An attraction or distraction?
While I was in seminary, I was on staff at a church and I went through their pastoral training cohort. Part of the cohort included a preaching workshop. When it was my turn to preach on my assigned text, I knew the men in front of me were going to give me immediate feedback. But I was feeling the depth of the passage and I got emotional during a part of the message. After I was done, one of the pastors asked the group, “How do you guys feel when a preacher cries? For me, it makes me kind of uncomfortable.” What proceeded from there was a very helpful discussion on when emotion is good and when it becomes a distraction. I’m so grateful for that conversation.
I am a passionate person. I’m one of those pastors that feels things deeply and tends to preach with some vigor and zealousness. I’m not as emotional as many preachers but would be more emotional than most in the ministry tribe I live in. I tend to enjoy passionate preachers as well. I think many people do. However, we also know that emotion (just to be emotional) can be distracting at best and manipulative at worst. Passion, emotion, enthusiasm, and fervor in preaching have the ability to distract from the Word of God. They also are a powerful tool that, when used rightly, can bring glory to Jesus, show the importance of his message, and call people to follow Jesus with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength.
I preach with emotion. I often am so overwhelmed with the truths of God’s Word and the glorious wonders of the gospel that I am driven to do so. I also need to be careful with that passion. Here are 5 reasons I believe it is appropriate for me to utilize genuine, Word-driven emotion when I preach.
Reason 1: Because the text has affected me
Younger preachers easily struggle with “emotional imitation.” When I first started preaching about 10 years ago, I hadn’t found my voice yet. So, my preaching was reflective (too much so) of the passionate preachers I admired. This doesn’t mean my emotion was fake. It was genuine. It just was being sieved through a complex filter of fear of public speaking, inexperience, and external influences. As I have found my own “voice” over time, I have been able to express (more naturally) the ways the text of scripture has gotten deep into my soul. My sermon preparation is filled with moments of pausing to pray, weep, and worship. I cry far more in my study than I do from the pulpit (although some in my church might be surprised by that). When God opens my eyes to see wonderful things in his Word, I am affected… And although I don’t want any of my sermons to be about “how the Bible affects me,” I believe it is right to show people how God’s Word should affect our whole being. I don’t try to make this happen. The Bible is a sword that excels at cutting open our hearts like a surgeon. And I’m grateful that God regularly meets me in this way while I prepare to preach his Word.
Reason 2: Because we are emotional beings
I understand I’m using “emotional” in a generic sense that could be misunderstood. What I mean is that human beings are experiential, impassioned, affectionate, feeling beings. We feel things all the time. Sometimes, we listen too much to our feelings. Sometimes, we suppress them. Sometimes, we let our feelings take the driver’s seat and make us think things or do things that are wrong. However, feelings are a gift from God (when understood and ordered rightly). Christians do not affirm the pagan idea that feelings are inherently evil. The scriptures are filled with commands to worship God with our emotions. Psalm 100:1 says, “Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.” David was clearly a passionate guy. When the ark of the Lord came into the city, it says “David danced before the Lord with all his might” (2 Sam. 6:14). That’s how I want to preach. I want to preach with all my might. We are emotional beings. God designed us this way. True, appropriate, and deep emotion can be offered to God as worship. Because of this, I believe it is right to reflect this in our preaching.
Reason 3: Because God is an emotional God
If you doubt this, then I would recommend Rob Lister’s profound book on the topic of Divine Emotion. Although we recognize God’s emotions function perfectly and uniquely from ours (his creation), it seems clear in scripture that God feels things deeply. He feels anger (Ps. 7:11; Deut. 9:22; Rom. 1:18), compassion (Ps. 135:14; Jdg. 2:18; Deut. 32:36), grief (Gen. 6:6; Ps. 78:40), love (1 Jn. 4:8; Jn. 3:16; Jer. 31:3), hate (Pr. 6:16; Ps. 5:5; 11:5), jealousy (Ex. 20:5; 34:14; Josh. 24:19), joy (Zeph. 3:17; Is. 62:5; Jer. 32:41), and much more. Jesus (the perfect human being and the perfect revelation of God) wept with those who wept, felt compassion for the crowds, was overcome with sorrow, expressed anger, and rejoiced with joy. If God feels deep emotions perfectly and displays them perfectly in Jesus Christ, then emotion is not something to be fearfully suppressed but wisely expressed.
Reason 4: Because preachers in scripture used emotion
Almost all of the prophets and preachers in scripture preached with passion and emotion. Jeremiah was known as the “weeping prophet” for his full expressions of emotion as he pleaded with God’s people. Paul told the Ephesian elders that when he preached the gospel to them, he never stopped doing so “with tears” (Acts 20:31). He told the Corinthians he preached the Word to them with “trembling” (1 Cor. 2:3). Jesus often used emotional language in his teaching and sermons. If the biblical precedent shows us how we should preach then it seems that we should be so affected by our love for God, love for his Word, and love for the people that we preach to that our emotions will come along for the ride.
Reason 5: Because Jesus is so important
At moments of great importance, every human being expresses emotion. Even a stoic man will cry at the birth of his child or when he walks his daughter down the aisle. Important moments of life or death cause us to feel things very deeply. As someone called to be a herald of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I am often reminded that life and death are in the balance every time I step into the pulpit. There are some in the room who are on a road leading to an eternal hell and they need to be “warned with tears” to turn away. There are Christians whose hearts have gone cold and need the fire of God’s truth to burn inside them again. There are suffering saints, weak wanderers, poor in spirit, proud in heart, and complacent Christians. And then we look upon Jesus: the most beautiful, most glorious, most satisfying, most awe-inspiring object of our affections. How can we not preach with all the passion we can muster? How can we not be overwhelmed with the weightiness of what God’s Spirit is doing in that moment? The stakes are too high. Jesus is too important. The gospel is too glorious.
The affections must be raised
With all the potential pitfalls of being “emotional” in the pulpit, I believe there is something important that needs to be expressed in a preacher whose heart has been torn open by God’s Word, a man on fire for the glory of Jesus Christ. I would never judge another preacher for not being “emotional” enough. I’m not convinced that’s my place. However, I am deeply convinced that as long as I am a preacher, I should be driven to engage every ounce of my heart, mind, soul, and strength in the proclamation of God’s Word. I want to preach with all my might, with a heart like David. I want to preach night and day with tears like Paul. And in doing so, I believe we show the weighty importance of the glory of Jesus Christ and will engage with our people in a way they need to be. May it never be a mere “show.” May it be a Spirit-wrought zeal.
The higher gracious affections are raised, the more is a spiritual appetite and longing of soul after spiritual attainments increased. … The kindling and raising of gracious affections is like kindling a flame; the higher it is raised, the more ardent it is; and the more it burns, the more vehemently does it tend and seek to burn. –Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections