Chrysostom: 'Golden Mouth'

John’s nickname Chrysostom (pronounced Chris es tom) meant “golden mouth,” but no one called him that in his lifetime. He was given that honorary title 150 years after his death, but from the beginning of his ministry people were enthralled with his preaching.

John studied classical rhetoric. He was drilled in grammar and syntax, tutored in the Greek classics (Demosthenes, Plato, Homer) and trained to memorize long passages. John pursued the finest education in liberal arts available, and he excelled in all the communication techniques of his day. And, then, at the age of 18, he rebelled. He threw aside what he dismissed as “ostentatious verbiage” and fell in love with the Bible.¹

After his baptism in 368, he chose a life of seclusion. He became passionately devoted to a rigorous and demanding asceticism. He went for long periods without sleep and food. He learned large portions of the Old and New Testaments by heart. He refused to lie down, day or night, for the better part of two years. Sleep deprivation and constant standing were meant to enhance continuous communion with God. Since it was improper for a slave to lie down in the presence of his master, it was wrong for Christ’s servant to lie down before his Lord. Not surprisingly, this severe self-mortification ruined his health. Monasticism radicalized his life and ministry. Even though he became the fourth century’s greatest preacher—senior pastor at Antioch and then archbishop of Constantinople—John’s heart and soul never left the wilderness cave.

A Biblical Preacher

John sought a literal, straight-forward and historical interpretation of the text, instead of an allegorical and figurative interpretation. Years of secular training in rhetoric and wilderness training in the Scriptures produced a powerful preacher. He could hold an audience spell-bound, preaching extemporaneously with intensity and depth.

People had never heard preaching like this before.² John’s style was forceful, immediate and compelling, a product not only of his internal makeup but the external conditions of his setting. Worshipers did not sit in pews, they stood and walked around. The audience was in perpetual motion and John had to keep their attention. He was the people’s theologian, exhorting his hearers to take his message home with them and repeat it over dinner. He made the whole counsel of God come alive.³ We have more than 600 of John’s sermons and 200 letters. His sermon series on the Book of Acts is the only surviving commentary on that book from the first 1,000 years of the church.⁴    

For 12 years, John preached against the pagan decadence of Antioch—the wealthy capital city of Syria (386-397). He juxtaposed the truth of the gospel with the lifestyle of his parishioners. John’s insistence on pressing for obedience in a culture so similar to ours, in its addiction to sports and entertainment, makes me wonder how we should preach today. Would we dare to preach like John today? John weighed in on a host of issues from greed to gluttony. He refused to leave sin undefined. John’s biblical rationale was solid: “For all you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Gal. 3:27). John preached against gourmet cooking and architectural ostentation. He took on women’s fashions and the race track. If John were alive today would he preach against NASCAR or the NFL? Would he make wealthy worshipers squirm as he defended the cause of the poor?