If you were God, what kind of Bible would you give by inspiration? It really depends what kind of a God you were.
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Top 10 Mistakes Preachers Make Preaching Story – Part 2
Yesterday I offered five common mistakes made in the preaching of Bible story, let’s finish the list:
6. They come up with a list of “principles.” A story isn’t given in Scripture to make masses of points (some preachers see launch points for pet thoughts throughout a story). To nuance this error further, stories aren’t given in Scripture in order to offer seven principles for a successful business venture, successful pet ownership or successful anything else. This is not some ancient text currently in vogue because of its timeless wisdom for living life. It is a story about people living under the question mark of God’s Word to a fallen world – will they trust Him, or not? Will we?
7. They make it into a human level story – be good, be better, be like. Don’t be blind! The Bible is not just about humanity. There’s a constant theocentric, christotelic, eternal and heavenly dimension. Whether God is overtly stated or not, the Bible story you are reading is written with at least an implicit assumption that these characters are living their lives, making their choices, facing their struggles in the context of response to God. Preach the story theocentrically, not anthropocentrically (i.e. it is God that is the main character, not just a human).
8. They treat it as a context-less moral lesson. Okay, I’m repeating the moral lesson bit to make a point, but actually the error here is to miss the context of the story. Not only does it have a historical context, which the preacher must plumb to make sense of it and preach it well, but it also has a written context. Why did the author choose to put it here in this sequence? It is both historically accurate and artistically presented to convey a theological point. You typically need to observe context to spot this.
9. They don’t apply the main idea of the story. Either they apply every sub-idea along the way, or they don’t apply at all. Stories mark and change lives. Help listeners to see what that might look like as the story preached is translated into their life lived. Never assume people will take general truths and apply them specifically. Never assume that application is automatic. Never believe that positive statements of gratitude from listeners equate to application. Instead, be overt and be specific.
10. They avoid preaching it altogether and stick in discourse sections. This is a mistake. Maybe they think stories are for children, or they think stories aren’t theologically rich enough, or they think that churches only need to be fed the food of epistolary discourse, or they think that they aren’t any good at preaching story, or for whatever reason, they avoid preaching story. This means somewhere between 50-70% of the Bible will remain unpreached in their ministry. I think it was Tozer who said that nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.
There are lots of other things that could probably be listed, some of which are specific to certain sections of narrative. But let me make the unstated assumption stated – stories are good for preaching, good for listeners and good for the church. Go for it, preach stories and preach them well!
Top 10 Mistakes Preachers Make Preaching Story
As we come toward the end of this series of posts on preaching Biblical narratives, let’s have a list post (they’re always popular!) How about the top 10 mistakes preachers make when preaching stories?
1. They don’t tell the story! They refer to it, they draw lessons from it, they theologize all over it, but they omit to actually tell the story. Big oops! The story is not there to be exhibit A in your demonstration of your theological acumen. The story is there to change lives, so tell it!
2. They don’t tell it well. I don’t like adding to the sin lists already in existence, but making God’s Word boring or telling a story poorly must surely qualify as a transgression or iniquity on some level. God has given us everything necessary for a compelling message – tension, characters, movement, progression, illustrative materials, interest, etc. To tell it poorly is to miss an open goal with the ball placed carefully at our feet and thirty minutes to take a shot!
3. They think their thoughts are better than God’s inspired text. I’ve blogged before about the nightmare I suffered when a preacher read the story of Jesus turning water into wine, then said, “you know the story, so I won’t tell it again…” then proceeded to offer us his fanciful imposition of a theological superstructure all over the text. The text is inspired, it is great, God is a great communicator (so please don’t think God is desperate for you to add a good dose of your ideas to His – please preach the Word!)
4. They spiritualise details into new-fangled meanings. Suddenly listeners start thinking to themselves, “I never would have seen that!” or “I never would have made that connection – the donkey represents midweek ministries, brilliant!” Actually, they never would have seen it without you, not because you are God’s gift to the church, but because your fanciful insertion simply isn’t there. Preach the text in such a way as to honour it, not abuse it. And can I be provocative? Sometimes people force Christ into passages in ways that seem to undermine the whole richness of the text in its context – just because it is Christ doesn’t make it right.
5. They don’t let every detail feed into the powerful point of the main idea. Every detail counts, but it counts as part of the writer’s strategy to communicate the main point of the story. A story doesn’t make lots of points, it makes one point. Develop a sensitivity to the role of details in the communication of the single plot point.
Tomorrow I’ll finish the list with another five…
Bible Story: Read or Tell?
Let’s assume that the reading is taken care of, and as I suggested yesterday this might not mean the reading of the text itself. Now, what to do with the telling of the story? Should we just read it, or should we tell it? I say we should tell it, and we should tell it well (and typically in the telling of it we may add detail not included in the text). Typically we will tell it with certain sections, or even the whole text, read along the way. Why tell and not just read?
1. The preacher’s task is to present the text by way of explanation. A big part of the explanation of the story is the effective telling of the story, and the effective telling of the story requires the preacher to describe the action, the scene, the situation in vivid colour so that the image can form in the hearts of the listeners.
2. The preacher’s task includes applying the story with contemporary relevance emphasized. A big part of the application of the story is helping listeners inhabit the tension of the story, identifying with the characters as they wrestle with life in response to the Word of God. A well told story carries a significant proportion of the explanation and the application of the message.
3. The preacher’s task includes not only saying what the text says, but doing what the text does. To put it another way, we need to honour the genre inspired by God’s Spirit. By telling story, we honour story as the genre of God’s own choosing.
4. The Bible text tends to be both lean and distant. It is lean in that every detail counts and every detail carries significance in the telling of the story. It is distant in that the original writers could assume awareness of culture, politics, history, geography, flora/fauna, etc. To simply read the text is, in some cases, to dishonour the inspired story by not allowing it to hit home in the imaginations and hearts of the listeners.
I could probably offer more reasons to tell the story and to tell it well, but I’ve gone long enough for today!
Bible Story and the Reading
There are reasons why some churches have the reading of the text prior to the message or at the start of the message. There are reasons why I don’t like to do this when I’m preaching a narrative.
The reasons in favour of the reading include convention (it’s ‘cos we do!), declaration of the priority of the Word, trust in the public reading of the Word, etc.
The main reason against it, in my opinion, is that a story consists in the resolution of tension, so why give that away at the start? Even if people know the end, surely the re-presentation of the story is the place for the satisfaction of experiencing tension resolved?
When preaching narrative I tend to have a related reading to satisfy the hunger for a formal reading, but I prefer to keep this separate from the message. When the message begins, my goal is to win people to the text, rather than assuming they are ready for it and launching straight into the reading.
What do I mean by a related reading? It could be the preceding context in the flow of the book, perhaps ending with the introduction to the story. It could be a passage offering “informing theology” – a prior passage that in some way shaped the writer of the text. It could be a safe reading, such as a Psalm, that has more to do with the sung worship at that point in the service than in the message to follow.
I absolutely believe in the importance of the public reading of God’s Word. I’m not convinced we are obligated to the read our text then preach it though.
Tomorrow a related issue – should we tell the story, or should we just read it?
Preaching Story to Children and Adults
As I was sharing about preaching Bible stories recently a friend jumped in and exclaimed their encouragement. “What you are describing as an approach to preaching to adults is what we do in the school ministry with the children!” What I had suggested was a basic outline from which to build. Here’s the outline:
- Tell the Story
- Make the Main Idea Clear
- Apply the Main Idea
In a bit more detail, here’s my suggested “default” starter outline:
Introduction – whatever is needed to make people want to listen to you and to the passage and message.
- Tell the story – tell the story so people can imagine it happening. Tell it accurately, tell it engagingly, tell it with energy.
- Main Idea – make it clear what we are supposed to learn from this story. What is the main point the author is trying to communicate?
- Application – take some time to describe the difference this idea could make, should make, to our lives. Be specific.
Conclusion – review the main point, encourage application, stop.
So here’s a question from Philip on this site the other day: What differences should their be when preaching narrative passages to an audience of children as opposed to an audience of adults? Will the differences be in the manner the story is told or taught? Or only in the truths the story teaches?
Difference in Manner? I would say not especially. While we might feel the need to be more exaggerated and “hyped” to keep the attention of children, I suspect they can be gripped by a well told story minus excessive clowning from us. On the other hand, perhaps we need to utilize more energy and motion in our story telling to adults!?
Difference in Truth? I would say not especially. We might state the truth more simply to children, but a story has one main idea. That is the main idea whoever the audience. A story isn’t theologically loaded for adults, but a simple moral instruction for children. What changes is how we present and apply that specific truth.
Difference in Application? Yes, this would be different. We don’t need to help children imagine trusting God’s goodness in the face of employment challenges. But the same truth is needed in their school and home experiences.
Difference in Awareness? Yes, this is the main thing that comes to my mind. Children don’t have the same historical and geographical/spatial awareness that adults tend to have. We need to beware of assuming too much knowledge with adults too (in an increasingly biblically illiterate society), but I think details in a text that may be fascinating to adults can be confusing to children.
Same passage, same truth, but differing levels of detail, and differing specifics of application.
What do you think?
Saturday Short Thought: What Do Stories Do?
This week I have been sleeplessly enjoying Daddy-daughter time with Kaylah. It won’t be long before a well told story will engage her imagination, captivate her attention and shape her life. What begins in the toddler years doesn’t end. Stories are not just for children, but can continue to transform lives of all ages.
Steve Mathewson explains what good stories do:
Proclaiming a well-studied story in a well-prepared way will do what good stories intend to do: sneak past the listener’s defenses to penetrate the heart.
And I suppose this is painfully obvious, so please excuse my fatigued new-Dad-again state, but what we need to do as preachers is understand the stories we preach as well as possible, shape our messages as well as possible and then present our messages (including telling the stories) as well as possible.
Let’s hear a bit more from Steve Mathewson’s great book on preaching Old Testament Narrative (p157):
“Stories move. They have tension, movement, interaction, emotion. We cannot tell a story while standing like a four-storey building. We need to consider motion, body language, and emotion in voice, face and gesture. Consider how to physically and subtly represent the movement of the story on the platform. Don’t get stuck behind the pulpit (Spurgeon called it a “coward’s castle!”) Always point to Goliath in the same direction, generally let time flow from left to right from their perspective, etc. Stories move. Good storytellers generally do too. And the best storytellers move physically, in large gesture and with clear expressions in a way that is consistently natural! Being natural takes work!
Next week I want to probe preaching narrative a bit more. For the most profuse genre in the Bible, my sense is that it doesn’t get the attention it deserves in many pulpit ministries.
The Bible Story – Preached with Power
The Bible story you are looking at was inspired by God. Not only did He inspire the content, but He also inspired the form. God felt that having that truth clothed in the genre of story was the best option. Now you have the opportunity to preach it. How can you preach that story with maximum power?
1. Be sure to grasp and preach the main point. A story does not consist of details collected together to offer you numerous launch points for vaguely connected ideas and insights. The story consists of details deliberately chosen to help make the story work, to make the main point effective. Be sure to grapple with the main point more than you hunt for “preaching points.”
2. Be careful to honour the form as well as the content. Why chop it up and preach it as discourse when God made it a story? This means that the bulk of your message should involve the best retelling of the story that you can manage. Speaking of which, two critical elements of powerful story preaching:
3. Put your energy into effective description. Study hard so you can describe well. Build your sensory descriptive vocabulary so you can describe effectively. Read C.S.Lewis or another great fiction writer to get a taste of compelling description. Turn on your imagination again, because if you can see it, they will see it. Take enough time for your descriptions to form on the screens in the listeners’ minds. And pour similar energy into describing the application of your message too. Speaking of energy…
4. Present with energy through engaging dynamism. To be blunt, people don’t listen to dull stories. To be honest, we rarely tell dull stories in normal life. Ask me about my littlest girl’s birth last week and I’ll be engagingly dynamic. I need to let that version of me show when I preach a Bible story. When you preach a Bible story, remember that if you really care so it shows, they will care too.
I think these four suggestions are the very essence of powerfully preaching a Bible story. What would you add?
The Bible Story – Plots in Plot
We tend to be trained, both by Sunday school instruction and by NIV section headings, to separate out each individual story and treat it as a stand alone. But the Bible always presents plots in the context of larger plots.
I’ve been trying to get hold of a commentary series on the books of Samuel that does a stunning job of demonstrating the interconnectedness of the individual stories (a rarity in commentaries on narrative books!)
I’ve been pondering how the gospel writers wove together events and parables in a way that honoured their historicity, yet communicated their own theological emphases under the inspiration of God. The gospels are not simply four perspectives on a car accident, it’s much richer than that!
So as we engage a story, we must break open the blinkers of the section headings and get a sense of what is going on around our focus text. The context almost always sheds light on the point of our focus.
What is true on a local level, is also true on a macro level. To be effective preachers, we need to be whole Bible people. That is, we need to have a sense of how the whole fits together, not just historically, but as a greater plot.
The tension underlying every narrative is the fall of Genesis 3. The characters in every plot are people responding to God as they hear His Word. The resolution to the problem of Genesis 3 can never be the moral successes of particular characters, but rather the amazing intervention of God’s grace incarnated.
While we don’t need to always finish the macro story, we must always be aware of how our particular text fits into that larger narrative. Only then can we be sure to avoid the simplistic little niceties of sharing tips for successful living through ancient tales with moral morals. For whether we realize it or not, how we live this Thursday is part of the great narrative of God’s grace being spurned or celebrated in the epic of history and the annals of eternity.
So on a book by book level, on a canon-wide level, and on a history as a whole level, we must see individual plots as part of the bigger plot of God’s great story. As preachers we have the privilege of shining light both in narrow focus, and in broad illumination.
The Bible Story – People in Plots
Whether we are looking at a parable, an event in the life of Christ, an historical portrayal in the inspired account of a Patriarch or the early church, Bible stories are about people in plot.
Plot – the skeleton of every story, both fictional and historic, is the plot. Every story has a plot, for without one it wouldn’t be a story. At its most simple, a plot consists in a tension eventually resolved. A tension is created in the context of an imaginable situation. Somehow that tension is then resolved, or left uncomfortably unresolved in some examples. Our primary task as we interpret a story is to grapple with its main point, as it grapples with us, and that main point will be tied into the resolution to the tension (or a comment on it).
People – every story has characters, and those characters are people (either in human form, or sometimes personified). People engage us, for we too, are people. So we identify with one character, but disassociate from another. We can’t help ourselves. Well told story will always engage us, whether it is from the cinematographer’s projector, or from the pulpit.
In – here’s the key word, in. The characters are in real life situations, living in response to a real God. We listeners find ourselves in their shoes, and they in ours. We enter into stories. Stories enter into us. We live life in stories, and every decision we make, we make in response to our God – how we view Him, how we perceive His love toward us, etc. Every story of our week is somehow shaped by how we have been captured by the story of our God entering in to the story of humanity.
If we view Bible stories as mere illustrative material, then we are blinded, not only to the richness of God’s Word, but also to the reality of God’s world in which we live.
Biblical Preaching 