Preaching What’s There But Not

April 11, 2012April 10, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I’ve mentioned it before, as have many others, but its worth another shot – don’t rush to “find a message” in your passage, be sure to find the message of the passage.

There are shortcuts that inevitably are attractive to busy and often tired preachers. Here are a few variations:

1. Harvesting Imperatives – you scan the passage and determine there are about three imperatives in the text. Bingo. Three point sermon. But what if those imperatives are all working together, but actually two-thirds of the passage has no imperative? There’s a lot more to making sense of a passage than just spotting terms that look like they might be imperatival.

2. Chunk Chopping – you scan the passage and determine a specific number of roughly equal chunks and chop the passage accordingly. Divide and conquer! Then each chunk becomes a point, and voila, a sermon! But what if there is an internal logic to the passage that isn’t simply about numbers of verses (there usually is something more going on!)

3. Highlight Spotlighting – you scan the passage for something “that will preach” and then you put the spotlight onto it. For instance, I heard a sermon where the preacher spent almost half the message extolling the virtues of getting out of financial debt, all because the passage made a passing transitional reference to having no debt except…well, except the one thing the passage actually was addressing (but that didn’t come through in the message, and nor did the actual message of the author).

4. Morals as Morales – you scan the passage, especially narratives, and identify a moral morale of the story, then preach that. Essentially you are using the text to make your “improving society” speech, but you are probably not actually preaching the text in its context. Certainly the Bible does address morality issues, but it does so in the context of a greater God-human framework than would lead to trite after-dinner morality speeches.

5. Shallow Starters – you say enough about a passage to look like you’ve said something about the passage, and then you get to say what it is you want to say. But this is preaching your own wisdom, why bother? I guarantee God’s content is better than yours.

There are other ways too, I’m sure, but it all boils down to this: do we believe that God is the greatest communicator? If so, then let’s do our best to actually preach the message of the passage, not just settle for a message from a passage.

Easter Saturday Convictions

April 7, 2012April 2, 2012 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

This week I have been reworking posts from previous years on the subject of Easter. Here is a post on the power of God for us to ponder on this Easter Saturday:

Let us be sure to preach the truth this Easter as preachers committed to preaching the crucified and risen Christ. We won’t tickle ears. We won’t manipulate responses. We won’t generate numbers. We won’t entertain. We won’t preach to please people who are not passionate about pleasing God. We won’t preach in the power of our own gifting, or enthusiasm, or natural abilities. We won’t preach to impress. We won’t preach to earn money. We won’t preach to fill time. We won’t preach because we feel we should, we will preach because we know we must.

We won’t preach to affirm people in their independence from God, nor to give hints for successful living, nor to recite historical fact alone. We won’t preach myth, or helpful tales with gentle morals, or strongly worded messages of morality. We won’t preach watered down niceties, nor implore people to try harder, nor settle for human level transformation.

We will preach the Word of God, we will preach fact. We will preach as those who know how little we bring to the salvation question, as those who know what an honour it is to represent God’s Word inspired and incarnate, as those who live in the shadow of the cross, and as those who live transformed by the Risen Christ.

We are not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for everyone who believes. So we bow before a God who would give everything on a horrifying Roman cross, and rise empowered by the Risen Christ to preach Him: Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ alone.

Easter and Emotions

April 6, 2012April 2, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Easter is a season of emotion. Last year I posted under the title Easter as Restricted Emotions. Here are a couple of those paragraphs:

I remember being at a big Christian festival one easter years ago. For three days everyone milled around in their own separate worlds (as British people are prone to do, if we’re honest). Several thousand people avoiding and evading each other as if only the family unit or church group existed. Then on Easter Sunday morning everyone had a strange skip in their step, a smile on their face, a greeting for every passer by.

I know that Easter Sunday is an amazing day, but it did strike me as being a bit strange. How is it in your church? Is everyone super-sombre on Good Friday and then buzzing with joy on Easter Sunday morning? In one sense these emotions are appropriate, but isn’t the truth that emotions are massively mixed on both days?

Perhaps we should acknowledge the stirring of deep love and gratitude alongside the appropriate sombre feelings of Good Friday. Perhaps we should pause to remember why Christ had to rise from the dead, instead of simply celebrating as if Friday never happened.

The first followers had massively confused emotions on the first Easter Sunday. Fear mixed with delight and joy and sadness with celebration. Maybe some in our churches are wracked with guilt like Peter was that first Easter?

Just one other post from last year asks if we are actually going to preach the passage we read on Sunday. It is easy to read Luke or Mark and preach 1Corinthians 15. Click here to go there…

Easter and Apologetics

April 5, 2012April 2, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

As I trawl the archives for Easter posts from past years I find a few that speak of apologetics. Here is one I wrote after attending a conference focused on the resurrection in 2008:

Yesterday I attended a day conference about the resurrection held in Westminster Chapel. NT Wright and Gary Habermas were the speakers, along with a brief session with Antony Flew. He is the British philosopher who caused a real stir a few years ago by giving up his atheistic position to state that the evidence had convinced him of the existence of God. His position is essentially deist, but he was asked what it would take for him to accept the deity of Jesus. “Well, I suppose it would take something on the magnitude of what you’re talking about today, an otherwise impossible thing like a resurrection from the dead.” When asked the same question about the Holy Spirit, his response was the same – “If the resurrection is true then everything else would come with it.”

Here is a non-Christian thinking more clearly about Christianity than many Christians. How easy it is for us to slip into a very lazy apologetic, either directly or in testimony. It goes along the lines of, “Obviously I can’t prove my faith, it’s like a leap in the dark really, but you just believe and then you know it is true.”

This easter season, let’s be sure to clearly communicate that the Christian faith is founded very firmly on historical fact. The biblical record carries an unparalleled historicity. If Jesus rose from the dead, then the implications are massive, but if he didn’t really rise, then let’s give up and do something else with our lives. As preachers we are in the prime position to communicate the facts of easter and that the Christian message is not an invitation to take a leap into the dark. As preachers we may also need to sensitively follow up on a testimony given by someone else that both affirms them, but also clarifies that actually Christianity is based and built on fact.

Preaching Easter

April 3, 2012April 2, 2012 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Back in 2008 I blogged a series of four posts on Preaching Easter. Let me reiterate the points here with links back to the original series:

Part 1 – Back to Basics

Our regular listeners need to hear the basic Easter story. Jesus told his followers to share bread and wine, “in remembrance” of Him. In a sense the Easter story never grows old for Christ’s followers – it means too much to us. So as a preacher don’t feel pressure from somewhere to say something that is somehow clever or different.

Remember that irregular listeners need to hear the basic Easter story. At Easter time there is a higher likelihood of visitors. Maybe they feel they should go to church at Christmas and again at Easter. Maybe they are visiting family who go to your church and politely join their hosts. These people don’t need some kind of creatively opaque and nuanced message. They need Easter, crystal clear and applied.

Part 2 – Shock and Awe

It is tempting to take the hygienic out of Easter preaching, but overly graphic detail is unhelpful to some. I’ve heard some very effective presentations of the crucifixion that went into the medical details and the sickening truth of the event. I’ve also heard some where the “shock and awe” tactic backfired significantly. We must be aware of who will be listening and what will be most effective for them. Our goal is to present the biblical truth and call for response, not to repulse people with images that obscure the message.

Let’s try to find the right balance for our listeners this Easter. We need to tell the story well, we need to help people see and feel the reality of Calvary. But we also need to be careful to allow the Holy Spirit to stir the heart, rather than merely stirring the stomach by excessive shock and awe tactics.

Part 3 – Harmonization and the Gospels

Check all four gospels for accuracy in your preaching. If you are preaching from, say, Luke’s account, then it is helpful to check the other three. You wouldn’t want to undermine your preaching by telling the story in such a way that you make errors because you forgot to check the other gospels.

Preach the text rather than the event. Having checked the other gospels to make sure you are not presenting an error in your sermon, be sure to actually preach Luke’s account (or whichever you have as your preaching text). Seek to preach the emphasis of the text you are in.

Part 4 – Resurrection Implications

Before preaching the resurrection this Sunday, check your text for the implications that are present. For instance, in 1st Corinthians 15 we read that His resurrection gives us hope of our own (v16-20), the fear of death is removed (v26, 54-57), there are ethical implications (v32-34), motivation for ministry (v58), and even prompting to practical help for the poor (16:1, note Galatians 2:7-10).

Let’s preach the truth of the resurrection, let’s even allow our excitement to show, but let’s also try to be specifically clear in presenting the implications. It is easy in our excitement about the event to fall short in our relevance and application. Truly, everything is changed because Jesus rose from the dead. Part of our task is to help people see how that is true.

Easter Musings

April 2, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Today I have posted some reflections from yesterday’s sermon. Naturally with this week being Easter it is even more appropriate to focus on Christ crucified. So today I’ll link to the Cor Deo post, then the rest of the week I am going to re-work some Easter posts from previous years. What are your particular thoughts concerning Easter this year?

Ministry Actually Is God’s Work

March 19, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

A little statement from Paul in a transitional paragraph in Galatians offers us some real encouragement in our ministry. The post is hosted on the Cor Deo site, click here to go there.

Old is Not Always Better

March 5, 2012March 5, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

This morning I have been reflecting on the messages I heard yesterday and post the link here for your interest. I wonder if sometimes we fall back toward the Old Covenant because we haven’t fully grasped the wonder and superiority of the New. Anyway, I’ll just link to the post and let you go there if you choose.

Overqualified! Heart, Head.

March 2, 2012March 2, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Just one more post to finish off the series. As preachers there are various areas where we can fall into the trap of adding comments or thoughts or meaning or clarification or balance or just plain error to what the Bible says. When we overqualify, we under-preach. There’s one more example I want to highlight.

Preaching through a text we come across a reference to the heart. What is the tendency? “Ah, the word is really mind, not heart, its about thinking, not feeling, ah, uh, next verse…”

If you do this you are not alone. But the Bible shouldn’t be interpreted via a democracy. Many have the tendency to impose a stoic anthropology onto the biblical text that is simply not there, and most do so without knowing they are doing it. That is, any reference to the heart, affections, desires, wants, responses, etc., are filtered out based on the presupposition that such features of humanity are ignoble and untrustworthy. (This also means that negatives like lust tend to get left in, since the negative fruit makes sense to a stoic mindset.)

A pre-commitment to the ideal of our being thinking, choosing individuals overrides what the text might be saying. A slightly more sophisticated fudge comes in the form of, “the word here is not heart, but guts, kidneys, etc.” Implication? Since it isn’t “heart” it cannot have meant what we mean when we refer to the heart. Oops again. We tend to speak of the heart due to its physiological response to external stimuli – to attractive beauty, to fear, to anger, etc. Other cultures might speak of the stomach or guts for the same reason.

This is only scratching the surface of a much deeper issue, no pun intended. But we need to beware lest we talk the text out of speaking of deeply felt inner responsiveness as the driver of human faculties. We might be strongly committed to a notion such as our decisions being determined by a partnership between our thought processes and our will, in alliance against the dangerous and untrustworthy affections. We may believe that with good information and disciplined wills, right decisions will be the outcome. But our commitment and belief, along with that of many others over the past years, may be profoundly wrong.

What if the Bible is right in pushing us to a more profound issue, namely, that the heart is the source, the wellspring, the chief inner faculty? What if it isn’t out of the overflow of my education and discipline that my mouth speaks? What if my reflection of the image of God is not determined by my efforts to suppress affection in order to think and choose freely? What if love determines everything? And what if love isn’t really an act of a free will?

I’ve run out of words, but if you’d like to hear more on this subject, click here.

Overqualified! Go, Stay.

February 29, 2012February 27, 2012 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Ok, I can’t help throwing this one into the mix. How often do we drain the impact of a text by immediate overqualification? For example, in the area of response to the great commission.

God is a missionary God. What if the Son had responded to the Father as many preachers respond to texts that assume and expect missionary momentum from lives transformed by the gospel? What if the Son had insisted that He could be a missionary-messiah right there, in heaven? What if the Son had pulled out Acts 1:8 and spoken of the need to minister in “His Jerusalem” first? This does seem bizarre.

But I have to say that as a speaker sometimes asked to preach on “missionary” type texts and at “missions” events, it can get frustrating to see others overqualify and undercut the thrust of a message. Let’s say I preach a text and in the preaching suggest that it would be a natural response for some of us to respond by seeking to take the message of God’s love to other cultures and lands. What happens? The service leader or worship leader then stands up and thanks me for my message, then prays about how “we can all be missionaries right here in our own neighbourhood!”

That’s nice, very inclusive, now everyone can feel involved. Or, to put it another way, now the potential impact of the message is dissipated and any self-focused listeners can remain comfortably, well, comfortable.

I’ve heard preachers do it too. They preach on the giving and going and sacrificing nature of God. Then they preach a passage where the followers of Christ are urged to give and go and sacrifice. Then they immediately qualify so that all can feel included, and none need feel too stirred.

“Go isn’t an imperative in Matthew 28, it is just ‘as you are going’ – that is, wherever you find yourself.” (Uh, maybe…or perhaps more accurately, go isn’t in itself an imperative verb, but as an attendant circumstance participle it does carry the force of the verb it goes with – in this case an imperatival force. Ok, don’t quote the Greek grammar, but be right if you’re going to use Greek to support your explanation. Jesus is assuming and urging a “go” in this passage!)

“Remember that Acts 1:8 starts with Jerusalem, that’s where we have to start!” (Uh, ok, but the momentum in that verse is leaning towards the ends of the earth, and if you keep reading you’ll see how God used persecution to get them moving!)

I could go on, but my point applies in lots of areas. We have a tendency to read one thing, then by unthinking qualification end up preaching something else. We do it with grace, we do it with Trinity, we do it with missions passages. Any others you’d add?