Liam: There is a magic that happens in the pulpit...Adrian: *discusses words used for that: anointing, unctionLiam: It's the Holy Spirit taking up the preacher, it's the word coming in power, what Paul was preaching about: not in word only, but also in power.
They go on to talk about the role of the Holy Spirit in preaching. Later in the discussion Adrian and Liam talk about listening to preaching.
Liam: Even this note taking thing... I've gotta stop reading when somebody is reading the Bible to me and hear it the way it was meant to be heard. The Bible was meant to be read. If I'm taking notes I'm replicating a lecture hall... Calvin believed strongly this was a divine interaction taking place.
Last night, reading Spurgeon's conversion account, I was reminded of the interview:
Personally, I have to thank God for many good books; I thank him for Dr. Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul; for Baxter's Call to the Unconverted; for Allein's Alarm to Sinners; and for James' Anxious Enquirer; but my gratitude most of all is due to God, not for books, but for the preached Word,
He goes on to describe the snowstorm/country laymen sermon that brought him to Christ.
These are interesting thoughts for an educator like me. I am working on projects where I try to see how much music I can get out of young learners without introducing note reading. I want to find out how much music they can internalize before they need visual cues.
I've always been a more visual learner myself. But when I'm glued to music notation I'm not anywhere on the path to learning jazz. And if I'm copying down a powerpoint during a sermon maybe I'm missing part of God's personal message to me.
Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God.
We who, in the modern era, used to attend lectures on the weekends for kicks, now can't hear what someone is saying next to us for staring at our iphones. How much of the gospel is our visually overstimulated society missing? We have become dull of hearing in many ways.
