A Special Gift…

SUN., MAR. 20, 1994, 2:16 AM
FARM, STUDY

The Church, which is the Body of Christ here in the earth, has within it many members, some of whom have special gifts. These are necessary for the full functioning of this Body… are gifts of Mine to certain persons. Now if I controlled completely the organization of each Church congregation I could be certain that these gifts are distributed perfectly. I choose not to be such a perfect “director.” This means that some congregations include several persons with comparable gifts, but no person with another important gift. An example: there could be several with the gift of preaching, but no one gifted as a healer.

Since the theme for this morning is preaching, I’ll also talk mostly about this as a special gift. Your National Church is organized so that the one or ones who preach regularly… who have the regular opportunity of interpreting the Scriptures to the congregation, in order to improve their lives… must have graduated from a college or university and a seminary and must be ordained to the ministry. It is assumed that all who have such requisite education and ordination and who are called to a parish pastorate have this gift. Not so… because I don’t direct the process in detail.

Now the question has occurred to you: is this gift of preaching “all or none”? No, it isn’t. There are a few who have a mighty gift, while many more have some gift, which, combined with seminary training, can produce some pretty good preaching. But there are some churches with no one having this as a sufficient gift to make the congregation a full functioning one. Fortunately, there are other gifts, and when these abound the congregation can do well, even with inferior preaching.

The gift also is manifested in different ways. For some it may be in delivery… style, voice, inflections, emphases, volume, vocabulary. As you know, I tend to agree with you (or should it be you agreeing with Me?) that real preaching is not reading from a prepared text, unless one’s reading style is superior. A well-prepared, well thought-out sermon should flow from notes, with opportunities for Me to influence the choice of words during the actual preaching, rather than just in the quiet of preparation.

Another manifestation of the gift, however, is in the actual knowledge and interpretation of the Scriptural base, freely chosen or given in the lectionary. Some can take one or more passages of Scripture and organize these in such a way that listeners have these passages “opened to them,” seeing application in their daily lives. You remember “Everybody Needs a Barnabas,” a supreme example of such an interpretive sermon.

Yet another different way in which the gift is exhibited is the capacity to choose and describe examples from ongoing life, including some personal, that tie in well with Scripture or, sometimes, actually substitute for the Biblical base. Remember that much of Scripture is a story of action and words from a time long ago now, and current descriptions may be more relevant in getting across Biblical TRUTH than the actual original passages.

The most important manifestation of the gift, however, is in the capacity to get and hold listeners’ attention and inspire these toward living in more selfless, dedicated ways. There is a danger here in becoming too specific as to how each hearer should respond. That’s a good reason for having different churches and congregations, so that in one a sermon urging all to oppose abortion would be accepted as inspirational, while in another the same sermon would be divisive, whereas one calling for a stewardship of the whole of creation would be more inspirational.