Red or Blue?

December 6, 2010 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Today’s post is on the Cor Deo blog. In it I ask a significant question for Bible readers and preachers alike. When we look at the pages of Scripture, do we see red or blue? There’s nothing political about the post, it deals with a much more important subject than that!

Also, remember that those who comment on any post on the Cor Deo site this month will be in with a chance of winning a free book – A Praying Life by Paul Miller. All we ask is that you also share the link to the Book Giveaway page on facebook, twitter, by email or a web link – here’s the link to share:

http://www.cordeo.org.uk/book-giveaway-a-praying-life/

To go to the post, Red or Blue? – please click here.

Psalms: A Disconnect and a Nudge

November 26, 2010November 22, 2010 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Point 1. At a recent preaching seminar the organiser admitted that he had only ever chosen to preach from the Psalms once. He asked everyone present how much they choose to preach from the Psalms when they have the choice on what to preach. The general consensus was almost never.

Point 2. Speak to any Christian who has been walking with the Lord for more than a few years. Ask them what book of the Bible has been dear to them during the most challenging times in their experience. Times of hurt, of doubt, of grief, of loss, of fear, of insecurity, of loneliness, of pain, of betrayal . . . the times when life was as life often is. The answer, time and again, will be the book of Psalms.

The Disconnect. People come to church in the midst of life in all its colour and complexity. People are hurting, doubting, experiencing, struggling, suffering. A significant proportion of people in our churches every Sunday are dealing with a significant level of life’s complexity. Yet as preachers many of us seldom if ever choose to preach from the book that countless Christians have grown to love precisely because it does engage with the harsh realities of life in a way that we can identify with. This is a disconnect. (Not to mention the fact that when some do preach the Psalms, they have a habit of dissecting into theology-sized chunks that feel like an epistle in presentation – that’s something I’ve written about in other posts!)

The Nudge. Why not preach from the Psalms sometime?

Preach the Main Point

October 28, 2010October 21, 2010 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Last week I had the joy of teaching a group of church leaders in a class on preaching biblical narratives. Once we had grasped the significance and power of plot in a narrative, we realized how purposeful narratives tend to be. They aren’t a random assortment of preaching fodder as many see them.

It is easy to read a story and bounce off the details to preach personal hobby horses.

A passing reference to alcohol in the story of Nabal can easily become a tirade against alcohol in the hands of a careless preacher. But that is not the focal point of the story. The plot, when understood properly, pushes the careful preacher toward the heart of the issue (usually in some way related to the resolution of the tension in the plot).

And yet the beauty of narrative passages is that they don’t simply present simple truths, but clothe theological truth in the concrete realities of life. While many Christians may choose to make every conceivable matter into a black and white simplistic issue, biblical narratives engage us in the complexities of real life. Daniel didn’t eat the meat offered to idols. Aha! There it is, biblical support for total separation from anything I deem to be worldly! Hang on, in the same passage he isn’t fussing about being labeled with a Babylon deity’s name. Complex.

Narratives are such powerful parts of Scripture. They present, engage and drive home a central truth in very vivid and heart-stirring ways. Yet they don’t lay comfortably in our simplistic constructs for life, choosing rather to stretch our faith and our thinking by their complex depictions of human motivation, faith, and experience.

Preaching and Story – Part 5

October 23, 2010October 14, 2010 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

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

October 22, 2010October 14, 2010 / 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

October 21, 2010October 14, 2010 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

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

October 20, 2010October 14, 2010 / 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

October 19, 2010October 14, 2010 / 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).

Where Does Christ Fit?

August 26, 2010September 4, 2010 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

When you are preaching the Old Testament, there should always be a radar bleeping in your heart regarding where Christ fits into the message. Some will suggest that every message must be entirely and purely about Christ, whatever the text was originally intended to convey. I feel this approach can bring our view of the inspiration of Scripture into disrepute.

Not every Old Testament passage is just about Christ. I know that Jesus took two disciples on a tour of the Old Testament on the road to Emmaus, but I’d also like to point out that that road is only 7 miles long! We need to recognize that many passages are about humanity responding to the God of the covenant, or about the power of the creator God, or about judgment, etc. If it is a stretch to make the passage be about Jesus, don’t. However,

The listeners are always listening to the sermon post-incarnation. Consequently there is a need to make sure we are engaging with the text in light of later revelation. That doesn’t mean we have to reinterpret the original meaning to be something that it could not have been originally. But we do have to land the bridge of the message in the contemporary circumstance of our listeners (including the fact that we are post-incarnation, post-cross, post-resurrection, post-Pentecost, etc.)

The Old Testament is, of course, heading toward Christ. It is Christo-telic. That doesn’t mean it is Christo-exclusive.

May God grant us wisdom as we seek to honour His whole revelation in all its fullness, recognizing the progression of revelation, speaking with absolute relevance to contemporary listeners and always honouring and glorifying the Word incarnate!

Beyond Identification

August 6, 2010August 7, 2010 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday I wrote about how narratives do engage us through identification and disassociation. We can’t avoid that reality – it drives the popularity of movies, of bedtime stories, of Sunday School stories, of family fireside reminiscences, etc. But biblical narrative always offers something more. Our challenge as preachers is to be sure to always go there.

What if the passage is easy to understand and ready to be preached. You’ve built a message based on the natural connection with a central character, or a minor character, or the original recipients. Your time is filled, the message will preach, that bird will fly. You aren’t done. You’re not ready.

Biblical narratives either overtly or implicitly urge us to engage with the central characer in the canon – with God himself. Was it really David’s courage, or was it something about his faith in God and his instruction? Was it really about Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi, or was there something going on in terms of her loyalty to a God who had so far not seemed very “effective”? Was it really about Joseph’s moral convictions, or was there something deeper going on in respect to his living by faith in a God who was with him when every circumstance screamed that he’d been long forgotten by such a God?

How does the narrative point us to the ongoing tension of faith or flight as creatures live in God’s world? How does the narrative enable us to engage with the progressive revelation of the trinitarian self-revelation of Scripture?