No warmth within:
Some preachers have a great horror of emotionalism. So have I, if this means the artificial stirring of the emotions by rhetorical tricks or other devices. But we should not fear genuine emotion. If we can preach Christ crucified and remain altogether unmoved, we must have a hard heart indeed. More to be feared than emotion is cold professionalism, the dry, detached utterance of a lecture which has neither heart nor soul in it. Do man's peril and Christ's salvation mean so little to us that we feel no warmth rise within us as we think about them?
From "The Preacher's Portrait" (London: Tyndale Press, 1961), p. 51.
I tend to distrust a highly emotional plea or sermon from anyone. And in my own comings and goings, I often want to discount emotions because of their seemingly 'unfounded' nature, but the truth is they are a very real part of how God created us, and clearly have their place.
And what's funny (read: strange, not haha) is that as much as I distrust the overly emotional...I equally distrust the complete lack thereof.
It's not at all what Stott is addressing, but I wonder what this means for the times when I have sat at a stoplight, inches from a homeless person begging for money, and sat in my car without making eye contact - but weeping because of the sadness of the situation and my sometimes cold or fearful or judgmental heart that is so paralyzed by indecision on how to respond in these moments that all I can do by way of response is weep for their heart and my own...
That sure does feel real to me. But if it's all I ever do...is it enough? I submit that it is not.
1 comment:
Post a Comment