Preaching and the life of study

Fred Craddock, who taught preaching and New Testament at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, died last Friday at the age of 86. Those of us who preach know his name well. It was simply not possible to go through seminary and fail to encounter his writings in homiletics (preaching) courses. I have read just about everything he wrote. His wisdom influenced my scholarship and my preaching in a profound way.

The first book I read by Craddock many years ago was simply entitled Preaching. The portion of the book I remember the most is chapter four, "The Life of Study." His emphasis on study, not as the means to the end of writing a sermon but as a way of life out of which sermons grow, is a lesson I have never forgotten. He writes,

When the life of study is confined to "getting up sermons," very likely those sermons are undernourished. They are the sermons of a preacher with the mind of a consumer, not a producer, the mind that looks upon life in and out of books in terms of usefulness for next Sunday. The last day of such a ministry is as the first, having enjoyed no real lasting or cumulative value in terms of the minister's own growth of mind, understanding or sympathy. Studying only for the next sermon is very much like clearing out of the wilderness a small garden patch, only to discover the next week that the wilderness has again taken over.

Of course, in one sense the life of study has been rather easy for me. I love to study. But as Craddock notes the temptation to allow the other demands of pastoral ministry to get in the way of the life of study can be too great. Once the life of study is seen as a luxury in pastoral ministry and not a necessity, not only will the sermon suffer along with the congregation that is listening, but the spiritual life of the pastor will suffer as well.