Old Testament

Three Momentous Moments Preaching Exodus

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OpenScroll2ExoExodus is not just a book with stories for children, it continues the weighty foundational role and themes of Genesis.  Does God keep His promises?  How will He redeem His people?  What kind of God is He?  What is their relationship with Him?  I suspect Exodus may well be under-preached in light of its significance.  It is a book that is quoted and alluded to repeatedly in the rest of the Old Testament, and in the New Testament as well.  Here are three momentous moments not to be passed over:

1. Passover in chapter 12.  Here is the moment that the Jewish people would look back on for centuries to come.  With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, the LORD delivered His people from captivity in Egypt and launched them on their journey to home.  The hardened heart of Pharoah was baked solid as God prepared to deliver His people, with the showdown between the LORD and the gods of Egypt being decisively won.  And at the very heart of this key moment in human history?  A perfect and innocent lamb slain to provide blood protection for the people who trusted God’s word.  The LORD himself protecting them from the destroyer.

2. Sinai in chapters 19-20.  Delivered safely into the wilderness the kingdom of priests arrived at the place where God would meet with them. It was an impressive encounter, perhaps too much for them to bear.  The kingdom of priests seemed to shrink back in fear (as Moses tells us later on), and the first boundary markers of the Law were established for them, along with a simple earthen altar.  If God had called His son out of Egypt, then the familial imagery seems to move to the marital at Sinai – covenant commitments both ways, but would both prove faithful?

3. Glory in chapters 32-34.  The revelation of the Law given in Exodus and Leviticus has a progressive development, apparently instigated by failure on the part of the people.  Despite chapter 24 and their fellowship with the LORD, they were unfaithful to Him in profoundly flagrant ways before the Golden Calf.  God’s anger raged hot, for He is Jealous, but Moses interceded for His presence to go on with them.  Amazingly, while on the mountain with the LORD Moses dared to ask to see His glory.  How could he have confidence to make such a request?  Earlier in the same chapter we are told of his regular face to face conversations with the LORD whose tent was pitched down near the people.  But the LORD up on the mountain could not be seen.  Yet Moses got that wonderful encounter with the trail of God’s glory.  And what did God reveal?  A stronger power than that image of power, the golden calf?  Absolutely.  He was given a divine glimpse of God’s goodness and covenant loyalty and mercy.  Not a weak God, for He does deal with sin.  A powerful God whose power of character overwhelms our conceptions of raw force.

So much to preach, and this post has only scratched at the surface!

Three Common Mistakes Preaching Genesis

/ Peter Mead / 9 Comments

OpenScroll1GenGenesis is such a critical book!  I suspect it simply isn’t preached enough.  The rest of the Bible is built on the foundation of Genesis, and so preaching it enough and preaching it well are very important.  Here are three mistakes to avoid, although many more could be added:

1. Atomistic Reading – This is where a text is snipped from the flow of the context and becomes a stand alone.  Typically this leads to a Sunday School type of preaching that treats each narrative as complete in itself, and with its own “moral of the story.”  Cain and Abel has to flow out of Genesis 3, and into the two genealogies of chapters 4 and 5.  Abraham does not offer us a set of stand alone tales, but a sequence of growing faith, obedience and connection with God.  Joseph’s brothers show consistency between snapshots, making them more than 11 faceless foils in the story of Joseph.  Be careful to study and preach each unit in context.

2. Moralistic Reading – This is where a text is snipped from the artery of life that is God’s involvement in specific history, turning the text into a tale with a moral, a lesson for the day, a suggestion on how we can live better.  So we should try to avoid infidelity like Joseph did, or not give away our wives like Abraham/Isaac did, or not get caught up in tempting conversations like Eve did.  But actually the goal is not our independent successful functioning: that was what the serpent was pushing for.  The goal is surely more God-centred than that.  Eve didn’t trust God’s Word and God’s character, but God himself works the resolution to the sin problem and invites us to trust Him and His Word.  Abraham was on a journey of faith as we are.  Joseph lived as if God were with him, even though he had very little indication that he was!

3. Impositional Reading – This is where a text is seen, but not heard.  It is where a text acts as a trigger to recall sermons heard and points previously stated.  The preacher reads the text and looks for a sermon, instead of studying the text and looking for God.  Impositional reading will always lead to superficial preaching.  Probe, question, examine, query, ponder, mine, and wrestle with the text.  Do that with God in conversation and see if the preaching of Genesis suddenly becomes a spring of living water instead of stale old picture book fables.

Biblical Girders 4

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GirderWhere does each girder go?  The Bible has a superstructure that holds it all together.  So the thematic element of the promised seed in Genesis 3:15 will work its way through multiple books and become overt in places like Galatians 3 at the other end of the canon.  But this poses a challenge.  How much should we be preaching Galatians 3 when we are supposed to be preaching Genesis 3?

Many preachers would see no problem with springing from Genesis to Galatians since that is the fulfillment and the clarification of what is first stated in the Garden of Eden.  I am certainly not going to criticize the impulse to preach Christ and it would be strange to leave listeners wondering who that seed might be (unless such suspense were part of a bigger teaching strategy).

On the other hand, I do wonder if we can collapse themes forward too easily and lose some of the strength of the steel at that point in the biblical story?  If the Bible were a building, then Genesis would be the foundation.  Steel starting there does go through the whole structure and holds the whole together.  Themes of creation, of relationship, of fellowship lost, of divine grace and rescue, of divine promise, etc. all work their way from Genesis on through the Bible.  That  steel girder seen in Genesis 3:15 later on turns out to be the spire at the top of the whole structure, the pinnacle of it all.  It makes sense to let folks know the significance of that, but at the same time it makes sense to help people see the importance of the foundation.

That is to say, instead of immediately looking up to the spire that caps off the whole building, when we are preaching in Genesis lets be sure to help people see how the foundation fits together, how the hope offered by God’s grace in the seed of the woman is such a striking promise in the context of a spurned relationship in that first senseless human rebellion.  That passage is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training, etc.  So let’s preach Genesis 3, not just bounce off it to go straight to the spire.  At the same time let’s not get our noses in the foundations and let people miss the grandeur of the whole.

It isn’t either/or, it surely needs to be both/and.  And with that both/and, I think it needs to be honouring to the earlier text in its own right, not just a token glance.

 

Biblical Girders 3

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GirderI have been writing about Biblical Girders: those superstructure passages that form the skeleton that holds the Bible together.  As well as key passages, we could well add a list of key themes that weave through the canon like ribbons.  I did this earlier last year with the 10 Biggest Big Ideas series (click here to go to the first of those posts).

So what do we do if we recognize that people in our churches are foggy on the biblical superstructure?  How can we help folk without turning the church into a lecture hall and losing the devotional and spiritual emphasis in our preaching?  Some ideas:

1. Periodically Be Overtly Educational –   Perhaps a seminar or evening class or group session where you trace through the superstructure.  You will find that there are people in every church that have a genuine appetite to know the Bible better and will want to attend this kind of training if it is done well.  You will also find that a false dichotomy between education and devotional spirituality need not be imposed.  Take every opportunity, even in a “lecture” to woo people by the gracious work of God in biblical history.

2. Be Alert to the Girders – If you are preaching Genesis 22, Abraham offering up Isaac, be alert to the place of that story in the flow of the narrative.  Take the opportunity to help people see it not as a stand-alone incident, but as the culmination of a journey over many decades for Abraham.  Include and highlight the importance of Genesis 15 as you preach Genesis 22.  When you preach about David and Bathsheba, don’t just look ahead to the fallout in his family life, but also look back to 2Samuel 7 and the amazing covenant God had made with him – highlight the importance of that to your listeners.

3. Preach the Girders – Take a miniseries and help people see the big picture of the Bible.  Too many Christians make too many “surprised and helped” comments when they hear a Bible overview.  This implies that it is not being offered enough.

4. Preach through Books Without Being “Flat” – When we preach through a book, it is easy to flatten it out into so many segments of equal length and apparently equal value.  Instead, look for ways to point toward and back to passages in the book that have a “superstructure status” for the book and the Bible as a whole.  Preaching through Habakkuk, don’t let 2:4 get lost in the mix.

Biblical Girders 2

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GirderLast time I wrote about biblical girders, the superstructure of the Bible that folks in churches tend to hear very little about.  While not seeking to diminish the well-known passages, let’s consider whether we can help people know their Bibles better by bringing to their attention the existence and importance of some of the biblical girder passages.

Biblical Covenant Passages – A strong case can be made for seeing the biblical covenants as a skeleton on which the Bible is built.  God’s promise and subsequent covenant with Abram/Abraham in Genesis 12, then 13, 15, 17 is critical.  Then there’s the Mosaic content in Deuteronomy 27-30 (how often do we stumble across “who will ascend?” or “who has descended?” allusions in the New Testament?)  Then God’s covenant with David in 2Samuel 7 and 1Chronicles 17.  And, of course, the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36 and the latter part of Isaiah.  Being unaware of these covenants is crippling if someone is wanting to grasp the Old Testament, or the development in the New Testament.

Biblically Quoted Passages – Some passages are quoted with a significant frequency.  Sometimes the quote is actually just an allusion, but that doesn’t diminish its significance.  Sometimes it proves the writer assumed hearers would spot it more easily.  God’s spoken self-revelation in Exodus 34 runs like a refrain through the Old Testament.  Psalms 2, 69 and 110 get their fair share of airtime once you get to the New Testament, as does Psalm 118 in reference to Jesus and Psalm 8 plays a key role in Hebrews.  Genesis 15:6 comes out three significant times, as does Habakkuk 2:4.  The lesser known part of Isaiah 6 does some heavy lifting, as does the allusion to Daniel 7.  And in the passion of Christ, where you might expect lots of references to Genesis 22 (Abraham & Isaac), instead you find lots of Davidic Psalms and Zechariah quotes.

Structurally Significant Passages – Some passages seem to serve a key purpose in the structure of a book or a section.  Joshua 1 serves a key transitional function between the Torah and the Kethubim.  Psalm 73 seems to provide the hinge for the turn in the flow of the whole collection.  John 11-12 offer a significant transition in John’s Gospel.

There are many more that could be listed.  The point is that many of these are less familiar to most people in the church than David’s slaying Goliath, or Naaman dipping in the Jordan, or Daniel in the den of lions, or Jesus calming the storm, or Paul in prison in Philippi.  All important, but in terms of grasping the flow and message of the whole Bible, perhaps there are too many gaps at critical points.

Biblical Girders

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GirderYesterday I started a three-week series where I am trying to give folks a sense of how accessible and thrilling the Old Testament is.  I am using three mornings for a landmark highlight tour to get a sense of the flow of the history.  And in the evenings I am wanting to give a more in-depth look at some of the critical passages that are so easily overlooked.

Why are some critical passages overlooked?  Let’s start with identifying the reasons before considering some of the girders in the architecture of the Bible.

1. Sunday School teaching.  Naturally Sunday School teachers tend to focus on narratives that are accessible to children.  Perhaps less wisely, they can also tend toward narratives that offer moralistic “lessons” (this can serve to obscure the gospel, but that is a post for another day).  So for those growing up going to Sunday school, there will be a bank of familiar stories.

2. Preacher Passage Picks.  Whether it is selection of passages for preaching, or choice of biblical allusions and illustrations, preachers also can do the same as Sunday school teachers (perhaps justifiably so in many cases – no point referring to something people don’t know).  So for an example, the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac in Genesis 22 will be reinforced repeatedly, while the Genesis 15 account of the covenant ceremony remains largely unknown.

3. Devotional Reading.  Whether people use guiding notes or read the Bible for themselves, they will tend to be directed toward the familiar passages.  So there is a reinforcing of passages that may or may not be as “load-bearing” as others.  Isaiah 6:1-8 is well known, the rest of the chapter is often overlooked.  But which part functions as a girder for the building of the biblical macro-structure?

I’m sure there are other reasons to add to this list, but hopefully this gives a sense of the situation.  People are more familiar with Psalm 23 than Psalms 2 or 110, even though the biblical reliance on the latter examples is greater than the more familiar 23rd Psalm.  This is not about diminishing the wonderful passages that are more familiar.  A large part of why they are taught and preached and read and known is because they have made such a difference in peoples’ lives.  But perhaps we do need to think about helping folks know some other critical passages more than they typically do.

Who Goes There?

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footprintssand2Now is the moment when more Christians are reading the Old Testament.  By Valentine’s Day they may have fallen out of love with a slow read through Leviticus and given up.  So what should we, as preachers, be pointing them toward?  What is the goal in Old Testament reading?  What was Paul saying when he wrote about the instruction and the example of the Old Testament?  Today’s post is found here, on the Cor Deo site.

Preaching and the Bible Neighbourhood 4

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This week I have written about ways to help listeners get to know the Bible neighbourhood.  As we preach we need to point out key landmarks.  We need to help them join the dots to know how it fits together.  We might want to take them on a formal and planned tour for a few weeks.

Before we finish the series of posts, though, there’s one more than needs to be overtly stated.

4. Be sure they are getting experience for themselves.  There is simply nothing to beat personal experience of a place.  When we were first married we lived in England.  This was my wife’s first time living here.  We would have visits from friends and family, and sometimes we’d take them on official tours of places like London and Bath.  The open-top bus tours weren’t cheap, but they were a great way to get a taste of all the key sites.

One day Melanie went out with our neighbour for a tour of the city where we were living.  The neighbour wasn’t a uniformed bus based tour guide.  But did she ever know her stuff!  Simply by being in the city her whole life, she was in a position to give my wife a tour that no professional company could match.  Back doors from one little place to take a short-cut to another key location.  My wife came home tired but amazed at all she had seen.

Our neighbour was not a professional tour guide, but she had gained years of experience.  Here’s the point – we need to do whatever we can to motivate, encourage, invite and help people to be in the Bible for themselves.  Even the best tours on Sunday mornings won’t create local experts, unless they are spending time exploring and learning on their own.

Too many churches have an inconsistent culture – the effort may go in to the Bible teaching on a Sunday, but personal Bible experience is assumed during the week.  Don’t assume.  Train, equip, guide and even more importantly: expect and infect.  Expect folks to be Bible readers, and infect them with a passion for the God that they can meet there.  He is so good that Sunday just can’t be enough!

Preaching and the Bible Neighbourhood 3

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When you move to a new city it takes a while to know your way around.  The process seems to begin with finding landmarks, and then it becomes a quest to join the dots.  We need to help people do the same in their Bibles.  They need to know the high points.  Then they need to see how they fit together and connect.  Now for my third suggestion:

3. Give them a tour.  Why not take a series of sermons and be more overt.  Instead of just making passing references to landmarks and connections, make that the goal of the series.  I’m toying with just such a series.  But I’m not sure which way to go.  Here are some ideas “off the top” . . .

A. Ten key passages.  My friend preached a series this way last year.  I can’t remember his ten passages, but how about something like: Genesis 1, Genesis 3, Genesis 12.  Perhaps Exodus 19, 2Samuel 7, Isaiah 42.  Why not Jeremiah 31, John 3, Ephesians 2 and Revelation 21?

B. Eight key events.  How about: creation, fall, promise, Sinai, exile, incarnation, passion, return of Christ?  That could work.  I’d want to stick to one or two key passages for each (perhaps the main one and then a commentary on it from elsewhere?)

C. Seven people you need to know.  Perhaps Adam, Abram, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Jesus and Paul.

D. Seven chunks of Bible text.  The books of Moses, the history books of Israel, the wisdom books, the prophet’s books, the books of Jesus’ passion, the history book of the early church, and the books of the apostles.

Other approaches that would give an effective introductory tour of the Bible?  Feel free to make your suggestions…