This simple, sincere question was asked by one of our young men in the Adelaide Mutual Improvement Class who had listened to a talk on, “The Preparation of Lectures”, and afterwards said, “When no subject is selected for you, what should we talk about?” “Tell your hearers”, he was told, “what they need to know”.
Is this the right answer, or would it be thought too indefinite?
As it stands it sets the enquirer back to find out first what the listener’s real need is. Assuming that the answer is “true knowledge”, would it then be helpful to compile a graded list of subjects based on the first principles of doctrine and propose that selection be restricted to them? This, we feel, would be very much like a humanly devised dividing up of the gospel message: something, it would seem, that is foreign to its nature.
If used as “stepping stones”, the doctrinal first principles provide the means for rising to the higher view that will encompass the whole of the divine purpose. That there is something of vital importance involved in this apparently simple problem is realized if we consider the extent of the effort, time and expense that our ecclesias everywhere give to the duty of proclaiming the Gospel.
The lectures, while not the only means of Imparting knowledge of the gospel, are necessarily the main avenue of our preaching. A right choice of subjects is therefore a most vital factor in determining their success. Yet, after all the devoted effort and thoughtful planning that is given to this essential duty, we cannot help being aware of the critical comments, both written and oral, coming from local sources and also further afield.
It is being said that our lectures are “too complex”, “too hard to understand”. “Let us”, pleads one sister, “have more simplicity”. Some lectures are too much like academic orations — more calculated to frighten away listeners than to draw them to the foot of the Cross. “We should recognise that the majority of interested friends noticed in passing are ‘babes’ in scriptural knowledge: for them strong meat is unsuitable.” And invited visitors tell us that even in study classes, as well as lectures, what was said -went right over our head”.
These views, with others that come to our notice, are distressing reminders that in some instances our lecturing efforts fail to achieve their objective. Yet it is quite rightly acknowledged that our aim as servants in the household of Christ—the witnesses and custodians of the Truth in our age—is to pass on to others the message that has been heard by us. Where, then, is the reason for any failure? Could it be that we do not really touch the real need of the people we speak to?
“We do well”, said one of our number, “to keep to the forefront of our minds the purpose of our preaching. Our message is not simply a code of ethics; not primarily a message of a Golden Age to come.- The essence of the message is that God has acted and is acting in human affairs to effect men’s salvation, and we are firstly witnesses to what God has done. “The motive of our preaching is to be as God’s motive in his great plan of reconciliation, as Christ’s motive in giving himself: a love that is higher, nobler, purer than anything that men and women experience naturally. Is that our attitude to those without?”
Speak to them in the spirit of Paul’s words about this action of God for men, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself—entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us”.1
“No man thinks up the way of salvation for himself, and what he thinks or feels about it is valueless—the real hope rests in knowing God as he has revealed himself, knowing man in the light of God’s revelation, and knowing Christ as the way of salvation. . . . Christ knew God and it was this knowledge that was conveyed. 2
In those words—so well expressed—is shown just where our duty lies, and gives the meaning of what we believe our hearers really need to know.
The truth of it is seen in Paul’s words, “I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures . . .”,3 and further described to Timothy as “the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted”,4 and which, too, we may claim has been given into our trust also, something we must accept as “of first importance”.
In all the words the apostles used in referring to their mission runs the deep compelling tones of gladness. It is “the good news”, the “glad tidings of Jesus Christ”. Christ opened his ministry at Nazareth with those words, “to preach good news to the poor”, and the same spirit has been sustained ever since by all his apostles and household members.
The gospel has not changed, nor the imperative need of men and women either, but it may fail in our hands if we forget to keep the “gladness” in the manner of our preaching.
References
1—2 Cor. 5. 18. R.S.V.
2—”Christadelphian”, August 1963.
3—1 Cor. 15. 3. R.S.V.
4—1 Tim. 1. 11. R.S.V.
Lord, What wilt thou have me to do?