Religion

Stock-Fish and Dentures

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I am sure I will come back to both Thielicke and Spurgeon in the days to come, but let’s end this Thielicke on Spurgeon week with another hefty paragraph.  In a sense it brings us full circle, back to where we started – the need to seek to improve our preaching.  Let’s drink deep of the water in this paragraphian well:

Have we not taken the perfectly proper recognition that it is not we but the Word itself that creates a hearing for itself and made of that recognition a “pretext for evil,” an excuse for slovenly neglect of rhetoric? Is it not a misconception of the doctrine of justification when we allow “by faith alone” to become an abstention from works, including the work of rhetoric?  When a man preaches the pure Word of God and the pews are empty or those attending go to sleep in church, we are all too ready to make a virtue of our lack of sues and talk about the offense that must necessarily accompany the preaching of the gospel.  We have a great talent for persuading ourselves that it is not only the stones which can cry out but that the empty pews will testify for us.  And yet it may have been due only to the miserable structure of our sermons that people who value intellectual order were unable to follow them without torturously abusing their minds, and finally giving it up.  Perhaps it was also our poorly used voice that caused people to indulge in church rather than at home their desire for sleep.  Or we stood like stock-fish in the pulpit, or we revolved our arms like paddle wheels, or we kept threatening with our fists, or rattling our dentures – in short, we did not pay enough attention to, we did not cultivate, the instrumental factor.  We did not grieve over the poorly fired, porous “earthen vessels” of our disorderly sermon outlines and our miserable rhetoric.  On the contrary – what a strange perversion! – we were pleased with them because, after all, the wretchedness of the vessel seemed only to enhance the treasure it contained. (p.17)

We Don’t Believe You!

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Thielicke responds to Spurgeon’s insistence on the necessity for the farmer to sharpen his scythe (the need for Sabbath, for rest, for sabbatical, for vacation, for refreshment, as well as for preparation and, indirectly, training) with this:

Nor can the fisherman always be fishing; he must mend his nets.  . . . Whereas Spurgeon enjoins us to remember that preachers must not think too highly of themselves as instruments but in faith accept that they are dispensable, we hound our young vicars – not everybody does this, I know, but many do! – chasing them from examinations into the bustling business of pastoral service in the big cities, from funerals to marriage, and from the pulpit to doorbell-ringing, opening the pores of the body of Christ to all the bacilli against which, after all, we should be mobilizing the antibiotic of our message of peace.  We keep killing flowers in the bud, because we no longer let things grow because down underneath we have forgotten how to pray “Thy kingdom come,” and in its place have put our “manager’s faith,” our belief that everything can be produced and organized.

How true this is today.  If you are in leadership in a church, what would be the most honest label for what you do?  Spiritual leader?  Or People Pleaser?  Or Program Manager?  Or Schedule Maintainer? Or, well, fill in the blank as you choose.  Too easily the demands of ministry turn the spiritual into the stressed, the example into the bad example.

Health warning: what follows is likely to make you feel convicted and you may need to lie down.  You may not be able to concentrate on other things for a few minutes, perhaps longer.  You may need to kneel with the urge to pray, to confess, to repent.

We preach “Do not be anxious!” – and at the same time worry ourselves to death about whether everybody will he this.  We say, “God reigns” – and still we run about madly keeping the ecclesiastical machinery going.  We proclaim man’s passive righteousness (the righteousness that comes from God)- and still we behave like activists.  We preach eternity; but when Jesus asks us, “Did you have enough of everything?” we will have to reply, “Oh, no; we didn’t have enough time.”  This is why we preach peace and radiate restlessness.  This is why we give stones instead of bread, and men do not believe us.  The faith is refuted by the incredulity of those who proclaim it. (p.12)

Borrowed Light

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Thielicke, speak to us about Spurgeon . . .

For Spurgeon the really determinative foundation of the education of preachers was naturally this work on the spiritual man.  The education of preachers must not be directly pragmatic; it must not be immediately directed to preaching as its goal.  Otherwise the process of education becomes an act of mere training, the teaching of technical skills.  The preacher must read the Bible without asking in the back of his mind how he can capitalize homiletically upon the text he studies.  He must first read it as nourishment for his own soul.

This is vitally important, but easily neglected or misunderstood.  Too often homiletics is treated as a subject that fits only in some sort of pragmatic department of training institutions, somehow distinct from Bible, Theology, Spirituality, Divinity.  How wrong to view homiletics as the mere teaching of teachnique – tips for public speaking.  While there is real value in training in the skills of passage study, sermon formation and delivery, homiletics is so much more.  Ultimately the educator is not to teach a man to preach, but to teach a man, and to teach him to preach. (Adapt that sentence as you prefer for gender neutrality, but it simply doesn’t work to make that gender neutral by pluralising the terms.)  True biblical preaching is born out of the spiritual reality in the preacher, not just some assemblage of tips and techniques.  Let’s go back to Thielicke, this next part is priceless:

For the light which we are to let shine before men is borrowed light, a mere reflection.  He who will not go out in the sun in order to play the humble role of a mirror, reflecting the sun’s light, has to try to produce his own light, and thus gives the lie to his message by his vanity and egocentric presumption.  Besides becoming unworthy of being believed, he is condemned to consume his own substance and expend his capital to the point of bankruptcy.  Because he is not a recipient, he must himself produce and seek to overcome the empty silence within him by means of noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.  Thus he ends in the paralysis of emptiness, and his empty, droning rhetoric merely covers up the burned-out slag underneath. (p10)

Selah.

Of Inner Screens and Communion Closets

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Some more of Thielicke on Spurgeon:

When Spurgeon speaks, it is as if the figures of the patriarchs and prophets and apostles were in the auditorium – sitting upon a raised tribune! – looking down upon the listeners.  You hear the rush of the Jordan and the murmuring of the brooks of Siloam; you see the cedars of Lebanon swaying in the wind, hear the clash and tumult of battle between the children of Israel and the Philistines, sense the safety and security of Noah’s ark, suffer the agonies of soul endured by Job and Jeremiah, hear the creak of oars as the disciples strain against the contrary winds, and feel the dread of the terrors of the apocalypse.  The Bible is so close that you not only hear its messages but breathe its very atmosphere.  The heart is so full of Scripture that it leavens the consciousness, peoples the imagination with its images, and determines the landscape of the soul by its climate.  And because it has what might be called a total presence, the Bible as the Word of God is really concentrated life that enters every pore and teaches us not only to see and hear but also to taste and smell the wealth of reality that is spread out before us here.

Those who listened to these lectures of Spurgeon lived . . . in the atmosphere of the Bible.  They no longer needed to be exhorted to take the Bible seriously; it penetrated into what the psychologists call the “image level” of their unconscious.  Even the admonition to prayer was hardly needed, for the words that reached the hearer were spoken by one who himself had come out of the stillness of eternal communion with God, and what he said to the hearer had first been talked about with the Father in heaven.(v9)

Vivid preaching that reaches deeper than mere words ever could, aiming to transform the listener at every level of the heart, soul, spirit; penetrating to the screen in the inner man, so the vivid and striking reality of Scripture is lived even in the hearing, all coming from one who is personally intimate with the God whose Word he preaches.  It can’t get much better than that!

Theme Number One in the Church

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I picked up a copy of Helmut Thielicke’s Encounter with Spurgeon.  Essentially it is a 45 page reflection on Spurgeon’s homiletics by a theologian you might not expect to rave so wildly about his work and ministry, followed by selected highlights from Spurgeon’s writings.  I have not read Thielicke since studying ethics at seminary, but I will have to be disciplined not to just copy most of the 45 pages here in the next few days!  However, I do think this can be a Thielicke on Spurgeon week as far as this blog is concerned.

It would be well for a time like ours to learn from this man.  For our preaching is, to be sure, largely correct, exegetically “legitimate,” workmanlike and tidy; but it is also remarkably dead and lacking in infectious power.  Very often it strikes us as an unreal phantom that hovers above and is isolated from what people feel are the actual realities of their life and what they talk about in their language.  There can be no doubt that for many preachers it is simply an escape when, in the face of this failure to get returns in the area of preaching, they take flight into the cultivation of liturgical ceremonial and even make a virtue of the vice of wanting to ignore the times and live in some timeless, spiritual world.

In this desperate situation which threatens to break down even the best of men – for it is a desperate thing to feel the burden of souls committed to our charge and not to be able to do anything about it – everything depends upon our gaining some standards for that which is “Theme Number One” of the church – our preaching. (p.2)

We can be technically good, but effectually useless.  If the preaching doesn’t connect with listeners in a meaningful way, then it is a ghostly imitation of the real thing.  So, for many preachers struggling with their ineffectual ministry, it is an easier cop out to act as if it is good to be irrelevant and aloof.  But souls are going to a lost eternity and we can’t do anything about it, and yet we can, we must, do this one thing – we must pursue effectual preaching because that is the main thing in the church.

Some Thoughts on Preparing to Preach Psalm 22

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments
This is not a complete post, but it may be helpful.  I received the following question from a good friend:

I have been asked to preach on psalm 22 and am at the moment soaking myself in it to try and make sure I understand the message, the structure and what God was saying then and is saying now.

I will resist the temptation to jump straight to Matthew 27 and end up preaching that, as the psalm should, in my current view, stand on its own merits.  Nevertheless I can’t imagine preaching this without bringing in Matthew.  I would really welcome your views on how to approach this to get the balance right.

Here’s my initial answer:

This is a key issue in preaching OT.  Many automatically go to the NT, especially from a passage like that.  I suppose I would study it in two stages – first what it meant then, then how Matthew / Jesus uses it (raising the issue of whether Jesus was pulling only specific verses or relating to the whole of it by quoting the start of it).

In terms of preaching it, I would probably want to preach it in terms of David first, for a significant chunk of the message, recognizing that everyone else is probably thinking of Jesus.  Then going to Jesus and showing his use of it would be perfectly legitimate, thinking about how it applies to us as a text, as well as how Jesus’ application of it applies to us.  I preached it a few years ago and found it effective to major on Psalm 22 at 1000BC, with a smaller focus given to Greater Son of David at 32AD, connecting it to us throughout (application of the concept or main idea in reference to David, and response to Jesus in reference to the latter part of the message).

The one thing I would add is that the psalm is not finished 2/3rds of the way through, as some preachers sometimes seem to think.  In your study you should probably wrestle with the issue of whether this was a purely predictive text (i.e.not of David, but all of Jesus), a double fulfillment type of text (sensus plenior in some respect – i.e. both of David and of Jesus), or a purely descriptive text that Jesus appropriated as appropriate to his situation and response to it (i.e. all of David, but Jesus could identify).  I wouldn’t address all these in the sermon, but I would preach according to my understanding of how the two relate.

There’s a lot to think about with this passage, and I haven’t got into any details here!  Hope you can really delight in the study of it.

Biblical Worldview and Ours

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Throughout Scripture God is seen as sovereign and providentially involved in all aspects of life.  When there were natural disasters in Israel, the prophets called the people to respond to the God who created everything.  When war or famine hit, they interpreted it in light of the covenant they were under, but also always recognizing and promoting the reality of a God who is present and immanent and involved.

Today we see two concerning alternatives:

Alternative A – God is Absent. In this view of things we preach about a God who was involved in history, and a God who will intervene again in the future, but a God who is essentially silent today.  The greatest intersection of earth and heaven today is essentially my preaching, and yours.  In many churches Christians live as if God is only slightly more engaged than the God of the Deists . . . that is, He was engaged for longer in the past, and He will be again in the future.  This is a problematic position.

Alternative B – God is Speaking and I Can Give Specific Interpretation. This is the hotline to heaven approach where certain preachers have sufficient anointing to be able to speak with an authority that is theirs, rather than an authority resting in Scripture.  It is the kind of authority that says “I know exactly why this disaster has occurred, and the reason is XYZ” (typically the cause would be their own pet peeeve issue).  This sensational approach to preaching undermines the credibility of all legitimate biblical preachers.

We need to stand in between these two.  We can’t give exact revelation on specifics in a sensational way, neither should we relegate God to history.  Let us instead live out a biblical worldview in which God is providentially shaking the world in order to get our attention.  Volcanic ash clouds, oil disasters, wars, economic crises, the price of fuel . . . let’s be, and let’s preach, a responsive Christianity that has the worldview presented throughout Scripture.  God matters, today.  It is our privilege to respond to Him.  Then what?  Then we go to His Word, where we can hear His heart clearly.

When Order Matters

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Sometimes the points in a message can be given in any order.  Sometimes order matters.

1. When wrong order of content loses listeners

I remember Don Sunukjian explaining how in preaching, because we increase the time taken to explain the elements of a sentence, we sometimes need to reverse the order.  For example, I can say “Let’s go to the store, to buy some dog food, because Rusty is hungry.”  The hearer can hold on to the first two pieces of information while awaiting the reason behind it all.  But if I “preach” that sentence and expand each element, then the order has to be reversed.

“Let’s go to the store.  By store I don’t mean a place where things are kept, so much as a place where things are kept in order for visitors to peruse and purchase.  Now in contemporary society there are many different kinds of store – from the convenience store to the supermarket to the wholesaler to the Swedish furniture warehouse.  Each serves its own purpose, and while some may be controversial when they open in an area . . . ” etc.

To go from extended explanation of stores to an extended explanation of foods, and foods prepared for canine pets in particular, would be overwhelming and irrelevant if listeners didn’t know already that your pet dog Rusty needed food.

Sometimes order of content matters.

2. When wrong order of content changes the message.

In simple terms it is easy to preach the result of salvation first and communicate that salvation is by good works.

It is easily done.  For example, we assume a starting point, then state what is really point two, but it comes across as point one.  So, if we are captivated by a love relationship with Christ (point 1), then our priorities will reflect that and our behavior will be changed (point 2), and consequently our lives will be lived in the blessing of the “shalom” that comes from ordering our lives according to the orders of the God of order (point 3, to inadvertently quote a Stuart Briscoe message I heard twenty years ago.)  So easily we presume point 1 and instead preach points 2 then 3, which leads to preaching legalism rather than the gospel.

I’ll leave it there for now, but next time you structure a message, think through whether the order matters, and whether you have the correct order.

What Are You Trying To Say?

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Yesterday I made a passing reference to Speech Act Theory.  This communications theory recognizes that in speech, something greater than information transfer is occurring.  Once you get into the literature (either secular communications studies by folks like Austin and then Searle, or in some hermeneutics writings by Kevin Vanhoozer, for instance), you will meet terms like locution, illocution and perlocution.  Locution roughly equates to the words themselves, as traditionally used.  Illocution refers to the force and intent of a speech act.  Perlocution equates to what is brought about in the listener.

Speech Act Theory tends to focus primarily on the illocutionary aspects of speech communication – the force or intent, what you are trying to do by what you say.  So let’s linger there for a post and allow the terms they use to prompt our thinking about what we intend to do when we communicate.    Remember, at every point in a sermon, you are trying to achieve something by your communication.  What are you trying to achieve?  Haddon Robinson teaches that the only ways to develop an idea are to explain it, prove it, or apply it.  This simple observation has profound impact on our hermeneutics (what was the author seeking to do), and on our message preparation (what am I trying to achieve in this section, in this “illustration,” etc.)

In a similar way, let’s look at the five main categories Searle offered in respect to illocutionary intent:

1. Assertives: statements that  commit a speaker to the truth of an expressed proposition. As preachers we have a privileged duty to assert the truth, reality as it really is from God’s perspective.

2. Directives: statements that attempt to cause the hearer to take a particular action.   Again, as preachers there are times when we seek to be directive in our communication, that we all might be doers and not hearers only.

3. Commissives: statements which commit the speaker to a course of action as described by the propositional content (in what is said). Perhaps a smaller element in most preaching, but as the speaker, and certainly as a leader, we will sometimes commit ourselves to something by what we say.

4. Expressives: statements that express the “sincerity condition of the speech act”. That is to say, these express the speaker’s attitudes and emotions toward what is said.  Surely there is a place for this in preaching, lest we be impassible in our communication, even though God wasn’t in His (in Scripture).  Where to express our attitude and emotion in a message, and how, is worthy of our thoughtful consideration.

5. Declaratives: statements that attempt to change the world by “representing it as having been changed”. Perhaps more for moments like baptism and marriage, when reality is actually changed by what is said, but worth considering in respect to our preaching.  (Perhaps in a negative sense, when do we seek to speak declaratively when reality has not actually been changed?  Some prayer is spoken in declaratives, which borders on presumption in some cases!)

Long words, sometimes complicated definitions.  But some of us wouldn’t be hurt as communicators to think through, using these categories, what we’re intending to do when we open our mouths to preach.

Personality Excuses

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Phillips Brooks once famously defined preaching as “Truth through personality.”  Today the word “personality” is sometimes used in a more restrictive sense to refer to the quirks of an individual.  “Oh, that’s just his personality” we sometimes say.  Now when it comes to preaching, there is a potential tension that can surface.  The tension is between personality and communication.  That is to say,  the quirks of a personality that might be excused by some, versus the effect created in the listener in a communication event.

Let me try to be more clear: when we communicate, we effect (and affect) the listeners.  This is more than just transferring information (although for some preachers that does seem to be the only real goal, and could probably  be achieved more effectively by simply producing a handout).  So our effect is more than just information transfer.  It also includes intended emotional affects, and unintended by-products.  (If you have any familiarity with Speech-Act Theory, then what I am referring to is unintended perlocutionary elements of speech.)

So, is personality a good excuse for unintended negative by-products in our preaching?  I would suggest not.  Even if some present would excuse an element of your message, the effect or affect on those unaware of that excuse is still very real.  You wouldn’t want the possibility of visitors being in church to be considered a risk by those that know you, would you?

What kind of quirks am I referring to? Well, for instance, cutting or inappropriate, or even just ineffective, humour.  Or a patronising and condescending manner.  Or apparent pride.  Or distracting verbal (or physical) habits.  Or excessive and unrelenting pace.  Or whatever . . . anything that undermines the communication.  And sometimes many of these quirks might only show for a few seconds in an entire message, but that can be enough to do the damage.

So instead of excusing personality, what? In a small enough group where everyone knows everyone, such things will generally be excused (though not as completely as we might think).  With a larger group, or with outsiders present, the negative effects of such quirks can really undermine the whole ministry.  So what to do?  I suppose in simple terms we need to find out what those quirks are and deal with them.  Perhaps you should print this post and give it to someone, asking them to be honest with you.  Not easy, but important.