Murray Capill is the principal of Reformed Theological College in Geelong, a regular preacher, and the author of The Heart is the Target (PRP books, 2014). Here is Part 1 of TGCA’s conversation with Murray.
What was the path that led you into preaching?
In my teens I started to become interested in preaching. I heard some preachers who inspired me and I began to feel a tug in my own heart, wanting to be able to open God’s Word like that. But I was a late developer academically so it was only later in my teens that I began to read. I started reading Martyn Lloyd-Jones and I was gripped by his preaching. From him I moved to C. H. Spurgeon and then to J. C. Ryle. Those great preachers of the past sparked in me an appetite and appreciation for reformed expository preaching.
At the same time God was working on me in some other ways as well. I left the church I had grown up in and I spent a year church hopping and shopping and in many ways it was a very unsettling time. It seemed hard to find a church that was holistically healthy – that had good preaching, warm fellowship, dynamic church services, sound doctrine and effective outreach. I found churches tended to be good on one front but disappointing on several others. Most often it was the preaching was disappointing. So the Lord used that to strengthen my desire to preach and to help build healthy churches.
At the same time I began Uni and became involved in the Christian Union where I cut my teeth on some leadership and ministry involvement, finding I had a real heart for ministry and leadership. So these three things together – inspiring preachers from the past, a concern for the church today, and initial opportunities for ministry, led to a growing aspiration to be a pastor and preacher.
Who influenced you as you pursued gospel ministry?
Early on the most significant influences were the preachers I read and listened to. As I said, Martyn Lloyd-Jones was probably the most significant. Spurgeon was another. And then there were all the sermons I listened to (on cassette tapes back in those days!). I listened to Al Martin, John Stott, David Pawson, Stuart Briscoe, Charles Price and others – a real mix of styles and approaches. Today, of course, there is another generation of preachers, but I found that listening to a range of gifted Bible expositors was hugely stimulating and influential.
To be honest, they were more formative for my preaching than the people I actually knew in the flesh. At the time there was little happening in my church circles in terms of intentional mentoring and discipleship. But what was really significant was the encouragement I received from my home church, from my pastor, and later on from the lecturers at the RTC (Reformed Theological College in Geelong) where I studied. That really spurred me on and confirmed my sense that this was where God was leading me.
In 2014 your book ‘The Heart is the Target’ was published about the importance of application in preaching. Why did you see a need for a book on this topic?
In training expository preachers we tend to give people strong theological foundations, great language and exegetical tools, and often good training in the basics of homiletics. But what preachers don’t get is a lot of help is in applying the biblical text – applying it in fresh, penetrating, compelling, biblically faithful ways. In addition, the commentaries often don’t help much either. Most of them are slim when it comes to helping preaches know how to apply the text today.
The problem is, if preachers have great exegetical skills and theological knowledge but they don’t know how to apply the truth to people’s lives, their sermons end up as lectures. A lecture, no matter how brilliant it is, is not a sermon. A sermon must not only explain the text but press the main message of the text against people’s lives. It needs to interface biblical truth with the realities of people’s life experiences.
So, what I wanted to do was provide preachers with some tools to think more deeply about applying God’s Word. I wanted to help them avoid tacking on to the end of the message some very predictable exhortations to read the Bible more, pray more and witness more. I wanted to help them see that application must shape and permeate the entire message and it must drive the message home to people’s hearts.
How has that book been received in Australia and further afield?
Well I don’t think you write books on expository application to become a best-seller. But it has been very heart-warming to hear from both new and experienced preachers in many different places that the book has been a real help to them. I think the fact that it is readable and practical, giving people tools they can use when they prepare their next sermon, has made it useful to people.
In Part 2 Murray talks about preaching that is both faithful and takes heed of style, common lessons for young preachers, and the difficulties of preaching regularly.
Photo: Rupert Ganzer, flickr
