Ears and Eyes
Scripture Reading: Galatians 3:1-9
Early in my ministry, a man in the church called me “411.” For those of you who don’t know or forgot, 411 was the number we used to dial for information. Specifically, if you dialed 411 you could ask them to give you the phone number of a person or business. We used to do this because we didn’t have internet search engines and sometimes a phone book wasn’t available. “What’s a phone book?” you ask. Well, maybe another day…Anyway, this man meant this as a compliment. He said he was learning a lot of good information from my preaching.
I took the compliment, but I also heard an unintended criticism in what he said. Again, he wasn’t being critical. He wasn’t a critical type of person. Still, what he said made me think more about how my preaching needed to do more than speak to the mind. I needed to be more effective at engaging the heart of the hearers.
Paul’s words in Galatians 3:1 described the kind of gospel preaching we should strive for. He said that it was before the eyes of these people that Christ was portrayed as crucified. Two things I would point out. First, he said it was before their eyes but he didn’t mean that they saw the actual crucifixion event. He meant they heard the gospel preached in a way that they could “see it.”
Second, Paul uses a word for the proclamation which was used in the Roman world to describe the public written announcement of an official declaration. I think the English Standard Version translation gets to the heart of what Paul meant by saying, “Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.”
William Hendriksen explains it this way:
With their very eyes, as it were, they had seen him. So clear and vivid had been the presentation of this Christ that they had formed a mental picture of him, dying for sinners and promising salvation to all who would accept him by true faith. When Paul says, “before whose very eyes Jesus was openly displayed as crucified,” he is thinking not so much of the historical details of the crucifixion as of the supreme value of Christ Crucified for a world lost in sin… (New Testament Commentary, Galatians, Baker Books, 1968, page 112).
This kind of gospel preaching turns the ears of the hearers into eyes. They see it as well as hear it. I agree with Hendriksen that Paul isn’t necessarily referring to graphic descriptions of the crucifixion as if every sermon needs to be like Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ.” Rather, it is, as Hendriksen remarked, that preaching must help people see “the supreme value of Christ Crucified for a world lost in sin.”
This Lord’s Day pray for those who preach the gospel. Pray for you pastor. Ask the Spirit of God to help them put before the eyes of those who hear them Jesus Christ Crucified. Ask that their preaching might be information and illumination, that it will go into the ear and down to the heart and the ears will become eyes and the people will see Jesus.
Excellent!
Amen!