How to . . . ?

Living Letters

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

This week I’ve been pondering ways to preach epistles effectively.  I suppose there is one contrast that has stood out to me as I’ve pondered this.  Do we see the epistles as living letters, or as artefacts of theological interest?

The epistles are such rich ground, where every sentence might yield weeks of theological material were we to plumb the theological depths.  But that brings a danger.  Too easily we can treat the epistles as static ancient repositories of favourite verses and theological propositions.  Then we can mine them for theological lecturing that might satisfy our craving for offering such choice gleanings, and will, I’m sure, generate polite and affirmative feedback, but will also fall short of what could be and should be.

The letters were written to real people in real situations with real applications of a life changing gospel from an engaged God.  Somehow if our preaching of the letters drains the liveliness from them, there is a danger that we are offering less than God’s best to our listeners.

Our Lord cares about His church today.  He wants the church today to be engaged with the kind of applied gospel theology that we see in the epistles.  And with that content that is offered in the epistles.  That is to say, the epistles don’t show any hint that God is into offering seven easy take home suggestions for anything.  The epistles show a model of engaging real life with the real gospel.  Theology well applied.  Our preaching should do the same.

And since our content shouldn’t be clever thoughts from my limited experience (the epistles don’t demonstrate that approach), our content needs to be biblically solid and absolutely relevant.  Preaching the epistles well will offer just that.  Preaching the epistles and preaching them well has to be a key part of a church’s diet.

There are other genres that also have to be included, but I hope that when we come back to the epistles, we do so well.  They aren’t just repositories of truth statements.  They are real-life engaging theology applied to God’s people.  Let’s preach the epistles so our listeners are gripped by them in living colour, and so lives today are profoundly shaped by them: God’s living letters.

Pointers for Preaching Epistles Effectively – Pt.5

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Let’s finish the list, but by no means finish the pursuit of effective epistle proclamation!

21. Select the take home goal – Is your goal for people to remember the outline?  Why?  Better to aim at them taking home the main idea with a heart already responsive to it, rather than a commentary outline of a passage.  Let’s not flatter ourselves – people don’t need hooks to hang thoughts on, they need a thought to hang on to.  Better, they need to leave with a changed heart.  If they are changed by an encounter with God in His Word, then looking at the text should bring a sense of the structure back to mind.  However, remembering the outline on its own has very limited value (unless they’re taking a Bible school exam that week).

22. Pre-preach the message – Don’t rely on written preparation.  Most things make sense on paper.  It is important to preach through a message before preaching a message.  Better to discover that it simply doesn’t flow, or a particular transition is actually a roadblock, when you can still fix it.  Pre-preach in a prayerful way – i.e. why not talk out loud to the Lord about the message before and after actually trying it out?

23. Don’t just preach single passages – I am not saying that the only way to plan your preaching is to preach through a book sequentially, but that should probably be the default approach.  Series should not become tedious, but cumulative.  Let each message build on what has gone before, while standing in its own right.  One way to inject variety is to vary the length of passage.  You can cover more ground sometimes, zero in other times, and why not begin and/or end with an effective expository overview of the whole?

24. Converse with the commentaries and other conversation partners – Notice I didn’t put this in at the start.  I believe we should converse with others during the process, but not become beholden to one other voice.  Doesn’t matter if your favourite preacher preached it that way, or a commentator explained it that way, or your friend sees it that way . . . you are the one who has to preach it.  But all of those do matter.  Your goal is not stunning originality.  You want to be faithful to what the text is actually saying, and faithful to your unique opportunity, audience, ability, etc.  So converse with, but don’t ride on any of these partners.

25. Present the passage with engaging clarity and relevance – Here’s the catch-all as we hit number 25.  I’ve hammered the need to be truly biblical, rather than just biblically linked or biblically launched.  But you also need to preach with a relevance to the listeners, and with a clarity that can be easily followed, and all of that with the engaging energy, enthusiasm, warmth, concern, love and delight that is fitting for someone soaked in a passage from God’s Word.  This engaging preaching certainly includes the content, but also the delivery – your expression, your gesture, your movement, your body language, your eye contact . . . it should all be about a heart brimming over with God’s Word to connect with God’s people.  Your heart has encountered His heart, so you want to engage their hearts for the sake of transformed lives and a pleased Lord.

What might you add to the list?

Pointers for Preaching Epistles Effectively – Pt.4

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Still pondering pointers for preaching the letters.  Here are five more:

16. Aim for clarity in your explanation – You will dig up masses of information if you study properly.  Sift and sort so that your sermon isn’t packed and dense, but engaging and on target.  You could offer a subsequent audio file of out-takes (bonus material!) and notice that most people don’t take you up on the offer!

17. Be alert to different levels of application – Not every application has to be an instruction to action.  Sometimes the text’s application is at the level of belief rather than conduct.  Sometimes the take-home should be a heart stirred by truth, by Christ, by the gospel.  Affections, belief and conduct all matter.  If we make application purely about conduct, then we are missing a goldmine of genuine life change.

18. Keep your message structure simple – An easy message outline will remember itself.  If you need extensive notes to keep track of your message, don’t expect first time hearers to get it (you’ve had hours of thought and study and practice and prayer, they’re getting one shot only!)

19. Preach the message of the text, not a message from the text – There are any number of potential homiletical outlines, thoughts and applications in a passage.  Some are closer than others to the actual message of the text.  If you preach clever messages derived from texts you will get lots of affirmation.  If you actually preach the message of the text, and you preach it well, you will be a gem of inestimable value in the church!

20. Begin your relevance in the introduction – The old idea of explain for ages and then apply briefly should become a relic of an idea.  You can demonstrate the relevance of a passage before you even read it.  Get the relevance into the introduction, then continue to show the relevance of the passage and seem relevant as a preacher throughout the message.

Just one more post, not because that is all there is to say, but because I don’t want the series to go long in the hope of being exhaustive – that doesn’t work in preaching, so I probably shouldn’t do it here either!

Pointers for Preaching Epistles Effectively – Pt.3

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Continuing the list of pointers for preaching epistles effectively, since they aren’t the automatically easy genre to preach well!

11. Preach, don’t commentate – Don’t offer your listeners either a running commentary or a labelled outline of the text.  Make your points relevant to today, put them in today language, then show that from the “back then” as you explain the text.  Don’t preach “back then” and then offer token relevance once people are disconnected and distracted.

12. Describe vividly, engage listener with letter – If you can do a good job of painting the original situation, the emotions of the writer, the potential responses of the recipients, etc., that is, if you can make it seem full colour, 3-D and real, then your listeners will engage not only with you, but with the letter.  Suddenly it won’t seem like a repository of theological statements, but a living letter that captures their imagination and stirs their hearts.  The theological truth will hit home when it is felt in the form God inspired!

13. Be sensitive to implicit imagery – Often the writer will subtly or overtly be using imagery to explain himself, pick up on that and use it effectively.  Our first port of call for illustration should not be external to the text (i.e. the books of supposedly wonderful illustrations – they are the last resort option.  Start with the text, then move to the experience of your listeners trying to combine the two.  Go elsewhere only if necessary.)

14. Keep imperatives in their setting – Some of us have a tendency to use an imperative magnet.  We cast our eyes over the text until we spot a command, and bingo!  Now we think we have something to preach.  We don’t.  Not until we get a real sense of how the whole passage is working.  It doesn’t take much skill to turn every epistle into a command collection.  Certainly don’t avoid the instructions, but don’t ignore everything else too.

15. Tune your ear to the tone of the writer – This is so important.  Some tone deaf preachers make every instruction, implication, suggestion, encouragement or exhortation into a shouted command.  I think Paul and company would look on with consternation if they heard how their letters were preached by some.  Be sensitive to the writer’s tone and develop sensitivity in your own tone.

Tomorrow we’ll touch on another, well, five, of course.  Add your own by comment at any time – the list is not intended to be exhaustive!

25 Pointers for Preaching Epistles Effectively – pt.2

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So, the next five pointers:

6. Grasp the flow of the whole – As a preacher you need to be able to explain the flow of the epistle.  Some of us are better at the details, others at the big picture, but we all need to work on both.  Preaching that just methodically explains the details without a good sense of the whole will be tedious, atomistic and disjointed.  Preach so the whole epistle can hit home.

7. Study the sections in light of their detail and the big picture – So as you look at a particular section, you will need to wrestle with the tiniest detail.  That may or may not need to be explained when you preach.  But don’t forget to keep thinking about the big picture, the broad flow of thought – that will need to be explained!

8. Study details and structure – Close reading of a passage is not just about word studies, it is also about sentences, and how sentences connect, and how transitions are made, and how paragraphs link.  Be sure to recognize repeated terms and themes, as well as patterns in flow of thought.  We have to study and hold understanding of the text at multiple levels of elevation at the same time.  A fun challenge!

9. Let the shape of the text shape your message – Or to put it another way, stop trying to find a list of three equal points in every text.  Sometimes a text will offer a negative example, then a positive example and then five instructions.  This is not three equal points.  Sometimes a text is essentially in two parts.  Preach a two-part message, you’ll be fine, don’t worry 🙂  (You don’t have to preach the sermon in the shape of the text, and there may be reasons not to, but as a default, its not a bad way to go.)

10.Compare and contrast situations – The original audience and their situation is not going to be the same as your listeners.  Compare and contrast the two.  What need do your listeners have for this passage?  Adjust how you present it accordingly.  But don’t adjust its original situation or meaning accordingly, that will weaken the message.

Another five next time…

25 Pointers for Preaching Epistles Effectively

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Most beginner preaching classes use the epistles as the foundational preaching genre.  We can end up thinking that preaching epistles is easy.  After all, a passage in an epistle will tend to fall into “chunks.”  Voila!  Sermon.  Hang on, there is more to preaching epistles than that.  Nine nudges, ten tips, well, how about 25 tips?  That should keep us going for the week!

1. Drill into the occasion – Why was the letter written?  Remember that epistle writers weren’t just letting their pen meander over papyrus for the sake of it.  They were prompted to communicate by some situation.  Therefore a letter is a snapshot of a narrative.  Be sure to read through the letter itself and look for all the clues in the text.

2. Check other biblical background – With ten of Paul’s epistles, you also have the fertile territory of Acts to explore.  What background is available by a close study of the relevant Acts material.  Its good to know which journey each letter was written on, as well as what other letters were also written at that time.  Fill in the background for your own benefit, and maybe also for the listeners.

3. Fill in your background knowledge – The biblical text is your main source, but be sure to check out whatever else might be helpful to understand.  What was the geography of Ephesus at the time, what does an incipient Gnosticism look like, why do dualists tend to end up at one or both of two extremes?  Other good reference material will be helpful.

4. Keep re-reading the epistle – That is the beauty of epistles: they are relatively short.  So keep re-reading as you study background and the flow of thought will become clearer and clearer.  Read the epistle so much that it isn’t just the famous verses that stand out, but until the whole text starts to sing.

5. Become familiar with the letter-frame – Too many Bible studies and sermon series skip the beginning and end of the epistle.  Don’t.  Dwell on every detail – author, recipients, greeting, thanksgiving, biographical prologue, main idea . . . what are the added details, what is missing?  And how does it end?  Why does he say that?

Five more tomorrow…

Preaching, New Covenant and Heart Transformation

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Yesterday I pondered the familiar but radically exciting truth of having sins forgiven. This core feature of the New Covenant has to drive us deeper, to the issue of the heart. Sin is not just behavioral error, or contravention of legal codes. Sin springs from where it is born: the human heart.

A solution to the problem has to address the problem as it is. If the issue were merely a failure to obey, then God could simply provide empowerment to obey. A better battery. Simple. But what if sin goes deeper than external obedience? What if the very problem Christ came to address was the problem of human hearts?

Then something along the lines of the New Covenant would be needed. Not just a power supply to enable obedience, but a change of heart from death to life. And what would that new heart, new inner life, also point toward? An inner living desire to please God.

Believers in the days of David, of Daniel, or whoever, could only dream of the day when God would do a work in the heart of all his people. They could only imagine what it would be like for God’s people to have heart-stirred inner motivation for fulfilling the moral requirements of a just and holy God.

Speaking of moral requirements, Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment. He pointed to a matter of the heart – the requisite of love for God and for neighbour. Such a love would leave the whole legal corpus unbroken. That’s an amazing thought. In fact, Paul said the same thing, in Romans 13 for instance. Love fulfills the Law.

So its fairly simple then, we’ve just got to preach and pressure people to produce love from their own inner being, right? Tell ‘em to love God and love others, and hey presto, we’ll have communities of law abiding Christian citizens?

Every parent, every pastor, every preacher knows that telling people to love God and love others doesn’t quite seem to work. Its almost as if we aren’t in control of our own hearts, but they are in control of us. We do what we love, right?

So there has to be a better way than pressure. Most pastors and parents tend to fall back on that, because in the absence of a clear alternative, it seems better than saying nothing. But God doesn’t seem to be groping for a solution to the self-loving human heart.

He brings about the transformation of the New Covenant, in which our hearts are made alive and the requirements of righteousness are written there, rather than externally. How? Well, we love God (and we love at all), because we are loved first. He demonstrated His own love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us! It is the cross that presents the powerful love of our loving God – it is His love that ignites in us a love that is nothing other than response to His great love.

So what does this mean for preachers? Well, for one, perhaps we need to put more preaching effort into presenting Christ and Him crucified, and less effort into pressing Christians to copy Christ and His character exemplified.

And if God is doing a work on the heart, surely there’s another level to plumb too. Tomorrow.

Saturday’s Thought: Preaching for Response

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No preacher would admit to preaching in order to fill time, or to fulfill an obligation, or to fill a pulpit.  We say we preach for response.  After all, what other motivation could we cite?  I know, some will quickly rush to language of glorifying God.  But God isn’t pleased by time filling or untouched listeners.  So what do we mean?

Do we mean that preaching should get more than a polite thank you from the gathered listeners?  Sure.  Do we mean that preaching should get a positive or exuberant statement of reception from the listeners?  I don’t think so.  The Lord’s preaching certainly seemed to polarize rather than please all.  Some will be stirred and drawn, others will be offended and withdraw.

This is where it gets interesting for me, and here’s the thought for the day.  What is the division or polarization created by our preaching?  Simplistically we might assume that it is a sorting of sinners and saints.  You know, those in sin pushed away by how seriously we address sin and the godly encouraged; the culture upset and absent while the churchy folks pleased and present.  But that didn’t seem to be the result of Jesus’ preaching, did it?

What if we realize that the gospel is not about preaching a message of pressuring responsibility?  That is, what if we preach the glorious loving grace of God that stirs and warms and draws hearts to Christ?  Instead of whipping our listeners with burdens, what if we preach the One who was whipped for them?

This kind of preaching typically offends the religious who feel responsible for their own goodness.  These are the people who don’t see their own efforts and diligence and pride and self-centredness as being at all sin-stained.  This kind of preaching typically draws the broken and hurting and weak.

When we switch from preaching responsibility to actually preaching for a response we may find that the polarization both switches and increases.  When we recognize the difference between responsibility and response, then certainly our preaching will change.  It is so easy to preach to pressure people to be good.  It takes something more to preach how good Christ is, so that listeners might be drawn to Him.  What is the something more?

I suppose it comes down to me on my own with my Bible and my Lord.  Is it all about me?  Or about Him?  Is it about what I must do (responsibility)?  Or about what He is like (response)?

Preaching for response requires clarity on the distinction between response and responsibility.

Why Being Natural Feels Unnatural

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I hope you’ll forgive another oldie from the archives – this is from 2007:

While this may not be true in every culture, many have little time for “pulpiteering” these days.  The appearance of performance is significantly off-putting to those who place high value on genuine, vulnerable, honest and natural speaking styles.  People do not appreciate the sales patter of a car dealer or the obvious reading of a script in a phone conversation.  And in many churches the ranting, prancing or different enunciation of earlier generations is long gone.  But the key to being both natural and effective is not simply to relax.

As a general rule, the bigger the congregation, the bigger the gesture.  This can feel unnatural.  Yet the goal is not for you to feel natural, but for the listeners and observers to feel that it is natural.  Consequently a “natural” small gesture might look ridiculous to those in the pews.  It may feel natural to point to the left in reference to the past and gesture to the right when speaking of Christ’s return, but this is not effective as it looks awkward to the congregation.  After a while, the gesturing from right to left for time or logical progression starts to feel natural to the speaker, but only after thought and repetition.

As a general rule, a group of people require more repetition and restatement for concepts to formulate in their consciousness.  This can feel unnatural.  In a conversation with a friend it may be enough to say something once, but in a group you must allow several sentences for an initial thought to register, and then several minutes of careful work for the thought to form into something they can see in their minds.  This feels unnatural to you as the speaker, but that’s not the point.  The point is to come across as natural and to be effective in your speaking.

I am not advocating performance.  I am saying that effective preaching takes hard work, thought and much prayer.  Just relaxing doesn’t cut it.  Perhaps the real test of naturalness is the one that comes when the service is over.  As a listener approaches for a conversation, do they get the sense that you are a different person out of the pulpit?  Hopefully not.  Hopefully the switch back into conversational mode will not reveal that you are somehow acting when preaching, and a different person when not preaching.  Effective God-honoring preaching calls for real integrity in the pulpit, in conversation, in private . . . and we should learn our own appropriate communication approaches in each setting.

Misdistillation

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The study of the passage should lead to the passage idea.  This is a single sentence summary of the passage.  Or to put it another way, it is the passage distilled into a single sentence.  There are several ways to mis-distill a passage.  For instance:

1. Misdistillation by searching for the best verse.  This is a relatively elementary error, but not too unusual.  The passage is read and the preacher decides, “Verse 7, that’s the one, I’ll make verse 7 the passage idea!”  Now there are occasions where a particular verse, or phrase, or sentence, may function as a passage idea.  But typically this is not the case.  The goal is to summarize the whole text, not just pick out a part that stands out to you.  You should be able to test the passage idea against the rest of the passage and find that it is all feeding into the idea.

2. Misdistillation by scouting for commands only.  This is a common mistake, driven by theology as much as anything.  A theology that says people need to be informed and exhorted will probably be looking for the imperatives in the passage.  Again, the passage idea may well tie in to an exhortation in a passage, but it is to be the summary of the whole, not just an imperatival mood filter.  Be sensitive to what the passage is trying to do in the context of the whole book.  This may not be a commanding passage at all.  Take off the coloured glasses and try to see the passage on its own terms.

3. Misdistillation by spotting a meaty doctrinal truth.  This is a tempting error.  You scan the passage and notice a reference to a truth you’d love to expand at length.  Voila.  Main idea!  But that idea may only be part of the whole, or even a minor player in the choreographed presentation of all the players.  For instance, sometimes Paul makes a theologically meaty reference in the introduction to a prayer.  Be sure to study the whole and distill the whole, don’t just get excited because there is a passing reference to sovereignty, or whatever.

When you are wrestling with a passage, be sure to distill the whole passage down into the passage idea.  Any other approach and you won’t be preaching the whole passage.