Life Preaching

We know that Arnold Yeung valued preaching. What are the features of his preaching? How can these inspire us?

In addition to his excellent exegetical skills, Yeung, as a widely-read person, always used books on various subjects to engage in dialogue with the Scripture, which is the most attractive part of his preaching. He may not be aware that he was in fact adopting Richard R. Osmer’s practical theology approach—employing theology to engage in dialogue with other disciplines.

Yeung’s views on and methodology for preaching are scattered throughout his biblical commentary The Wounded Lover: A Study on the Book of Hosea. In the opening section of a chapter, two questions are raised: First, how can a preacher find a message to preach? Second, how should the audience hear the message?

How can a preacher find a message to preach? Yeung believed that the message one delivers cannot be quantified because for each preacher, there is only one cohesive life message—a life-long message given to each preacher by God. For the entire life of the preacher, he/she is to preach this message alone, but to convey it in various ways. (Then I found that both Eugene H. Peterson and Dr. Philip S. C. Yeung held this same view.) A preacher, therefore, must receive this life-long message from God and then only preach this message for his/her entire life. Specifically, God gives you a message, and you have to preach it, addressing specific people in a particular context (for example, in Hong Kong) in the present time (Thomas Long also used similar wording). For Yeung, the life message that he himself was preaching is: the Bible is to transform our lives. Second, how should the audience hear a message? Yeung had been the advisor of a local church; his active participation had made a profound impact on the Church of Livingstones. He believed that how the audience hear a sermon depends on the relationship between the preacher and his/her audience; he even likened it to the father-son relationship. He emphasized that the audience will listen only if they have a deep connection with the preacher. Moreover, if a preacher serves in a local church for a prolonged while, his preaching on the stage and his behavior off the stage are both something evident to the congregation. Therefore, the way the audience hear the message is determined by their relationship with the preacher, and their observation of the preacher’s preaching on the stage and his/her performance off the stage. Yeung thus asserted that the roles of preacher and pastor should be held by the same person—one is a preacher on the stage and a pastor off the stage.

You have mentioned an important point that the roles of preacher and pastor should be played by the same person. Can you elaborate on this?

Besides preaching, a preacher must also take care of his/her church members wholeheartedly; this relationship is comparable with parent-child relationship. Preachers cannot be mere speakers at the pulpit, and they must also establish a relationship with the audience off the stage.

So, a preacher not only ought to live out a congruent life with consistency between his/her words and deeds, setting a good example for others, but should also have a kind of friendship and beloved relationship with the audience.

Yes, a preacher needs to have living connection with the audience.

You mentioned that Yeung had a profound knowledge of the Bible; his fatherly heart enabled him to foster a loving relationship with his brothers and sisters in Christ; he was also faithful to God and had a sense of calling; and his preaching, as a result, could influence others. This is true, from the perspective of Yeung, if our students can have a fatherly heart, build up a genuine relationship with brothers and sisters in Christ and embody the exemplar of a preacher, they can be counted as good pastors indeed. This is a good reminder.

You said that Arnold Yeung often talked about “enlightenment.” Can you explain it in more details?

In his last biblical commentary, For His Majesty: Commentary on the II Corinthians, there is a section “Preacher and the Word He Preaches (1:5-22),” where Yeung mentioned how to catalyze the spiritual enlightenment of the audience. He stressed that only when the audience’s spirits are enlightened by hearing the Word can their lives be possibly renewed. Yeung even stated exaggeratedly that many preachers are like “making a living as an acrobat.” When you are a fresh performer, you are always nervous, but when you become used to the performance, you probably know what jokes or stories are needed to impress your audience. Think about the sermons that you listened to, where at times, you laughed, cried and were touched, but what is the meaning of these in the end? It is meaningless, after all. If the audience’s spirits are not enlightened, and there are no changes in their lives, this is meaningless.

What should a preacher do then? Yeung suggested four steps: (1) recreate the scene, (2) explain the event, (3) point out the meaning for us, and (4) provide practical applications. The first two steps concern the biblical world, while the last two steps concern our world. (Here, Yeung was apparently utilizing the concept of “between two worlds” in John Stott’s approach of expository preaching.)

First, the preacher has to recreate the scene. Yeung believed that the content of the Scripture is originally a series of events, and for the sake of record, they are written down as texts. Hence, to enable our brothers and sisters to be enlightened by the sermon, we must recreate the scene; this is the exegetical part. Description of historical background, for example, can bring the audience to the historical scene as if they were there. In other words, we construct a stage with the historical background of the Bible, so that the audience can imagine themselves being in the scene. However, this is not enough. Second, we also need to explain the event. The explanation includes the context, characters and plot development. These two steps form the biblical world for the audience so that they can imagine themselves being there and watching what has been happening. As such, they can engage in a direct dialogue with the text.

Having completed the above two steps, nevertheless, is not sufficient; they can only bring the audience into the biblical world, like standing on the stage and watching a drama without any engagement. How can we connect the text with our life today? The third and fourth steps concern our present lives. The third step requires us to beware of how the context of the event happened in the text is structurally similar to that of our world. You must find out these structural similarities before you could explain the text’s meaning for us today. Yeung was an expert in this aspect because he read widely and audiences were fond of his explanations too. Lastly, but most importantly, the preacher must suggest some feasible and straightforward steps for application. To be truly enlightened, the audience have to put the Word in practice