New Testament

Preaching Inside the Fence – Part 2

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Several days ago I suggested the image of preparing and preaching within a low fence. I’d like to suggest a reason for doing so that may not be immediately obvious. Very simply, you will enjoy the preaching process more. Let me give another example:

Almost four years ago the church I was involved in was working it’s way through Luke. I had Easter Sunday morning. It was tempting to read Luke, but essentially preach Paul. You know how it is, so simple to revert to the terminology, ideas and focus of a passage like 1st Corinthians 15. I resisted the temptation and erected a low fence. I studied within Luke’s writings. I saturated my preparation with Luke and worked to prepare a deliberately Lukan message. I didn’t want to just preach the resurrection, I wanted to preach Luke’s account of the empty tomb and risen Christ. I tried to grasp the significance and focus of the carefully written account in his gospel. I tried to use Luke’s terminology and present his concept of salvation. I wanted to preach in Luke’s language rather than Paul’s or John’s.

The message went well as far as I could tell. One discerning listener commented on the deliberate Luke language. Probably everyone else missed it. That didn’t matter. The big idea was as good as I could get from the text, the relevance was as deliberate and concrete as possible, the big things were what mattered. But for me, as the preacher, the attention to fine detail like choice of terminology made the study both exacting and rewarding. I felt like I’d tasted something of Luke’s great gospel in a way that I could so easily have bypassed.

I got a taste for preaching with a fence that day, and I’ve continued to do so whenever possible. I’d encourage you to try it if you haven’t already. Take the opportunity to push yourself deeper in whatever book you are preaching. It’s easy to revert to default thoughts from elsewhere, but you’ll enjoy it more if you don’t!

A Low Fence

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

When you have a single text for a sermon, you also need a fence.  The fence is there to keep you from wandering too far away from your focus.  

Erect a fence for the passage – last night my preaching text was Hebrews 13:20-21, the final benediction.  I erected a fence around the book of Hebrews.  That fence meant that I kept my study in Hebrews and my presentation in Hebrews.  

Study inside the fence – So what did the writer mean by the reference to “Shepherd,” “the will of God,” and “pleasing”?  While naturally my mind might jump to Psalm 23, John 10 and other passages all over the canon, I tried to stay within the fence.  The best evidence of authorial intent would be found in Hebrews.  By staying there I discovered the unity of 13:1-21 as a follow-on to 12:28, which shed light on “pleasing.”  By staying there I discovered the unity of the final section with parallels to the end of chapter 10, which shed light on “the will of God.”  Staying within the fence kept the focus for study.

Preach inside the fence – It is always tempting to present the sermon in the terms you prefer.  I tried to preach in Hebrews terminology.  Instead of talking about our “vertical spirituality” as loving God (as I would by default, very Johannine), I instead spoke of worshipping God – very Hebrews.  References to a pilgrimage of faith, toward a heavenly city, not shrinking back, shame, the joy set before, Jesus’ being led up from the dead, and so on.  All terminology appropriate for a sermon on Hebrews.  I also tried to refer to the writer as the preacher to the Hebrews rather than the standard writer to the Hebrews.

You only need a low fence – I am not suggesting that you study or preach a book in complete isolation from the other inspired texts.  I am suggesting you honor the author of the book in both your study and presentation.  So to understand “Shepherd” I had to be aware of at least Isaiah 63:11 in the LXX, although the addition of “Great” is very much a Hebrews idea.  And to see that God is pleased with the two-part sacrifice of vertical and horizontal spirituality naturally sets up a brief comment about the greatest commandment(s), John’s first epistle, etc.  The fence does not preclude very helpful study in Old Testament quotes and allusions, nor the opportunity to point out the consistency of idea across New Testament books.  The low fence is there to honor the author, thereby helping you study better, and present more faithfully.

Scripture Interprets Scripture – Cross-Referencing in Preaching

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

You’ve probably heard the oft-used line that “Scripture interprets Scripture.”  This principle of hermeneutics seems to be the only principle for some people, but I would suggest it is one among many helpful principles.  It is right to say that no passage will ultimately contradict the rest of the canon, for there is a divinely inspired unity to the Bible.  However, this does not mean that we should neglect near context interpretation in favor of distant context interpretation.  What a writer means by a word or phrase should be evaluated in light of the sentence, the paragraph, the section, the book, the other books by the same writer, the other books from that time period, the other books in that “Testament” and the other books in the Bible – in that order!  Like concentric circles around the bull’s-eye, the closer the context, the more weight we should give it.  So a term used in a letter by Paul does not automatically mean the same as that term in Matthew or John or Ezekiel. 

One exception to this hierarchy of correlation would be to go to a text evidently in the thoughts of the author prior to others that may technically be “closer contexts” but were unknown to the author.  For example, when an NT writer is obviously leaning on an OT passage, that passage may be technically the most distant context, but it actually may be more helpful than another NT writer.  So I’d look more carefully at the prophet Paul is quoting than Matthew’s use of the same term.  We should correlate carefully.

Having stated that we should select cross-references in light of their actual value in interpreting our target passage, this does not mean that we need to give that information to our listeners.  We do a lot of study that does not need to be flashed from the pulpit.  Generally it is better to explain your target passage, rather than potentially confuse or overwhelm listeners with a series of different passages.  In part 2 I will give some specific guidance on cross-referencing in the pulpit.

Internal Chaos? Be Encouraged.

/ Mike Roth / 3 Comments

In R.E.C. Browne’s classic work on homiletics The Ministry of the Word, he writes, “Creative work always brings creative workers to the edge of an abyss. It is there that the most creative work is done and it is there that conditions exist which may be the undoing of the worker: passionate faith gives rise to profound doubt; love of truth dreads error, bringing one to the verge of falsehood; depth of love increases ability to hate in the name of love; zeal drives the zealous towards fanaticism; desire to influence others brings one into the danger of being enslaved by those whom he would free. Great preaching, like great art, cannot be the work of those who know no chaos within them and it cannot be the work of those who are unable to master the chaos within them (p. 17).”

For those who preach regularly, this place of chaos is known all too well – and it can be paralyzing. I pray the Lord strengthens you to continue His work proclaiming this Word that brings life. May the apostle Peter’s words be of encouragement to you today: “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen (1 Peter 4:10-11).”

Mike and Peter have responded to a comment on this post.

Luke 18:9-14 – Explaining My Intro

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The second of two longer than usual posts. This time I will explain why I did what I did (see yesterday’s post for the transcription).

On paper this feels like a long introduction. The message lasted 39 minutes, and this introduction took 5 minutes, about 13% of the message. Maybe slightly longer than necessary, but stories keep attention so I didn’t think people would lose interest.

There were some deliberate parallels to the parable. Both characters came from a privileged background (just like the two Jews, God’s special people). Lyndsey was a very deliberately good person, going above and beyond what anyone might expect of her. She was the kind of person you would choose for your church. On the other hand, Steve had knowingly compromised with what was wrong, living off other people who had little choice but to channel their money toward him. Steve was a character that begs little pity (he had chosen to sell rather than becoming an addict who felt obliged to sell, he had chosen his lifestyle, etc.) Both characters prayed, in very similar ways to the characters in the story. Steve cried out for mercy. Lyndsey spoke of what she would not do, and what she does do, above and beyond what was required. Their eternal destinies matched those of the parable characters.

I did not want the story to mimic the parable so that listeners would be focused on the text at this point. So I included significant differences. The story was about two characters, but they were not both men. They were a man and a woman, from the same family. This added a tension to the story, as people wondered how differently their lives might turn out. Instead of the religious leader in Jewish terms, I used a prominently involved church goer (an obvious parallel, but not a pastor or elder – perhaps too obvious). Instead of a tax man (different connotation today anyway), I chose to depict the compromise and despised nature through a combination of drugs dealer and homosexual with AIDS – perhaps the epitome of the kind of character that might be despised by my listeners. Yet with the differences, the man was still getting rich off other people’s resources. I chose not to have them come into the same building, such as a church, to pray. Again, too obvious. Instead I used Christmas day as a believable trigger for both to be praying.

My style of delivery was not like Jesus. Today people respond to more detailed description (novels last longer than five verses and movies are fully visual). Today people connect better with named characters. Perhaps the opening line would have distracted people enough from the parable to get caught up in the story – where would these two end up? Then I gave a false conclusion. After describing their different prayers on Christmas day, all felt completed by the use of the opening line again, but there was an extra step, perhaps surprising, the additional comment above heaven and hell.

I’m not saying it was perfect, or even good. But maybe this shows the kind of thinking that went into the story. Deliberate parallels, and deliberate differences. I wanted people not only to give attention, have their interest piqued and be moved toward the text. I also wanted people to somehow feel the force of the parable. I wanted to do what Jesus did. Then we looked at the text and focused entirely on the inspired version. However, there were subtle links as the sermon went on. For example, the use of phrases from the introduction, such as the Pharisee “going above and beyond what was required.”

So there it is, for what it’s worth. It is not easy to come up with a story that parallels a parable, but has a chance of slipping through the defenses of a knowledgeable crowd. Preaching a parable to unchurched and biblically illiterate non-believers is probably relatively easy. My challenge here was a crowd of people with a notice sheet that informed them I’d be in Luke 18 and talking about prayer!

Luke 18:9-14 – Contemporary Parable – Part 1

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Some weeks ago I mentioned the idea of retelling a parable in a contemporary setting.  I preached Luke 18:9-14 and used a contemporized version for my introduction. In this post I will give the transcription of the parable.  In part 2 I will share my explanation of why I did it this way.

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It’s amazing how a brother and sister can end up in such different places.

For example, Steve and Lyndsey.  Steve and Lyndsey grew up in a good Christian home.  Father was a minister in a small rural church and they had everything that they could ask for.  They went through their teenage years, went off to university, and then things seemed to go a little bit differently.  Lyndsey did well, she went to university, studied hard, was very effective in her studies and got a good degree.  She was very involved in the Christian Union, and they invited her back to take an extra year working in the CU among students.  So she spent that extra year there on campus and during that year she met the man who would become her husband.  They got married.  And they settled into a good life, a very good life.  They were very involved in their church: leading home groups, leading youth work, leading Sunday School classes.  In fact, if there was something on a Monday night they would have been there too, because they were there every night of the week doing something, they were the kind of people you love to have in a church.  Lyndsey and her husband were the epitome of a busy, hard working, Christian couple.

Steve was a bit different, he went to university and he was clever as well, very effective, but not very focused on his studies.  He was more motivated by money.  He found a way to make money very easily.  In the university where he attended there was a bit of a drug culture, not obvious on the outside, but it was there and if you knew where to go you could get the drugs.  And Steve sort of dabbled a little bit, but didn’t want to get addicted so he pulled back.  But recognizing the power of the drugs he decided to start selling.  He knew that if he could get other people on the drugs then they would be dependent on him and he would be raking the money in – especially if he wasn’t addicted and having to spend the money himself.  That’s how he went through university, scraped through his final exams and headed out into the world to continue making massive money.  Steve drove the nicest car.  Steve didn’t own a home, he rented a hotel room to live in.  He lived in absolute luxury paying cash day after day.  Because he had everything he could wish for. He got involved in different forms of illicit living and in the end one of his male friends gave him a disease.  And Steve, with all the money he could ever wish for, was being ravaged by this deadly disease. 

Christmas came, and Christmas day Steve spent in his hotel room.  All day his mind played games with him, reminiscing, taking him back to memories of his childhood.  But somehow he couldn’t put that together with where he was now and the state he was in.  And that night, before he fell into bed he sat on the edge of his bed, with tears pouring down his face and cried out to God, “God my life is a mess, have mercy on me.”

Lyndsey and her husband had a busy day.  Of course, church all morning, very involved with that.  Then they came home and had a great Turkey dinner – her parents were there, his parents were there.  And all day her mind was playing tricks on her.  She kept reminiscing back to childhood and remembering all those times with Steve her brother.  That night, before she fell into bed content and happy with the way the day had gone, Lyndsey prayed.  And she said, “Thank you God that I’m not like Steve.  Thank you God that my life has turned out the way it’s supposed to.  Thank you that I don’t do those sins that he does, I don’t even know some of the things he does.  I thank you that I can be involved in all these good things.  I can be so involved in church, I do above and beyond what any pastor would suggest his people do.”  Then she went to sleep.

Lyndsey and Steve, brother and sister, ended up in completely different places.  Actually, completely different places.  Because Steve went to heaven.  Lyndsey didn’t.

Now in the interest of honesty let me tell you that that story is not strictly true, I made it up.  It’s fabricated and any likeness to anyone you know is completely coincidental.  And yet that story is so true all around us.  On both sides.  In the interest of honesty let me also tell you that that isn’t my story, it’s actually Jesus’ story.  And if you have a Bible, let’s look at it, Luke chapter 18 . . .

Manipulation in Proclamation

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

As preachers we are called to do more than inform the mind.  We are not lecturers.  We are not called to achieve a stated goal by any means possible.  We are not salesmen.  So how are we to navigate the pulpit so that we fulfill our calling, but don’t overstep the mark and take on tasks that are not ours?

1. Preach to the heart.  It is important to understand that people are not just mind and will, but first and foremost are heart-driven.  The Bible teaches this, even with all the gymnastics some teachers go through to avoid what the text says.  The heart is more than mere emotions, but it is not merely the mind as some suggest. In Ephesians 4:17-18 Paul urges the believers not to function like the unsaved Gentiles.  They do not act well because of their minds, thinking, and understanding.  But there is another issue.  Their minds are the way they are because their hearts are hardened.  The heart is central, critical and very much in control.  So, as preachers we must address the heart and not take a short cut to just the mind or will.

2. Don’t stir the emotions and then attach spiritual content to that.  Since the heart includes emotions, it is tempting to merely stir the emotions and then attach our message to that emotional reaction.  You can tell a moving story about the little boy who finally hit a home run (for Brits think of a boy hitting a six), then as people feel themselves filling up, drive home the application of the sermon.  “You too are standing at the plate, Jesus is asking you to commit to this challenge this week, will you commit?  Will you swing the bat?”  This is riding on the back of imported emotion to “achieve” something while preaching.  This is manipulation.

3. Allow the text to reach the heart. The solution is not to merely preach an intellectual sermon and avoid the heart.  The key is to preach the text well so that the text itself and the message of the text can do its job.  If the passage is moving, let it move people.  If the passage is stirring, let it stir people.  When the text itself and the message itself stir the emotions, great.  Don’t feel you have to import a moving story to get the job done.  Make sure that emotions are stirred by the text, the message, the idea itself.

Question: Should We Cover More in Our Sermons?

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Following on from yesterday’s post, I want to address the issue of “covering more.”  Here’s the question again:

In the Church today, we find that most preachers preach for 30-60 minutes on one topic or passage. Indeed, many will take a few verses and preach on them at length.

The examples we have in the bible of Jesus’ sermons show a very different way of preaching. He seemed to cover many topics in every sermon. For instance the ‘Sermon on the mount’ covers a range of things but preachers these days tend to just take one section of it and preach for an hour on that section.

Is there any validity, in your opinion, to the idea that we labour points too long and actually ought to cover more in our sermons?

Peter M responds:

Preaching on one passage – Expository preaching does not require a preacher to stay in one passage. It is possible to have an expository sermon that goes to several passages. Yet to deal with each passage as one should tends to make the process overwhelming. I always encourage preachers to deal with one passage more fully, rather than skipping around unnecessarily. There are reasons to refer to other passages, but for some preachers it seems this is a standard practice. I suggest it is usually better to stay put in one place.  This does not mean boring preaching though.  The preacher should be as engaging and interesting as possible.  It takes some skill to demonstrate the relevance and interest in a passage.  It is better to develop that skill than to hide the lack of it by jumping around the canon.

The example of NT sermons – We can learn a lot by analyzing the sermons recorded in the New Testament.  There are different sermon forms used, clear awareness of differing audiences, and so on.  Yet it is important to remember that while the written form represents the original accurately, it is not an exhaustive transcription.  I suspect Peter preached for longer than a couple of minutes at Pentecost, and Jesus’ “sermon on the mount” was probably not delivered as it stands in our Bibles.  So it might not be wise to try to recreate the Sermon on the Mount. At the same time recognize that it is not as random as many suspect.  What seems to be one subject after another, may actually be one illustration or application after another.  For example, notice the repetitive pattern in Matthew 5:21-48 – do we have five new subjects or five specific applications of the same principle?

Amount of content in a sermon – I am not an advocate for “dumbing down” sermons or “salad preaching” (no meat).  A message should have an appropriate amount of content at the right level of weightiness for the listeners present.  Yet the goal is to communicate the main idea of the passage in order to achieve the purpose of the message.  The goal is not to impress people with content (sadly, for some preachers, this is their goal).  This wrong goal is often encouraged as some listeners tend to affirm dense preaching despite their own inability to take it in!

Some preachers should cover more, others would do well to cover less.  There is no standard rule, but the passage and the audience are both significant factors in determining how much content, both breadth and depth, should be covered in one message.

Preaching Epistolary Texts as Story

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The question that led to the previous post implied the problem of repetition of style when preaching epistolary texts. It is easy to get into a rut of one deductive sermon after another. One option to consider that may help bring some variety into a preaching series, is to preach an epistolary text as story.

A story has characters, a situation, tension, and some form of response to that tension. Most stories resolve, although a story without full resolution can be very powerful. In reality, an epistle is an episode in a story. There are characters (the writer and recipients, at least), a situation, some type of tension that the writer is responding to through writing the epistle. Furthermore, in most cases, we do not know how the story actually resolves.

So when preaching a text from an epistle, consider telling the story of the situation. Perhaps offer some incomplete responses that might only make the situation worse. Then introduce the actual response of the apostle. Describe how that response might resolve the situation. Describe what successful application of the passage would look like back then, and today. Make clear the claims of the passage on the listeners both then and now. Conclude without resolution, recognizing that the story is incomplete until the listeners have become doers of the Word also.

Does Passage Determine Sermon Shape?

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Tim asked the following question:

Do you think it is ok to preach inductively when the passage is clearly worked out in a deductive way? For example, (sweeping statement coming up!!!) a lot of Paul’s epistles seem to be fairly deductive in the way he makes points and then goes on to prove or explain them. Does this tie you into preaching deductively every week as you go through Paul’s epistles?

Another way of saying this question is ‘do you have to stick to the order that the Biblical writer sticks to?’ If Paul makes his big point in verse one, and then proves or explains it subsequently, do you also have to move in this same order?

Peter responds:

1. The passage outline is the place to start – I think the Biblical order is a great place to start, and often it makes sense to preach a passage according to its order.  If it is a deductive passage, probably preach it deductively.  If it is a narrative passage, usually preach it narratively.  And so on.  The stages of sermon preparation require the study of the passage before the preparation of the sermon, so the shape of the text should be clear before designing the sermon.  Often there is no reason to do something different than preach the text in its order.

2. There are good reasons to shape your sermon on the text – If you were to use no notes and just be looking at the text, it is easier to preach the text as it stands.  Even if you have notes, the text is all the listener has.  Generally it is better to give people the impression that they can also follow through a text as it was written and learn its lesson.

3. There may be good reason to change the shape – As a preacher you have a foot in both worlds: the Bible and the listeners’ world.  So the purpose you have for the sermon may differ from the purpose of the writer, which then implies an alternative strategy or outline may be worth considering.  For example, Peter preached to an antagonistic crowd in Acts 2 and so preached a very inductive sermon.  Likewise, you may be preaching a passage in the epistles that is up front with its main idea, but you know your listeners are more antagonistic than the original readers were, so perhaps it would be worth changing the sermon shape accordingly.  Our goal is to present and explain the passage and communicate the main idea in order to achieve the intended purpose in our situation.  Strategize accordingly.

4. A sentence and a sermon are different – Don Sunukjian teaches a helpful point.  He argues that a sentence has an immediacy to it that allows a certain order, but in preaching that order may need to be changed to reflect the order of thought.  For example, he uses a sentence like, “I am going to town, to buy some food, because my dog is hungry.”  Now, if that sentence were to be preached, it would be better to reverse the three elements.  “Going to town” and “buy some food” are dependent on the final element “my dog is hungry” for their meaning.  In preaching we may take an element of a thought and expand it.  What expanded exposition of “Going to town” might result without the underlying issue of the hungry dog?  Consequently, in order to help people know where they are in the thought of a sermon, the order of thought is an important issue to bear in mind.