Here’s a post from January that was never linked to from here:
God is strong enough to handle whatever challenge you or I might be facing. I think most of us readily believe that. And yet His great strength sometimes is not the comfort we think it should be. Why?
Click here to go to the post pondering Isaiah 40 and our need for comfort from God.
Just catching up on Cor Deo posts, in case you missed any:
Why does Matthew end his great Christmas narrative with a whimper? Other sections of his gospel finish with strong summaries, so why not the first two chapters? Why have a great story end with some geographical details, an obscure reference to an unidentified prophecy and a comment about Jesus being called a Nazarene?
This week I am catching up on posts I have written for the Cor Deo blog in the past few weeks. Just in case you missed one . . .
Everyone assumes their perspective is a healthy and balanced one. If we can see one person off in one direction, and another off in the other, we must be the one holding the privileged position of balance. But maybe we need to take an often-overlooked factor into account.
This post ponders the impact of living in a post-Genesis 3 world . . . a reality that should impact every sermon we preach! Click here to go to the post.
Lots of Christians have a habit of “stained glassing” Bible characters. Sometimes it seems like pretty much anyone other than Jezebel and Judas Iscariot will get a free pass and find their actions vindicated by believers.
Why does this happen? Perhaps it is the result of Sunday School training that can sometimes turn the biblical narrative into myth-like stories with morales based primarily on character behaviour. Perhaps it comes from too easily assuming that faith in God is a binary reality whereby any faith in an individual equates to full faithfulness, rather than recognising that God patiently works with people who are in the process of learning to trust Him rather than themselves. Perhaps we are just nice people who assume almost everyone in the Bible is a nice person too (i.e. you have to be overtly evil to be anything other than laudable). Perhaps it comes from forgetting that the primary character to focus on in the Bible is God, rather than the people, so that the people become models for our actions where perhaps they shouldn’t.
So where does this happen in the canon? There are countless examples, but let me prod our thoughts with a few characters that tend to get “stain glassed.”
The Patriarchs – Abraham responds to a call from God, but when does he really trust God’s promise? Sure, he moves with his family a long distance, but it is only after he separates from his family that God follows up with him. Then it is another while before Abraham seems to finally trust God’s promise about his seed. So between his initial call and his being declared righteous by faith there is the bizarre incident with giving his wife away in Egypt. Abraham is on a journey, a faith journey. And if we try to sanctify his decisions and affirm it all, then we may upset the wives in our congregation, and misrepresent the text.
Other OT Characters – Ruth was amazingly godly, but was Naomi acting by faith when she setup a very compromised situation? Do we want to affirm everything about Mordecai and Esther? Heroic and courageous? Certainly. But deeply faithful? Worth pondering. Nehemiah always gets lauded as the ultimate leader, but what legacy did he leave in respect to the hearts of the people, as well as the building project? Was Jonah just reluctant, or was there a heart issue with him, in contrast to the character of the God he ended up somewhat representing?
Disciples – This is an interesting category. Perhaps it is an anti-category. That is, often I hear the disciples being treated like dunces when we treat them as if they should have fully grasped the content of all four gospels before the gospels were even written!
The Bible is full of real people with real issues and real messy mixed up faith responses, and for that we should be profoundly thankful.
This series of posts has pondered the issue of preaching tone. I’ve suggested we should understand the tone of a text and consider carefully the tone of the message. Communication between people is rarely, if ever, purely informational. Communication from God is never dispassionate. He cares about people who will listen to our preaching. So as well as considering the tone of the text, the situation of the listeners, and the tendencies of ourselves as preachers, we also need to pursue God’s heart in respect to the sermon. What does God want to happen? What tone would reflect his concern for the situation?
So to finish, let me highlight a danger and then two things to pray . . .
Danger: Considering the tone of a presentation is vitally important, but it does open up the dangerous possibility of inauthenticity. If I am going to say something important to my wife, I would be foolish to not consider how the tone will come across. But once I start thinking about tone, there is always the danger of faking something and launching into a performance. When it comes to preaching, a performance never represents God well because God does not pretend. God does not fake emotion. When God speaks, God speaks with pure and authentic passion. If we pursue “effective preaching” by looking at matters of tone, then we are in danger of inauthenticity unless we are gripped by the conviction that we must represent God not only in what we say, but by our character as we speak. Though flawed and broken, somehow we get to speak for God. Ambassadors. We represent. This kind of danger demands that we be prayerful about the privilege of preaching.
Prayer Point 1: Discernment. Pray for God to give you discernment. To be able to discern the intent of the biblical author and the need of your listeners. And to be able to discern God’s heart for them, as well as God’s perspective on you. Instead of asking God to be able to discern the state of your own heart as you approach a preaching engagement, better to ask him to do the searching and trying and weighing and to lead you into a place where you can preach in a way that represents his heart most effectively.
Prayer Point 2: Courage. It is much safer and easier to preach dispassionately as if preaching were mere presentation of material. Arms length. Uninvolved. But preaching calls on us to love people enough to be real with them. It calls us to preach as one who represents Christ the Word of God. Just as Christ was not universally loved by the lost and by the religious, so we might find our hearts trampled as we give ourselves away in preaching ministry. That takes courage. Pray for it, because the Lord knows what its like to represent the Father well and to suffer as a result.
So assuming we agree that the tone matters, how are we to arrive at the tone of a message? Three steps are needed here:
1. Consider the tone of the text.
As we develop sensitivity to the text and the setting of the text, we should be increasingly effective at grasping the tone of the author. We need to go for a humble confidence rather than a brash confidence in this. We are looking at lots of factors and weighing them up.
2. Consider the listeners to the message.
Who are you preaching to, and what is the occasion of the sermon? Sometimes the occasion will influence the tone significantly (i.e. a funeral), sometimes it will be less significant. It is not enough, though, to figure out the tone of the text and replicate that. That text needs to be preached with sensitivity to these listeners.
3. Consider yourself as a preacher.
What is your natural or default tone? Do you have a theological bias? For instance, do you see everything as duty and expectation? Do you see everything as gentle and joyful? Do you turn any passage into a guilt trip? The better you know yourself, the better you will be at selecting tone on purpose rather than defaulting into a tone that is less than helpful.
When you have evaluated all these factors, then there is still a bit more to consider. Next time I’ll blog about the dangers and the needs as we think about preaching tone.
This series is not about “adding tone” to lifeless letters and words. It is about recognizing the tone of the text, and then being sensitive to the impact of our tone as we preach that text. Here are a couple of example contrasts:
1. Tone of writer: Galatians and 2 Timothy. This is perhaps the two extremes in Paul’s writing. In Galatians Paul is very upset about the false teachers. He forsakes convention to deliver a stinging astonishment statement in 1:6 instead of the standard thanksgiving opening. In chapter 3 he is questioning who has cast a spell on the believers who he obviously loves deeply, but is so concerned about. And by chapter 5 he makes the strongest remark in all of his writings, again about the false teachers.
Compare that with the sensitivity of Paul in his later letter to Timothy, beloved Timothy. He writes about false teachers there too, but the tone is completely different. He is concerned, he is deliberate, he is urgent, but he is gentle at the same time. Paul wanted both letters to get through – one as a wake-up call, the other as an encouragement.
2. Imposed tone of preacher: Hebrews and Ephesians. One example of how we can impose a tone that contradicts the material we are preaching can be seen when we think about these two letters. Hebrews is a sermonic message designed to encourage and warn. It startles. It urges. It paints pictures and explains a small number of specific Old Testament texts in such a way as to urge the believers on. But preachers can bring in a foreign tone – one of theologically dense intensity that loses the energy of the original letter/sermon.
Or think about Ephesians. The opening sentence in 1:3-14 is abundant in language choice. The grace of God seen in the choosing, the giving of the Son, the giving of the Spirit, is lavished on believers. And what might we do with it? To be honest, too many of us turn it into a sterile detailed presentation of a theological doctrine triggered by one or two key words in the passage. I wonder if the Ephesian elders would recognize our presentation of it?
Tone matters. The tone of the text. And the tone of the preacher.
When you preach, you probably have a default tone. Most of us do. If we are going to preach the Bible effectively, we need to get to know the tone of the text and the tone that we will default to using. Only then can we think through effective communication in respect to the tone of the sermon.
So what is your default tone? Here are a few possibilities to get us started. You should certainly listen to yourself on a recording, and you would be wise to ask some listeners how they would describe it!
A. Dull Deliverer – This preacher is generally flat in tone. Not much variation, not much energy, not much life. This is a hard one to spot in the mirror as we tend to find ourselves more compelling than others do.
B. Energizer Engager – This is the opposite: pure energy and continual variation in tone (albeit mostly enthusiasm). Massive energy, excessive movement, a tiring experience for most listeners, unless they are so relieved by the contrast it provides to a diet of dull deliverers, then they will be complimentary for a while.
C. Critical Cleric – This preacher is generally judgmental in tone. Whatever the text, whatever the situation, whatever the opportunity for leadership and encouragement, the message will probably come across as a finger wagging critique of the listeners or the culture. As with every default, this will get some affirmation. You can critique culture mercilessly in a way that would unhelpfully offend any visitor, but some in the congregation will celebrate you “saying it like it is” or something similar. Don’t evaluate tone on feedback, but do get feedback to evaluate the tone!
D. Gym General – This preacher is similar to the Critical Cleric, but the emphasis is on pressurizing the listeners. Instead of just critiquing, there is a continual arm twisting going on. No amount of application is ever enough, so do more, more, more. Again, some people are attracted by fleshly ascetic religiosity, so this approach will be affirmed. That doesn’t make it healthy though.
E. Cheery Chatterer – This preacher looks like he thinks he is in a wedding photo shoot. Upbeat, smiling incessantly, nice and happy, perhaps even plastic in tone. It is good to smile and be warm. It is good to connect with your listeners. It is good to remember that the God we represent should be evident in our manner and demeanor. Consequently, let’s be careful not to come across as simply cheery all the time. God is good, but He is not an unauthentic salesperson.
F. Rushed Reteller – This preacher has more to say than time to say it. Consequently everything has to go at a clip in order to fit. Information transfer gives way to information statement and all aspects of effective delivery give way to the one over-riding goal of saying the message.
What would you add to this list of default preaching tones? There are many more out there.
I’d like to point our thoughts to the issue of tone in preaching. Not just our tone, but also the tone of the text. Let’s start there.
Good Bible Study – Good Bible study methodology has to include awareness of context, both written and historical, as well as content, both details and flow of thought. In fact, that is a fairly good summary of good inductive Bible study. Looking at both context and content, we try to make sense of a passage. If we lose any of those four elements, we won’t understand it properly.
Without historical context/setting, we will import our own culture into the meaning of the text. Without written context we will pluck passages from the larger flow of thought in their particular book. Without attention to flow of thought we will be explaining apparently random details and probably using them to springboard to our own systematic theology categories. Without attention to details we will make errors in grasping the meaning.
Better Bible Study – As good as context and content are, without looking at the author’s intent we will not really grasp the meaning of a passage. Again, there are at least two broad indicators of intent:
1. Stated intent – if the writer tells us why he is writing and what he is trying to achieve, that is great.
2. Tone of text – this is more subjective, but there will be plenty of clues in the text. Unless we ponder the tone of the text, I would argue that we are not in a position to claim understanding or to write down the main idea of the passage.
Tone Matters – In any communication tone matters. Every spouse knows this. Every child knows this. Every friend knows this. And in written communication, tone is not always easy to spot. How many times have people misunderstood your emails or text (do you even know?) I can’t imagine that the Bible writers were oblivious to tone in their writing, and they probably gave attention to the tone that they intended to communicate.
Before we can preach a passage effectively, we need to understand it. Before we can understand it, we need to pay attention to the tone.
Next Thursday I will be leading a webinar on “Preaching the Tone of the Bible” with a special focus on epistles. The details are to be found here.
Biblical Preaching 