Christianity

Beware Special Revelation Preaching

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I need to be careful how I phrase this post.  Depending on our theology, we all have slightly differing views of how much God directly communicates with us.  Some are very hesitant to hint that God “spoke” to them, while others freely assign such labels that give the impression of a hotline from heaven.  I don’t intend to weigh in on the issues of guidance or prophecy, etc.  My concern is with biblical preaching.

We need to be careful that we don’t undermine our approach to preaching by means of a “special revelation” approach to sermon preparation.  The process is fairly simple to explain: you spend time prayerfully considering the text and the occasion until you sense that God has “given you something to say.”  Then you preach that.  I am not dismissing this approach out of hand, but I do want to raise some warning flags.  First though, let me affirm the intent in this approach:

Affirmed – The desire to say what God is saying. This should be the desire of every true preacher.  We want to say what God wants us to say, nothing else.

Affirmed – The reliance on God through prayer. May we never advocate or practice prayerless preaching.

Affirmed – The desire for contemporary relevance.

However . . .

Warning Flag – There is an inherent risk that the text God inspired will be abused as merely a point of departure for other thoughts, which may or may not be from Him.

Warning Flag – The process can be a shortcut taken to avoid the prayerful work of understanding the passage and planning how to best present the truth found there.  (Perhaps also a safety measure to avoid feeling personal inadequacy in the area of Bible study, preaching, etc.  It is better to bring our inadequacy to God, rather than finding ways to avoid the issue.)

Warning Flag – This approach can undermine the congregation’s view of the Bible. It fails to demonstrate that when the Bible is understood properly, God is speaking.  It gives the impression that we need something new and fresh, rather than the “old stuff” in the Bible.  A truly dangerous impression to give.

The reality is that we can and must commit to prayerful study of the Bible in order to understand its meaning and then present that meaning emphasizing its relevance for our listeners on a particular occasion.  Perhaps Don Sunukjian’s simple definition of expository preaching is a good place to end – “Listen to what God is saying . . . to us!”

Application is Not About Benefits

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In the understanding of expository preaching espoused on this site, application is central.  Expository preaching must involve the explanation of the meaning of the biblical text while emphasizing the relevance of that text to the contemporary listener.  This is born out of an understanding that the Bible is highly relevant to us all.  However, there is a danger of misunderstanding this emphasis on relevance and application.

The danger is that people may take away the thought that we are advocating a strong view of the benefits associated with applying the Bible to our lives.  In reality, we are saying much more than that.  Paul House, in his article in Preach the Word, gives Christopher Wright credit for identifying the opposite reality.  We do not apply the Bible to our lives, but rather, “through the power of the Holy Spirit we must learn and help others to learn to ‘apply our lives to the Bible.’  God and his Word – not our lives and minds – comprise the horizon of reality and authority.  We are required to conform to the Scriptures; they are not required to conform to us.”  (Preach the Word, p25)

Only in this way do we protect listeners from getting the impression that they can pick and choose those parts of the Bible that appear most valuable.  As Tozer said, “Nothing less than a whole Bible can produce a whole Christian.”  So application is not primarily about the benefits for our lived reality.  Application is about conforming our lives to reality.

Never Bore With Shocking Truth

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During the dark days of World War 2, the BBC asked writer Dorothy Sayers to write a series of radio plays on the life of Christ.  This spawned a series of feisty letters back and forth between the writer and the corporation, with members of parliament trying to intervene and protestant pressure groups adding their voice.

The series of 12 plays was writted by Sayers and produced by Val Gielgud, entitled, “The Man Born to be King.” In December 1941 the plays began airing (one every fourth week) on BBC Home Service.  The story remained in its ancient setting, but characters spoke in contemporary English rather than the conventional King James.

Many were shocked by the story, but Sayers affirmed that they should be shocked. She felt that the inherent drama of the Gospel had become muffled by familiarity and by the failure to think of its characters as real people with human emotions and motivations.  The Christian faith is the “most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man.”  Sayer’s famous quote that Christ was no “household pet for pale pale curates and pious old ladies, but God made flesh, a shattering personality, a dangerous firebrand, hero and victim, finally gibbeted as a firebrand and a public danger.”

While I don’t agree that Christ was a victim in every sense of the term, I do appreciate the desire to bring back the shock of the Maker of all in a manger, the Maker killed by those He made, and the glorious wonder of the empty tomb.

As we come to “Christmas service Sunday,” let’s be sure not to present this episode in the most exciting drama with muffled familiarity or two-dimensional characters.  In fact, every week, let’s preach so that we never bore our listeners with the shocking truth of the Gospel!

Out of Our Depth

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once made this very true statement, “The best man here, if he knows what he is, knows that he is out of his depth in his sacred calling.”  How true that is.  Only with a keen awareness of that reality will we avoid a ministry empowered by the flesh.  Let me probe this issue briefly with some rhetorical questions:

Do I feel confident in my ministry based on previous experience, ministerial training or affirmation received? This is a dangerous confidence to lean on.  We need to lean on Him only when we step up to preach.

Do I feel stirred to worship, to confess, to pray, to focus on the Lord as I prepare to preach? If these responses and similar are missing in preparation, something is missing for the preaching too.

Do I concern myself more with what people will think of my message, than what God will think of it? Surely we preach to our listeners, but we ultimately answer only to One (consider 2Tim.4:1 in light of verse 2).

Let’s never allow ourselves to forget the simple fact that we are out of our depth when we stand to preach God’s Word.

Unusually Careful

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Just a brief thought since it is the season for non-regular attenders at church.  When preparing evangelistic sermons it is worth being unusually careful.  Apparently, Martyn Lloyd-Jones would always write out his evangelistic sermons, rather than his edification sermons.  Remember that the real “risk” when preaching the gospel is not the preacher’s, but the church folk who’ve invited their friends.  It is so easy to inadvertently offend in the wrong sense of the term.  So with all the extra visitors in our churches this Sunday, let’s be unusually careful in preparing the messages.

With the Time You Have

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As I wander through Preach the Word, I am taking advantage of little nuggets here and there to prompt posts.  Today I’m influenced by Wayne Grudem’s article on “Right and Wrong Interpretation of the Bible.”  He makes a point that I have probably made before, but it bears repeating.

Grudem writes, “It is possible to do a short or long study of any passage.  Do what you can with the time you have, and don’t be discouraged about all that you cannot do.”

Study time is not prescribed. I’m often asked how long sermon preparation should take.  A standard question, to which I give a probably standard answer – “as long as you have.”  It doesn’t help to feel bound to a ten-hour minimum study phase if you simply don’t have ten hours to study the passage.  Grudem gives the example of having to give a devotional talk with ten minutes warning.  Can it be done?  Of course.  He doesn’t suggest it is a good idea to prepare for ten minutes, but it can be done.  On the other hand, the same passage might be studied for twenty hours in anticipation of a Sunday sermon, for two or three hundred hours in the preparation of an academic article, or for a full year or more for the sake of a PhD.

Don’t be discouraged by time you don’t have. Seems obvious, but it’s so easy to get discouraged when we think of all that we have not done in our preparation.  Resources not checked, words not fully studied, verbs unparsed, syntax not diagrammed, cross-references not referenced, etc.  If you didn’t have time, God knows that, and we need to know that too.

Don’t be disqualified by time you didn’t use. I would add this to the mix.  Often there is not enough time.  But sometimes we fail to use the time we have.  Obviously that is not good.  Often it is inexcusable.  Who was it that referred to time-wasting as the greatest sin of the younger generation?  Anyway, when you know your time is running out and you can’t honestly say you used every moment as you should have, what should you do?  You shouldn’t carry a weight of guilt and self-recrimination that steals your heart away from the privilege of knowing God and preaching His Word.  It is important to do what you preach – keep a short account with God, confess, repent, accept forgiveness.  We don’t sin so that grace may increase, but praise the Lord that there is plenty of grace in His character . . . we need it!

Fullness, Not Dipping – Narratives

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I’d like to share another post in light of the chapter by Leland Ryken in the book he co-edited entitled Preach the Word (in honor of Kent Hughes).  In writing of the importance of understanding the Bible literarily and not just theologically or historically, he states the following:

A biblical scholar who caught the vision for a literary approach to the Bible has written regarding Bible stories, “A story is a story is a story.  It cannot be boiled down to a meaning,” that is, adequately treated at the level of theological abstraction.  A person listening to an expository sermon on the story of Cain should be aware from start to finish that the text being explicated is a narrative, not a theological treatise.  The text exists to be relived in its fullness, not dipped into as a source of proof texts for moral and theological generalizations. (Ryken, quoting John Drury, Preach the Word, 43)

A couple of comments from me:

I agree with the general thrust of this, particularly what is affirmed. I fully agree with Ryken’s qualified version of the Drury quote – a story cannot be “adequately treated” at the level of theological abstraction.  However, this is not to say that there is no place for theological abstraction in the preaching of stories.  Listeners should know they are hearing a narrative preached, rather than a theological treatise.  In fact, discerning listeners should, over time, recognize that very little in the Bible is best described as theological treatise – most of the Bible is highly “occasional” in nature, but still highly relevant to our “occasion” or situation.  Certainly, let’s not treat any Bible passage as a source of proof texts!

I would slightly disagree with what is denied. Listeners listening to a narrative explicated will either consciously or sub-consciously be looking for both unity and relevance in the message.  This puts the onus on us as preachers to make sure the main idea is identified and relevance is emphasized.  This is not about abstracting from a narrative to create some sort of literary-less set of propositions.  It is about making sure people don’t simply hear a story and make of it what they will.  By working toward a statement of the main idea in a narrative, we are forced to study and seek to understand not only the content, but also the intent of the author.  For a story is certainly a story, but Bible writers didn’t waste papyrus on entertainment alone, they were also theologians seeking to communicate about God by means of the highly effective literary form of story.

So let us preach texts in their fullness, let us make sure the stories we study are still stories when we preach, but let’s not think the hard work of defining the main idea is unnecessary with biblical narratives.

We Preach Literature – Part 2

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Yesterday I noted Leland Ryken’s comment that expository preaching “keeps its focus on the announced text instead of escaping from it to other material.”  Another feature of expository preaching, in his mind, is as follows:

2. “Expository preaching interacts with the chosen text in terms of the kind of writing that it is instead of immediately extracting a series of theological propositions from it.” – Again, amen.  Too much preaching treats every passage as a 2-D series of propositions, rather than appreciating and learning from the form the text is in.  The Bible writers didn’t send post-it notes to their recipients.  They thought carefully about the most effective way to form the message they wanted to communicate.  Sometimes they chose to send a discourse in the form of a letter.  Much more, they chose to write in some form of poetry.  Even more again, many chose to communicate by means of narrative forms.  Rather than focusing purely on the “what?” (content) of a text, we also need to wrestle with the “why?” (intent), both of which are influenced by the “how?” (form).  Our general hermeneutics must also take into account the special hermeneutics related to the literary form of the text we are preaching.

Notice that Ryken resists “immediately extracting a series of theological propositions” from a text.  This does not mean that literary analysis should lead to proposition-less, truth-free or vague-subjective comments about a Bible text.  Different forms of writing allow a writer to communicate something more effectively, but the writer was still communicating something.  To put it in simple terms, any Bible text is “someone saying something about something in some way to someone” (thanks to Gordon Fee for this insightful sentence!)  The “in some way” is critical and literary analysis recognizes the influence of that in order to grasp the “saying something about something” – which in other terms is the main idea of the passage.  The problem is not with finding the proposition of a passage, but “immediately” (rushing to that rather than really understanding the passage and its form), rushing to “theological propositions” (treating the Bible as a collection of proof texts for our personal systematic theology).

May we always be sensitive to the literary skill of the Bible writers, and thereby be more accurate and effective biblical preachers.

We Preach Literature

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I’m enjoying Preach the Word and will add a full review in due course, but I’ll share some highlights along the way.  This is the book of essays intended to honor Kent Hughes of College Chapel in Wheaton.  This morning I enjoyed a chapter by one of the editors, Leland Ryken, on the Bible as literature.  He urges preachers to learn from the field of literary analysis and not presume theologians have all the answers when it comes to accurately understanding the Bible.  Early on he notes the need for preachers to add even a “modicum of self-conscious literary analysis to their methodology” to improve the incipient literary criticism that all have to participate in during preparation.

Then he notes a couple of features of what constitutes expository preaching, in his opinion.  I offer you these two features for your thoughts and response.  This is not an attempt at an exhaustive definition, but two features of expository preaching:

1. “Expository preaching keeps its focus on the announced text instead of escaping from it to other material” – I wholeheartedly agree.  I have written before on the limited legitimate reasons to go elsewhere in the Bible in a message.  I would offer these three as legitimate excursions, rather than unhelpful escapes.  First, when the idea of the passage seems unbiblical, it is good to show that the truth is consistent with teaching elsewhere (perhaps a brief, fast-paced tour of key texts).  Second, when the passage being considered leans heavily on another passage, such as an Old Testament quote later in the Old Testament or in the New Testament (perhaps a meaningful, but not excessive day-trip to the text in question).  Third, when it is considered helpful and appropriate to trace out the thought of the passage, or see the fulfillment of the passage, later in the Bible (not any and every excuse to “get to Jesus,” but a purposeful advance after fully dealing with the preaching text, perhaps to aid in application for the listener today).

Unhelpful escapes to other passages include running to more familiar territory.  Or jumping texts based on familiar language.  Or perhaps seeking to be exhaustive on a theme in the text, thereby exhausting listeners rather than seeking to plumb the depths of the preaching passage itself.  Or even twisting the meaning of the text in order to get to some sort of contemporary spiritualized application of the gospel. Then there is the issue of “illustrating” the preaching text by means of another text (that then needs to be explained, potentially overwhelms the preaching text and certainly doesn’t help to land the application in listeners’ contemporary experience.)

I’ll save the second feature for tomorrow, but let’s be sure to think carefully before losing focus on our announced text!

Laughter and the Preacher

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The subject of humor in preaching can create tension.  Personally I think that natural humor appropriately used can be a great tool in preaching.  Obviously I agree that unnatural humor inappropriately used for the sake of entertainment in preaching is not good at all.  Satan loves to take something that is good and corrupt it, even in the church.  But I’m not wanting to write about humor in preaching, I’m thinking about laughter in the preacher.  Perhaps a preacher with a great laugh comes to mind, like Charles Swindoll, or a preacher with dry humor, or whatever, but I’m not thinking primarily about preaching today.

I just read the quote that laughter is an instant vacation.  Perhaps in the busy-ness of life and ministry, we need something akin to mini-sabbaths by laughter.  Before you start thinking that my view of sabbath is limited, hear me out.  I know that the biblical concept of Sabbath from Genesis 2 to the book of Hebrews is very rich theologically.  I also know that we of all people, hopefully understanding the Bible well, being experts in the struggles of contemporary life, carrying the pastoral burdens of deeply hurting folks, facing spiritual opposition at potentially elevated levels, etc., we of all people have reason to be sombre and serious.

Yet at the same time, if we know the Bible well, if we know God well, if we have a firm grasp of the theological truths in which we deal every day, the truths of a God who has grasped our hearts and poured out his love into them . . . we of all people should have laughter in our lives.  The Psalmist wrote about the return of the captives and spoke of how their mouths were filled with laughter.  Why?  Because they knew, indeed all the nations knew, that the LORD had done great things for them!  (see Psalm 126)  The book of Proverbs speaks of a joyful heart being good medicine (Pro.17:22).  They say the laughter of a Dad is critical to the psychological health of a child.  Laughter, by definition, seems to be a healthy ingredient in life.

I don’t deny the other side of the coin.  The need for seriousness in many aspects of life and ministry, the sadness that may overwhelm our hearts as they beat with His for this hurting rebellious world, the deep realities of mourning in this world that itself groans in travail.  I do not urge flippancy or silliness or folly.  I simply want to prod myself and perhaps you too . . . surely we of all people should have regular bouts of laughter.  God-inspired, clean, honest, “I’ve cast my cares on Him so the burdens are not on me” laughter.  God-given, grace-prompted, “God has given me so much to rejoice in that I am able to enjoy the little blessings” laughter.

Perhaps if we allow ourselves to laugh in private, it may even spill naturally and appropriately into the pulpit.  Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing sometimes.