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Archive for the ‘Old Testament’ Category

When you are preaching the Old Testament, there should always be a radar bleeping in your heart regarding where Christ fits into the message.  Some will suggest that every message must be entirely and purely about Christ, whatever the text was originally intended to convey.  I feel this approach can bring our view of the [...]

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Yesterday I wrote about how narratives do engage us through identification and disassociation.  We can’t avoid that reality – it drives the popularity of movies, of bedtime stories, of Sunday School stories, of family fireside reminiscences, etc.  But biblical narrative always offers something more.  Our challenge as preachers is to be sure to always go [...]

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One of the secrets of the success of narrative writing and storytelling (whether that is historical narrative, fiction, fantasy, film or whatever) is the power of identification.  When you read, hear or see a story, you naturally find yourself either identifying with or disassociating from characters in the story.  If you are left cold, it [...]

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This is not a complete post, but it may be helpful.  I received the following question from a good friend: I have been asked to preach on psalm 22 and am at the moment soaking myself in it to try and make sure I understand the message, the structure and what God was saying then [...]

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Throughout Scripture God is seen as sovereign and providentially involved in all aspects of life.  When there were natural disasters in Israel, the prophets called the people to respond to the God who created everything.  When war or famine hit, they interpreted it in light of the covenant they were under, but also always recognizing [...]

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The site received this comment from Peter D: I have been studying Charles Spurgeon’s sermons. He would often take one scripture and expound on it from every direction he could, would that be thin blooded? I’m preparing a message for later this month and want to focus on one verse within Psalm 63 – it sticks out [...]

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There is a field of homiletics referred to as narrative preaching, but this post is concerned with the preaching of a narrative passage – eg. David and Goliath, Joseph in Potiphar’s House, Hannah & Samuel, etc. In other posts I have encouraged the use of full sentence points, rather than descriptive titles that make the [...]

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Every passage in Scripture is equally inspired, but not every passage is equally known or esteemed.  Patterns of esteem can be traced, although they differ depending on church location, denomination and preacher preference.  So in some parts of the world the books of Samuel are always flavour of the month, while in other parts it [...]

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When we preach poetry, do our listeners really feel the force of it?  Poetry is found in the Psalms and wisdom literature, of course, but also in the historical books and the prophets too.  All too easily we can preach to the head, but not move the listeners with the force of the text. A [...]

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Some preachers plan series in a relatively simple manner.  They select a book of the Bible and then preach, unit by unit, through the book, or through a section.  Others select a topic and select appropriate passages to organize a topical series.  I am not critiquing either approach, but want to offer another option too. [...]

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It would be easy to push through this season and then leave Christmas sermons until next year.  It would be a wasted opportunity.  Just as it can save money to buy next year’s cards right after this year’s Christmas, so it can save time to give some thought to next year’s sermons now. Perhaps you [...]

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If you have read any book on sermon composition, or studied preaching formally, you will have come across the two basic approaches to shaping a sermon – inductive and deductive.  Both have strengths and weaknesses, both are useful.  Yesterday I preached a message that was essentially inductive.  I began by introducing the basic concept and [...]

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A story is a story.  It should be studied as a story and understood as a story.  But what about when you are preaching part of a story?  For instance, take the book of Ruth.  I had to preach just part of that story on Sunday.  It’s not easy to break into a story and [...]

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Daniel Goepfrich wrote a substantial interaction with this blog over on his site – here – this post is specifically addressing the examples of poetry and prophets given in paragraphs 10 & 11. ——————— Regarding Poetry, again I don’t insist that we preach through a book – that is not what I teach (thanks for [...]

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Daniel Goepfrich wrote a substantial interaction with this blog over on his site – here – this post is specifically addressing the example of historical narrative given in paragraph 9.  Be sure to check out the comments on his site.  It’s great to enjoy a mutually respectful interaction like this. ——————— You go on to address [...]

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Daniel Goepfrich wrote a substantial interaction with this blog over on his site – here – this post is specifically addressing this sentence in paragraph 8: Most of the Scriptures were not written as sermons or messages to be taught straight through. Sure, some of the letters in the New Testament are designed that way and [...]

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The traditional approach to preaching a Bible passage is that it is a collection of data, probably in an antiquated form.  So for many preachers, coming to the text is coming in search of sermon content – data to be transmitted, information to be mined and presented. In recent years awareness has increased significantly in [...]

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On June 30th I wrote a post on preaching as a matter of life and death.  For that post click here.  In the good discussion that followed I made this comment – God has communicated in His Word (and calls us to preach that Word), in such a way as to move the heart/affections, as [...]

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Yesterday we looked at just some of the challenges that come with preaching epistles, gospels and historical narrative. Now for the other four genre. Which do you find the hardest? Poetry – Psalms and songs are readily leaned on in times of personal trial, but preaching them well is not so easy. The imagery is [...]

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What is the hardest genre to preach well?  Every genre has its own challenges.  Here’s a list of biblical genre with some brief points on why each can be hard to preach well.  I’ll tell you what I find the toughest, but your top three toughies might be different.  Let’s not avoid the ones we [...]

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Most people have.  Let me share the three reasons people gave at the seminar last weekend for having done this, then I’ll make my point clear: 1. It’s like children wanting the same story told over and over – it gives a sense of security. 2. You catch details you didn’t see first time through. [...]

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Every text says something.  No text says everything.  Our task is to preach the text’s something in a way that is faithful to the Bible’s “everything”.  Our task is not to preach everything from this text’s something. Balance – you don’t want to preach something that on its own is faithful to the preaching text, [...]

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I just received a really encouraging email from Steve.  Steve has attended a couple of my preaching seminars and also helped to set one up in his own church.  We had talked about the possibility of preaching in first-person, and he followed through on the idea.  Here are the highlights of the email with some [...]

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I don’t want to oversimplify Bible study, but in most basic terms it involves two steps. The first step is to understand what the author meant by what he wrote back then.  The second step is to then consider the enduring application of that text for us today.  Back then . . . today.  Two [...]

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Note – Peter has offered a clarifying comment on this post. I’d like to offer a series of posts on the particular challenges for interpreting the major narrative sections in the Bible.  Today, the Old Testament.  In parts 2 and 3, the Gospels.  Then in part 4, Acts. There are many challenges when interpreting Old [...]

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