Veni Creator Spiritus

“According to the eighth chapter of Romans, there is more hope when one sighs Veni Creator Spiritus, than when he exults as if the spirit were already his.” – Karl Barth

What Shall We Say?

“And what shall we say, O my God, my life, my holy, dear delight, or what can any man say when he speaketh of thee? And woe be to them that are silent in thy praise, when even they who speak most thereof may be accounted to be but dumb.” – Saint Augustine, Confessions, I, 4.

Yet Another Thing the Christian Left and Right Seem to Share. . .

From my observation of contemporary preaching, neither “conservative” nor “liberal” preachers are immune from the temptation to take the grace of God into our hands and justify our sermons on the basis of our own rhetorical efforts, though we do this in different ways. Too many who fancy themselves as “expository,” even “biblical” preachers tend first to reduce the bubbling biblical text to a set of propositions, such as “six biblical principles for success” or “ten steps to a happier family life,” and then preach those conceivable steps, using bits of the Bible as a sort of gloss on the principles that they derived from contemporary culture rather than from the scripture. Preachers of a more liberal disposition devise some story, an extended illustration, whereby they hope to evoke–more typically, to induce–some feeling of God’s nearness to and affirmation of the listener in the listener. Both methods tend to be evasions of the truth that “the just shall live by faith.”
- William H. Willimon, Conversations with Barth on Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2006) 174.

The Chattering, Squinting, Stuttering Church

“It is the church which for the sake of security wants to construct an ontology before beginning theology; which instead of expounding the Bible gives itself with deadly seriousness to the problem of hermeneutics (to love of love instead of love itself!); which instead of speaking of the Word entrusted to it speaks constantly of the speech event; which constantly analyzes humanity instead of speaking simply and directly to it (because it knows what it wants and has to say). Supposedly to reach people where they are, this church is forever paying regard to them, adjusting to them, trying to win their attention and sympathy, attempting to be — or to appear to be — as pleasant as possible to them. It is the distracted and therefore the chattering church, the squinting and therefore the stuttering church.” - Karl Barth

The Old and New Testaments as Pointing to Christ

Here’s a neat quote from Barth on how the Old and New Testaments relate:

As regards handling of Old Testament texts, we maintain that for us the Old Testament is valid only in relation to the New. If the church as declared itself to be the lawful successor of the synagogue, this means that the Old Testament is witness to Christ, before Christ but not without Christ. Each sentence in the Old Testament must be seen in this context. Historical exegesis can and must be done, but at the same time we have to ask whether this exegesis does justice to the context in which the Old and New Testaments stand. Even in a sermon on Judges 6:3 it is possible both insist on the literal sense and also to set one’s sights on Christ. As a wholly Jewish book, the Old Testament is a pointer to Christ. As regards the justification of allegory, we have again to refer to the relation between the Old Testament and the New. In the Old Testament the natural sense is the issue. Preaching must bring out what the Old Testament passage actually says, but in a way that affirms the basic premise on which the church adopted the Old Testament. This does not mean that we will give the passage a second sense — just as we are not to oppose historical and Christian exposition to one another. Instead, we will see that this passage in its immanence points beyond itself. It is a signpost that gives us direction. The Old Testament points forwards, the New Testament points backward, and both point to Christ.
- Karl Barth, Homiletics Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Donald E. Daniels (Louisville, KY: WJK, 1991) 80-81.