Humility, Whether I Like It Or Not

So, I had decided to write a blog post on humility. I’d been mulling it over and thinking about some various things to write, and decided I had something to say on the subject. Then I got to my Hebrew class this afternoon. Let me tell you, I’m not sure I’ve had many more humbling experiences in my life than this first foray into Hebrew.

Look, I’m not very good at languages in the first place. I took my 2 years of German in high school and got out. Now, I'm excited about the idea of learning Hebrew. I think it'll be super-cool once I'm done, and I know it's important to preaching. The learning part though, that I'm not excited about. Have you ever seen the Hebrew alphabet? They all look the same. Seriously, take a look at these letters:

Those are all different letters. Crazy, right? That's not even accounting for the vowels or pronunciation. It's hard enough to just learn how to differentiate letters, much less learn full words. So Hebrew is going to be humbling for me, and that's a good thing.

I find that very often these days, as I look forward to learning how to be a better preacher, I have to reign in my pride. I slip into "I want to preach well so that others praise me" instead of "I want to preach well to be an instrument of God." It's something I wrestled with sometimes in preparing talks for youth group, unconsciously slipping into "Will people like this? Is this sufficiently clever and witty?" mode. Not to say that there's no place for wit in a talk or sermon, it just can't be the end in itself. There's a fine line to be walked, and it's especially dangerous in an environment where I'm learning so much. It's going to be easy to slip into thinking all this knowledge makes me better than others, makes me important. "Knowledge puffs up", and all that.

So Hebrew is good for me, keeps me humble. Another thing that keeps me humble is the reading we've been doing for my preaching class, which continual reminds, in no uncertain terms, that we are weak. Left to his own devices, even the greatest preacher in the world can't bring a single soul to Christ. It doesn't matter how much Greek and Hebrew you know. It doesn't matter how dynamic a speaker you are. If the Holy Spirit doesn't move people, if you aren't combining preaching with an urgent prayer for the Spirit to move through your words, then it's all for nothing. Here are a few great quotes on the matter.

"Ultimately, preaching accomplishes its spiritual purposes not because of the skills or the wisdom of a preacher, but because of the power of the Scripture proclaimed...The human efforts of the greatest preachers are still too weak and sin-tainted to be responsible for others' eternal destinies." - Brian Chapell

"A man's 'natural' gifts cannot add up to a probability that he should choose the ministry. God has chosen the weak and foolish, not the mighty and wise, so that it might be quite clear that he alone is the savior." - Edmund Clowney

"Apart from the quickening power of the Holy Spirit in the act of proclamation, even the best and most essential technique falls miserably short of transforming those to whom we preach." - Arturo Azurdia

"The best man here, if he knows what he is, knows that he is out of his depth in his sacred calling." - Charles Spurgeon

Adding on to that, I recently finished a fantastic book about the Reformation (it's call The Unquenchable Flame, and I highly recommend it). I started reading the assigned chapters, then just couldn't put it down. One of the things that is striking about the Reformation is that all these great men you associate with it: Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, Knox, etc. They were all great theologians, great preachers and expositors of the Word. They were galvanizing figures, and yet it wasn't really them that fueled the Reformation. No, the fuel for the Reformation was the Word of God, and getting it into the hands of people. Men like Erasmus, whose translation of the New Testament which differed from Rome's Latin Vulgate would be the basis for much of Luther and Zwingli's theology, and Tyndale, who was dedicated to translating an English bible and getting itin the hands of the people, were as influential, if not moreso, than any of those preachers. The Reformation was not a human-driven movement, and in fact the humans often threatened to clog it up royally. The Reformation was unstoppable because once people started getting their hands on the Word of God, Rome's days as the dominant power were numbered. Luther himself said "I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word; otherwise I did nothing...the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything."

So pray for me. Pray for humility. Pray that I would constantly be reminded of these things that I'm writing here. Not just in preaching or my studies, but in everything. Ultimately, living by the Word through the Spirit is the only thing that's going to produce anything worthwhile in my life. I've tried to do things on my own enough to know that I'm really a great big screwup. I can't seem to remember that most days, but it's still true. God's going to do the work, he just needs me to get out of the way.

A Start

So, I've decided to write a blog.

Now, you may be saying, "Xan, you fool, why would you do something ridiculous like that? Aren't you going to be too busy reading and writing stuff for seminary to waste time on blogging?" Or perhaps you are saying "I predict 3 posts, maybe 4 before he gets busy and stops posting." Then again, perhaps you're saying "Who the heck is this guy?" if you have stumbled on my blog by accident. As I believe that's unlikely, I'll just go ahead and assume only my family and friends are likely to read whatever silliness I end up writing.

So, why blog? Well, I've been considering starting up a blog just to let people know how things are going for me at seminary, maybe share some things I'm learning. However, I decided that I didn't really have time, and I would probably rarely update it anyway. What changed my mind was a book I was assigned to read for my Intro to Preaching class called Why Johnny Can't Preach, by T. David Gordon. It's a fantastic and interesting read, a succinct 100 pages on how modern media and culture has created generations of people who don't have the basic skills necessary to be good preachers.

Gordon's assertion is that people who have grown up with telephone's rarely write letters anymore, so they don't naturally learn how to organize their thoughts. Similarly, people who grow up with television are used to a kinetic media that largely conveys inconsequential things, and so they don't read anymore, or when they do read, they don't read deep things and engage the text. Those who grow up with the internet are constantly bombarded with even more visuals and surface-level text. Everything is news, tidbits of information to be scanned over. There is no more laboring over volumes when you can simple "Google it". People nowadays, when they actually do read, only care about what is said, and not how it is said. The result of all this is that basic skills like how to write clearly and how to engage a text and appreciate good writing are lost on this current age (insert joke about popularity of Twilight here). That lack of verbal skills has led to preachers who, even if they have excellent theological knowledge, simply don't have the foundation to put together a coherent sermon.

I agree wholeheartedly with Gordon's argument, and I can definitely feel the effects of it in myself. I used to be an avid reader, but the more internet and television-dependent I become, the less interested I am in reading deep, challenging literature. I've been rereading Jim Elliot's writings in Shadow of the Almighty recently, and to see the radical difference in writing quality for someone who corresponded entirely (and often) in letters is jarring. Elliot read poetry, wrote letters and journaled prolifically, and it shows.

So, to that end, I've resolved to write more. Hence, this blog. The reading more often will happen whether I like it or not with the book list I've got for school. Through this blog though, I'm hoping to sharpen my writing skills, and write about the things I'm reading so that I engage them in an even deeper way. Maybe it'll make me a better speaker down the road. Maybe not. Maybe I'll get overwhelmed and stop posting in a few weeks, but hopefully not. I'm also planning on trying to email my friends and family more often. I've realized that between Facebook chat, Skype and my cell phone, almost all my correspondence these days is done in short, twitter-like bursts. I can't even remember the last time I sat down and wrote out a long, thought-out letter or email to someone.

So that's the plan. I'm pretty gung-ho for it right now, but who knows what tomorrow will bring. If I stop posting and anyone still cares, badger me about it and maybe you can guilt me into being more consistent. Hopefully I stay dedicated, and hopefully I write something worth reading on here. I'm planning to write about my life here in Charlotte, the books I'm reading, maybe even some of the movies I watch. If nothing else, I'll try to post a verse or a quote that I like every day to keep things interesting. I hope you keep reading, and I hope I can write some things that make it worth your time.

"Now we live in the age of electronic wherein we cultivate the sensibility (if it can be called that) of distracted multitasking." - T. David Gordon