“BUT AREN’T THERE OTHER WAYS? Then let us look at a second objection. People may say, “Surely with man as he is now, educated and sophisticated and so on, cannot all you want to do be done equally well by reading books and journals? Cannot it be done by television or radio, through discussions particularly?” Of course reading can help and is a great help, as are these other agencies, but I do suggest that it is time we asked the question as to what extent they are really helping and dealing with the situation. I suggest that the result is a disappointing one, and I think I can give the reasons for this. The first is that this is a wrong approach because it is too individualistic. The man sits on his own reading his book. That is too purely intellectual in its approach; it is a matter of intellectual interest. Another thing, which I find very difficult to put into words, but which to me is most important, is that the man himself is too much in control. What I mean is that if you do not agree with the book, you put it down; if you do not like what you are hearing on the television, you turn it off. You are an isolated individual, and you are in control of the situation. Or to put it more positively, that whole approach lacks the vital element of the church. Now the church is a missionary body, and we must recapture this notion that the whole church is a part of this witness to the gospel and its truth and its message. It is therefore most important that people should come together and listen in companies in the realm of the church. That has an impact in and of itself. I have often been told this. The preacher after all is not speaking for himself—he is speaking for the church; he is explaining what the church is and what these people are and why they are what they are. You remember that the apostle Paul in the first epistle to the Thessalonians makes quite a point of this. It is something that we tend to neglect at the present time. He tells those Thessalonians that they as a church had been a great help to him in his preaching; he put it like this in 1 Thessalonians 1: 6–9: And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost. So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing. For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you. The very presence of a body of people in itself is a part of the preaching, and these influences begin to act immediately upon anyone who comes into a service. These influences, I suggest, are very often more potent in a spiritual sense than pure intellectual argumentation.”

From: The Christ-Centered Preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Classic Sermons for the Church Today by Martyn Lloyd-Jones