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 a few books in the Old Testament, but the majority of the Bible is not.
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Whether or not the books of the Bible were written as sermons or messages to be taught straight through seems to be slightly besides the point. NT letters, for instance, weren’t designed to be taught through, but were written to be read through in one sitting. In a pre-literate world where orality was central, believers would almost always be hearers not readers, and capable of hearing and retaining in a way that we don’t need to be today. I would suggest that none of the Bible books were “designed” to be preached either straight through (one chunk at a time) or dipped into (topical selectivity).
One issue to consider, though, is that there is a unity and cohesion to each of the Bible books. They are not random (with the possible exception of parts of Proverbs), but deliberately ordered. I would suggest that historical books are anything but randomly ordered narratives. The gospel writers and the OT narrative writers were theologians, as well as the writing prophets, who based their ordering neither on strict chronology as we might expect, nor on random order of recollection, as you later suggest, but on their theological goal in writing. Recognizing the structuring of books does not require consecutive preaching (and many consecutive preachers are painfully unaware of the connections between their preaching sections). However, whether we choose to preach through a book or topically, my concern either way is that the preacher should strive to understand the authorial intent in any given passage. Understanding a passage in its written context is critical in achieving that understanding.
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I will continue my response tomorrow.
Thanks for the post. I made a similar argument (and others) in the comment section of Daniel’s blog.
Hi Peter,
I’ll respond here as you post, and then probably do a follow-up post when you’re done. I am also responding to comments on my post.
You said: “I would suggest that none of the Bible books were “designed” to be preached either straight through (one chunk at a time) or dipped into (topical selectivity).”
I agree. As you stated, preaching was not the main goal of any of the writers.
You said: “The gospel writers and the OT narrative writers were theologians, as well as the writing prophets, who based their ordering neither on strict chronology as we might expect, nor on random order of recollection, as you later suggest, but on their theological goal in writing.”
I guess it depends on your definition of “theologian”. Even in the later years, I don’t see most of these guys as theologians. In fact, most of God’s spokesmen were exactly not that – just simple people, many untrained, used by God for this purpose.
That said, each did indeed have some sort of agenda, as it were. But that contributed to which stories they chose and which they left out. John admits that there was a lot more stuff he could have included, but he wrote what he did for a specific reason.
That said, I heartily agree that we should understand the reason behind the stories, but that doesn’t mean we have to teach them in the order given.