Old Testament

Preparing to Preach OT Narrative – 2

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Yesterday I pondered the challenges of unfamiliarity of context.  When we preach from the Old Testament, if our listeners are more used to the New Testament, then this will be a challenge.  We thought about the canonical context, as well as the historical context.  There’s another challenge:

Low expectation of relevance.  I have to remember that by the time I come to preach from Ruth, I will have spent many hours in studying it.  It will have taken root in my heart again and God will have stirred me through His Word.  This will not be the case for the listeners.

They will be coming into the meeting with minds and hearts on all sorts of things.  They will be thinking of anything but pre-monarchical Israelite history.  So if I start into the message with an assumption that Ruth is a motivating destination, I may well be starting into my message alone.  I’d much rather take folks with me.  How can I do that?  A couple of thoughts:

1. Introduce with relevance.  I have written this before, but I’ll reiterate because it is important.  It is not dishonouring the text to start with an introduction before reading it.  I think the text can be dishonoured by reading it before people care to hear what it says.  So one approach is to craft an introduction that overtly seeks to connect the listeners and their current state of disequilibrium with the text as relevant to them.  This is not to “pander” to felt needs, but to recognize the reality of life and what it is to be a listener.  Getting relevance into the introduction makes all the sense in the world.  The listeners need an early appreciation of the fact that the preacher is relevant, the message is relevant and the text itself is relevant.

2. Let the narrative bite quickly.  This does not necessarily contradict with the previous point.  With a narrative the preacher has the advantage of the inherently gripping nature of the genre.  TV show producers know that there is a better way to grip viewers than a long series of opening credits with promises of big name actors and actresses (as they did thirty years ago!)  The best way is to let the narrative begin and bite quickly.  Once bitten, viewers will then tolerate the 40 seconds of opening credits (sometimes several minutes into the show).  This illustrates what I am saying here.  The listeners should be gripped if the first three or four verses of Ruth are presented effectively.  Maybe it would be worth getting into the tension of the plot before pulling back to make sense of context, etc.

Preparing to Preach OT Narrative

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I am preparing a series of messages from the book of Ruth.  Consequently I am processing some of the challenges that come with preaching through an Old Testament narrative.  Perhaps some of the thinking might be helpful, or at least there can be a sense of conversing together about this important subject.  As ever, no claim here to being exhaustive, but hopefully mildly provocative in a good way.

In our church it is fair to say that the majority of messages, from both in-house and visiting speakers, come from the New Testament.  This means that the Old Testament is much less familiar turf. As I prepare to preach Ruth, then, I must take that into account.

Less familiar literary context – I have to be careful not to assume anything here.  Ruth comes in a period of about four centuries covered by the bleak book of Judges.  Here is the jewel on the dark velvet.  But I can’t assume folks understand the book of Judges.  For some it will be a collection of children’s stories (where protagonist is always portrayed as a full-on hero, whatever the text may hint).  For others it will mean nothing at all.  So I need to think through how to make sense of the fact that “In the days when the judges judged” is the opening line of Ruth.

At some point I might think about showing where Ruth came in the Hebrew ordering of the canon.  Not after Judges (in the former prophets), but after Proverbs (in the writings).  Specifically, after Proverbs 31 . . . a wife of noble character, who can find?  Again, I can’t just drop that in without confusing people.  It will need a bit of explanation, perhaps I might use a powerpoint slide to help visualize the difference.  Perhaps.

Less familiar historical context – Not only is the Judges context unfamiliar, so is the culture of this time frame.  It is considerably further removed from today than the more familiar world of the New Testament.  This is pre-monarchy.  This is before the prophets and their impact on the nation of Israel.  I don’t want to preach it with assumptions, and have some listeners envisioning the action in the context of the Roman occupation, or whatever.

I need to think through what is pertinent about the context, the culture, the politics of the day, etc.  And I need to think through how to communicate that in the messages.

Preaching the Person in the Old Testament cont.

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As well as Christophanies and explicit predictions, there are other ways in which the person of Christ is to be found in the Old Testament. Jesus told the Pharisees that the Scriptures speak of Him. He showed the two on the road to Emmaus. To what else did he perhaps point?

3. Thematic fulfillment – There are legitimate themes working their way through the Old Testament. We need to go beyond a children’s story with moral morales and see how the Hebrew Scriptures are woven together to build a gripping revelation of God and His plan. His Son is central to that thematic design.

4. Legitimate types – There are some legitimate types of Christ in the Old Testament. It is hard to miss, if our hearts are sensitive and tuned to the full story, when we read of the sacrifices, the feasts, etc. We need to be careful not to become fanciful or appear to abuse the communicative intent of the original authors.

5. The macro story goal – Sometimes people abuse the text by making every sentence speak of Christ no matter what it originally said. It is healthier to grow attuned to the goal of the whole, the Christo-telic intent of the Hebrew Scriptures. We don’t have to make things say what they could not have been understood to say. Instead let’s be clearer on how the whole fits together with the goal of God’s promise plan fulfilled in Christ.

With these five aspects of Christ in the Old Testament, we should have plenty to be going on with (probably more than could be communicated in a seven mile walk to Emmaus!) And this means we don’t need to fall into a common error:

X. The subsumed or twisted biblical character – There are hundreds of characters in the Old Testament plot lines. Many of them were not intended to be either a type of Christ, nor a foil for Christ. Let’s not miss the many characters in the grand narrative responding to God. Let’s not twist their stories to tell a different story. Let’s trust God’s communication and not try to be cleverer than the God who inspired a wonderful canon! If the text doesn’t push us to directly tie the character to Christ, let’s do the work of understanding how the text in its context communicates specifically and relevantly. Sometimes the Christ-leap that is made undermines any sense that God is an effective communicator in His Word.

Preaching the Person in the Old Testament

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The Old Testament reveals the same God as the New Testament. Sometimes the focus is on the Father, sometimes even the Spirit. Let’s be sure to preach the triune God of the Bible as clearly and effectively as possible.

Now what about preaching Christ in the Old Testament? This is an important subject. I think there are many ways to preach Christ in the Old Testament. But not as many ways as some seem to think.

1. Christophanies – Ok, don’t worry about the technical term, but when we see the LORD walking on two legs, what we have is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. I think Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration knew Christ not simply because he’d been with the Lord after death, but because they had met face to face in the tent of meeting. Others encountered the LORD in similar ways. Abraham, Jacob, Manoah, Isaiah, and others.

2. Explicit predictions – There is a lot of prediction in the Old Testament from the very beginning. The seed of the woman, right the way down the line to the great promise to David, and so many generations in between. When we preach the Old Testament we should be stirring our listeners to anticipate the One who has already come! The already come-ness of Jesus should not dull our delight at the divine plan as seen in the Old Testament.

Tomorrow I will complete this list, and offer one way that we should be wary of preaching the personal God in the Old Testament.

Planks and Slices 3 – Whole Bible Grains

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Some who have only heard the preaching of books in slices may be surprised to discover that there is a long tradition of tracing themes through the Bible. Some who have only heard topical messages may be surprised to discover that some people preach through a book chunk by chunk. Sadly some are surprised to discover how rich the Bible is after only hearing human wisdom launched from the mortar tube of token Scripture readings.

Anyway, enough surprises, let’s get into Bible length grain issues. The Bible has the diversity of different writers, different languages, different cultural settings and writer circumstances. But it also has an amazing unity, almost as if it were inspired by the same Spirit throughout!

Sometimes we will trace grains length-wise through the Bible as a whole. It may be as part of a message, or it may form the entirety of a message. But it is not guaranteed to be helpful. It can be great. It can be terrible. Any pointers?

1. Don’t confuse tracing a theme with going on a wild safari in the backseat of a concordance. There is nothing worse than being in a small group Bible study where people are chasing through Bible references, ignoring the contexts and just noting repeated uses of a term. “Next verse, who has the Deuteronomy one? Thanks Bob…yep, there it is again! Our word for the night: ‘Remember!’ Great, who has the Nehemiah verse?” Okay, there may be one thing worse – a sermon that does the same.

A phenomena of language is that sometimes different writers use the same words in different settings, and sometimes they even mean different things. Linking sections together based on the proximity of concordance placement is not the key to being a master Bible handler. It doesn’t take much skill to chase the chain link of repeated terms through the Bible. We need to know our way through the Bible with a bit more skill than that to preach effectively.

2. Beware of overloading listeners with references. Even if you are legitimately making connections, the listeners have a threshold that is easy to cross with too many cross-references. Preaching is not a competition to reference as many passages as possible.

Sometimes a theme can be fully exhausted with three passages (Melchizedek), or effectively communicated with two passages (I’ve been thinking of Exodus 33 and John 1:14-18, for an example). Adding in Deuteronomy, Isaiah and Malachi may be more complete, but it may deaden the effect of the preaching if listeners feel overloaded.

More thoughts to finish this list tomorrow…

Planks and Slices

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If you take a log, there are various ways to cut it. It doesn’t take much skill to hack at it and get it into chunks. But a skilled woodcutter can produce a beautiful slice showing all the rings. Or, they can produce a long plank of wood that reveals some of the grains working their way through the entire log.

Typically sermons are like slices. We take a unit of thought and seek to bring its impact into the lives of those listening. But there are times when we should be working with planks, and specifically, with tracing a grain or two through the whole book or Bible. Let’s probe issues of producing planks for the pulpit!

Today let’s think about working with a single book. Here are some thoughts:

1. Every book has grains working through it, and the best way to find them is to spend a lot of time in the book. Seems obvious, but if we preach after only spending time in a slice, we will miss the grains that are present. Be sure to read whole books multiple times.

2. Some grains will be more pronounced than others. It isn’t a competition between grains, but we should be alert to those that are real building blocks for a book. It would be a shame to spot the eschatological hope theme in Romans, but miss issues of justification, righteousness and faithfulness. In Mark a lot of comments go to the “immediately” and the “secret” themes, but we mustn’t miss the question of who is Jesus, or the issue of the cross.

3. Some grains will be located in a section, others will traverse the entire book. The theme of the eschatological city in Hebrews 10-13 is massively important for that section of the book, but it might not register in the earlier two-thirds. However the motif of forward momentum does carry the reader through the whole sermon to the Hebrews.

4. It won’t be possible to have every grain have impact in a sermon, so select carefully. For instance, in John’s gospel, themes abound including belief, glory, light/dark, world, truth, I am, the Spirit, abiding in, etc. To preach with all possible grains highlighted in any section will probably overwhelm listeners.

5. Tracing the grain can bring great variety to a series. Instead of just chopping a book into chunks, why not introduce and conclude with an overview that traces a particular grain through the whole. It will bring out a whole new dimension for people.

I’m pondering table fellowship in Luke, but also pondering how to not overwhelm with a theme that pops up in almost every chapter.

Preaching New Covenant and Fellowship with the Trinity

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I have been pondering the New Covenant and what might happen if we were to dwell on it as the New Testament writers do.  We’ve thought about the wonder of sins forgiven, the profound work of God in the hearts of believers, and now for the last post . . . God in the hearts of believers.  Or to put it another way, fellowship with the Trinity!

There are many New Testament passages that seem to point to the believer being “in Christ” or “abiding in Him” and the indwelling presence of God, by His Spirit, in the believer, causing us to cry out to our Abba.  This mutual indwelling motif is not uncommon.  Sadly, nor is our tendency to treat these notions as some sort of technical truth, a legal reality, as it were, and then focus our reading or teaching on our self-driven effort to live good lives, as if only marginally connected to God.

If we go back to the promises of the New Covenant, there is plenty to rock the original recipients back on their heels.  Ezekiel 11 looks forward to when “they shall be my people and I shall be their God.”  Good stuff, but what is key to this reality?  “A new spirit I will put within them.”  Later, in chapter 36, after references already in the preceding chapters, God gets more overt on the indwelling Spirit theme; “I will put my Spirit within you” – this is not normal fare in Old Testament times!  Remember that a key theme of Ezekiel is that of God’s special presence (or absence) from the temple.  The stunning hope of the city, is the reality of the New Covenant believer – The LORD is there. (Eze.48:35)

In Jeremiah God looks back to the Old Covenant, which was also marital in nature, but the New Covenant is different.  They will be His people, He will be their God.  Meaning?  Well, they will all know the LORD.  (Jer.31:34)

In Isaiah there is already the marital motif, the indwelling Spirit and the close relationship.  In Joel we read of the pouring out of God’s Spirit on all flesh, and a mutual calling – the LORD calling the people, and the people calling on His name.  In Zephaniah there is the hope of the LORD being in the midst of Zion, exulting over her with loud singing, quietening her with his love.  In Malachi we look forward to the coming Lord of the future covenant.

I suspect that if we spent time pondering the New Covenant, both in its predictive descriptions, and with sensitivity to the New Testament texts, we would find ourselves preaching more a message of wonder than a message of pressure.  More a message of delightful description, than a message of demanding duty.  More a message pointing to God, than a message pounding on us.

Perhaps we are just so familiar with the New Testament texts that we miss what they are saying.  Perhaps our theology somehow overrides what our eyes could see if they looked carefully.  The Christian life doesn’t just include fellowship, it is fellowship.  And that isn’t just with each other, it is profoundly with God, through His Christ, by His Spirit.

Preaching and the New Covenant

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I can’t help pondering the implications of the New Covenant on the ministry of preaching. After all, if we are living under the blessing of the New Covenant, then it would make sense for us to ponder what it might mean for us today.

Interestingly, an alarming number of Christians don’t seem to ponder the New Covenant much, if at all. But surely anyone reading their Bible with hearts open will spot the significance of this issue.

After all, there are more than one or two New Testament passages that engage with a contrast between some aspect of Old Covenant and the New. There’s 2Corinthians, and Galatians, and Hebrews, not to mention Romans, Colossians, Philippians, and others.

But it isn’t just in the New Testament that the Old Covenant is critiqued in favour of the New Covenant. Consider the prophets too. In their bleakest pronouncements against a collapsing nation, what is the focus of the hope offered? There New Covenant is that which the coming Messiah will bring into force – consider Ezekiel 11 and 36, Jeremiah 31, Isaiah, well most of it, but certainly 40-66. Then there are others like Joel and Micah too.

But actually we can go back even further. Even within the Law (Pentateuch), we find hints that the Old Covenant would one day be replaced. The man of faith, Abraham, succeeded where the man under law, Moses, failed.

So what are the key features of the New Covenant? After all, serious minded Jews memorise extensive passages, even including all 613 specifications of the Law. I wonder why we don’t have the key features of the New Covenant on the tip of our tongues?

Let me list the five core features of the New Covenant, although I’d encourage you to chase the passages and formulate your own list. Then tomorrow I will start to ponder the significance of these features of the Christian life to our preaching. So, five core features:

1. Sins forgiven. Fully. Finally. Freely. Forever. Not temporarily covered.
2. Hearts of flesh. Enlived, brought to life, alive . . . from the inside out.
3. Law on the hearts. Not on external stones, nor written guidelines, inner desire to please God.
4. Indwelling Holy Spirit. Not on some for certain tasks at specific times. Spirit poured out on us all.
5. Personal knowledge of the Lord. Not just knowledge about the Lord, but personal relationship with God Himself.

That little list alone should get our hearts pumping! What might these core features mean for our preaching? Let’s ponder that tomorrow.

Preaching to the Heart

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Just for a change, I’d like to offer a list of posts relating to this subject.  I think it is so important that we preach to the heart and not just fill the mind or press the will.  So here are some past posts on the subject:

Profound preaching involves profound preparation, profound application, profound presentation, all working toward profound transformation.

10 Biggest Big Ideas of the Bible made much of the central role of the heart, both God’s and ours.  Here are the links – God, Creation, Sin, Grace, Faith, Redemption, Community, Spreading Goodness, Hope, Christ.

Our View of the Bible is critical in respect to the heart.  This post on the clarity of Scripture pointed to the issue of the heart.  We don’t need to add force, we need to feel the force of what is there.

Preaching to the heart goes beyond guilt – four-part series – one, two, three, four.

How often do we hear the terminology of the Bible being overqualified.  Here’s a post from a while back on confusing the heart and the head.

Preaching from the heart?  Here’s a post.  Depends on your motive.  What about when the preacher is passionless?  What if there were a thermal imaging camera?  When should the message touch the preacher’s heart?  One thing I’ve said more than once is that we shouldn’t de-affect the text.

Preaching to touch the heart?  Images matter, especially biblical ones.  And so does vivid description.  How will you touch the heart?  Beware of manipulation though, or troublingly distant preaching, and one more.  Mentoring is critical to truly marking hearts.

Some historical thoughts on preaching and the heart?  How about Wilberforce.  Or Jonathan Edwards.  Even Chrysostom.  And Thielicke on Spurgeon, and more of that gold.

A series on the preacher’s heart.  Part one, two and three.

And an article on heart-centred hermeneutics.  (And a recipe to finish.)