Today’s post isn’t one. It’s a 35-minute interview I did with Mike Reeves over at theologynetwork.org in their Table Talk series. It’s all about preaching and how our view of God influences our view of the Bible and therefore our approach to communicating it. So, here’s the link and I hope this is helpful: theologynetwork.org – Table Talk.
Homiletics
Going Deeper Than Instruction
In a lot of preaching situations it is easier to simply present the text and press home the imperatives. Whether or not there is technically an imperative in the grammar, we can easily turn a passage into an instruction and press for change through our words.
I wonder how often we miss the opportunity to go a step or two deeper and recognize the “why” behind the “should”? Typically the epistles offer lists of instructions, but in the context of the letter, these instructions are very much set in the context of theological truth. We are to present our bodies as living sacrifices, but it is in view of God’s mercies that we are to do so. We are to walk in a manner worthy, but specifically it’s in a manner worthy of the calling we have received. We are to set our hearts on things above, where Christ is, but this is in light of the Christ presented in the first two chapters.
Instruction and imperative don’t just sit on their own as burdens to place on people, but as appropriate response to the captivating truths of who God is, what He has done and so on.
As a preacher it is much easier to simply give instruction and apply pressure, but we must consider how to make sense of those instructions so that instead of pressured compliance, we might see captivated response.
Beware of Insular Evaluation
Whether you are in a church with one preacher, or a church with numerous preachers (team or itinerant or mix), it is important not to grow complacent through insular evaluation. I’ve come across this more than once. Having only really listened to preaching in their own church, people have made comments like, “We have some of the best preaching in the area!” or “The bigger churches in the city don’t have anything more to offer than we get here!”
Nice sentiments, but if they are based on no comparison, they are meaningless. Now my point is not that we should be frantically comparing the quality of preaching in different churches or forming some sort of hierarchy. My point is that we shouldn’t grow complacent based on these kind of comments. It is part of our stewardship of the church and our own ministry to look to develop as preachers. Part of the impetus or help for such development can come from a humble appreciation of others from outside of our own fellowship who may do something particularly well. So a couple of comments:
1. Don’t try to copy another preacher, but do learn from them. You need to be you when you preach. Copying mannerisms, style or content from another will not suddenly increase the work of God through you. Preacher, be yourself, but let us recognize that others have strengths in areas we still need to work on. Listening to other preachers can help strengthen us in areas of weakness.
2. Don’t be intimidated by other preachers. While some may be motivated by carefully listening to others, this is not always the fruit. Some of us can easily be intimidated by the “mega-preacher” – especially after his message has been edited carefully for the podcast or radio show! Incremental improvement is appropriate, but remember that your church needs you to give the best that you can give, not the best that someone else somewhere else can give.
3. Be wary of inter-church competition, esteem God’s work elsewhere. While it may be natural to compare and contrast, it’s not particularly healthy or helpful to be making comparisons between churches as if they were in a league competition. Esteem what God is doing through others, recognizing that there are differences in style or approach. A giving spirit and attitude toward others will not harm your church and ministry at all.
Let’s be wary of looking inward and deciding all is well. Much healthier personally, as well as ecclesiologically, to be looking upward to the Lord and appropriately outward to others.
Old Favourites and Oft Avoideds
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 is always epistles over narratives. It seems like John and Luke tend to be preferred over Mark, while Romans gets more attention than 2nd Thessalonians, and 1st Timothy more than Titus. Luke 15 gets more attention than Luke 14 and Genesis 22 is preferred to Genesis 10 or 5. Psalms will get more hits than Ezekiel. Not every passage is equally esteemed or known.
This situation does not therefore require us to bring balance by committing to rigid scheduling of a chapter a week for the next 23 years. What it does ask of us is whether we ever break out of the familiar and offer our listeners a taste of the less familiar?
Last night I was asked to preach two messages from Ezekiel. Not my usual hunting ground, but a very enjoyable experience. I should return there more often.
There are reasons why old favourites tend to be old favourites, and mostly good reasons – clear truth, compelling application, familiar plots, etc. But there are reasons why oft avoideds also deserve to be preached – they are equally inspired, after all. So perhaps we should consider periodically offering a series, or at least a stand alone message, on a part of Scripture that might surprise our listeners. Who knows, for some these oft avoideds might become old favourites!
Don’t Skip A Step
A missed step jars. Try to accompany someone singing who misses a beat. Try a choreographed dance but miss a step. Next time you’re figure skating in the Olympics, miss a step before going for your quad. Ok, these examples are getting slightly less likely, but what about in preaching? I suppose there are a lot of steps that can be skipped to the detriment of our preaching, both in preparation and in delivery. Here’s one:
You explain a particular text. It sets out some clear expectations of how we should be living in response to God – perhaps instruction, perhaps command. Application is clear, so you present it. But in doing so it is obvious that some or many listeners would have fallen short of this in their experience. Perhaps the demands relate to morality, purity, relationship, thought-life, etc. (It should go without saying that you recognized people might feel convicted before delivering the message.) So since some or all listeners have already fallen short of the application of this text you reassure people of God’s love and grace.
Hold on. Missed a step. Too often, perhaps in this generation in particular, it is easy to preach comfortable messages and avoid the discomforting but vital step of calling for repentance. Are people helped by being reassured of God’s grace without also being urged to repent? If God is a relationally jealous God, and we have been adulterous and unfaithful to Him, then is it enough to have feelings placated by assurances of His goodness? Surely a jealous lover’s goodness is little comfort to an unfaithful spouse unresponsive to the necessary conviction for sin?
It may be harder to preach, but giving people opportunity to repent, reminder to respond, must be a necessary step in some sermons.
Preacher Pick!
Yesterday I shared a helpful nudge a friend had picked up in James Stewart’s Heralds of God. Today I’d like to continue with a related thought. What to do when you have to pick a text on which to preach. What should we do when there is not an obvious text to be preached?
“Then open your Bible. Do not pursue elusive texts. Stop racking your brain for a subject. Take a whole psalm, a complete Gospel incident, or a solid section from an epistle of St Paul. Set yourself to interpret it faithfully.”
How simple. How true. The Bible is God’s Word. We honor Him and it more by picking something and preparing well than by pursuing some mystical state in which we might discover the eureka text but have left ourselves very little time to preach it faithfully.
Some weeks the “artistic inspiration” flows freely, but other weeks we are enabled simply to graft hard. May our graft please the Lord as much as, if not more than, the best and easiest of sermons. And may we not waste time pursuing the elusive text when God has given us a whole canon – pick a passage, prepare and preach!
Preacher’s Block
Years ago I read Heralds of God by James Stewart. I just read a response paper sent to me by a friend. It’s time I read the book again. He reminded me of Stewart’s advice regarding preacher’s block, or those times when artistic inspiration simply is not flowing, but discouragement is pouring in like a flood.
It is too easy to listen to our moods. It is too simple to await the great thoughts before we begin. Stewart quotes Quiller-Couch, “These crests [of inspiration] only arise on the back of constant labour.” How true it is that moments of inspiration tend to reflect hours of perspiration.
I have a lot of preparation to do this week. How easy it is to allow the flesh to control the process and wile away the hours with relatively meaningless tasks while awaiting some flash of divine enablement. Can I trust the Lord to enable me as I graft at the preparation? Bend the knee and pray. Pick up the book and read. Take up the pen and write. Stretch out the fingers and type. Simple really, but how easy to justify another path.
Down, But Not Out!
I have been reflecting recently on what regular up-front ministry involves. Whether one is a youth leader, a church leader, a regular preacher, a Sunday School teacher, etc, these and other ministries share something in common. I’ll use preaching as the example for this brief post.
After preaching, if you are like most preacher’s, you probably don’t feel great every time. It is nice, but it doesn’t always help to receive the positive feedback from folks. Even with all positive feedback, it is easy to come away discouraged and drained, often self-evaluating and majoring on the minor mistakes made.
To go through this on a regular basis can lead to higher level (or should I say, deeper) draining. Some of the great preachers of history struggled with depression. Many of us also face the energy sapping that comes from regular ministry, whether or not it gets to that level.
I don’t want to use Paul’s words in 2Cor.4, because that would be an insult to the persecution he faced (and many of our brothers and sisters today). However, in a very scaled down version we do need that same sense of being knocked down, but not knocked out. Sunday comes, we give. Monday comes, we may be drained and discouraged. But Tuesday comes and we must stand up and press on! How? Only by keeping our eyes on Him who doesn’t change and is the same Sunday, Monday and Tuesday!
One Simple Truth, One Wonderful Christ
I am sitting in the airport waiting for my ride home, so this will be a short and jet-lagged post (or perhaps a long and jet-lagged post since shorter is always harder!)
How easy it is in preaching to give too much information and not enough of the Lord. Listeners are more easily overwhelmed with information than we realize. We have processed information and refined it, allowing us to present a lot of information in a short amount of time (shorter than it took us to understand it!) So it is very easy to overwhelm our listeners with more than they can take in while trying to listen at the same time!
We can easily pack sermons with information, with background material, even with the often lauded illustrations and applications, but still make very little of Christ (or of any person in the Triune God we worship). So easy to default into speaking about us, but not really offering Him to our listeners.
While every sermon is different, somehow we need to present one simple truth, an understandable principle, while at the same time offering the compelling and captivating God of the Bible (lest we turn His self-revelation into a mere manual for effective living).
Application Is Not Always Last
Traditionally preaching means reading a text, explaining it at length and then eventually fitting in a block of application if time permits. Practically that is rarely the best approach. If emphasizing the relevance of the text is as much a part of our task as explaining the text (but necessarily requiring the explanation in order to have any authority), then we need to think about how to increase the sense of relevance in our preaching. A few thoughts:
1. By explaining as much as necessary, but not over-explaining, we create time for application. It is tempting to try to present all the proof of our study, every nugget, whenever we preach. It takes a commitment to application to only explain as much as necessary and use the rest of the time to target emphasizing the relevance to our listeners.
2. By stating our points and main idea in “us” terms, we drive relevance to the surface (and drive it deeper into the listeners). It doesn’t take much to state the point in relevant terms, then step back into the world of the text to explain and support that wording, following up again with an emphasis on relevance. Instead of sounding like we’re preaching a commentary, instead we can sound like we’re speaking directly to our listeners.
3. If the main idea is the take home truth, why wouldn’t we try to put it in “us” terms? It may not always work, but often the main idea of the message can be stated relevantly, rather than historically or in abstract form. This is the synopsis of the whole that we really want seared into the lives of our listeners.
4. Introduce relevance in the introduction. Don’t presume people are desperate for a sermon on 2nd Chronicles 13. They probably didn’t come with that on their minds. So use the introduction to demonstrate the relevance of the passage, the message, the speaker.
5. Even in explanation, season with relevance. It doesn’t take much time to drop in comments relating the back then to today. Even the briefest of comparisons in the telling of an ancient narrative can shed contemporary light and give the sense of relevance to the listeners.
Application logically comes last in a message. But if our goal is effective preaching, we’ll look for ways to integrate applicaton (in its various forms) and relevance throughout the message.
Biblical Preaching 