What Belongs in the Pulpit

Alexander Maclaren on the preacher’s burden and the word of the cross.

William Macduff, “Dr. Chalmers Preaching in a Country Church”

One of the constant battles with which preachers are engaged is the conflict between what they should and shouldn’t bring with them into the pulpit. I’m not talking about the tangible items in a preacher’s hands, like a physical Bible, notebook, or iPad; I’m talking about the intangibles. What message is the preacher bringing? What burdens, worries, or cares are accompanying him? What griefs should or shouldn’t be addressed? What social ills warrant comment and what ones don’t? These and many other questions of similar import plague preachers to no end. I know, because I’ve been and am plagued by them as well, from time to time.

There’s an implicit pressure as a preacher, at times, to be a “voice for the moment”; to have a ready word capable of speaking into the very worst of what life has to offer. This, for the most part, is warranted. Part of the pastoral office includes prophetic proclamation — not in the sense of foretelling but in the sense of forthtelling. That is, bringing the Word of God to bear in the present moment. But if taken too far, there is a tendency to let “the present moment” be the determining factor in what you bring to the pulpit, which brings me back to the original inquiry. What message is the preacher bringing with him? And what message should he be bringing? How you answer that question is, in many ways, a referendum on what you think the Christian faith is really about.

Even though there might be a diversity of answers to those questions, many of which are good and proper in their own right, we don’t have to wonder too long or too hard what an apostle’s answer would be, especially since the apostle Paul spells it out for us as plainly as possible. “For I decided to know nothing among you,” he tells the Corinthian congregation, “except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). Now, to be sure, Paul was no stranger to ethical advice or even moral polemics. He wasn’t unconcerned with the behavior of those to whom his letters were addressed. He has a lot to say about such things in his letter to Titus, for example.

However, there was a word that, for Paul, was paramount — a word whose significance and weight far surpassed any other word or message he might be inclined to offer — namely, the word of the cross. It was the message of the Christ of God, who willingly gave himself up to die on a cross, bearing the curse for an entire world of sinners, so that those same sinners might be reconciled and remade in the light of the righteousness of God. Everything else, every other message or topic with which preachers might concern themselves, must be subject to this overriding announcement. This is what the church needs to hear, over and over again. The only refrain that never feels worn out is “Christ and him crucified,” and this is what, according to Rev. Alexander Maclaren, preachers are bound to bring with them into the pulpit, that is, “the palpitating heart and centre is the death upon the Cross.”¹ He continues:

We are called upon, on all sides, to bring into the pulpit what they call an ethical gospel; putting it into plain English, to preach morality, and to leave out Christ. We are called upon, on all sides, to preach an applied Christianity, a social gospel — that is to say, largely to turn the pulpit into a Sunday supplement to the daily newspaper. We are asked to deal with the intellectual difficulties which spring from the collision of science, true or false, with religion, and the like. All that is right enough. But I believe from my heart that the thing to do is to copy Paul’s example, and to preach Christ and Him crucified. You may think me right or you may think me wrong, but here and now, at the end of forty years, I should like to say that I have for the most part ignored that class of subjects deliberately, and of set purpose, and with profound conviction, be it erroneous or not, that a ministry which listens much to the cry for ‘wisdom’ in its modern forms, has departed from the true perspective of Christian teaching, and will weaken the churches which depend upon it. Let who will turn the pulpit into a professor’s chair, or a lecturer’s platform, or a concert-room stage, or a politician’s rostrum, I for one determine to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.²

The decision to preach Christ over every other possible subject might not always win one popular favor. There are loads of other topics, issues, and concerns that might feel more prescient and pressing. But there is no other message more momentous or consequential than the proclamation of Jesus Christ slain for sinners and risen again for their justification. Paul determined to know nothing but that, as did Maclaren throughout his four decades of pastoral ministry. May we all be imbued with the same determination.

Grace and peace to you.

1. Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Vols. 1–17 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1944), 13:2.21.

2. Maclaren, 13:2.26–27.