This
interview first appeared in the September-October 1992 issue of Preaching.
James Earl Massey will be one of our featured speakers at this year's National
Conference on Preaching in Nashville (for more information, visit
www.preaching.com/ncp),
so it is a timely moment to revisit our conversation with one of America's premier
preachers.
For
over four decades, James Earl Massey has captivated congregations and fellow
preachers through his preaching and teaching, Now retired, he most recently
served as dean of the School of Theology and professor of preaching and biblical
studies at Anderson University, Massey first gained a national reputation as
pastor of Detroit's Metropolitan Church of God — a pulpit he held for 29
years.
Later,
he served as International Radio Preacher for his denomination and as dean of
the chapel at Alabama's famed Tuskegee Institute. He is a charter member of
Preaching's
Board of Contributing Editors.
With
an air of distinct graciousness and a voice of Christian conviction, Massey
is an effective and faithful servant of the Word.
Preaching:
How do you define Christian preaching?
Massey:
Christian preaching is the kind of statement, based on New Testament teachings,
which highlights the ministry of Jesus Christ in His relation to human need.
Although I believe in sermons about God, which can broaden our understanding
of our Creator and the One by whose providence life is ordered, I think the
Christian note in preaching is different than the accent on God alone.
I
make a distinction between preaching about God and preaching about Christ. I
do believe that the preacher who takes God seriously must finally move to the
New Testament teaching about God in Jesus Christ — even if only to understand
how God has made Himself known through the Son, yet there are those who preach
only about God and not about Jesus the Christ. Their understanding of Jesus
as Son will have to wrestle with the whole New Testament notion of Jesus as
Savior. Christian preaching has to deal with that soteric element in our Lord's
ministry.
Preaching:
How do you view this as a problem in the contemporary church? Do you think that
this is a particularly modern problem?
Massey:
I do think this is a modern problem that is compounded by the increasing pluralism
of our day. The whole notion of diversity as espoused in the seminaries has
tended to level all religions in the mind of the average seminarian. Unless
the professor distinctly deals with Christian particularities, the one who graduates
from seminary will go out preaching religiously, but not Christianly, calling
very little if any attention to Jesus in His salvific role.
