone complained to Wesley about
the inappropriateness of allowing preachers who were too ignorant to know the
meaning of the texts they were preaching on. Wesley, simply said, "Never mind, the
Lord got a dozen oysters tonight."[2]
John Wesley obviously
understood the nature of priority – putting aside the trivial in favor of getting
the job done. That’s usually a matter of
pride losing when it would rather win.
In a day when many
Methodist established churches go literally years without seeing a single soul
come to Christ, the story of an uneducated, but Christ-honoring layman leading
a service in which 12 people come to their knees in conversion should either
stir us or shame us into getting back to why we are sent in the first place; we
are sent to proclaim the saving message of the cross wherever and to whomever
we encounter, with the express intention of winning them to the Kingdom.
For You Today
A
good question to ask while facing the mirror today is:
What am I
doing about this first kingdom-priority of winning souls for Christ?
And
a second question then becomes unavoidable:
Am I comfortable
stopping there…or will I press on with plain preaching to win more “oysters”?
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