Write, if you have any answers to the questions listed at the end of this section, or would like to add to the answers below.
Your answers
Whence came the preacher’s “three points”? Where written of at length? Functional?
John Stott, Rector of All Souls’, Langham Place, was highly regarded as a preacher, and was the author of I Believe in Preaching (Hodder & Stoughton, 1982). On page 230, he writes: “A discussion of sermon-structure inevitably raises the issue of the popular three-point sermon, and this in its turn usually provokes a wry smile.
“It is not a modern invention, but has a long history. Charles Smyth goes into great detail about the rigid structure of the mediaeval ‘sermon scheme’ which, especially in England, demanded a theme text which was divisible into three, if possible into ‘three significant words’. To make the three-point sermon our invariable practice, however, would be to confine ourselves in a strait-jacket.
“It also does violence to many texts which make only one point or two, or for that matter may be naturally divisible into four and even five. Yet it is strange how often the natural is the triple. I have often wondered if it is because Christians are Trinitarians who easily discern allusions to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or to God above, for and in us.
“I was interested, therefore, to discover that this thought occurred to Robert de Basevon, whose Forma Praedicandi was published in 1322. ‘This rule may be judged’, he wrote, ‘by a desire to reverence the Trinity.’”
The references to Charles Smyth come from pages 19 to 54 of Smyth’s The Art of Preaching: A practical survey of preaching in the Church of England 747-1939 (SPCK, 1940).
Michael Glenn
Cardiff
Why are some of the compulsory readings from Acts unhelpfully brief? We read the results of a miraculous healing, but we do not read the healing itself. We read the results of words Peter spoke to a group that included Gentiles, but we do not read what Peter said.
Far from unhelpful, the brevity of the readings from Acts actually adds to their value as pointedly telling illustrations of Easter faith in him whom God raised from the dead.
The selected verses chosen for the Sundays of Eastertide become vehicles of testimony to the present reality of the Risen Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Extraneous details have purposely been removed to highlight a proclamation of the Easter message, which focuses on Jesus.
This is achieved by concentrating on the accomplished healing miracle, performed by the “Author of Life whom God raised” (Acts 3.15-16), and on the one by and in whose name the continuing redemptive activity is extolled, the stone rejected but now exalted to honour as the chief cornerstone. (Acts 4.11).
We are given several vignettes, from the standpoint of those who believe and trust in the Lordship of the Risen Christ, and are made aware of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit poured out, as a new Pentecost, on the Gentiles.
For an introduction to the Ministry of the Word during the great 50 days, should we ask or wish for more?
(Canon) Terry Palmer
Magor, Monmouthshire
Your questions
When I was a youth, Rogation Sunday was always celebrated, to pray for the crops. As late as 1999, I took part in the Beating of the Bounds on its eve. But, looking through service books, I find that the only reference to Rogation Sunday (as opposed to Rogation Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday) was in the 1928 Prayer Book. Did the ASB put paid to any formal recognition of Rogation Sunday? Is it still celebrated anywhere? R. W. C.
I am 91. I am trying to find a recording of a beautiful anthem that I had to sing (the solo) for our headmistress’s funeral service in, I think, 1934, chosen by our school singing master, Sir Ivor Atkins, organist and choirmaster at Worcester Cathedral. “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God; there shall no torment touch them. For they are in peace. For so he giveth his beloved sleep.” Elgar’s funeral procession passed our school in 1934. P. de B.
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