Pentecostal Worship, Preaching, and Ministry — Unit 4: Pentecostal Preaching: Anointing and Preparation

Key Verse

"And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." (1 Corinthians 2:4, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain what Pentecostals mean by "anointing" in preaching and give its biblical basis.

2. Explain why the Spirit's anointing and careful preparation belong together.

3. Describe the main stages of a preacher's preparation: prayer, study of the text, understanding the hearers, and application.

4. State three objections to Pentecostal preaching and give the Pentecostal answer to each.

5. Explain how this unit relates to the CTS WiseSpeak preaching course, and describe how a preacher guards against pride and abuse of the anointing.

The Voice of This Course

This course is written from inside the classical Pentecostal tradition, for students who belong to it. It is conservative and Trinitarian. Preaching holds a central place in our churches. A Pentecostal service may sing and pray for an hour, but it moves toward the Word and the response to the Word. Other traditions, especially the Reformed and Baptist traditions, have a long history of careful, text-centered preaching, and Pentecostals have sometimes been criticized for relying on feeling and inspiration instead of study. We take that criticism seriously. We also hold that preaching without the Spirit's power is not the preaching the New Testament describes.

A note on the CTS preaching course. Chapala Theological Seminary offers a separate course, the WiseSpeak preaching course. This unit does not teach or summarize that course. It deals with what is specific to Pentecostal preaching: the place of the Spirit's anointing and the need for the preacher's preparation. Students are encouraged to take both. They fit together.

The Place of Preaching

The New Testament presents preaching as God's chosen means of making the gospel known. Jesus began His public ministry by reading from Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth: "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor" (Luke 4:18). The apostles went out and preached. Paul asked, "How shall they hear without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14). In the last chapter of 2 Timothy he gave his young coworker a charge: "Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching" (2 Timothy 4:2).

Two things stand together in these passages. Preaching is about the Word, the message that God has given. And preaching depends on the Spirit, who anoints and empowers the messenger. A Pentecostal preacher cannot give up either one.

What Is the Anointing?

The word "anoint" means to pour or smear oil on a person, and in Scripture it marks a person as set apart and equipped by God. Kings, priests and prophets in Israel were anointed. The word "Messiah" and the word "Christ" both mean "Anointed One." Peter told Cornelius that "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power" (Acts 10:38). Jesus ministered in that anointing, and the Church receives the Spirit as He did.

When Pentecostals speak of "the anointing" in preaching, they mean the Holy Spirit's special empowering of a preacher and his or her message, so that the Word comes with clarity, conviction and power to those who hear. We see this in the New Testament. After the believers prayed in Acts 4, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31). Paul told the Thessalonians that the gospel "did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance" (1 Thessalonians 1:5). He told the Corinthians that his preaching was "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Corinthians 2:4), our key verse.

The anointing includes several things in the experience of preachers.

• Boldness. The preacher speaks with courage, even when the message is hard.

• Clarity. Truth becomes plain, both to the preacher and to the hearers.

• Conviction. The hearers sense that God is speaking to them, and they feel the weight of sin, the comfort of grace and the call to act.

• Fruit. People repent, believe, are healed or are strengthened. The test of an anointing is its fruit, not its noise.

Pentecostals connect this with the baptism in the Holy Spirit, which Courses 1 and 2 described as empowerment for witness. Jesus told His disciples, "you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me" (Acts 1:8). The preacher who is filled with the Spirit and who depends on Him is the preacher who may expect power.

What the anointing is not

The word "anointing" is sometimes misused. It is not:

• Loudness or emotion. A preacher may shout and weep without the Spirit, and may speak quietly with great power.

• A guarantee against error. The Spirit's anointing does not make a preacher's every word infallible. Only Scripture is the inspired and final Word. Every sermon must be tested by it.

• A reason to avoid study. Some preachers say, "I do not prepare; the Lord gives me what to say." This is not what the Bible teaches, as the next section shows.

• A claim of special authority over others. A preacher who says, "Do not question me; I am the Lord's anointed," misuses the word. The Bereans, who "searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11), were praised even for testing the apostle Paul.

Anointing and Preparation Belong Together

Some Pentecostals, in a wish to honor the Spirit, have set the Spirit against study. The Bible does not support this division.

Look first at Ezra. "For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the LORD, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel" (Ezra 7:10). He studied, he obeyed and he taught, in that order. Paul urged Timothy: "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). The word "diligent" shows effort. And Luke, who was writing under the Spirit's inspiration, wrote in the opening of his Gospel that he set down an "orderly account" (Luke 1:3). The Spirit works through careful study.

What of Jesus' promise that the Spirit would give words to disciples brought before authorities (Luke 12:11-12)? That promise was for a specific situation, when believers were put on trial and could not prepare. It does not cancel the work of study for the weekly preacher. Moreover, the Spirit who helps in the moment is the same Spirit who works through the hours in the study. He may give the preacher the word as he prays on Tuesday as well as in the pulpit on Sunday.

So the way forward is not to choose between Spirit and study. The preacher prepares with all diligence, and then depends on the Spirit to bless and apply the message. The preacher is also ready to depart from the prepared notes if the Spirit clearly leads, always within the bounds of the text.

The historians' and the critics' concern

Evangelical teachers of preaching, many of them Reformed or Baptist, have for generations insisted on thorough study. John A. Broadus, in On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons (1870), and Charles Spurgeon, in his Lectures to My Students, are well-known examples of this tradition, and both are in the public domain. Spurgeon, a Baptist, also insisted that a preacher needs the Holy Spirit. Pentecostal preachers can learn much from both men. We do not need to avoid good teaching because it came from outside our tradition.

The Stages of Preparation

The CTS WiseSpeak preaching course is the place to study preaching in full. Here we speak only about the attitude and the basic work of preparation that every Pentecostal preacher should share.

1. Prayer. The preacher begins on his or her knees. Prayer is not a decoration before the real work. It is part of the real work. The preacher asks the Lord for understanding, for a clean heart and for love toward the people. Many preachers fast and pray for important occasions.

2. The text. The preacher reads the passage many times, asks what it meant to its first hearers, and notes what comes before and after. A sermon should rest on the meaning of the text, not on a mere word or phrase taken out of its setting. Course 2, Unit 2 on reading Luke-Acts showed how Pentecostals read narrative; the same care applies to every passage.

3. The hearers. The preacher thinks of the people who will hear: their age, work, culture, sorrows and questions. Jesus spoke differently to fishermen, scholars and mourners. A sermon that is true but unconnected to the people's lives will not reach them.

4. Application. The preacher asks, "What does God want these people to believe, feel and do?" A sermon that informs but does not call for a response is incomplete. Pentecostal preaching expects an altar response, as Unit 2 described.

5. Humility. Before preaching, the preacher gives the message to the Lord and asks Him to bless it. After preaching, the preacher listens to honest feedback from a trusted elder or colleague.

Delivery: Heart, Mind and Body

Pentecostal preaching is often lively. The preacher may move, raise his voice, ask questions, and invite the people to answer "Amen." These are not wrong. In many cultures, a preacher speaks with great expression, and listeners expect it. The congregation takes part in the sermon, and this participation can help the Word to be heard.

Yet we apply three cautions. First, expression must serve the message. Drama that draws attention to the preacher is a failure. Second, the preacher must be clear. Hearers whose first language is different from the preacher's, or who are new to the Bible, need simple words and plain structure. Third, the preacher must be honest. Do not tell stories that did not happen or claim experiences that were not real. A pastor in a small community will be known, and truth is the foundation of trust.

Objections and Answers

Objection 1: Pentecostal preaching depends on emotion and not on the text.

Reformed and evangelical critics say that Pentecostal sermons are often stories and exhortation with little exposition of Scripture, and that the preacher relies on inspiration in place of study.

Our answer. There is truth in this criticism, and honest Pentecostal teachers admit it. A sermon that does not explain Scripture is weak, however powerful it feels. We answer by calling Pentecostal preachers to deeper study, as this unit does, and not by dismissing the critics. At the same time, we hold that a sermon that is accurate but without the Spirit's power fails to match Paul's picture of preaching in 1 Corinthians 2:4. We want both.

Objection 2: "Anointing" is vague language, and it can be used to claim authority.

Some critics argue that the word is not defined in the Bible in the way Pentecostals use it, and that it has been used by some leaders to silence questions.

Our answer. The New Testament does speak of anointing and of preaching "in power," as we have seen, and so we keep the word. But the critics are right that the word can be abused. Our safeguard is to define the word by Scripture and by its fruit, to insist that every sermon be tested, and to refuse any claim that an "anointed" leader may not be questioned. Course 4, Unit 10 will return to abuses and safeguards.

Objection 3: The gift of prophecy and preaching are confused.

Some say that Pentecostals treat sermons as if they were direct prophecies and claim more authority for them than they should.

Our answer. We distinguish. Preaching explains and applies the written Word. Prophecy, as Paul describes it, "speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men" (1 Corinthians 14:3), and it is to be judged by others (1 Corinthians 14:29). A sermon may include moments of prophetic insight, but the sermon's authority comes from the Scripture it explains, not from the preacher's inspiration. Course 3 treated prophecy in more detail.

Guarding the Preacher

The preacher's greatest danger is pride. The people may praise, the preacher may feel gifted, and the gift may be mistaken for the person. Here are some safeguards.

• Stay in the Word. The preacher who reads Scripture daily for his own soul, not only for sermons, is protected.

• Stay accountable. Welcome the counsel of elders, a spouse, a mentor. Do not preach alone.

• Stay humble about success. Fruit is the Lord's work. Paul wrote: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase" (1 Corinthians 3:6).

• Stay honest about money. Preach to feed the people, not to raise income for yourself.

• Stay faithful when the crowd is small. The preacher who is faithful to ten people is the preacher who may be trusted with a hundred.

Pastoral Application

A young pastor leads a church of about forty people. He works during the week and says he has no time to prepare. He tells his wife, "I will pray, and the Lord will give me the message." For several months his sermons are loud and emotional but wander from text to text. A thoughtful older member tells him kindly, "Pastor, we love you, but we are not learning the Bible."

The pastor is hurt at first. Then he thinks of Ezra and of Paul's words to Timothy. He decides to set aside two hours each Thursday evening for prayer and study. He chooses a book of the Bible, reads a short passage in the week before he preaches it, and writes down one main truth and one way to apply it. He asks an elder to listen to him once a month and tell him honestly what is clear and what is not. He also enrolls in the CTS WiseSpeak preaching course. His sermons become shorter, clearer and more fruitful, and he finds that he feels the Spirit's help more, not less, because he has been listening to the Spirit throughout the week.

Summary

Preaching is God's chosen means of making the gospel known, and it depends on both the Word and the Spirit. The anointing is the Holy Spirit's special empowering of the preacher and the message, known by boldness, clarity, conviction and fruit. It is not loudness, infallibility, an excuse to avoid study, or a claim of special authority. The Bible joins anointing with diligent preparation, as in Ezra 7:10 and 2 Timothy 2:15. Preparation includes prayer, study of the text, understanding the hearers, application and humility. Students should take the CTS WiseSpeak preaching course alongside this unit. We answer the objections that Pentecostal preaching rests on emotion, that anointing is vague, and that preaching is confused with prophecy. The preacher guards against pride by staying in the Word, accountable, humble, honest and faithful.

Further Reading

• Roger Stronstad, The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke (1984), on the Spirit's empowering for witness.

• Archer, Kenneth J., A Pentecostal Hermeneutic (2004).

• Steven J. Land, Pentecostal Spirituality (1993).

• John A. Broadus, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons (1870), a public-domain primary source.

• Charles H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, a public-domain primary source.

• Alexander Maclaren, published sermons, public-domain primary sources.

Submit Exam & Check Pass Reset