Mike Willis served as editor of Truth Magazine for 40 years. He has been married to Sandy (Parson) for over 50 years and they have two children, Jennifer Mann (who is married to Robbie Mann, a deacon at the Decatur Township church in Indianapolis) and Corey who is married to Meagan (Robbins) and serves as a deacon at the Jamestown, IN church. They have four grandchildren: Corbin and Ian Mann and Raven and Tori Willis.

THE PREACHER’S STUDY

Gospel preaching should be compelling and fresh, but we must not become obsessed with telling or hearing something new.

In 1967, I started full-time preaching when I was twenty years old. I wanted to preach nothing but the gospel. I thought that there was no use in me preaching subjects related to “what must I do to be saved” because we had been thoroughly schooled in those subjects. I thought our members had heard about the identifying marks of the New Testament church so frequently that I didn’t need to be preaching about that either. On one occasion, I even complained that I was having to teach a Bible class on one of the gospels because I wanted to study some of the letters of Paul. How green and naive could one be?

I was fortunate to have my brother Cecil living nearby to direct and guide my studies and to look over my sermons. He insisted that I preach on first principles and, to my surprise, I learned that I didn’t know nearly so much about those subjects as I thought I did. I preached through Roy E. Cogdill’s New Testament Church (and read other books on the same subject, such as Leroy Brownlow’s Why I Am a Member of the Church of Christ), began reading sermons from various other restoration preachers, and read the periodicals under his guidance as well. And, to my surprise, the members told me that it had been a long time since they heard sermons on those subjects and how much help the lessons were to them. During those years, we baptized more people than at any other time of my life and, as time passed, I became grounded in these first principles.

I doubt that I was the first or only young preacher who was tempted to preach something new to his audience.

The Value of Newness

In the Old Testament, as Solomon spoke of how the world operates and the nature of human activities, he said there is nothing new under the sun (Eccl. 1:9-10). Yet, even the Scriptures speak of “new” things. Doing a quick word search, one can read of the Lord’s new covenant with the house of Israel (Isa. 43:19; Jer. 31:31-34) which brought in such a change that it could only be compared to a “ new heavens and earth” (Isa. 65:17; 66:22). The doctrine which Jesus introduced was described as new doctrine (Mark 1:27; Acts 17:29, 21); those converted became a new man (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Eph. 2:15; 4:24; Col. 3:10) and entered through a new and living way (Heb. 10:20). So there is room for some legitimate “new” things in the gospel.

The Psalmists spoke of a new song (Ps. 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1; Isa. 42:10). The idea of a new song, according to J.J. Stewart Perowne is “one which springs freshly from a thankful and rejoicing heart – one which seeks to put an old theme in a new light” (The Psalms, I: 266).

Jeremiah also spoke of the ever continuing mercies of the Lord: "Through the LORD'S mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness” (Lam.3:22-23).

We appreciate the new songs that are being written to praise God, even though we continue to enjoy so many of the old ones. Our worship is sometimes stimulated by a new song, or a new-to-me verse of an old song, or a new song newly revived.

In the Lord’s covenant, every person has to build his faith for himself. Every individual must learn to search the Scriptures (Acts 17:11) for himself. I have been impressed by men who discovered in the Scriptures some things that I had previously missed. Their studies enlightened my own understanding. Every person must prove all things and hold fast that which is good (1 Thess. 5:21). Listening to and examining things that have been taught by his seniors, the growing Christian will discover that some of the things passed down are human traditions, which upon examination, may have lost their value to a new generation.

The is a danger to ruts. Vance Havner said that a rut is just a grave with both ends kicked out. We can overreact to changes associated with our congregational experiences. A congregation can be upset by someone painting the walls a different color, having an opening prayer immediately following the announcements instead of its traditional place (between the second and third song), moving the times of the worship service, having only one worship assembly on Lord’s day, changing from a spring and fall meeting to week-end meetings, making the announcements at the end of worship instead of the beginning, etc. When one of our song leaders led three verses of the selected hymn before the Lord’s Supper and then the last verse after the Lord’s Supper, one member thought we were going liberal. We can get caught in ruts.

The fact of the matter is that we must constantly examine ourselves to be sure that we are using the most productive means of communicating the gospel to our own generation. This might require changing some things from the way our fathers did it to how we preach today. Jesus concluded one of His parables saying, “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light” (Luke 16:8).

Especially is this true with reference to changes in technology. Undoubtedly, the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg (ca. 1440) changed everything for the fifteenth century. In addition to leaving some scribes unemployed who were forced to start new occupations late in their lives, the printing press made it possible for critics of the Roman Catholic Church to disseminate their objections to the Papacy in ways previously unimagined. The use of radio, in its time, changed things and, in my generation, the use of a call-in radio program was very effective. We are stunned by how the digital revolution has changed how people communicate and are thankful for those who are becoming quite efficient in using it to spread the gospel.

And, there have also been changes in the social context of America. The kind of preaching that was acceptable in the 1940s and 1950s explicitly contrasted the false doctrines of the denominations and the New Testament. Men such as W. Curtis Porter were quite popular because of their effective debating. In the late 20th century, our culture had changed to the point that debates are not appreciated and are rarely conducted. Those who are effective debaters are not nearly so appreciated in the 21st century as they had been in the 19-20th centuries. One must be as wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove in trying to faithfully present the gospel to one’s own generation (Matt. 10:16).

The Danger of Newness

The Bible also makes us aware of the danger of new things. Scripture warned those who began to worship new gods (Deut. 32:17; Judg. 5:8). The new cart that had been prepared for transporting the ark of the covenant resulted in the immediate destruction of Uzzah (2 Sam. 6:3). In one of His parables, Jesus warned of the danger of using a new cloth to patch an old garment, obviously cautioning against combining the elements of the old and new covenants or combining human traditions with the new covenant (Matt. 9:16).

The appeal for the new may appeal to one’s human pride. Second-century Gnostics thought that they could reach salvation through esoteric knowledge. There are some who think they have found something in the Lord’s revelation that few, if any, have ever discovered. This is especially true with reference to various eschatological events. Some have discovered a “new” doctrine that teaches that the second coming and judgment occurred in A.D. 70 and that, therefore, there is no scriptural promise of the Lord’s future coming, the resurrection of the body, and heaven and hell. Others have “discovered” that there is no “going to heaven” because heaven will be here on this earth, which will be rejuvenated at the Lord’s coming. The “I-know-something-you-don’t-know” is a tool of Satan that appeals to the intellectual pride of life. It is a danger to Bible faith.

Conclusion

May God grant us the wisdom to avoid falling into ruts that equate human traditions with divine revelation and to avoid rejecting all of the proven judgments of our elders because of our desire to be different.

Sources

Perowne, J. J. Stewart (John James Stewart). The Book of Psalms: A New Translation with Introductions and Notes, Explanatory and Critical. Andober: Warren F. Draper, 1891.