The church today is plagued by a hunger for something extraordinary. For far too many, the local ordinary church is boring and lacking attractiveness. In many cases, young impressionable college students are captivated by college ministries and parachurch events that crowd out the ordinary local church along with the ordinary means of grace. This results in multitudes of young people every year roaming the country to the next big event while remaining disinterested and disengaged in the local church. James Montgomery Boice observes:

Preaching is that wise means of God by which the wisdom of the world is shown to be foolishness, and the folly of the gospel, as the world conceives it, is shown to be true wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:21).¹James Montgomery Boice, “The Foolishness of Preaching,” Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler, Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, 37.

Time and space does not permit me in this article to do a deep dive on the ordinary means of grace within God’s church, but a simple search at G3Min.org will reveal many articles by me and other authors on this important subject. The purpose of this article is to point to the chief of the ordinary means of grace in the life of the local church: preaching. 

The Chief Position of Preaching

The will of God for his church is for the ordinary means of grace to strengthen the faith of God’s people on a week-by-week basis. Unlike conference, workshops, and other parachurch events that certainly have their valid place—the ordinary means of grace function in such a way that the Christian grows in knowledge, maturity, and faith according to God’s design. This is why every aspect of the worship service matters. 

What I am not communicating in this article is that preaching is the only means of grace that truly matters. It’s quite the opposite. Every part of the worship service functions in such a way to deliver the whole of the ordinary means of grace to the mind and heart of God’s people. However, what I do intend to communicate in this brief article is that preaching holds the chief position among the other ordinary means of grace. Without preaching remaining in the chief position—the local church would become lopsided and spiritually dysfunctional. It was John Knox, the great Scottish reformer who once said, “The public preaching of the word of God is the chief ordinary means of salvation.”

From the very beginning, it has been God’s means of proclamation to communicate, educate, warn, admonish, convert, and correct his people. We can see this pattern beginning in the Garden of Eden with the first gospel sermon preached by God himself and continuing to unfold throughout the ministry of the prophets and apostles. According to Paul, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ (Rom 10:17). It is through the preaching of the Word that sinners are called out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Pet 2:9). It is also through the right preaching of God’s Word on a regular basis that God’s church is edified and strengthened in the knowledge of God. 

While the Scriptures do command God’s people to be a praying people or a singing people, it would be impossible for the people to have a proper theological foundation and to understand what they’re praying or singing apart from preaching. It is the unique design of preaching that equips the church to be a singing people. The same thing can be said of the need to be baptized as a follower of Jesus, the importance of the Lord’s Supper, and the call to properly submit to pastors within the context of a biblical ecclesiology. Biblical preaching serves the purpose of laying a firm theological foundation that aligns all of the means of grace into their proper place within the local church according to God’s design. 

The Need for Christ’s Church to Embrace the Primacy of Preaching

Before the people of God became a singing people, they first encountered preaching. It’s the pattern from OT to NT. It’s likewise the pattern that was put on display in the days of the Reformation. Prior to Luther’s great stand at Worms (1521) and his Ninety-Five Theses (1517), the Roman Catholic cathedrals were dark and filled with gloom. The priests performed worship on behalf of the people who were segmented off from the Word of God in their own language. They sat in these grand cathedrals and heard the Scriptures in Latin, a language they didn’t understand, and engaged in a shallow dead chant style of singing. However, after Luther’s stand at Worms, he began working on the translation of the German Bible which would change everything. 

Once the people received the Bible in their native tongue, they suddenly understood the theology of Scripture. Not only did this serve the purpose of correcting the heretical errors of the Roman Catholic Church, it likewise resulted in singing. The people responded in songs of joy and worship as a result of clearly hearing the Word of God in their own language. Therefore, the people became a singing people because they were receiving the clear preaching of God’s Word by the reformers. In fact, it was Martin Luther who once said:

God’s Word has been silenced, and only reading and singing remain in the churches. This is the worst abuse.…A host of unchristian fables and lies, in legends, hymns, and sermons were introduced that it is horrible to see.…faith disappeared and everyone pressed to enter the priesthood, convents, and monasteries, and to build churches and endow them.…A Christian congregation should never gather together without the preaching of God’s Word and prayer, no matter how briefly, as Psalm 102 says, “When the kings and the people assemble to serve the Lord, they shall declare the name and the praise of God.” And Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:26–31 says that when they come together, there should be prophesying, teaching, and admonition. Therefore, when God’s Word is not preached, one had better neither sing nor read, or even come together.²“Concerning the Order of Public Worship” LW, 53, 11.

In today’s evangelical climate, there remains a tendency to crowd out the pulpit in order to make room in the worship service for announcements, drama skits, and worship performances by highly charged bands. If the local church gives ground to gimmicks that minimize preaching it will have a dramatic impact upon the church that will send ripple effects throughout every ministry. When preaching is removed from the chief position, it will result in the deformation of God’s church because it will impact every element of the worship and ministry of God’s people. Martyn Lloyd-Jones made the following statement in his classic work, Preaching and Preachers:

Preaching the Word is the primary task of the Church, the primary task of the leaders of the Church, the people who are set in this position of authority; and we must not allow anything to deflect us from this, however good the cause, however great the need.³Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, Zondervan, 1971, p. 23. 

As the pulpit ministry leads the way for the worship of God’s people and the chief ordinary means of grace remains central within the local church, it will result in an orderly, functioning, healthy church for the glory of our triune God. 

As the pulpit goes, so goes the church.

Author

Josh Buice

Pastor Pray's Mill Baptist Church

Josh Buice is the founder and president of G3 Ministries and serves as the pastor of Pray's Mill Baptist Church on the westside of Atlanta. He is married to Kari and they have four children, Karis, John Mark, Kalli, and Judson. Additionally, he serves as Assistant Professor of Preaching at Grace Bible Theological Seminary. He enjoys theology, preaching, church history, and has a firm commitment to the local church. He also enjoys many sports and the outdoors, including long distance running and high country hunting. He has been writing on Delivered by Grace since he was in seminary and it has expanded with a large readership through the years.