Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 48:191 (Jul 1891)
Article: Plain Preaching
Author: Theodore W. Hunt

BSac 48:191 (July 1891) p. 420

Plain Preaching

Prof. T. W. Hunt

“THERE is a word,” says Carlyle, “which if spoken to men, to the actual generation of men, would thrill their inmost souls—but how to find that word, how to speak it when found!” By the minister of the gospel, that word for which Carlyle searched and waited has already been found, as given him of God to use and diffuse precisely as it has been given; but just how to declare it is a question of vital moment, if so be it may secure the beneficent and saving ends for which it has been entrusted to men.

It is our purpose, at present, to emphasize the necessity of plainness in the teaching and proclamation of the truth,— a matter of essential moment to all those to whom its dispensation has been committed. As it is a question, partly, educational and literary in its import, and, partly, ethical and spiritual, we shall reach the best results by discussing it under each of these aspects.

I. Plainness, in the educational sense, means “clearness of presentation,” “intelligibility.” It is what the old writers meant by making the truth “understandable;” what Mr. Arnold means by “lucidity,” as a condition of all literary excellence.

The word “teaching,” which, at this point, may be regarded as synonymous with preaching, means, in its old English etymology, an interpretation; a setting forth or an exhibition of the truth on such wise that it shall be unmis-

BSac 48:191 (July 1891) p. 421

takably seen to be the truth. The terms and forms in which it is embodied and expressed are to be so pronounced and open that as soon as they are seen they shall be understood.

It is interesting to note the emphasis which the Bible lays upon this matter of intelligibility as related to the teaching of the truth.

The evangelist Philip said to the eunuch, intently seeking the meaning of Scripture, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” Christ said to his waiting disciples, after making known to them his parables and their interpretation, “Have ye understood all these things?” “He that received seed into the good ground, is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it.” On his way to Emmaus with the two disciples, it is said that the Saviour “opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures.” In the Old Testament, we find that Ezra’s appointed helpers “read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.” The apostle, in his letters to Timothy and Titus, insists that all teachers of the truth be “apt to teach;” that they be not “novices.” He stoutly condemns those who desire “to be teachers of the law; ...