Not By Eloquence of Speech, BUT By Power

1 Corinthians 2:4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

Paul said that his message and his preaching had nothing to do with his own wisdom, or his own eloquence... nothing to do with his personality, or his own charisma... nothing to do with his looks, or his fashion statement... nothing to do with his cleverness, or his intellect... nothing to do with his educational biography, or his pedigree...

Real effective preaching has to do with one thing, the demonstration of the power of the Spirit. That is, the Holy Spirit demonstrating the power of God through a human being. A human being who serves as little more than the conduit between God and God's people. A good preacher knows that he/she is merely the bearer of the message, not the source.

On one occasion when Bishop John Bryant came to preach at the Cathedral International, he used the Triumphant Entry (Mark 11:1-11) from which we derive our Palm Sunday celebrations to demonstrate this case. Bishop Bryant considered what the "donkey" may have been thinking as Jesus rode his back into the city of Jerusalem (8-10).

8Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. 9Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,
"Hosanna!"
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"
10"Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!"
"Hosanna in the highest!"

As the crowds were shouting Hosanna and waving palm branches, Bishop Bryant suggests that the donkey was probably thinking, "Look at how these people are praising me." The people were not in fact praising the donkey of course, but the one the donkey was carrying. "What a jackass," Bishop Bryant proclaimed, "to think that he, a donkey, was being praised by all these people." According to Bishop Bryant, "There are a whole lot of jackass preachers" (seriously, I couldn't possibly make this up). Point being, some preachers seem to think that they are the ones who should be recieving praise from people, but a preacher simply carries the message of salvation to the people who need it. The message is in fact riding in on the back of the preacher, as Jesus rode in on the back of the donkey. Paul was saying that the excellency of God would be veiled if all people saw was him as he carried the message. It is God who redeems and saves by the power of the Spirit! It is God's redemption that yields the fruit of salvation.

Written by Frederick A. Hanna