When Practice meets Preaching vol. 4

The challenge of the sermon as an effective tool for communication in our modern world suggests that pastors must confront challenges associated with the popularity of the TED talk as the model for communication. Such a model suggest among other characteristics, a short presentation, given largely without notes, limited in details and containing memorable visuals. Most of this would have been foreign to Edwards but given his audience and the needs of Puritan America, how did Edwards utilize the sermon as a tool for communication .

Continued from vol. 3

It is therefore the sermon itself which becomes the vehicle for Edwards to address the challenges of life and death, godliness and temptation-- all through the medium of the Scriptures. And all of it, finding their solution in some capacity through the practice of exercises which Edwards embedded into the text of the manuscript. 

By the seventeenth century the puritan sermon had evolved into a three part structured format consisting of: explication, confirmation, and application; or what Edwards would later identify more loosely as the text, doctrine and application. A century before, John Wilkins had developed a trip-part outline and added an intricate series of sub-headings for each part, ultimately both doctrinal and practical applications for the maximum impact of the sermon. Additionally, with regard to the application, the doctrinal and practical categories were further divided by their use in reproof, exhortation, or as self-examination in the life of the listener. 

Edwards in time would relax the more formal structure of his early days, sometimes by abandoning the manuscript in favor of extemporaneous exhortation and counsel. Sometimes as a result of the new demands placed on him in assuming the Northampton Pulpit, he added mnemonic cues to provide great ease in achieving eye contact with his audience. As a sidebar, modern preacher often choose between extemporaneous material that can lack depth and overly scripted manuscripts that can handcuff the Spirit in the interest of speaking to the soul. Specifically in Stockbridge, where his constituents lacked the theological or academic background, he rendered sermons that were little more than bare outlines of his subject. So, for example, a sermon drawn from I Corinthians 2:14 entitled, " A Spiritual Understanding of Denied to the Unregenerate " was delivered between 1723 and 1729 and reflects the formal structure consistent with Edwards' early work. Edwards first presents an introduction of the text and the matter at hand:

There is scarcely any similitude made use of more frequently or is more insisted upon in the Scripture to set forth truth, religion, and the Gospel by, than light. Thus God is compared to the luminary, for it is said, "He is light", and in Him, no darkness at all" [I John 1:5]... The Spiritual wisdom is the subject of this chapter, wherein the Apostle is declaring to us how far it excels the wisdom of this world.and it, as it were, disdains all those little superficial ornaments and trivial decorations with which the wise men of this world were wont to set off their wisdom... But the wisdom of God needs not be dressed up in such gay clothing.  Such ornaments are vastly too mean for divine truth, which is most amiable in her own native. beauty and genuine simplicity, and is as beautiful in a poor man or a babe, as in a prince, and as powerful in Paul's weakness and fear and much trembling, as it would be in all the wisdom of the philosophers and eloquence of their great orators. For the power of Divine light doesn't depend upon the eloquence of the speaker, but upon the demonstration of the Spirit of God. ( Jonathan Edwards, Sermons and Discourse, 1723-29, 70-71)

I'll delve into the sermon in greater detail in our next installment, providing examples of the structure that Edwards utilized for the early years of his career. 

Stay tuned. 

MJC