How Augustine Preached Sermons

Peter Brown in his magnificent biography of Augustine of Hippo wrote about Augustine's sermons.

For Augustine did not 'preach' sermons, in the sense of delivering fierce denunciations of the gods. Rather he gave his congregation what we could call a 'teach-in'. In a world where the overwhelming majority of the population was illiterate, Christian doctrine was not primarily communicated through books. It was communicated, in detail, by sermons. The sermons preached by Augustine in 404 were nothing less than a series of master classes on the nature of true relations between God and men. They were preserved as they were spoken by stenographers. In them, we hear the principal themes of the Confessions of De Trinitate and the City of God brought to life for us in the simple Latin of the streets of Carthage and of the small towns of the Medjerda valley. Ordinary congregations were to have their full share of Augustine's magnificent vision of the Christian religion (pp. 457-458)

I want to make a couple of observations. First, obviously being illiterate is not the same as being stupid. Scholars have many of Augustine's sermons and the sermons taught difficult concepts to the ordinary congregation of that day. Sermons went on for over 2 hours at times. The preachers at that time made the sermons cyclical and segmented so the audience could leave and come back and still pick up the sense of the sermon.

The second observation is I am reading 7 Practices of Effective Ministry. The 4th practice is "Teach Less for More." The authors make some good points teaching children, but I do not agree with all their points about teaching adults. The authors want the churches to teach what is helpful (p. 136). However, we as a congregation need to go deep into theology at times to plumb the depths of grace. Paul prays in Ephesians for the Ephesian church to have "strength to comprehend."

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19, ESV)

Knowing God is hard work and difficult. From reading this biography of Augustine, I would think Augustine would agree that Christians need to understand theology so they can understand the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ. Read the Pauline epistles and remember that Paul was not writing to theologians alone. He was writing to ordinary congregations. God wants us to use our hearts, minds and souls to worship him.