An important principle I try to embed in my preaching students is how the Bible doesn’t need to be defended, described, or argued for as an authority as much as proclaimed. In other words, pastors must primarily preach the Word trusting God the Holy Spirit to authenticate the Word in people’s hearts.
This is what Charles Spurgeon was getting at when he compared the Bible to a lion:
There seems to me to have been twice as much done in some ages in defending the Bible as in expounding it, but if the whole of our strength shall henceforth go to the exposition and spreading of it, we may leave it pretty much to defend itself. I do not know whether you see that lion—it is very distinctly before my eyes; a number of persons advance to attack him, while a host of us would defend [him]. . . . Pardon me if I offer a quiet suggestion. Open the door and let the lion out; he will take care of himself. Why, they are gone! He no sooner goes forth in his strength than his assailants flee. The way to meet infidelity is to spread the Bible. The answer to every objection against the Bible is the Bible.1
In our post-Christian, anti-authoritarian culture (which is every culture since the Fall), let us step into our pulpits each week . . . and let the lion out.
“The Bible: Speech at Annual Meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society, May 5, 1875,” in Speeches by C.H. Spurgeon at Home and Abroad, ed G.H. Pike (London, 1878).