How to Preach Like John Chrysostom, “the Golden-Mouthed”

In the ancient world—as for most time since—the gospel of Christ was primarily spread by verbal proclamation, i.e., preaching, and in those days there was no shortage of gifted preachers.

Among the pre-modern sermons of which we have record, John Chrysostom’s (AD 349–407) stand out among the fathers of the church, in part because so many have survived. We cannot say exactly what portion of his sermons have been preserved, and although there have certainly been losses over time, enough remain to allow us to understand his approach, his style, and his value for the ongoing life of the church.

The quality of his preaching was appreciated during his lifetime, and his sermons survived his demise. The name “Chrysostom” means “golden-mouthed”: This name was given to him as a tribute to his eloquence, but it was not used until about a century after his death. (Until then, he was referred to simply as John of Antioch.) This shows just how influential his preaching remained long after he had passed away.

I can think of six notable elements of his preaching that remain insightful for us even today.

1. Chrysostom preached exegetically

Chrysostom preached exegetically on the Gospels of Matthew and John, as well as on all the letters of Paul, who was for him the model exegete. He has also left us other collections of sermons—notably on the creation narrative in Genesis—which have also been preserved in their entirety.

From these extant materials, we can tell that Chrysostom believed not only that preaching should be based on the Bible, but that it should be undertaken systematically. He did not have chapters and verses as we do; even so, his main method of preaching was word-by-word exposition, which he believed was the best way to get to the heart of the scriptural message. He normally began with a general overview of the book that he wanted to preach on and then went through it in detail, making sure that everything in it was covered in his sermons.

Here is the first and perhaps most important lesson we can learn from Chrysostom. To preach exegetically and systematically requires enormous self-discipline and will challenge even the most experienced preacher. No one person can master everything that the Bible contains, and Chrysostom had to think carefully about how he was going to interpret particular passages.

As a preacher, John was not a dictator nor a censor, but a minister—a servant of the Word, not its master.

John was painstaking in his approach because he believed that all Scripture is given by God and is useful for the upbuilding of the church (2 Tim 3:16–17). In his mind, to omit something because it was difficult, uncongenial, or apparently insignificant was to ignore the will of the divine author, who never wasted his words. To cut corners and skip over things was to neglect his duty, which was to convey what the Apostle Paul called “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27) to his congregations. He knew that what might have seemed to be of little significance to him might well register with at least some of his hearers, who would be edified and grow in Christ accordingly. As a preacher, Chrysostom was not a dictator nor a censor, but a minister—a servant of the Word, not its master. This is another lesson that all preachers need to learn.

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2. Chrysostom preached pastorally

John had a firm, orthodox faith which he did not hesitate to expound and defend when the text demanded it, but he did not approach his task as a systematic theologian, looking for doctrinal themes that he might draw out and expound more or less independently of the context in which he found them. For instance, when he read the Apostle Paul, the man he encountered was not so much Paul the theologian as Paul the pastor, writing to instruct, to encourage, and to discipline congregations, many of which he had planted himself.

Even the letter to the church of Rome, with all its systematic doctrinal explication, Chrysostom understood in this way. Somewhat surprisingly to us, he regarded chapter 16 as the key to the whole epistle because it is there that we meet individual members of the congregation. John did not know who they were any more than we do today, but he realized that Paul knew them, and he interpreted Romans as addressed especially to them—to flesh-and-blood people who needed to hear the message of salvation in Christ. That the epistle to the Romans is also one of the greatest theological tracts ever written was secondary in Chrysostom’s eyes, because as he saw it, it was first and foremost the word of the pastor speaking to his flock, even though Paul had never set foot in Rome!

3. Chrysostom preached evangelistically

Chrysostom saw this sort of personal engagement between the preacher and his congregation as reflecting the essence of the Scriptures: God speaking to you and me in the place where we are and with a message designed to lead us to eternal life in Christ. The Bible contains many other pieces of information, to be sure, but this is its main theme, and its human authors never forgot it. Listen to what he had to say about the Apostle John:

Let us see what he utters, and on what matters he converses with us. Is it of things in the field? Is it of things in rivers? On the trade in fish? For these things, perhaps, one expects to hear from a fisherman. But fear ye not; we shall hear nought of these; but we shall hear of things in heaven, and what no one ever learned before this man. … Do these things belong to a fisherman? Tell me. Do they belong to a rhetorician at all? To a sophist or philosopher? To every one trained in the wisdom of the Gentiles? By no means.

“The things in heaven”! This is what the Apostle John was concerned about, and what Chrysostom made his priority.

How often do we hear preachers who have a great deal to say about social justice, the environment, or contemporary politics, but who seem to be strangely silent when it comes to matters of salvation? Are they really more interested in how their congregations are going to vote at the next election than how they prepare themselves for life in eternity with Christ? The man in the pulpit is, as the saying goes, privileged to stand six feet above contradiction and thus can get away with a lot. But should he not be more concerned about those in his care who will soon be lying six feet under the ground, awaiting the general resurrection in the last day?

Chrysostom had a very clear answer to that question, and it governed his entire preaching ministry. It is indeed one of the main reasons that his sermons have survived: Chrysostom was speaking at a particular time, to be sure, but he was talking about eternity, and what he had to say about that is as relevant today as it was then.

4. Chrysostom preached plainly

Chrysostom knew that if his preaching were to be effective, he had to communicate it effectively to his hearers, and the only way to do that was to speak in a language that they could understand.

Greek was his mother tongue, of course. He did not need commentaries to tell him what the New Testament meant. Neither did his audience. A modern preacher is not so fortunate, but the need for translation is not as serious an obstacle as some commentators like to make out.

We cannot fathom the depths of God’s wisdom, but we know enough to be able to get on with the job.

Chrysostom knew that the Persons of the Trinity did not speak Greek to each other—it was not the language of heaven. Nor was Hebrew. What God has done in the Bible, said Chrysostom, is accommodate himself to the limitations of human understanding. He has expressed in words what can be put into any language—something that in essence is a mystery in his own divine mind. We cannot fathom the depths of his wisdom, as Paul reminded his hearers in Romans 11:33, but we know enough to be able to get on with the job of calling sinners to repentance and leading them to the gates of heaven.

5. Chrysostom preached contextually

When God communicated to and through prophets and apostles, he did so in ways that his recipients could understand. We live in a different time and place, but it is up to us to figure out what the principles of the divine message are and to “translate” them into our own context.

For Chrysostom, that context was the street life of the ancient city—in his case Antioch, and later Constantinople (now Istanbul)—and the mirror of ancient street life was the theatre, where the drama of human existence was played out. Chrysostom took that image and proclaimed that God’s purposes were a kind of divine play whose many characters illustrated the whole range of human life. He saw it as his task to bring that play to life by engaging his hearers with it, so that they too saw themselves as part of the cosmic drama.

How did he do this? One way was by making himself a stage character. Preaching and acting are closely related, and modern preachers would improve their techniques dramatically (literally!) if they took elocution lessons from speech trainers in the way that actors do and that Chrysostom also did. By putting himself in that role (again, literally), Chrysostom engaged with Paul, Jesus, and God the Father as fellow characters in the drama. He cast himself as the ignorant sinner who needed guidance as to the way of salvation and challenged his dialogue partners to come up with the answers to his questions.

This may seem strange to many people today. But by doing this, Chrysostom made himself an everyman: the representative of the people he was called to serve. They could identify with him. His questions were their questions, and the answers he received were intended for the entire congregation. He did not position himself as the unapproachable leader of the flock, but presented himself as a fellow beggar looking for the bread he needed to feed them.

Use Logos’s Factbook, including its dataset on people and events from church history, to jumpstart your study on figures like John Chrysostom.

6. Chrysostom preached relatably

Another technique Chrysostom employed was to identify with the sins and follies of his people. He did not pretend that either he or his congregation were faultless. He freely ribbed on their many foibles. He preached that the love of money, for example, did not only afflict those in the congregation, but also among those in the pulpit—including himself.

By approaching sin in this way he was able to demonstrate the vanity of this world and lead his congregations into agreement that there was no future in going down its path. It was a way of making them feel contrition for their sins without attacking them directly—another clever approach that got them on his side and made them willing to follow his lead instead of trying to run him out of town. How much we could all learn from him!

Chrysostom’s legacy

Chrysostom had his enemies, to be sure, and we must not forget that. They were not so much members of his church as fellow clergy who were jealous of his popularity, and members of the imperial court in Constantinople who saw him as a threat to their power. Political leaders have never taken kindly to outspoken preachers, and Chrysostom was no exception. He was eventually exiled, and he died on the move from one remote place to another.

For a while, it must have seemed that his pastoral work was lost and forgotten. Yet it was not to be. The preacher was silenced for a time, but as Jesus foretold, the stones cried out, and within a generation his remains were brought back to Constantinople. They were interred there in the presence of the emperor, the son of the man who had sent him into exile, who was forced to do public penance for the sins of his parents.

God will not be mocked, and we can be sure that a faithful preacher will leave a legacy behind him, even if he does not live to see it himself. That is the parting lesson of John Chrysostom, who remains, all these centuries later, a role model for the faithful minister of God’s Word in every generation.

Recommended resources for further study on Chrysostom and the church fathers

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