Preaching With Compassion Adds Passion

Preaching with Compassion Adds Passion

Preaching with compassion adds passion to preaching.  That’s the theme of this post.   If you are new here, this is one in a series of posts on passionate preaching.  The first of these posts is here.   In this post we are going to explore the reality that if you have greater compassion, it will add passion to your preaching.

What’s Compassion?

According to the Miriam Webster dictionary, compassion is:

: sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.

There are a couple of things to note about that definition.  First, it is a feeling, a feeling that you feel when contemplating the pain and suffering in the world or around you.  The word “sympathy” is often associated with compassion.  It means to have the same feeling as someone else, especially someone who is facing pain in their life.  Compassion, simply means to feel with people.

In the etymology of the word, especially in Scripture, it refers to a movement of your inward parts: heart, liver, bowels, etc. in response to pain that you observe.

Secondly, note that compassion connects to the distress of others.  When you have compassion, you connect at a deep level with someone else’s pain.   Preaching with compassion adds passion to your preaching.

Feeling Compassion Is More Difficult Today

Those who reflect on our culture say that we have today what is called “Compassion fatigue”.  In other words, we see so much pain that we can’t feel anymore.  It’s like we’ve grown a callous over our hearts.

Think about this for a moment.  I watched the news last night.  There were pictures of children who had been injured or killed in the bombing that has been going on in Gaza in one report. Another report showed people carrying the wounded out of building in Ukraine that a Russian missile struck.  Yet another report gave pictures of people impacted by an out of control fire in California.  Floods in various parts of our country wreaked havoc on the lives of people, and we saw and heard them.

The point is: we are exposed to so much pain on a daily basis that it is difficult to feel compassion anymore.  Our capacity is reduced.

A Call To Preaching With Compassion

This quote by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is a powerful call to develop a stronger heart, a greater ability to feel compassion:

To love to preach is one thing, to love those to whom we preach is quite another.  the trouble with some of us is that we love preaching, but we are not always careful to make sure that we love the people to whom we are actually preaching.  If you lack this element of compassion for the people you will also lack the pathos which is a very vital element in all true preaching.  (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, p. 92).

I love to preach, and  I continue to study preaching regularly for this post, but also for teaching classes on preaching for Christian Leaders’ Institute.   The danger that Lloyd-Jones points out is one that I know well.  I love the sense of holding the attention of a congregation of people.  My well-honed skill at talking in front of people makes it possible for me to manipulate the emotions of people, and I love it.

As I write, I have in mind another preacher, a young man that I was mentoring.  When we talked about his sense of calling to ministry, he said it started with watching a preacher, with everyone’s attention on him, and he said he wanted that.  Did you catch that?  He wanted the attention.  I understand that desire.

The Beginning of Compassion

However, God has reminded me at times that the goal is not just to move people, but connect people to a God who loves them.  So, I began to pray for a greater sense of compassion.  God continues to work on me in that regard.  Sometimes it is not so pleasant.  I tear up sometimes too easily these days, but I am learning.

In the next post we’ll continue to explore the things you can do to develop a softer heart.  This is important, because preaching with compassion adds passion to your preaching.