1 Corinthians 2:3-5
I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
There is a difference between sharing the gospel with our own power and understanding and sharing it by the power of the Holy Spirit. How can one tell the difference? That is a challenging question to answer, speaking as a preacher. There have been times when the Spirit spoke in spite of my poor preparation. I have preached good sermons but they were more of me than the Holy Spirit. I have found that the more I saturate myself with the passage and in prayer in preparation of my message, the more I am open to the Spirit’s leading during the presentation of it. The Spirit speaks to me more in the preparation than in the delivery. When I carefully lay out every word in a sermon manuscript, I am able to wait upon the Spirit who gives clear thinking and/or conviction about certain topics and even words. I have known of people who “trust” in the Spirit when they get up to preach with little preparation or no sermon notes. My power to them! But I am afraid that I will be sharing more of my own jumbled thoughts than what I have spent the week(s) wrestling with God about and have come to some clear ideas, enough clarity to write it all down in carefully constructed outlines and even manuscripts. Delivery is another factor. Paul had preached his message enough times that he knew it well and could adapt it as needed. He probably had spent countless hours in his life searching the Scriptures (Old Testament) and talking with other believers. He knew what he was saying. Likewise, when we have studied well, we will be freer to rely less on a manuscript and more on our hearts. There is a balance to all this that comes with experience.
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