Effective Bible Teaching 2 – History

May 23, 2012May 18, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday I nudged us to remember the importance of geography in our Bible teaching. As John Smith put it, history without geography wandereth as a vagrant without certain habitation. But it goes the other way too, geography without history seemeth a carcus without motion.

Our God is a God who not only created everything, including time, but He also has stepped down into this world, and into time. So, history:

Epochs and Eras – It is hard to fathom what the antediluvian world was like, it certainly wasn’t the same as after the flood. Travel for Abram was certainly different than the travel experience of Paul. Out of the swirling nations of the ancient world God called one man and began a story that has woven its way down through numerous epochs and era. The Patriarchs and the pyramids. The golden age of David and Solomon, finally a time of peace before the relentless march of empire upon empire. The age of human philosophy and wisdom yielding nothing but a blank page in our Bibles. The Greek culture and language outlasting the empire and sophisticating the Roman war machine. Roads built for enforced peace then used to transport a message of true hope and peace. And throughout it all, hints and promises and prophecies of a kingdom coming one day that will fill the whole earth.

The Great and the Small – The Bible is a masterpiece of the great and the small. The mightiest men on earth. Pharoah and Nebuchadnezzar, both relying on foreign nobodies to explain their terrifying dreams. Alexander the Great…unmentioned. The great Caesars of Rome playing a very minor support role in the great drama of the coming of the greatest of all, born in the most common of places, dying the most ignominious death, and turning the world upside-down. Yet it is not just the Great-Seen-As-Small, although He is the focus of it all. There are so many small people playing their part in the narrative of God’s great plan – from the small brother with big dreams, to the youngest of eight with his harp, to the teens taken to Babylon, to a shepherd of Tekoa, a young man fleeing naked and another falling sleepily to his temporary death.

Power and Politics – The story advances through time with perpetual shifts in power. Each power figure thinking they are the ultimate and discovering they are not. The hard-hearted king with his great nation seemingly under attack by its own gods, yet all at the hand of the One true God. The arrogant-mouthed conqueror sent home in disgrace and killed by his sons. The proud-hearted emperor turned into a beast of the field until he acknowledged who is really in charge. The partying-victor brought to fearful humiliation by a finger writing on the wall. The conflicted parties of a council with restricted powers stirred to rage by a carpenter-rabbi from Nazareth, who confounded the governor with real power in the region, while ignoring the entertainment-oriented “king” given his audience with a true King. History seems to be a tale of waxing and waning powers, but actually it is the story of the only true power, thankfully with a truly trustworthy heart.

History and Geography, partners in powerful biblical teaching.

Effective Bible Teaching 1 – Geography

May 22, 2012May 18, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

There are many ingredients that go into effective Bible teaching – whether that be pulpit preaching or children’s Sunday school lessons. Two critical ingredients are history and geography. It is almost impossible to teach the Bible well without an awareness of history and geography. Haddon Robinson follows John Stott in speaking of the world of the Bible. I’d like to try and whet our appetites for study in these important fields. Work put in here will yield a real harvest in presenting the Bible to others.

John Smith, in his History of Virginia (not highly relevant here), wrote:

As geography without history seemeth a carcus without motion, so history without geography wandereth as a vagrant without certain habitation.

So true. So what are some of the elements of geography that will help our biblical teaching?

Nations and Empires – In the back of most Bibles are a set of maps. It can’t be just one. We need to get a sense of the ancient world from Spain to Iran, with Israel as a tiny place. We need to see Israel and even Jerusalem close up. But more than that, we also need to see a world changing through time. The great Assyrian Empire, so feared, then gone. The mighty Babylonians, then the Medo-Persians, the swift conquering, lasting cultural impact of Greece, the machine that was Rome. We need to see Egypt and Assyria with Israel in between. We need to see how Judea really was on the fringe of the Roman empire. Nations and empires, kingdoms and regions.

Distance and Terrain – The fertile crescent was quite some distance for Abram, or for a captured Judean king. The direct route from Babylon to Jerusalem was another story – that would need some major hill removal and valley filling if a motorway were ever to be made. The lush green rolling hills around Galilee are not out of reach of arid Judean mini-mountains, but again the direct path via Sychar was seldom travelled, many preferring the fast falling Jordan river route. Heading west wasn’t easy either – sea voyages were fraught with dangers from storm and foe (although there was the fishy option), but Roman roads and iron-fisted peace helped the spread of the gospel.

Cities and Towns – We all know that our town is not the same as the one down the road. A city isn’t just more inhabited than a town, it is different on numerous levels. So we must avoid seeing every biblical place as some sort of generic town. Nazareth was a garrison town for Roman soldiers, Tarsus was a city of some means, also well acquainted with Rome’s fast moving war machine, and Philippi had its history with Rome too. Yet each of these places was different. Tekoa and Jerusalem are by no means the same. A reading of Acts points to the strategic nature of hub cities in the growth of the church, while the most obscure of villages have a part to play in God’s plan – even little Bethlehem is graced beyond words! And what about Rome, can the gospel penetrate even Rome?

All of this, and more, lies motionless without the vivifying force of history. To which we turn tomorrow.

Saturday Short Thought: Applicational Yet Unengaging?

May 19, 2012May 17, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking about preaching that connects with the congregation. Part of the issue is the complex consisting of application and relevance. But this is not the whole issue by any means. So here is a question: is it possible to be totally applicational in a message, and yet completely unengaging?

I believe it is possible. If there is no personal warmth between preacher and listener, and if there is no vertical warmth between the preacher and God, then a highly applicational message could easily become an instructional rant based on a text.

This isn’t something any of us should strive for. Problem is that if we think being relevant and applicational is the whole deal, then we can overlook the fact that communication is best offered in the context of interpersonal warmth. As preachers our listeners need us to have that reality in both dimensions!

A good friend of mine has a stock of great sayings, one of which goes, when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So true in preaching. A chilling of the temperature in our personal walk with God will show in our communication with others. Even the most winsome of texts can become an opportunity to hammer on the duty theme again, for example.

Let’s leave it there, that almost qualifies as a short thought!

Preaching to the Whole Person and the Whole Congregation

May 17, 2012May 17, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

In his chapter entitled “Powerful Preaching,” in The Preacher and Preaching, Geoff Thomas writes:

“One of the great perils that face preachers…is the problem of hyper-intellectualism, that is, the constant danger of lapsing into a purely cerebral form of proclamation, which falls exclusively upon the intellect. Men become obsessed with doctrine and end up as brain-oriented preachers. There is consequently a fearful impoverishment in their hearers emotionally, devotionally, and practically. Such pastors are men of books and not men of people; they know the doctrines, but they know nothing of the emotional side of religion. They set little store upon experience or upon constant fellowship and interaction with almighty God. It is one thing to explain the truth of Christianity to men and women; it is another thing to feel the overwhelming power of the sheer loveliness and enthrallment of Jesus Christ and to communicate that dynamically to the whole person who listens so that there is a change of such dimensions that he loves Him with all his heart and soul and mind and strength.”

Not only do we need to address the whole person before us, but also all the persons before us. Ramesh Richard lists three attitudes that will be listening during a message:

1. The I Don’t Cares! These are not hostile, they just don’t feel they should be there. They are there out of a sense of duty to friends or family, or habitual routine. For this attitude the need raised at the beginning of the message is critical. Without it, they are free to continue their inner stance of not caring.

2. The I Don’t Knows! They lack the background awareness that others may have regarding God, the Bible, Christianity and church life. These people need good biblical content clearly explained.

3. The I Don’t Believes! These people are doubtful about the truth of what is said, or the applicability of it to real life. They are likely to test what is said with questions such as, “Is this truth coherent?” or “Is the sermon consistent?” or “Is this truth practical?” and especially, “Will this work?” For this attitude you must demonstrate a coherent consistency as well as practical relevance.

Before preaching it is worth prayerfully considering whether the sermon is merely cerebral or emotional, and whether it will engage these three attitudes. Is a clear and valuable need raised? Is there sufficient accessible explanation? Is the message relevant and life engaging? We preach not to get our study into the public domain, but to see the lives, the hearts, the attitudes of our listeners changed by exposure to God’s Word.

Insightful Incidentals – part 2

May 16, 2012May 15, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday I suggested that some preaching points pursued from minor details in a text can be well off-target. But does this mean we are constrained to a rigid main point only approach? Generally this wouldn’t hurt most preachers, but let’s say for argument’s sake that you are very conscientious on preaching the main idea in a text . . . are there some guidelines for commenting on the less central details?

1. Make sure you’ve understood how the detail relates to the whole before you say anything else about it.

Biblical narrative tends to be sparse in nature. Papyrus was expensive and the writer’s were sober. They didn’t waste words. So if a detail is present, assume the detail is important to the specific goal of the passage. Rather than rushing into an easy preaching point, be sure to make sense of the detail in the whole passage, and the whole passage in light of the detail. Once you know how it is working here, then maybe it bears some passing interest in its own right.

2. Make sure any comment you make concerning the detail is rooted in its context.

Plucking a phrase or sentence out of context to say something it doesn’t say . . . well that is the arena of the cults. Let’s not subtly prepare our people for the cults by modelling cult-like Bible handling in the pulpit (or they might go for it on their doorstep!) A text is saying something. You can’t legitimately say anything from a passage, be sure to say the passage’s something. Context will always be the key to correctly interpreting the meaning of a detail. If it doesn’t mean what you want to say, be patient until the passage does say that. Perhaps even select a preaching passage accordingly, but be committed to saying what the text is actually saying. Never force.

3. Make certain any passing applicational point is rooted biblically.

There may be a place for a passing application point, but be sure the application is genuinely biblical. Many a moralistic point has been made that is more preacher’s culture or personal preference than biblical teaching. Many are committed to the idea of comparing scripture with scripture during the interpretation phase of biblical study. I think more would do well to compare scripture with scripture in anticipation of making their applications. I think Haddon Robinson said a few times that there is more heresy per square inch in the field of application than in any other aspect of preaching.

More could be said on all this, what would you add, or clarify?

Insightful Incidentals?

May 15, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Whatever passage you are preaching, there will be opportunity to make passing comments about relatively minor details. Of course, all Scripture is God-breathed and there is no such thing as a non-essential word in the Bible. But a high commitment to verbal plenary inspiration (i.e. the words are inspired, all of them), does not mean every word can become a preaching point on a whim.

So what sort of insightful incidental comments are best left unsaid altogether? Tomorrow I’ll address the potentially appropriate ones, but for now, just the baddies:

1. Distracting moralisms – For example, the preacher is working through the story of Zaccheus’ encounter with Jesus. The setup is finished, Jesus has just called Zac down from the tree and there is an interim comment before the big scene in his house. The interim comment is about the crowds grumbling. Cue preacher going off on a gentle tirade about grumbling and how bad that is for a church. A couple of wilderness quotes, the threat of excessive quail dinners and then the diversion is over, back to Zac’s dinner table. Oops. And then some. This story has nothing to do with whether people should grumble or not. Actually, if the preacher had observed more closely, it would have become clear that the comment by Luke is not wasted at all. The crowds grumbled at Jesus! Here is the key point in the story, the moment when Jesus diverts anger onto himself to free up sinner Zac. By looking for a moralistic application point, the preacher has missed the transformational gold of grace in action. Chances are, after missing that, the same preacher might go on to make Zac’s proclamation of distribution into part of his salvation negotiations, rather than the pure response that it actually is.

2. Errant critiques – For example, the preacher is working through the story of the blind man healed in two stages. In this case he hadn’t given any attention to the preceding content in Mark 6-8, which is so critical to understanding this unique story. Getting to the end of the passage, his eyes are drawn by the red ink of Jesus’ words in verse 26. “Do not enter the village.” Voila! Preaching point. We don’t do follow-up these days! We need to learn from Jesus. Jesus didn’t just heal, he also gave instruction. Don’t go back into the world. Just follow me. Etc. Etc. Meanwhile the more astute listeners have their eyes on the text wondering how the preacher missed the first half of the verse. Did Jesus ask this blind man to follow him? Or did he actually send him to his home? It is perilous to be looking for preaching points, rather than really reading the passage to understand it.

3. Personal soapboxes – I’m out of words, but you know what I mean. The slightest hint in a passage and off goes the preacher on a personal crusade.

So easy to preach in vague connection to a text. So much safer and better to preach the message of the text.

15 Ways to Improve Clarity

April 27, 2012April 25, 2012 / Peter Mead / 6 Comments

This week I’ve been writing about the doctrine of Biblical clarity – the fact that the Bible may be understood. This is a cause for great rejoicing. Imagine for a moment that the Bible was absolutely impregnable. Anyway, one of the points I made the other day was that preachers are representing a God who made His book understandable, so we should model a passion for clarity in our communication.

Let’s have a rapid-fire list of factors that influence our clarity in preaching. I’ll start, you finish:

1. Voice. If it isn’t loud enough, and distinct enough, it isn’t clear enough.

2. Vocab. Don’t try to impress, try to communicate. Jargon doesn’t help, good word choice does.

3. Preaching Text. If you stay in your text as much as possible, it should be easier to follow.

4. Structure. A memorable outline remembers itself, there’s no need to be clever, be clear.

5. Main Idea. One controlling, dominant thought, distilled from the passage is critical for clarity.

6. Unity. Let every element of the message serve the main idea, nothing extraneous.

7. Order. Take the most straightforward path through the message, so others can follow.

8. Transitions. Slow down through the turns or you’ll lose the passengers.

9. Pace. Sometimes you really need to take the foot off the pedal to keep people with you.

10. Visual Consistency. Keep your gestures and scene “locations” consistent to reinforce well.

11. Verbal Consistency. Let key terms rain down through the message, don’t be a thesaurus.

12. Restatement. Restate key sentences in different words, less patronising, but helps clarity.

13. Illustrative Relevance. Be sure illustrative materials have clear connection to the message.

14. Flashback and Preview. Whenever appropriate, review and preview at transitions.

15. Pray. Pray for message clarity during preparation, God cares about this!

That’s a start, what would you add?

Authority and Clarity

April 24, 2012April 23, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Two sibling doctrines. One gets all the attention. The other goes unmentioned. Actually, one is the darling of preachers. The other might well think we are out to get it.

Authority and clarity.

These two doctrines matter. Authority speaks of whose Word the Bible is. It speaks of how His Word got to us. It speaks of why we must hear it and apply it.

Clarity speaks of whose Word the Bible is. It speaks of how well His Word got to us. It speaks of how we can grasp it and apply it.

Some speakers overtly present the process by which the Bible got into our hands: how God was involved in revelation, inspiration, transmission, canonization and even in translation. Other speakers don’t get into specifics, but they keep on affirming that this is the Word of God.

Few speakers overtly present the clarity of Scripture: how God has communicated so well that His great book is able to be understood through diligent observation and interpretation, with prayerful reliance on His Spirit for illumination. Many speakers don’t get into clarity at all, if anything, they keep on giving the impression that God’s Word is out of reach to the average person.

That is the issue. While authority gets regular affirmation in the church, clarity is not only oft-ignored, but also oft-undermined. How so?

How easy it is to give the impression that people need the preacher in order to make sense of the Scriptures. How easy to undermine the listeners’ confidence that they have the necessary competence for reading and understanding the Bible.

I’m sorry to suggest this, but we need to ponder this issue: too many of us undermine the confidence of our listeners to take up and read. Tolle lege, if you will. Uh, I just demonstrated one way to do it…there’s nothing like an ancient language quotation to make normal people feel inadequate. But I didn’t mean that. Exactly. That’s how it happens.

Here’s the bottom line for today. The clarity of Scripture and our preaching. It is not about whether our sermons are clear or not (let’s hope they are). The issue is whether our listeners perceive themselves to be competent to pick up their Bibles and read.

That is a big part of our task. That is why I think Clarity deserves a break.

Don’t Burn Up Your Creativity Too Soon

April 20, 2012April 19, 2012 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Preaching is both art and science. It involves a certain amount of creative artistry. But most of us have a limited tank of energy when it comes to creative flair. Don’t waste it.

Don’t waste your creative energies when you are studying the passage. This is the time for your adventurous explorer energy to come out as you travel in foreign, ancient and sometimes dangerous lands. This is where you need the determination of an archeologist, digging into the historical documentation of the text. This is where you live out your suppressed inner-detective, following clues, asking probing questions, persisting until you get to the truth.

Passage study is not the time for creativity, it is the time for persistence, for diligence, for probing, inquiring, questioning, for travel through time, for cultural encounters of the ancient kind, for passionate prayer that God will do a work in you as you work in His Word.

Creativity in the passage study phase of your preparation may lead you astray. Even though some in your congregation may marvel at your creative new interpretations of Bible texts, what they actually need is the true interpretation of the text. If you are the first to come up with something in a passage, maybe its time for alarm bells to ring, rather than a time for celebration.

Save your creative energies for the message formation phase of the process. This is where many a preacher has collapsed, fatigued from their creative expending of energy in the interpretation phase, desperate to pull a message together from the study notes in time for Sunday morning. What tends to follow is a re-hash of the same old sermon form, shape, structure and strategy. It feels tired, and what’s worse, the content isn’t great either because of energies expended on “new” interpretation!

As you collapse into your favourite armchair after the adventure of studying, digging, travelling, interrogating and praying your way through the text, you will be both tired and thrilled at the journey you’ve been on. Tired because it is hard work to exegete well, but thrilled because of the God who has travelled with you, revealed Himself to you, and worked already in you.

And a change is as good as a rest, so as you sit back in your armchair before the fire let your prayers and thoughts meander through the possibilities available as you plot your message strategy. Pray for the people, consider the possibilities, get creative. You’ve got a message worth preaching from the text, now’s the time to pour out your energy into making it a sermon worth hearing. Be a shame to waste that energy too soon!

Beyond Guilt – Part 2

April 17, 2012April 17, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

This week I am pondering how to preach with a more nuanced approach than mere guilt pressure. As I’ve written already, there is a place for genuine conviction of sin, and I am not hiding from that. But equally, I am not just hiding in that, nor avoiding the danger hiding in a non-nuanced guilt approach.

How can we hide in a guilt approach? I suspect some see no other way to help lives change than to pile on the pressure. Every passage is turned into a guilt trip. Doesn’t matter what tone the passage takes, the message will have been filtered into a guilt and pressure tone.

And what danger is hiding in such an approach? There is an implicit danger with guilt focused messages. I say you should feel guilty. If I convince you, then you feel that you must change. Guilt alone will not drive people to God. It will drive them to despair or to efforts of the flesh. Neither result is good. Guilt has to come in a package with hope, with grace, with access to life transformation that has to come from God, not from self.

So, yesterday we looked at the issue of stance. Here’s another element, perhaps an obvious one, but still important nonetheless.

2. The Preacher’s Tone. Too many people think too simplistically. As if communication is about information transfer. But the truth is that communication involves a complex of signals, some of which can override others. So my body language can contradict, and overwhelm my words. So too can my vocal presentation. Voice and body language combine in regards to the tone of my communication.

If my tone is close to that of an angry prophet, that will override the most gracious of poetic content. If my tone is akin to that of a Victorian school master, then my words, my message, will take on a whole new meaning.

Children know this. If a parent says their name with a certain tone, they know they’re supposed to feel guilty. It’s voice, expression, posture, etc. But it boils down to tone.

Do you have a default tone that is guilt inducing? Can you make the most encouraging passage into a pressure text? Can you turn Psalm 23 into a rebuke for not being a good sheep? Can you take Jesus’ yoke and burden, which are easy and light, and make them tricky to put on properly if your listeners aren’t living just right?

Let’s be sure that when we preach, it is not just our words that reflect the meaning of the text, but that our tone also reflects the tone of the text, and the tone of the God who is speaking to these people on this occasion.

Stance and tone can be adjusted to avoid a guilt-only approach. They can be factors in a better motivational methodology. But tomorrow we’ll zero in on a key factor in preaching to encourage and motivate.