During a pastoral conference lead by John Piper a few years ago, he was discussing how well John Newton used language to convey a message in his preaching.[1]
Most of us gravitate to abstractions… we say, ‘Men are foolish to fret so much over material things when they will inherit eternal riches.’
Newton says, ‘Suppose a man was going to New York to take possession of a large estate and his carriage should breakdown one mile before he got to the city, which obliged him to walk the rest of the way to the inheritance. What a fool we should think him if we saw him wringing his hands and blubbering out all the remaining mile, ‘my carraige is broken! my carriage is broken!’.
This was one of several humourous and clever illustrations that Piper used to bring Newton to life. John Newton clearly had a gift with the use of language. In fact Piper believes that this kind of preaching is a matter of life and death in our churches. Maybe so? But I do know that I wish there were more people ministering in our churches who spoke like that!
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Footnotes:
- John Newton was an 18th Century Clergyman and the writer of the famous hymn Amazing Grace
