In the religious world, divine oracles were often delivered through mediums, shamans, or those believed to be possessed by a god or gods. Such messages were typically expressed, at least formally, in obscure tongues, unintelligible to ordinary people, or in deliberately ambiguous language that required the interpretation and explanation of the intermediary.
But, quite remarkably, unlike the religious phenomena of the surrounding cultures of their time, the word received from heaven by the prophets of the Old Testament came in the form of poetry.
Poetry—the highest and most refined form of language human beings can employ, whether spoken or written.
This was not the prophets’ own choice.
It was the vessel God Himself chose to contain and convey His will.
From the very beginning of the history of Israel’s written tradition, the prophetic writings were among the earliest forms in which the divine word was deliberately committed to writing rather than left primarily to oral transmission.
And the word from above contained in these prophetic writings was, in its form, language shaped by rhythm:
poetry.
God spoke in poetry.
And the prophets received that poetry, proclaimed it to the people, and interpreted it for them.
How refined.
How elevated.
How—luxurious!
And in this context, I cannot help but turn my attention to Protestant preachers—
myself included—
and to their sermons.
Some preachers—and some congregations—regard preaching without a manuscript, delivered spontaneously, as a sign of spiritual power, even of some special “anointing.”
Yet one often finds the same things gathering around the same things.
And the same people praising one another.
A kind of mutual admiration society for fools.
Then there are sermons delivered from manuscripts that have never undergone the process of revision and refinement—sermons filled with clumsy expressions and careless language.
It is like walking into a restaurant because you saw an impressive sign outside, only to be served half-cooked rice.
Would you enjoy the meal?
And perhaps most seriously—
there are words that should simply never be heard from a pulpit:
crude profanity,
casual speech,
verbal abuse,
and sexually suggestive or sexually humiliating expressions used without restraint.
In the food industry, a restaurant built around a foul-mouthed “swearing grandmother” may use such language as a marketing strategy to survive.
But a pulpit is not such a place.
To me,
this kind of preaching is nothing more than pornography.
Simply put:
God still speaks in refined language.
His word is therefore carefully chosen, set apart, holy.
And just as He once gave His word to the prophets and spoke through the prophets, so He desires to speak first to preachers, so that what He has spoken may then be conveyed through them.
Therefore—
let us be careful.
Even if we cannot speak poetry, even if our language cannot come close to poetry, let us at least look toward poetry, and shape our language in its direction.
Let us refine ourselves.
Let us refine our preaching.