"The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools." (Ecc. 9:17)
It is an odd delusion; here being the presupposition that good preaching requires loudness, manifest zeal, moving about, shaking, charisma etc... The congregation so quickly assumes that a preacher is speaking loudly because the Holy Spirit has come upon him.
But where does it say that the fruit of the Holy Spirit is a loud voice? Is it not rather gentleness and self-control?
It was said of Jonathan Edwards that he read his sermons from a paper and scarcely looked up to observe the audience. Hold up....this guy was a strategic figure in one of the Great Awakenings right? Where were the gesticulations in his homiletical presentations? Or what about meek and mild Lloyd-Jones? Do you believe he was frothing at the mouth and sounding out every word as if it were a pep rally?
1 comment:
That's quite interesting. I had always figured that the shouting preacher was a holdover of the days before microphones (in many churches, PA came in in the 1950's) when in larger church buildings one had to raise one's voice in order to be well heard. Granted, there are other ways of being heard too; that's where the chanting tradition comes from.
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