Homiletics

The Challenge of Narratives 1: Old Testament

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Note – Peter has offered a clarifying comment on this post.

I’d like to offer a series of posts on the particular challenges for interpreting the major narrative sections in the Bible.  Today, the Old Testament.  In parts 2 and 3, the Gospels.  Then in part 4, Acts.

There are many challenges when interpreting Old Testament narrative passages.  These include the greater distance between the story and today (culturally, linguistically, historically) and the simple fact that we tend to lack a broad understanding of the sweep of Old Testament history.  However, the greatest challenge I see is:

Accurately grasping the enduring theological truth of a story.

This is a major challenge.  After all, we are not preaching a story about Jacob to his twelve sons.  A lot has changed since the story was written.  We have to wrestle with matters of continuity and discontinuity:

1. There are significant elements of discontinuity between the Old Testament and now.  Early OT narratives occur pre-Sinai, or pre-exile.  All OT narratives occur before the first coming of Christ, before the cross, before the resurrection, before Pentecost, before the founding and growth of the church.  The characters had less of the Bible to know and trust, they had a different relationship to the Holy Spirit than we do, their perspective on the world and history was different.  Whatever label you put on it, some things have changed.

2. There are some critical elements of continuity too. I’d like to mention two key elements of continuity.  Having taken into account all that has changed between those times and these times, some things don’t change.  Human nature doesn’t change.  God’s character doesn’t change.  While so much may be different, we continue to face the same two paths before us as the biblical characters faced: the path of trusting God, and the path of unbelief.

All Scripture is not written directly to us, or even to people whose situation was the same as ours.  But all Scripture is useful, applicable, relevant.  It’s our challenge as preachers to figure out how.

?-Centric Preaching

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There is a lot of discussion about whether preaching is anthropocentric or theocentric (man or God-centered).  Some like to get into the theocentric versus christocentric debate (God or Christ-centered).  I am not getting into that one in this post (although I will mention a helpful category I heard recently from Walter Kaiser – christocentric is one thing, but christo-exclusive is another . . . I like that helpful distinction!)

Based on the nature of Scripture, I think it is vital that we grasp the necessity of theocentric interpretation, and consequently, preaching.  Kent Edwards, in a journal article, stated:

The point of a biblical story is always a theological point.  We learn something about God and how to live in response to him when we understand a biblical story.  The narrative literature of the Bible is concretized theology.
J.Kent Edwards, JEHS 7:1, 10.

How true that is!  Even if you were to study Esther, the story in the Bible where God is textually absent, it doesn’t take long to recognize that God is very much present as the hero of the story!  Let’s be sure we don’t study Bible passages, stories in particular, and merely derive little lessons for life.  We can leave that with Aesop’s Fables.  Let’s be sure we grapple with the theological point of every story, the intersection between God and humanity.  God’s Word is all relevant and useful, so our preaching should likewise be relevant and useful to life.  But we also center our preaching on God, because the Bible is centered on Him!

3 Words of Wisdom on Preaching Narratives

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Personally, I enjoy every opportunity to preach a biblical narrative. This is not only because of the preaching itself, but also because of the study. I always feel stretched when I study a narrative, and blessed when I stick with it.

In his excellent book, Preaching with Variety, Jeffrey Arthurs offers three reasons to be cautious when it comes to preaching narratives (and like me, he is very much in favor of it!)

1. Pastoral Reason. Many may consider narrative sermons as mere entertainment. While they may be wrong, the best convincing tactic is not to force-feed them! There are ways to preach a narrative passage that feels like a traditional sermon (without dissecting the story to death). Think very carefully about the timing of a first 1st-person sermon (Arthurs suggests Christmas and Easter).

2. Exegetical Reason. Particularly in reference to 1st-person sermons, many narratives are written in 3rd-person. We shouldn’t cavalierly jettison the form of the text, but recognize that often a move to 1st-person is a move, rather than a starting point.

3. Epistemological Reason. While narrative is the most used genre in the Bible, it is not the only genre. While our culture may be becoming increasingly a story culture again, humans are not limited to one approach to communication. Narratives and propositions belong together. People need to hear direct communication from the Bible, not just indirect. They need to hear directly stated truths from us too.

Don’t Undermine Trust

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

NOTE – Peter has replied to helpful comment on this post.

Different versions translate some things in slightly different ways.  One version says “healed” where another says “saved.”  Sometimes a footnote points out an alternative reading to the one in the text, but other versions choose the alternative reading.  What do we do when we are preaching a text with a textual variant in it?

1. Recognize that the listeners may be using different versions. This means that it might be worth a brief passing comment that “your version may have it this way…”  Generally it is probably better to affirm both as possible, or express a preference for one over the other in a gracious manner that does not tear down the alternative.

2. Recognize that your listeners are not experts in textual criticism. (Incidentally, be honest with yourself too.  Just because you can pronounce a Greek word in a dictionary does not mean you are a Greek scholar.)  So we should be very hesitant to overwhelm people with textual critical issues.  In reality, most of the time this will achieve a double goal.  First it may show how much work you’ve done, what skill you have or perhaps add confidence in your understanding of the passage.  More importantly, second of all it almost certainly will undermine their trust in their own Bibles.  People don’t understand how their version came to exist, they don’t grasp the process from inspiration to translation, and so your textual critical observation may very well cause them to distrust their Bible.  “If my version is wrong in this verse, why should I trust it anywhere else?”

3. Do your work in preparation, but think carefully what you say while preaching. The last thing we want to do is inadvertently undermine peoples’ trust in the Bible sitting open in their lap!

Texts Have Rights Too

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Seminary training (or Bible college/school, etc) can be a massive blessing for the preacher.  It can provide skills, awareness, background knowledge, even slightly accelerated spiritual maturity (depending on the individual, the institution and the pressures of the experience!)  In many ways, all the studies come together in homiletics – this is where they merge and meet.  However, formal training does not guarantee good preparation for preaching.

Listen to Clyde Fant’s words from thirty years ago, I think they still hold true for some institutions:

For many preachers, unfortunately, seminary training in preaching merely furnished them with a set of homiletical cookie cutters, which they routinely mash down upon the dough of the text and presto, out pops a little star, or a tree, or a gingerbread man.  No matter that the text doesn’t want to go into these forms, the poor thing is mashed and tortured until it is made to say the things it never intended to say. (Preaching for Today, 1978.)

If you’ve had the privilege of formal training, take the time to honestly evaluate whether your training in homiletics was what it should have been.  If you are going to Bible school, try to discern whether homiletics is truly taught, or merely bolted on to the side of the syllabus.

Whatever your situation, don’t torture a Bible text – texts have rights too!

Pre-Preaching Fears

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New preachers my have fears concerning speaking to a crowd of listeners and similar nerves.  Those of us that have preached for a while don’t tend to have nervousness to the same extent in those areas, but that doesn’t mean there are no fears.  Here are some fears that may have risen in your heart in the lead up to today’s message:

Content Fears. What if I got it wrong?  What if I’ve missed the point?  Am I going to say something that is actually heretical?  Is this message simply too simple?  This can lead into…

Passage Fears. Should I switch passage?  The meeting is in a few hours, should I switch now?  The meeting is in a few minutes, should I switch now?

Listener Fears. He or she will be listening, what will they think?  What if so and so doesn’t approve?  I shouldn’t be the one preaching.

Personal Fears. Who am I to preach this?  Has this really been applied to me first?  Why do I suddenly feel so inadequate?

These and many more fears can creep up on a preacher before any or every message.  Pray about the fears, bring them to God.  Fear and faith fight a battle within.  Faith doesn’t require the total absence of fear, but they don’t cohabit well.  Allow fear to push your gaze back onto the Lord.  Consider whether this fear should be simply resisted and dismissed, or written down to be addressed later in more extended prayer.  Briefly consider whether change is needed to the message, but don’t undermine hours of prayerful work because of fear.

Perhaps as you shift your gaze back onto the Lord you will find renewed motivation to preach this message exactly as it is.  After all, if the fears are coming from a source beyond yourself, it is worth considering the motivation.  Perhaps there is fear of what your message might do, the light it might shine into darkness?

You’ve prayerfully prepared?  Step forward relying fully on Him, preach His Word.  Preach in the mighty strength of your own weakness – a contradictory paradox, unless, of course, we do not go to the pulpit alone!

4 Reasons to Preach Bible Stories

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Today I am leading a seminar: Preaching Biblical Narrative.  I have really enjoyed preparing for this event.  Hence I am writing about Bible stories on the site at the moment.  Here’s four good reasons to preach Bible stories, and there are more too!

1. Stories are plenteous. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Ray Lubeck states that 44% of the Bible’s chapters are predominantly narrative.  There’s lots of stories in the Bible!

2. Stories are pervasive. They stretch throughout the canon.  We read stories throughout the Pentateuch, the history books of the Old Testament, in the wisdom books and the prophets.  We read stories about Jesus and from Jesus in the Gospels and throughout Acts.  We read glimpses of stories, or implied stories in the Psalms, in the Epistles, in Revelation.  They are everywhere, because life is lived story.

3. Stories are powerful. Unlike bare proposition, stories lodge in the memory.  They reach down deep to the emotions of the listeners as they identify with characters and get absorbed into real life action and tension.  They have a powerful ability to slip past defenses and reach the heart.

4. Stories are preferred. Historically humans have been primarily story—tellers.  Life legacies have been passed from one generation to the next by means of story.  Globally, most cultures are story cultures.  In fact, if we live in a time when story has taken a back seat, we are living in a blip in time and space.  But that is an if.  Even in the “enlightened” west we still are shaped and gripped by story.  Just look at Hollywood, or what predominates on TV schedules, or how advertisers shape many ads, or even how sports journalists frame big games – stories continue to abound!  And now as culture is shifting from modernism to postmodernism, story is increasingly preferred – authentic personal story is perceived to be of greater value than abstract truth statements.  People are, and always have been, everywhere, primarily creatures of story.

An Implication of Inspiration

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

This site is for those who care about biblical preaching, not just preaching that includes a bit of Bible.  Consequently I presume the majority of us reading this have a high view of inspiration.  The Bible tells us that ‘all Scripture is given by inspiration of God’ – it is “God-breathed.”  In a sense, inspired implies it was ex-spired from God.  It was written by humans, in their own style and wording, fully conscious, etc.  But what was written was exactly what God intended.

In discussions of this issue, we often end up focusing on the implication of “verbal plenary inspiration.”  That is, that God inspired the very words (verbal), all of ‘em (plenary).  This is critical on many levels.  But in this post I want to point out another implication:

Perhaps we could call it “form plenary inspiration” – that is, that God inspired the very forms in which the Bible is written, all of ‘em.  As Paul Borden put it in a seminar I was listening to, (I paraphrase slightly); “when God wanted letters written, he inspired a good letter writer, Paul.  But when he wanted narrative written, he inspired great narrative writers.”  I think that’s a good point.  The narrative in the Bible is there by design, God’s design.  God knows how powerful and effective narrative is, so he inspired very good narrative.

Narrative in the Bible is not there primarily to give historical account, although it is historically accurate.  The goal was not to write a school history text-book with a balanced chronology.  Accurate, yes, but balanced?  Not in the way we might expect.  Narrative in the Bible is theological writing, it is story-telling with a goal, a point.  It is designed to convey truth about God, about His dealings with humanity, about our responses.  It tells the story, but it is not “mere history.”

All this to say that we should honor the text as inspired down to the words, and down to the form it is in.  Let’s strive to handle every text in the Bible as well as we possibly can, because when God inspired it, his work was very good!

Do You Preach Bible Stories?

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Biblical narratives spark differing reactions.  I just had a conversation with someone who preaches periodically.  I mentioned the subject of my seminar this weekend and he responded that he loves preaching on that kind of passage.  Yet others seem to avoid narratives, especially Old Testament narratives, at all costs.  The difficulty for the avoiders is that there is so much narrative in the Bible.  Ray Lubeck counts 44% of chapters as being predominantly narrative.  Michael Rydelnik has a more general approach when he concludes that three-fourths of the Old Testament and half of the New Testament is narrative (more like 70% of the whole).

I think it is accurate to say that narratives are generally easy to read, but they can be hard to interpret accurately (we all like a good story, but that doesn’t mean we always “get it.”)  As far as preaching is concerned, on one level they can be relatively easy to preach, but they are usually hard to preach well.

So the challenge today is two-fold.

1. For those who jump at the chance to preach narrative. Make sure you are really seeking to grasp the point of the story rather than merely making the easy moralistic observations that can easily jump out of such stories (we’ll address the various short-cuts to be wary of in the next few days), and strive not just to preach the narratives, but to preach them well.

2. For those who do gymnastics to avoid preaching a narrative. Take the plunge, they are so rich for both personal study and preaching.  Take the hint, God inspired a lot of the Bible in narrative form.  Take the opportunity to provide a more balanced diet for all who hear you.

Check Your Own Diet

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Many of us are rightly concerned about the diet of those in our churches today.  Of course, as preachers we try to feed good food on Sunday morning.  But the rest of the week is concerning.  People spend hours ingesting the values of Hollywood and HBO, chewing on the junk food of a tabloid culture, as well as the slightly sanctified fluff of some of what is labelled “christian” in magazine form or on TV.  Add to that the constant bombardment by advertizing, itself no less saturated in godless values than the most overt propaganda of strident atheism.  I could go on, but compared to all that, our preaching can feel like a mere healthy snack in a week-long binge of junk food.

But let us remember to check our own diet too.  It is critical.  Hear this timely exhortation from the mid-1600’s.  Richard Baxter in Watch Your Walk: Ministering from a Heart of Integrity, (pages 139-140) wrote:

When your mind is enjoying heavenly things, others will enjoy them, too.  Then your prayers, praises, and doctrines will be heavenly and sweet to your people.  They will feel when you have been much with God.

Conversely, when I am depressed in soul, my flock will sense my cold preaching.  When I am confused, my preaching is, too.  Then, the prayers of others will reflect my own state of preaching.  If we, therefore, feed on unwholesome food, either of errors or of fruitless controversies, then our hearers will likely fare the worse for it, whereas if we abound in faith, love, and zeal, how it will overflow to the refreshing of our congregations and to the increases in the same graces in others.

We are rightly concerned about the spiritual diet of our day.  But let’s be sure to be concerned about our own diet, and not just that of others.  If we feed on unwholesome food, they will suffer for it.