en reviews editor John Woods speaks to Michael Reeves. Reeves oversees the work of Union School of Theology, and teaches in the areas of systematic and historical theology and also on preaching and spiritual formation. He is a local church minister, Director of the European Theologians Network, and speaks and teaches regularly worldwide. Previously he has been Head of Theology for student organisation UCCF and an Associate Minster at All Souls, Langham Place. He is married to Bethan and they have two daughters.
JW: What do you do when you are not preaching, teaching or writing?
MR: Primarily I’m reading. I am either studying, or I am doing reading for my own pleasure. I find the reading for my own pleasure contributes to further thinking about the world and how we relate to it. It often opens up insights. I enjoy reading theology when I am working and a lot of history, where the culture is at, some fiction but not loads.
There is a danger for a younger generation that is more screen based that they will be trained out of an ability to concentrate long and hard on one subject. One of the streams of theology that has had the most impact on me is that of the Puritans, and the reason that many find the Puritans difficult to deal with is that they demand that you sit down with them for 100 pages on an issue. The point of what the Puritans are doing, which is a good model for preachers, is that they are not seeking to give information for you to go away with, but seeking to hold your focus to shape your affections, so that the light of what they are teaching percolates deep down into you. Some of the spiritual shallowness that we see in the church, manifested partly in the dropout rate that we see in pastors (40% of pastors have considered quitting in the last year), is fed by a lack of deep grounding. This deep grounding can only come from the ability to refresh yourself constantly in your knowledge of the glory of God. If you cannot give time to good concentrated reading for that, you become more fragile and shallower.
JW: How would you advise preachers to make the right choices about their time?
MR: I think you need to recognise what you are getting from each form of content. Screens are particularly alluring, and they tend to present you with the urgent. Therefore, there is the constant temptation to feel the need to keep up with the latest issue. Where that can lead you is to be overwhelmed by too much information, but at the same time as being overwhelmed, actually finding you don’t have deep roots. While there is a place for knowing what is going on in the world right now, there is a far deeper need for Christian leaders to be well rooted in Scripture and theology. Therefore, anyone who is a pastor or a Christian leader needs to be able to say: ‘What I am getting from screens will only give me a certain percentage of helpful content and input, and I need to balance that.’ It increasingly takes more discipline today to fight against the urgent with the importance of developing those deep theological roots. Coming back to the Puritans; you look at those preachers and pastors that seem to be most influential in the lives of their people, who seem to have the most spiritual gravitas, they seem to have invested the most time in reading extensively and deeply. They speak from a deep well. If you have not fed that well, you are going to be as shallow as your people.
JW: The Puritans impart information, but they do so with imagination. How does the preacher foster that imagination?
MR: J.C. Ryle talked about turning your listeners’ ears into eyes. It is by beholding the glory of the Lord that we are transformed from one degree of glory to another. We have a problem not only in Christian preaching but in Christian publishing today. Often writing is cerebral, detached and boring. That gets fed through into pulpits.
What that can do is reinforce a middle-class stereotype that real ministry is a very literary bookish thing. Whereas what you see in the Puritans is an ability to read deeply but wear that learning lightly and present the truth in such a visually compelling way to the ears of their listeners that people are seeing the glory of God.
That takes more than the quick study of a commentary, it takes deep study so that you can see the truths that you are talking about and communicate them in a visual way.
JW: You seem to like writing brief books; your recent book, Preaching: A God Centred Vision is no exception. Sinclair Ferguson comments on the virtue of its brevity in the Foreword. Do all good things come in small parcels?
MR: No, I don’t think so. I think it is good to have small books and big books. The reason this preaching book is such a small one is that realistically when preachers visit the bookstall at a conference, they buy what they think is a worthy read and it sits on the bookshelf for a long time. I wanted to have a book that people knew they could read it all on the train home. The aim is to get the depth of a 300-page book in a much smaller book. I confess that I wrote it as a short book because I want it to be translated. To get into the parts of the world where they are not resource rich.
JW: Thank you for your refreshing book on preaching, you open the book with the statement: ‘I have a sneaking suspicion that the trouble with much preaching today comes from a basic fuzziness on what preaching is.’ What has produced that fuzziness?
MR: Two things. On the one hand, people simply forget what preaching is. They need to think about preachers they know and experiences they have had of good preaching; our preaching can slide through forgetfulness into moralising, entertaining or lecturing. Some have particular appeals to us. For the more cerebral, lecturing seems to be what comes to them quickly. The proud among us will default more quickly to being the entertainer or the centre of attention in some way. Also, there has not been enough teaching in evangelical circles on what a rich Biblical understanding of preaching actually is. We have done a lot (which is good) on the practice and technique of preaching. What is good exegesis? How to deliver a sermon? I know from my own experience as a young man that I was not given a deep theology of preaching that was rooted in our evangelical heritage.
'That is something I see again and again in Evangelical pulpits... you can hear learned, humorous, entertaining preaching, but it is not actually dealing with that deep issue of the heart and its corruption.'
JW: This is why you took the decision to casting a vision nourished by the very being of God, the glory of His word, and the power of the gospel. Why is this important?
MR: If we have a low view of preaching as merely lecturing or entertaining, for one thing the content will shift and the content will be concepts and cerebral truths, but we will be less inclined to herald Christ Himself. Also, in the delivery of sermons, a low view of preaching will tend to lead to a high view of the preacher. The impression is that the effectiveness of the preaching is not down to the power of God, but intellectual brilliance and rhetorical ability. That makes for all sorts of problems in the pulpit. It can make for grandstanding preachers, a preacher lacking in compassion, or a preacher who is nervous, and seeking the applause of others.
With a low view of preaching we are moving away from heralding the glory of God to heralding our own glory.
JW: You write: ‘God is the first and primary preacher, the one whose very identity is to make known his life-giving word. When we preach that word, we are taking no initiative, but sharing in the life of God: we preach because He first preached to us.’ Capturing that is very important. What does that do to our study of the Bible; are we always hearing another voice?
MR: Without understanding that God is the first preacher and we are ambassadors and heralds of God, we come to the situation that has led to so many burnt-out pastors, who feel that they are working hard but not coming from a place of grace. This is the place where God has spoken, and I am preaching because God has preached to me.
JW: Casual readers of your book might get the impression that you are dismissive of homiletics [the art of preaching or writing sermons]. What place does that play in the preachers’ ministry?
MR: Homiletics is important, but you cannot replace a knowledge of God and an awareness of what you are there to do in the pulpit as a herald of God with a technique. You can have all the homiletical equipment in place and make all the mistakes of the Pharisees, who are diligently studying the Scriptures, because they think that in them they have life.
JW: Ask 100 preachers to define expository preaching and you are likely to get 100 definitions. Why is the term so often misunderstood and what do you mean by this key term?
MR: Expository preaching involves exposing Scripture, so that people can see it clearly.
It is the opposite of imposition. When we talk about expository preaching today, the misunderstanding is that exposition is nothing more than mere commentary on Scripture. Nothing more than an English comprehension exercise. That is why we need to understand what God is doing as a preacher. God is the first preacher, and in preaching God speaks His word and when God speaks His word, He is heralding Himself, He is giving Himself. That is what can be forgotten about expository preaching. We can think that we are simply here to give information about God, language about God, rather than that they are hearing God speaking today. Christ is not merely being talked about; Christ is being offered to people.
JW: What was it that first excited you about preaching?
Hearing great preaching. It wasn’t the concept of preaching, but experiencing Christ being offered in paradigm-shifting, heart-altering ways. From that, then seeing that I was experiencing the power of God.
'This is the heart of what we are called to do as preachers, to draw the affections of our listeners away from a love of sin towards a love for Christ.'
JW: You speak about the importance of preaching Christ and warn of the danger of preaching that actually avoids Christ. What do you mean by that and how can preachers address that danger?
It is very easy for preachers to think that in preaching they are not there to herald Christ, who is the life that we are called to know and enjoy. We mistake that central task for telling people what they should do rather than offering Jesus who brings life. It is very common to see preachers turning away from actually offering Christ to offering a concept about Christ, to offering a theological abstraction. We want to offer a theology of the atonement to people, but that is not the endgame.
The aim is to present a completely sufficient Christ. We have a lot of books about preaching Christ, but it can seem as if Christ is just the idea we need to get to at the end of the sermon. It is talking about the idea of Christ rather than Christ Himself. What that leaves us with is us being masters over Christ rather than seeing the glory of Christ and seeing ourselves mastered by Him.
JW: I notice that two of the abstractions you mentioned were gospel and Bible. In what way is teaching the Bible an inadequate way of talking about preaching? I was interested to read what you had to say about making sure we actually do preach Christ and not merely an abstraction. In what ways does this feature in contemporary preaching and how can preachers resist this tendency?
I find it helpful that in my ministry I get to do both things, preaching and teaching, and they are distinct things. In lecturing my students, I teach heresy. I teach them false ways of thinking, but I don’t preach those things. In teaching I am making information clear; in preaching, something much grander is going on – the glory of God is being heralded, not simply so people can understand a concept, but so that people can see the glory of God and therefore be transformed.
JW: You address an issue that you have explored more fully in your book Evangelical Pharisees: ‘Why is it that so much preaching today lacks impact? Ultimately, it is because it is shallow. it fails to go to the radix, the root of our problem … The Pharisees are classic examples of this learned and devout superficiality.’ Can you unpack that a little?
The Pharisees were deeply concerned with being learned and pious, but they were superficial in that they didn’t understand the depths of our problem. They thought the problem was bad behaviour that could be cured with good behaviour, rather than the problem being corrupt hearts that need to be renewed and reformed. That is something I see again and again in Evangelical pulpits, where you can hear learned preaching, humorous preaching, entertaining preaching, but it is not actually dealing with that deep issue of the heart and its corruption. It is trying to change people’s behaviour, or change people’s understanding, but it is not seeking to change their affections and desires. In that sense their preaching will be shallow, because the root of our problem is in the corruption of our hearts.
JW: You warn against inadequate forms of light and heat in preaching. How do preachers get that right?
There is a light we can share of information that doesn’t foster saving faith. We can share Biblical information in such a way that people are puffed up with Biblical knowledge rather than humbled by the glory of God. That light that puffs up rather than humbles cannot be the light of the gospel. The light of the gospel necessarily affects and transforms. The One who is the Light of the World glorifies His Father as He glories in His Father. The glory of the Father is not separated from the heat of worship.
There are different constituencies amongst evangelicalism. Some are more inclined to an emotionalism and in danger, therefore, of an emotional manipulation. When we talk about emotions, these are passing experiences. There is another constituency that is so wary of emotionalism that they almost deliberately try to be dull. They are afraid of people being emotionally manipulated. What this constituency fails to see is that the glory of God is affective. To be affected is not the same as emotional froth; preachers are not supposed to whip up crowds. To be affected means that we don’t leave indifferent to what we have heard. We find that we love differently. This is the heart of what we are called to do as preachers, to draw the affections of our listeners away from a love of sin towards a love for Christ. This will lead to a behavioural change, but it will flow out of a deeper change of what we love.
JW: You speak of the importance of showing as well as telling; not merely giving people information about Christ, but giving them Christ. How can we grasp that more effectively?
The difference between showing and telling is difficult for preachers when you find the sheer business of life has actually worn you out and you are not yourself enjoying Christ. A preacher who doesn’t enjoy Christ can trot out a sermon aimlessly and disguise that. The classic disguise is the rhetorical question you get to hear from pulpits: ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ Telling people what you want them to think and feel. But what we need to do is show that Christ is so glorious that they feel and are affected by the truth of who He is.
JW: Under the heading ‘Only the Gospel’ you assert, echoing the Puritan William Perkins, that preachers must know how commands (law) and promises (gospel) work. It made me wonder about the ways in which New Testament practice confirms that distinction and how by contrast the New Testament challenges it.
What I wanted to convey was something that preachers are not always clear on. If we want to see a heart-level change, what is it that has the power to transform hearts? The law has its place in Scripture and is useful for convicting and for showing us holiness; so we need to be preaching the law clearly to give the whole counsel of God, but we need to realise that that law (not just Mosaic Law but behavioural guidance in Paul’s letters) will not create the heart-level change. That is why a Pauline epistle needs to be read as a whole. The behavioural guidance (the law) needs to follow the gospel that will transform hearts. Preachers need to be clear on what it is that brings about the deepest, most radical heart-level change. Asking for behavioural improvement will not do that; it is only the gospel that will do that.
JW: ‘Preaching like Christ: Without even meaning to, the preacher will smell of whatever he truly glories in … The fact is, we will not preach the gospel any better than we have experienced it ourselves.’ How can preachers better hang about with Christ?
The reality is that the pew will rise above the pulpit. Therefore, the spiritual health of the people will depend not just on the rhetorical and intellectual ability of the preacher. The preacher must realise that his own heart is preaching a sermon to the people. Therefore, preachers cannot have a fast-food lifestyle in which they are simply seeking to prepare for other people and go from sermon to sermon. What we often see in busy pastors is the danger of thinking ‘I have so many sermons to prepare that all my reading is going into the next sermon.’ The preacher needs to be prepared as much as the sermon. Preachers need to give time to their own communion with the Lord; they need to be studying material that is just for themselves, that is building up their own souls. It needs to be rich material that is working down deep into the roots. The question a preacher must ask is: ‘How can I enjoy Christ in this phase of ministry I am in.’
JW: ‘Prayerless preaching is loveless preaching. It betrays a low view of God, as if He were absent, unreal, or unworthy.’ How do preachers retain the priority of prayerfulness in their lives and ministries?
If we preach in a prayerless way then we are modelling an insincerity to people, because we are saying publicly that God is glorious and to be adored, but we are clearly not depending on Him ourselves. Over time the smell of that insincerity will leak out. Even if we don’t notice it, other people will.
