Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 85:1 (Spring 2023)
Article: Preaching In The Power Of The Holy Spirit: An Ordinary Expectation?
Author: John Currie

WTJ 85:1 (Spring 2023) p. 21

Preaching In The Power Of The Holy Spirit:
An Ordinary Expectation?

John Currie

John Currie is Professor of Pastoral Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. This article is an adaptation of material in John Currie, The Pastor as Leader: Principles and Practices for Connecting Preaching and Leadership (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, forthcoming); used by permission.

… and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

—1 Corinthians 2:4 ESV

The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching, of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort, through faith, unto salvation.

—Westminster Shorter Catechism 89

I. Introduction

Both the apostle Paul and the Westminster Divines expected that the presence and power of the Spirit of God would make the preaching of the Word of God effective to the accomplishment of God’s purposes in those who hear it. Archibald Alexander followed in this apostolic and Reformed expectation when he provided the charge at the ordination of a former student. The Old Princeton professor exhorted the new pastor:

Be much concerned about the success of your ministry! Cry mightily to God, that He would follow your labours with His blessing, and give you precious souls for your hire, and as seals of your mission.… Desire success and expect it.… Do not be elated with prosperity in preaching or depressed when straitened.1

Do such aspiration and expectation exist in contemporary Reformed preachers? Why is it that congregations are too often left to lament a characteristic lack of power in much of the preaching they receive? Why do some doctrinally orthodox and textually accurate pulpits seem ineffectual in leading the kind of individual and corporate transformation the NT would lead us to envision from a regular diet of the faithfully preached Word? Why do some sermons seem

WTJ 85:1 (Spring 2023) p. 22

detached from the grandeur, goodness, and life-altering effect of the realities they claim to expound? How is it that orthodox preaching can too often seem to supply an abundance of accurate information without effecting any observable transformation in its listeners? How many pastors feel the pressure of the internal critique on Monday mornings, “Why does my ministry seem to lack the power envisioned in the Scriptures?”

Respected preachers of previous generations observed this phe...