I used to fret that I could remember very few of the sermons I had heard. Now I fret that I can remember very few of the sermons I preach. Still, I remember none of the details from the Latin lessons I took in school, and yet I can still pick up a book of Latin prose or verse and read it. We may have forgotten the details of individual classes we’ve taken, but our minds are rewired by what we learned. In studying Latin I was changed from someone who saw Latin as an impenetrable code to someone who now delights in the cadences and periods of Cicero.
I believe preaching is like that. The point is not that we remember all the details and can perfectly recall them. Rather, it is the slow, incremental impact of sitting under the word week by week, year by year that makes the difference. That is how we mature as Christians. God uses this means of grace to make us into vessels of his grace. And that is why a Protestant theology of grace must place the clear, powerful, unequivocal proclamation of God’s word right at the center.
Trueman, Carl R. Grace Alone—Salvation as a Gift of God: What the Reformers Taught…and Why It Still Matters (The Five Solas Series) (p. 193). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
