Al Mohler on Preaching

Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary posted some very enlightening remarks on preaching. Here is what he what he said in conclusion:

This raises an interesting question: Is the marginalization of biblical preaching in so many churches a cause or a result of the nation's retreat from Christianity? In truth, it must be both cause and effect. In any event, there is no hope for a recovery of biblical Christianity without a preceding recovery of biblical preaching. That means preaching that is expository, textual, evangelistic, doctrinal, and evangelistic. In other words, preaching that will take a lot longer than ten minutes and will not masquerade as a form of entertainment.


Time and time again, God's people have been rescued by a recovery of biblical teaching and preaching. The right preaching of the Word of God is the first essential mark of the church. As the Reformers made clear, where that mark is absent, there is no church at all.

The study conducted for the College of Preachers is interesting, if also frightening. But little is gained from asking confused people what kind of preaching they want. The faithful preacher takes as his first and most sacred responsibility the charge to give the congregation the preaching it needs.

In my experience, teaching not preaching, people often do not like to hear what they "need." But, then, that really boils down to being faithful to the task. People wanted to kill Jesus on the spot when he told them they had to repent. After all, our culture, like his, insists it is made up of "good people" and there is nothing to repent.

I wonder how many more classes I would get to teach if I asserted as did Jesus, "you generation of vipers?" (Mat 12:34) Actually I don't wonder, the question is rhetorical, I know: I'd be lucky to escape with my life.