Homiletics

Not Every Passage is Easy

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I suppose many of us preachers have a desire to make every passage understandable.  This is good and right on many levels.  Yet some passages, and some details in passages, are tough.  I was leading a Bible study on Isaiah 49-50 the other night . . . there was a tough detail.  Should I force my understanding on people?  What if my understanding of it rests on a broader background than some of those present can draw on?  I’m intrigued by Piper’s point in chapter 14 of Brothers We Are Not Professionals – we should show people why God inspired hard texts.

It is amazing that so much of Christianity rests on the shoulders of a “book,” and some parts of that “book” (technically 66 of them I suppose) are hard to understand.  Why did God do this?  Piper offers four reasons.  1. To stir in us a sense of desperation (utter dependence on God’s enablement).  2. To move us to supplication (prayer to God for help).  3. To prompt real cogitation (thinking hard about Biblical texts – which is no alternative to praying for help!)  4. To stimulate genuine education (the training of young people and adults to pray earnestly, read well and think hard.)

As preachers we must wrestle with hard texts and not simply skirt around them in our preaching, nor avoid them in our scheduling.  On the one hand it is up to us to help make the message of the text clear.  At the same time, we may do our listeners a disservice if we don’t point out when a passage is tough, and look for ways to let that be a motivation for study, rather than a hindrance.

Don’t Dilute By Distraction – Part 2

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

In the closing stages of a message, the last leg of the journey, it is easy to lose the focus and momentum of a message.  Yesterday I raised the issue of introducing other texts, which can (not always, but often) dilute the force of the ending of a message.  Here’s another:

Don’t dilute by adding unnecessary new images. After twenty or thirty minutes where the overarching image has been the tender care of a mother for her child, the preacher decides to throw another image into the mix in the closing moments – perhaps the care of a shepherd for the lambs, or a coach for his team, or whatever.  Often a new image, a new illustration, a new set of vocabulary, when introduced in the final leg of a sermon will undermine the strength of what has gone before, or totally overwhelm the message (such as a moving story that is so powerful it makes every other element of the message, including the Bible, mere introduction).  Again, it is not always true.  Sometimes a pithy anecdote, a moving illustration, a well turned phrase, may serve to close a message well…but only sometimes…and not a very big sometimes either.

The final thrust of a message is a critical leg of the journey.  It’s the time to consolidate, not dilute.  A time to pull elements together and drive them home, not add new information that shatters the unity of the whole.

Don’t Dilute By Distraction

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Just a quick thought relating to the concluding movement of a message. This includes the conclusion, but might also bring in the final movement or point of the message. During the final thrust, the crescendo of the message, do not dilute the focus of listeners. It is so easy to unnecessarily add new elements to a message at a time when the need is not variation, nor interest, but focus. For instance:

Don’t dilute by adding distracting texts. It’s so tempting to refer to another verse somewhere or other in the Bible. Often, not always, but often, this is a distraction rather than a help. Evaluate carefully before redirecting the gaze of the listeners to a passage, to wording, to a story, to a psalm, to anything that has not been the primary focus of the message. You may mention one verse, but their minds may blossom out in all sorts of bunny trails, or at the very least, the new information may dilute their focus. Be wary of adding texts in this final leg of the journey. (Sometimes a specific text, painstakingly chosen, and carefully used, may serve to close a message well…but only sometimes…a small sometimes.)

Tomorrow I will bring up another source of distraction that can dilute the end of a message.

Sacred Substitutes

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Just following up on Monday’s post on prayer . . . I appreciate the next chapter in Piper’s Brothers We Are Not Professionals – Beware of Sacred Substitutes.  What is the greatest threat to genuine prayer and true meditation on the Word?  It is ministry activity.  “Ministry is its own worst enemy.”  (p59)

How true this is!  Turning to Acts 6:2-4, Piper exhorts the reader to guard against the many sacred substitutes, the real needs, the pressing concerns of ministry.  “Without extended, concentrated prayer, the ministry of the Word withers.” (p60)

Consider what must be sacrificed in order to take genuinely focused time in prayer this week.  Don’t leave prayer until your message is prepared.  Don’t leave prayer until the unplanned needs are addressed.  Don’t leave prayer until your next day off.  Don’t even leave prayer until it can be used to “redeem the time” in the car journey between appointments.

There are many sacred substitutes that come our way.  Even apart from the flesh, laziness, entertainment, and the enemy himself.  Just in the good and the right and the needy and the appropriate – there are many substitutes that will steal us away from the real priority.  “Without extended, concentrated prayer, the ministry of the Word withers.”

The Danger of Disengagement

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Yesterday I enjoyed a couple of very encouraging, although too brief, conversations on preaching.  One thought that was bounced around was one I have addressed on here before – the fact that shortening attention spans is a myth.  People will listen as long as they are engaged.  For some preachers, that means an hour long sermon is entirely possible, while for others, twenty minutes is beyond what they can manage.

This issue of attention brings two thoughts from two very different “homiletics” voices to mind.  First, David Buttrick is among those who suggest that really people can only concentrate in short blocks of time, perhaps up to five minutes.  So the preacher should plan their message in order to recreate attention in these blocks.  I won’t go into detail on that here, just that simple thought may be helpful.

Second, Andy Stanley has helpfully pointed out the danger of disengagement.  What happens once people disengage from our message?  Stanley suggests that once someone disengages, they start to process the preached information in a different way: “this is irrelevant; church is irrelevant; God is irrelevant; the Bible is irrelevant.”  For Stanley the key is to keep listeners travelling with you on a journey.  (For a teaser of Andy’s book, here’s an interview on communication with Ed Stetzer – Andy Stanley interview)

How do we engage our listeners?  How do we keep them engaged?  Do we really recognize the danger when they disengage?

Refuse to Believe

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I’m scanning through John Piper’s Brothers We Are Not Professionals.  I resonate deeply with some of what he writes, then disagree with other elements – I suppose that makes for an engaging read.  Anyway, here’s an “I resonate” for us all to ponder in relation to preaching ministry:

“Prayer is the translation into a thousand different words of a single sentence: “Apart from me [Christ] you can do nothing” (John 15:5)

Oh, how we need to wake up to how much “nothing” we spend our time doing.  Apart from prayer, all our scurrying about, all our talking, all our study amounts to “nothing.”  For most of us the voice of self-reliance is ten times louder than the bell that tolls for the hours of prayer.  The voice cries out: “You must open the mail, you must make that call, you must write this sermon, you must prepare for the board meeting, you must go to the hospital.”  But the bell tolls softly: “Without Me you can do nothing.”

Both our flesh and our culture scream against spending an hour on our knees beside a desk piled with papers.” – Page 55

I don’t think I need to add much to this.  Amen, perhaps?  It is easy to respond to the conviction felt within by agreeing that we need to pray more.  It is easy to look ahead and imagine a change of circumstance in which we would pray more.  It is easy to spot a time later in the week when prayer may fit more easily than the current pressing situation.  Why not stop everything now and pray for an hour or two?  What’s more important?  What would the negative consequences be, really?  Ok, one more sentence to finish the post:

“Refuse to believe that the daily hours Luther and Wesley and Brainerd and Judson spent in prayer are idealistic dreams of another era.” – Page 57.

What Should Tension Prompt

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Most people involved in ministry feel tension from somewhere most of the time.  Perhaps there is discord in the church, or opposition to your ministry, or possibilities elsewhere, or some form of spiritual warfare, or a disquiet within (or all of the above).  Honeymoon periods, by definition, do not last long.  The reality of ministry, whatever form it takes, usually includes tension of some sort.

What should tension prompt?

It could prompt fleshly reactions toward others, or within yourself.  It could prompt a passion to prove or vindicate yourself.  It could prompt discontentment in your heart, or a lack of motivation for your present ministry.  It could prompt many things.  It should prompt one:

Allow any tension, from any side, to push you up against God.  The kind of “de-professionalized” passion for God that Piper was praying for in the quote yesterday.  The kind of passionate for God leadership that is the right response whatever the circumstance.  Perhaps this weekend’s ministry is confused by tension from one side or other.  Perhaps you do not feel like you are on a mountain-top of ministry right now.

Allow any of these tensions to prompt you closer to God, to pray fervently at every opportunity.  Don’t distract yourself with entertainment, or sin, or busy-ness, or future plans.  Respond to the challenge by responding to God.  Allow anything to get your attention and draw you to Him.

If most of us face tension from somewhere most of the time, wouldn’t it be great if the fruit of that was greater godliness on our part, greater fervency in our prayers, greater compassion in our relationships, greater brokenness in our spirits, greater sensitivity in our walks, greater humility in our ministries, greater Christlikeness in our characters and greater fruit in everything?

Banishing Professionalism

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

I was just prompted by a question to re-read John Piper’s first chapter in Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. Here’s a taste of Piper’s prayer at the end of the chapter:

Banish professionalism from our midst, Oh God, and in its place put passionate prayer, poverty of spirit, hunger for God, rigorous study of holy things, white-hot devotion to Jesus Christ, utter indifference to all material gain, and unremitting labor to rescue the perishing, perfect the saints, and glorify our sovereign Lord.

I suppose one question to ask is this, does the kind of “prophetic” ministry that Piper calls us to somehow stand in contrast to “expository preaching?”  To put it another way, is expository preaching a form of “professionalism?”  I would say not, although definitions are critical.  If by “expository preaching” we mean some kind of insipid, weak, fear-filled, irrelevant but technically satisfactory ministry, then of course there is a contrast. By “professional” does Piper mean “effective expository preaching” or something else?

I think Piper is going after the pastor pursuing the comfortable, dignified role in society, respected like a medical doctor, kind of professionalism – a profession.  If only our churches were led by men who were radically committed to uncomfortable spirituality, to sacrificial response-to-God kind of living.  I suspect that while such leadership would make some uncomfortable, it would give many of us more excitement and willingness to “follow” spiritual leaders, rather than just “fill” the pews kept in order by good and godly managers.

Can a “prophetic” ministry avoid professionalism, but still communicate well, as encouraged on this site?  I don’t think anyone would suggest the OT prophets were poor communicators?  They were master preachers, but they weren’t comfortable preachers.  They weren’t the socially respectable acceptable.  They weren’t nice, or insipid, or predictable, or fearful.  They spoke the Word of God with power and pointedness and precision and pluck (courage didn’t begin with a “p”).  I don’t read Piper ch.1 and think, ‘oh no, there’s no room for expository preaching anymore.’  Actually, I read it and say, “Amen!  If only we had more men of God preaching in our churches!”  What’s missing in contemporary preaching?  There’s a vibrancy, an urgency, a spirituality that is generally missing.  Piper is calling for the kind of radical sold-outness that often drains away in the professionalization of ministry.

We don’t want to sacrifice the authority of the text for the passion of the presenter, nor vice versa.  I suppose most of us preachers should hold our hands up and say “too much too safe too adequate preaching – my bad!”  Time for radical brokenness in our approach to ministry and our view of our own preaching.

Thank you Piper for the prod.  Let’s ponder.  Let’s pray.

Main Idea – Another Easy Mistake

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Yesterday I mentioned an easy mistake to make – finding the biggest detail and losing sight of the rest.  Here’s another easy mistake to make:

Encompassing everything via a statement that is so vague it could come from any number of passages. I suppose it is an overreaction to the fear of missing the point of the passage.  I suppose it gives the preacher comfort that no-one could argue with what the main idea actually says.  The danger though, comes precisely because it is so vague.  What are the possible results of a “We should trust God” kind of main idea?

1. Lack of authority. If it obviously does not represent the preaching text effectively, then the listeners are left with a sense of inadequate preparation on the part of the preacher.  Our authority is really God’s authority demonstrated by the fact that the Bible is boss of the message.  Vague and loose use of the text can only undermine authority.

2. Insipid application. If the main idea derived from the text is vague, the result will typically be vague application also.  Lack of diligence in explaining the text will not set up diligent application of that specific text.  The personality of the preacher may incline them to detailed applications, but without the biblical foundation, such application is likely to be more along the lines of personal suggestions to the listeners.

3. Limited life change. Of course God is able to work despite and around our poor preaching.  But our aim should never be to need a “despite us” kind of grace.  While life change can only ever come from the work of God through His ministry in His people by His Spirit and His grace, He calls us to handle His Word well and preach as effectively as we can.  Vague main ideas come from inadequate biblical study, lead to insipid application and typically result in limited life change.

So what do I suggest?  I suggest the “Hypothetical Bible Expert” test.  Presuming somebody knew their Bible really well, would they be able to identify the passage from just the statement of the preaching idea?  “We should trust God” could come from any number of passages.  A distinct and carefully written main idea will point to one (or a very limited number of passages).  Aim for a unique main idea for each unique passage.

Main Idea – Easy Mistake

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I suppose there are several easy mistakes to make when it comes to getting the main idea of a passage.  I’d like to point out one today.

Do not look for the biggest detail of the passage and then omit the rest of the passage. It may be tempting to look for the weightiest element in a passage and make that the main idea.  Equally, it may be a misunderstanding of the process to search for the biggest point and then miss the rest.

What we should be doing is distilling the whole passage, allowing every detail (big or small), to influence the statement of the main idea.  Some details may not be visible in the wording of the main idea.  Perhaps they influence the tone or the feel of the idea.  Some details are developments of the main idea (perhaps explaining, or proving, or applying it) and consequently may not show in the statement.  However, it is important to approach getting the main idea in the right way:

The right way: every detail feeds into our understanding of the whole, which is then summarized or distilled into one sentence.

The wrong way: only the most significant detail (or even the most attractive or preachable detail) is used to define the main idea, all other details are skipped or omitted.