Jerry Vines and Jim Shaddix — Blog

Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel.” Jerry Vine and Jim Shaddix wrote: Without a doubt, something mysterious is at play when the Holy Spirit attends to the preaching event. This fact can make any attempt to describe the work of the Spirit in preaching very difficult. But in the area of speech communication—even among Christians—it seems that the gospel preacher has an advantage that separates him from all other public communicators. Even secular public speakers can be passionate about their subject matter, but one particular ingredient is reserved solely for those who speak the words of God. This ingredient enables the preachers’ words to be pointed and powerful. This ingredient has been called anointing. Some homileticians and preachers do not believe the anointing actually exists, contending it is an unnecessary and unbiblical notion that often weighs the preacher down with guilt (Vines is referring to Alex Montayo in his book Preaching with Passion, Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2000, 35). I agree Alex Montayo. (Jerry Vines; Shaddix, Jim. Power in the Pulpit: How to Prepare and Deliver Expository Sermons (p. 76). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition).

W. A. Criswell was pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas from 1944-1991. He demonstrated the importance of preaching through books of the Bible. In Why I Preach That the Bible is Literally True W. A. Criswell wrote that “Soon after coming to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, I made an announcement that I would preach through the Bible. It was my first intention to go through the Book much faster than I finally did. In fact, at first, I did preach rapidly through the books of the Old Testament. But as the days multiplied, I found myself going slower and slower and slower. Finally, I came to the place where I preached for several years on some of the sections of the New Testament. In all, from Genesis to Revelation, I spent seventeen years and eight months going through the Book. where I left off Sunday morning, I began Sunday evening; where I left off the previous Sunday night, I began the following Sunday morning.