Is Gentle Preaching Unsound?

Beware of picking our preaching by appetite...

Every preacher has heard some version of it: “We need more hard lessons.” I know that request usually comes from a good place. Most of us love the truth, and none of us wants to sit under a pulpit that’s afraid of its own Bible. I’m with you on that. A church that never hears about sin is headed for trouble.

But there’s an assumption that often rides along with that request, and I’d like us to look at it honestly. It goes like this: a gentler sermon is a weaker sermon, and a weaker sermon is probably a little suspect. Somewhere along the way we started grading sermons by the bruises. If we walk out with our toes stepped on, we figure the man preached the truth. If we walk out encouraged, we start wondering if he’s going soft. I don’t think the Bible lets us measure preaching that way, and I’d like to show you why.

What Paul Meant by “Sound”

Paul keeps coming back to the word sound when he writes to Timothy and Titus. But you are to proclaim things consistent with sound teaching, Titus 2:1. The Greek word for “sound” is where we get our word “hygiene,” and it means healthy. Sound doctrine is teaching that makes us spiritually well.

That ought to change how we judge a sermon. When you go to the doctor for a checkup, you don’t grade the visit by how much the shot hurt. You want to know what the bloodwork says and whether the treatment’s working. A painful shot can still be the wrong medicine, and a doctor with a soft voice can hand you the prescription that saves your life.

So when Paul calls teaching sound, he’s asking whether it’s true to what God said and whether we’re getting healthier under it. He doesn’t say a word about volume.

Paul Worried About Itching Ears

Right after Paul tells Timothy to correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching, he explains why. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itching ear, 2 Timothy 4:2-3.

Paul was worried about us picking our preaching by appetite. We usually picture that as folks who only want to hear pleasant things, and that happens plenty. But I’ve come to believe appetite can run the other way too. You and I can pick up a taste for harshness. Give it enough years, and we’ll feel shortchanged when a sermon doesn’t leave a mark, the way some folks think coffee isn’t coffee unless it is so strong the spoon floats. That’s still our ear deciding what it wants to hear.

Faithful preaching follows the text, and the text sets the tone. Some passages are going to sting. Others were written to pick you up off the floor. Those of us who stand in the pulpit are doing exactly what Paul asked of Timothy when we handle both honestly.

Gentleness Is a Command

If you’ve ever suspected gentleness is a compromise, spend a few minutes with this passage. The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach, and patient, instructing his opponents with gentleness. Perhaps God will grant them repentance leading them to the knowledge of the truth, 2 Timothy 2:24-25.

Paul’s talking about correcting people who are wrong, even people who oppose the truth. You can’t get much closer to hard-lesson territory than that, and twice in two verses he says to handle it with gentleness. He puts it on the list of requirements for anyone who teaches, right next to being able to teach.

He also tells us what he’s hoping for, that God might bring those people to repentance. Paul expected gentleness to open doors that harshness slams shut. Think about the last time you felt attacked. You probably quit listening long before the other person got to the point. I know I have.

Paul practiced what he wrote. Nobody’s ever accused him of going easy on doctrine. He confronted Peter to his face in Antioch, Galatians 2:11, and he told the Corinthians to hand an unrepentant man over to Satan, 1 Corinthians 5:5. Yet this same apostle reminded the Thessalonians, we were gentle among you, as a nurse nurtures her own children, 1 Thessalonians 2:7. A few verses later he compares himself to a father who encouraged and comforted each of his children, 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12. If gentleness makes a preacher unsound, we’d have to throw Paul out too.

Look to Jesus

When the soundest teacher who ever lived described himself, here’s what he said: Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, Matthew 11:29. A number of translations render that first word “gentle,” and either way you get the same picture.

Jesus had a hard edge when he needed one. He drove the money changers out of the temple, and in Matthew 23 he pronounced woe after woe on the scribes and Pharisees. But notice who got that treatment. It was proud religious leaders who were loading burdens onto other people’s backs. The weary and the ashamed found him tender. Matthew applies Isaiah’s words to him: He will not break a bruised reed, Matthew 12:20.

That’s a good model for every pulpit. On any given Sunday, you might be the one who’s gotten comfortable and needs waking up. Or you might be the one who’s spent all week beating yourself up and needs to hear that grace is still real. Odds are you’re sitting right next to the other one. If all we ever do from the pulpit is one or the other, we’re going to miss half the room. Jesus read people well enough to know when to press and when to lift, and that’s what we’re aiming for.

A Better Way to Measure

If you’ve been grading sermons by how hard they hit, let me suggest a different question for the drive home. Was that true to the Bible, and am I closer to Christ because I heard it? If the answer’s yes, you heard sound preaching, no matter how loud it was.

And if you’ve caught yourself wishing for more stomping lately, it might be worth asking where that wish comes from. Sometimes the hard lesson we need is the one about our own appetite.

From Fear to Faith | fromfearto.faith