New Testament

Incidental Details, None But Plenty

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

The biblical narratives tend to be lean in their writing.  What Luke could write in six, or ten, or twenty-six verses would take a contemporary writer three-hundred pages.  Nevertheless, there are many details tied into the narratives.

There are interesting word choices – such as the word used for “have mercy on me” in Luke 18:9-14.  There are significant passing remarks, like the fact that Mark tells us the grass was green at the feeding of the five thousand.  There are key functions achieved by narratival details, like the angry grumbling of the crowd under the tree in Jericho when Jesus invited himself to Zac’s place.  There are intriguing ways around saying the straight answer, like after the Good Samaritan, the questioner of Jesus can’t bring himself to say the word “Samaritan” in a positive sense.  Or the elder brother in Luke 15 who won’t refer to the younger son as his brother.  There are interesting repetitions, like “he believed” happening twice in twenty-four hours at the end of John 4.  I could go on.

So what to do with such interesting “incidental” details?

One approach is to completely miss them and preach every story as if it is the same as several other stories.  That could apply to a story recorded in several gospels, but sounding the same whatever passage you preach it from.  Or it could apply to a particular story becoming a generic story-type that could be preached from numerous passages.

Another approach is to dismiss them and give some sort of sophisticated sounding explanation of how there is no reason for it to be here, but it shows the human-ness of the author.  Certainly the author was a human, but often a dismissal of detail in Scripture is evidence of nothing more than the preacher’s lack of careful study and thought.

Another approach is to dissect them and preach a series of distinct messages based on separate textual triggers.  In this approach the preacher goes off on a mini-logue about grumbling from the crowds at Zac’s tree, but fails to recognise the inherent thrust of that detail in that particular story.  Often true truth will be preached from the wrong text.

Are there incidental details?  Depends how you view and preach the text.  I appreciate this quote from Flannery O’Connor:

“A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.”

Flat Preaching

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I recently was leading a preaching seminar where participants had the opportunity to preach and receive feedback.  The participant I listened to really did an outstanding job!  He preached the miracle at the end of John 4, and it was not a flat message.

Here’s what I mean.  There are tens of miracles in the gospels.  A lot of them are healings.  Chap with a problem comes to Jesus, Jesus says something, chap  trusts, Jesus heals, happily ever after.  They’re all a bit the same – if you preach them that way!  In reality each account is uniquely written with its own features and characteristics and context and purpose.

So in the miracle at the end of John 4, the writer includes several indicators pointing to his main thought in this unique passage.  He points the reader, consciously or sub-consciously back to John 2 and 3.  He points us back to Jesus’ earlier concern with people trusting in him, but his not entrusting himself to them.  He raises the matter of belief based on signs.  He underlines the issue of belief with a double reference to belief.  The writer is doing something unique in this passage.

So the good preacher will do something unique with this passage.  Actually, the good preacher will do the writer’s something unique with this passage.  (That last sentence probably needs to be read twice, cumbersome but deliberate!)  The task of the preacher is not to come up with their own clever message on the passage, but to really and truly and fairly and powerfully bring out the message of the passage.

How easily we preach a miracle story as just another miracle story.  Human interest problem, solved by Jesus, because Jesus is powerful and is the solution to the underlying sin problem, so let’s ponder the cross.  That’s fine, but sometimes it simply doesn’t honour the unique contours and features of the text itself.  Good preachers do.

Preaching and Story – Part 5

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So this post is really an extension of implication four in the series we have been considering on the impact of narrative in our preaching.  Much more could be said, but this will be the last in this specific series.  So to review implication number four:

4. When preaching “non-narrative” sections, consider how they are snapshots of a narrative. We saw how two genres are, by definition, largely narratival – both history and gospel (including parables, of course).  But what about the five “non-narrative” genres?

So a psalm was written by someone in response to God’s work, or in gratitude for a particular moment of deliverance, or in the tension of particular situation, either individual or corporate, or to guide others in the tensions of life.

Prophecy, as we know, is not all about foretelling the future, but often more about God’s heart being revealed in respect to the present.  Either way, narrative is there . . . either God’s response to the tensions and problems and reactions and dangers of the present, or God’s explanation of kingdom hope shining at the end of the current tunnel.

Wisdom literature is shot through with the tensions of a fallen world, with the challenges of human folly as we so easily pick foolish paths in the midst of the situations we face – glimpses into the story of humanity.

Apocalyptic, despite all the caveats and careful explanations that seem to overwhelm the text so often these days, is a revelation of reality, present or future, the unseen becoming seen, and it is shot through with narrative features – and then I saw, then he said, and then, and then, so the dragon waited, then the world celebrated, then the judge came, and then, and then.

Epistle, of course, is a snapshot into a narrative – that apostle’s attempt to bring the gospel to bear on the present situation of the recipients.  We have to look at the occasion that prompted the writing of the letter, and we need to look for any hints as to what transpired in response to it.  A glimpse into the narratives of life lived in a fallen world.

At some level there are aspects of narrative pervading every passage in the Bible.  How does our preaching reflect that?

 

Preaching and Story – Part 4

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

So we have been thinking this week about the role of the Bible story in our preaching.  We haven’t thought about how the individual stories relate to the big story as a whole, the redemption history, as it were.  Perhaps that would be worth a post at some point (actually I know it would because some preachers seem so eager to fit everything in its macro context that the particular text they claim to be preaching gets lost or somehow reworked so that the actual message of the text is lost in the mix . . . but that is for another day).  We have considered the importance of entering into the narrative, and trusting the narrative to offer more than illustration and introduction, and thinking through how to increase the impact of a narrative by retelling and revisiting it before moving on.  Now to the final implication in this series.  This weekend I should be returning from Asia and will be looking forward to seeing what comments have been sparked by this series!

4. When preaching “non-narrative” sections, consider how they are snapshots of a narrative. There are three main types of literature in the Bible, and about seven major genre.  One of the three types is narrative, the most common one, but still leaving two non-narrative types (poetry and discourse).  A couple of the genre are narrative (history and gospel, including parables), again with lots of page space, but also leaving five that are non-narrative (psalm, prophecy, wisdom, apocalyptic, epistle.)  But stop the bus for a minute!  Are these other types and genres non-narratival?  Aren’t poetry and discourse both snapshots into a narrative?  Discourse, be it epistle or speech, is given in the context of a narrative situation.  And it may be harder to accurately know the context that gave rise to a particular poem, but human nature leads us to wonder and often to reconstruct such a narrative (be careful not to then interpret a poem in light of a reconstructed narratival context, but why not tap into the emotional setting of a fallen world that sparks such poetry?)

I will extend this series by one post and tomorrow consider the five supposedly non-narratival genres to see how they are, in fact, more narrative-ish than we tend to think!

Preaching and Story – Part 3

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So we have suggested that since narrative is such a critical form of literature in Scripture, pervading both Testaments at length, and since we live life in the tension / resolution cycle of micro and macro narratives, therefore we need to ponder how narrative influences our preaching.  We have suggested the importance of telling the story, and of trusting the story instead of looking to always get past it to the important stuff.  Now for another implication:

3. Don’t just tell the story and move on, but revisit, review, retell, re-engage the narrative. Sometimes we are just too quick to move on.  We tell the story without effective description, emotion, clarification, cultural awareness, etc.  Then we move on to our lengthy content.  A well told story will include effective description, cultural explanations, empathetic energy, physical movement, etc.  And it also needs the often missing ingredient of time.  Time to dwell in the tension.  Time to ponder the problem.  Time to feel the resolution.  Time to respond to the work of God in that story, and if told well, in my story.  So why not follow up the story with a partial re-telling and review as you conclude the message and apply the truths?  Why not revisit the narrative for a subsequent sermon instead of moving rapidly on at “break-impact” speed (i.e. fast enough to avoid any passage really hitting home!)  Or to be creative, why not have a session where listeners can actively participate in reflecting on the story, or retelling the story, or talking through the impact of the story?

Perhaps you can think of other ways to linger longer in a story preached, so that the church can be changed more completely by it?  Tomorrow we will see the final implication in this series.

Preaching and Story – Part 2

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday we suggested that preaching on a Bible narrative should include more than just elements based on the story, but should actually tell the story.  Here’s another implication of the pervasive nature of narrative:

2. Don’t just enter the narrative as a means to an end, but see the entering in as a potential location of the “end.” That seems like a risky sentence, but I think it holds firm.  Too easily we feel that a story is, at best, an introduction to our pontifications, applications and morals.  But a well timed, well placed, well told story will often carry its own weight and do its own work.  The listeners will enter into it, they will find themselves in the world of the story, and they will feel the story in their world.  As they identify with the characters and feel the rising tension, as they see the tension resolved, as they feel the blessing of “their” character trusting God, or sense the emptiness of a character choosing the pain of sin, and so on, they will be impacted by the story, during the story.  God invented narrative, trusts narrative and so gave us loads of it in Scripture, knowing people would hear it and read it, and knowing that there wouldn’t always be the helpful explanation we sometimes feel God “needs” from people like us.  God knew what he was doing with the inspiration of narrative, perhaps our seeing story as effective communication in itself might be an act of faith that could bear fruit?  I am not anti-explanation or suggesting that storytelling replace preaching.  I am suggesting that in our preaching we don’t simply see narratives as illustration, or introductions to the “real stuff.”

It’s tempting to move on to the next implication, but perhaps it would be better to let this post linger longer.  Number three tomorrow.

Preaching and Story – Part 1

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

This week I am in Asia, teaching an MDiv course on Preaching Biblical Narrative.  I’d value your prayers for the course, the students, the travel and the family back home.  On here I thought I would preload a series of posts reflecting on the place of biblical narrative in our preaching.  I hope it will spark comments, but I don’t know if I’ll have internet access to approve the comments, so apologies if yours doesn’t appear for a few days.

Life is lived in story.  We don’t just tell stories, and read them, and watch them, and share them on the phone, and observe them through our front windows, and hear about them in the workplace . . . we live them.  When we watch a movie, or read a book, we find ourselves feeling the tensions and identifying with characters, or pulling away from them.  Somehow we wonder what we would do, we share their joys, feel their pain, enter their world.  Why?  Because story is the water we swim in, so it is only natural that we connect.

So what?  Well, here are some possible implications in respect to preaching:

1. When preaching a narrative, don’t just preach propositions, but enter into the narrative. I well remember an introduction to a sermon I heard a while back, “I know you know the story, so I won’t tell it again now, let’s look at the theology of the story.” No!  It’s fair to say that only those already on board with that speaker’s theological take on things were positive about that message.  A narrative has to have a tension, a problem, a situation that needs to be resolved.  Enter into that, describe it, help the listeners to feel it.  A narrative has key characters, humans in a fallen world beset by tensions, people that the listeners will warm to, pull back from, feel for, or feel like.  Enter into that, describe them and their situation, help the listeners to feel it.  Don’t be so sophisticated that you leave the stories for the children.  When you preach story, tell the story.

Tomorrow we will look at another implication or two (there are four implications in this series).

Help People Trust Their Bibles

/ Peter Mead / 7 Comments

I was just reading a post by Bill Mounce on the Koinonia blog (to see it click here.)  He offers a simple and graciously toned introduction to textual criticism set in the context of a natural question raised by folks in the church . . . “why is verse 4 missing in my Bible?”

Some textual critical questions would probably only be asked by people already heavily interested in the subject with apparatus in hand.  These kinds of questions may intrigue us, but usually shouldn’t find their way into the pulpit!  However, if people in the pew are looking at their Bible and asking a textual critical question, then we need to offer help.  Just a few brief thoughts in light of Bill’s good post:

1. Textual criticism can be explained relatively simply. People probably don’t need to know about every textual family, how to pronounce homeoteleuton, or the full rationale behind lectio difficilor potior.

2. Textual criticism can be explained with grace. This area of study can really stir up the tension, especially between adherents to different textual families.  Such tensions won’t help if shown from the pulpit.  Be gracious to people who disagree with you on Majority Text vs Critical Text issues.  Often you’d be fighting an unseen opponent anyway since people in the same church often tend to use the same version of the Bible (and most of these without any real understanding of text critical issues underlying the options)!

3. Textual criticism should be explained at the right time. Just because you’re enjoying a textual critical excursion in your personal study, or even in your sermon preparation, doesn’t mean the people are needing a dose of it.  But when a verse is missing and they are wondering, or when you’re going through Mark or John and you get to the square bracket sections, then is probably a good time to offer some explanation.

4. Textual critical explanations should build trust in our English Bibles. This has to be paramount.  What have you gained if you’ve showed off your knowledge, perhaps won a debate against an opponent not present, but undermined the confidence of every listener in their English Bible?

Going Deeper Than Instruction

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

In a lot of preaching situations it is easier to simply present the text and press home the imperatives.  Whether or not there is technically an imperative in the grammar, we can easily turn a passage into an instruction and press for change through our words.

I wonder how often we miss the opportunity to go a step or two deeper and recognize the “why” behind the “should”?  Typically the epistles offer lists of instructions, but in the context of the letter, these instructions are very much set in the context of theological truth.  We are to present our bodies as living sacrifices, but it is in view of God’s mercies that we are to do so.  We are to walk in a manner worthy, but specifically it’s in a manner worthy of the calling we have received.  We are to set our hearts on things above, where Christ is, but this is in light of the Christ presented in the first two chapters.

Instruction and imperative don’t just sit on their own as burdens to place on people, but as appropriate response to the captivating truths of who God is, what He has done and so on.

As a preacher it is much easier to simply give instruction and apply pressure, but we must consider how to make sense of those instructions so that instead of pressured compliance, we might see captivated response.