Why Bible Reading is Down

January 13, 2014January 13, 2014 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I was interested to see an article by Peter Enns exploring why Bible reading is down in churches today. Biblica did some research and offered three conclusions. Let me share their findings with my own thoughts here:

1. Bible reading is down because people read it in fragments

They point to the perennial problem of prooftexting. The problem here goes both ways. First, despite the proliferation of prooftexting in seemingly all types of Christian literature, as an approach it fails to live up to implicit promise. People like to think that there are nuggets and bite-sized nibbles can satisfy the need for wisdom and instruction, but reality does not support this. People need more than “a verse for this” and “a verse for that.”

Which leads to the second issue here. Not only does prooftexting fall short, but it also steals the experience of seeing the bigger picture, the sweeping thoughts, the epic narratives and the heart-stirring poems of Scripture. I often ponder the fact that the Bible men and women who I most aspire to be like are not those with a ready quiver full of pithy proof-texts, but those who know the God of the Bible because they are washed in the Bible as a whole, book by book.

2. Bible reading is down because people read it a-historically

The article points to Biblica’s approach to reordering the books in the canon. This is interesting and I sometimes read through the Old Testament using the Jewish TNK order, or mix up the NT books into a different logical sequence. I would push our thoughts in another direction than canon, however. I think too many readers are reading Bible books looking for something to jump out to them today, as if the Bible were written as a relatively poor repository of ancient wisdom for future listeners to sift through and glean the lasting nuggets.

How much better the Bible becomes when we read it to find the God who revealed Himself to the original writers/readers, and who continues to reveal Himself through those books today, when understood in their own contexts. Studying the historical setting of an epistle or a prophet can be a profound experience. I remember reading the introduction to a weighty commentary on Isaiah – the introduction set me on fire for studying the Bible! I would recommend reading something like Paul Maier’s “Flames of Rome” to enter into the historical context more, and then see if the epistles still feel so flat afterwards.

Tomorrow we will look at the third reason given . . .

Case Study: Isaiah 40

January 8, 2014 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I just posted a summary of a message on Isaiah 40 on the Cor Deo site. If you haven’t seen it, let me share a few thoughts here first. In simplistic terms, the section preached focuses on the greatness of God and the graciousness of God. I think there are two easy mistakes to make here.

1. To focus purely on the greatness (since that is the focus of vv12-26, the majority of the text). I think this can lead to an impressive presentation of theology, but a weak message in terms of what is needed. Not only by listeners today, but also in respect to the original intent of the passage in light of the first verse – to offer comfort.

2. To simple offer two paradoxical truths. Two things about God. He is great. He is gracious. Two points. And potentially, two messages. Simply balancing the two sets of truths is better than mistake number 1, but it is still not engaging with the text in terms of what the author was trying to achieve.

As you read the summary you won’t see all the illustrations and applications made in my preaching of it, but you will get a sense of the flow of the message. In particular, you should see how I addressed the greatness and graciousness issue.

One further thought. I think it is important to see the flow of a text. I have heard this passage preached, actually, I think I have preached this passage, as a selection of theological truths to pluck and present. It makes for a lot of positive feedback, but I don’t think this approach really honours the text God inspired Isaiah to record.

Enough for now, here’s the link to the post: Not Comforted by God’s Greatness?

Blog Review of 2013

January 1, 2014 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

It has been a quieter year on the blog as I have had to scale back the writing in recent months. Launching a new church has certainly taken time and energy, but what a privilege it is to be involved in such a project. Meanwhile, back at the blog:

Most popular posts, in reverse order:

Preaching Doxologies and also Preaching [Insert Word] Jesus, came in just behind The Preacher’s Clock: Procrastination? Preparation & Anticipation. Writing about Bible Reading usually gets a stir.

A single post about Reading and Preaching seemed to get a big reaction for a stand alone post. The first in the Three Common Mistakes series proved the most provocative – Genesis. In second place came a mini-series called Dangerous Immunization Part 2, along with a series on the dangers of Exemplar Preaching – Exemplar Christi, Exemplar Homo-Biblicas, Exemplar Persona Illustrations and Legitimate Exemplar Preaching.

The top series of 2013 was the Preaching Myths series back in the summer: #1 – Pew Trust #2 – Cool Preaching #3 – Acid and Bleach #4 – Non-Gospel Preaching #5 – Short Talk Required #6 – Evaluation Verboten #7 – Sawn-Off Concordance #8 – Delivery Equals Circus

Some of my favourites:

I enjoyed pondering and writing the following posts and want to mention them now – Why God Still Works Through Poor Preaching and Losing our Youth by Dangerous Superficiality, which is closely tied to Static vs Dynamic Position Principle. I wish churches would use testimonies, but not without a guide along the lines of Ten Top Testimony Tips. I enjoyed the work that went into the Repentance Word Study in Acts.

I think my favourite series was How to Preach Less than Christian – Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Highest Impact Books:

I was able to review some stunning books this year. Here are four not to miss. Probably the best biography I’ve read is Jonathan Edwards, A Life by George Marsden. A must read for people preaching the Gospels is Pontius Pilate by Paul Maier. I recently wrote on a great little book on the Apostle Paul’s writings – How to Like Paul Again, by Conrad Gempf. And for anyone involved in church work, take a look at Deep and Wide, by Andy Stanley. (I enjoyed writing a film review on Les Mis too Click here to go there.)

Thanks for visiting the blog this year. I hope that 2014 will be a good year for the blog, and an even better year for all our preaching!

Book Review: How to Like Paul Again, by Conrad Gempf

December 31, 2013 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The front cover of this book (published by Authentic, 2013) has a snippet of an endorsement that states, “The best thing on Paul written for non-academics I have ever read.” I agree, although I can’t list a whole lot of other books on Paul written for non-academics, to be honest.

Gempf is engaging and witty, his style draws you in and keeps you hooked. His concern is that Paul has gotten a bad rap and so people judge him without knowing him. I don’t have a negative view of Paul at all, but by the end of this book I liked him and his letters even more than when I started.

This book is like a crash course in hermeneutics, but a genuinely enjoyable course . . . the kind taught by a master teacher who so captures your attention that you don’t realise it is a course in hermeneutics. Each chapter builds on what has gone before and Gempf seems to enjoy a Paul-like rhetorical conversation with his readers.

His method is to select three epistles and work with each one for a few chapters. He starts with Galatians, then moves onto 1 Corinthians. He contrasts the two. Different audiences, different letters. A church in need of 1 Corinthians could be harmed by a slap-dash misapplication of Galatians, and vice versa. I loved the letter to the Galatians from the other side – a helpful feature of a section that gives a clear sense of the danger churches today face in respect to the Law and Christian spirituality.

Throughout the author is convincing the reader of the importance of understanding what it meant back then before pondering what it might mean for us today. A wonderful dose of healthy hermeneutical teaching in a book that reads more like a good novel or biography than a biblical studies text book.

After Galatians and 1 Corinthians, I did put the book down. Busy schedule and a family Christmas. And, to be honest, I thought Philemon might be a weak end to a great book. I was wrong. Philemon was a great place to add another set of dimensions to Paul and his apostolic writing.

This is a great book for new Christians and long-term preachers alike. Maybe you went to Bible school and have preached through Paul’s letters many times. I still think you should read this book. It is refreshing and it will stir your appreciation for the epistles again.

Perhaps your Christmas presents were wonderful, but lacked a gripping book. Why not buy yourself a late gift. In fact, buy two or three because you will be thinking of people to whom you must give a copy. Thanks Conrad, a wonderful book!

To order this book in the UK, click here.

Read Your Bible in 2014? Part 2

December 23, 2013December 20, 2013 / Peter Mead / 7 Comments

It has been a couple of years since I suggested that the famous reading plan of a certain famous Christian was not a good idea. (If you want to see that post, click here.) That plan, and many that have copied it, involves reading a small handful of chapters each day. The chapters are from different places in the canon. I know some people swear by this approach, but I am unconvinced. Here’s why:

1. Why treat the Bible chapters as vitamin pills rather than part of a coherent feast? Why pursue “balance” with a passion, but sacrifice the divine design? God gave us books, not an assortment of random chapters.

2. Why choose to not read chapters in their context? Esther is hard to put down, so is Ephesians, and Hebrews always grips me, and there are over 60 other books, most of which are an awesome read in flow. Why take a bit of one meal and then a bite of another?

3. Why miss out on the delight of noise-free reading? For the first minutes of our Bible reading, perhaps 10-15, we have a mental noise in the background: things to do, don’t forget this, remember that, what about… Once that clears, we zero in and enjoy what we are reading. Read for ten minutes and you will be ready to stop. Read for 30-40 and you will struggle to put it down. Most reading plans cater to 10-12 minute reading loads. So you could struggle year after year with these disciplined approaches, but absolutely thrive on the simple approach of reading a decent chunk in flow. Really? People who struggle to read the Bible through in a year may find it easier and more enjoyable to read it 2 or 3 times in a year? Yes.

4. Why take a checklist approach to the most important relationship? I don’t have to force myself to read sports news, or eat three meals a day, and certainly don’t require a checklist to remember to interact with my wife each day. I don’t tend to be impressed with reticent disciplined Bible readers. But those who delight in God tend to be people who devour the Bible. That may look like discipline, love usually does, but discipline is not the way to get there.

Perhaps it is worth pondering how to encourage people by enthusiastic invitation, rather than by affirming the “difficulty” and “trudgery” of “getting through the Bible” in a year or three. Here is a link to my friend Ron’s article on Bible reading – as “Bible presenters” lets be sure to be genuine Bible enthusiasts that do more than try to fire up the so-called disciplined wills of our listeners!

Read Your Bible in 2014?

December 20, 2013 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Two years ago I wrote a post that seemed to polarize readers. I suggested that the famous reading plan of a certain famous Christian was not a good idea. If you want to see that post, click here. Let me offer some thoughts on this as we head toward a new year and probably a fair few resolutions for preachers and non-preachers alike.

I am a huge fan of getting people to read the Bible. While there are numerous ways to walk devotionally with our God, every other option surely must be undergirded and shot through with exposure to the Bible – God’s primary means of self-revelation and input into our lives.

If a reading plan is the only way to motivate someone, fine, so be it. But I am concerned whenever I sense a lack of motivation in myself or in others. I think that too often we treat a lack of motivation as a normal emotional problem to be overcome by diligence, accountability and determination.

I would suggest that we treat a lack of motivation as a flashing light on the dashboard of our lives. When the oil light flashes I don’t obey it and choose not to drive the car. Equally I don’t disregard it and press on. I address the issue. Same with a lack of motivation for Bible reading . . . don’t simply obey it, nor ignore it, but address it. The best way I have found is to talk to God about that lack of motivation. Be honest. Out loud. Tell him what is more attractive to you than His self-revelation. That should prove to be convicting and bring us back in humility with a brokenness and renewed, albeit weak, hunger to hear from Him that we might respond as we should.

The best motivation for Bible reading is a hunger to know God more. Therefore the best motivator for stirring others to read their Bibles is to know God more and be infectious with it. When you are captured by a person, others will want to know Him too. This is a far cry from language of diligence and discipline and so on.

I don’t ask my friends to hold me accountable to pretend to love my wife and listen to her. I may ask them to point out if they see me rationalizing a drift from healthy relationships though. Same with the Bible reading. I don’t need someone to crack the whip to make me do it, but I am wide open to hearing from a friend that I seem touchy or less excited about God than is normal.

So next time I will come back to the reading plan issue and share some thoughts. None of this is intended to stir up the hornets nest again, just to stir our thinking as we head toward a New Year and probably a lot of renewed motivation to be consistent in Bible reading . . .

How Good?

December 11, 2013 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

When we preach the gospel to guests and to believers alike, we are effectively communicating both bad news and good news. There has to be a connection between the two, a symmetry between diagnosis and cure. If we are not careful, a slight misdiagnosis can have terrible consequences.

Problem: I’m not good at all.

Solution: I need the good news of the Gospel or I am hopelessly lost. 100% dead in trespasses and sins. Apart from Christ we can do nothing. The problem points us to Christ as our only hope.

But what a difference a slight misdiagnosis can bring…

Problem: I’m not good enough.

Solution: I need to try harder, perhaps combined with accepting some sort of grace offer, but recognizing that that brings with it a responsibility to start to get my act together and to make this the week that evidences a change in direction, a new leaf, a new resolution, a breakthrough, a deep commitment, a stronger push. I look to God to give me the spiritual juice I need to make my attempt at holiness.

What a difference! Not good at all? Or just not good enough? The world and the devil would love us all to buy into the second one. Guests hearing this will recognize the need for digging deeper and becoming the better me. Believers hearing this will find resonance in their flesh which continues to live in the lie of independent god-like status.

The bad news is bad. Really bad. Probably worse than we’ve dared to imagine! And that is great news.

One Step Closer

December 7, 2013 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

Sometimes taking one step forward can make a huge difference. Instead of remaining at arms length, one step can cross numerous boundaries of personal space and move you into a zone of great importance – this is true in romance, in fighting, in conversation, and in preaching.

Beginning preachers, and some that have preached for years, tend to preach their message at arms length. Some do so by some sort of conviction, others more unawares. They study and prepare, but it is all about the notes. From the Bible to the notes to the people. Arms length. Somehow there is a nervousness about this thing out there called the message. The preacher is anxious about saying the right words and that anxiety sometimes shows. Even without showing overtly, it does leave the message somewhat flat, just about the words.

But one step forward can make such a difference. If the entire process of Bible study, message preparation and delivery can all be brought inside the personal space, the preaching is very different. Instead of something the preacher is straining to not forget, now the message comes from the heart. Instead of preaching being truth preached by a personality (often a stilted personality trying to remember the message), now the message can be truth through personality. Instead of a message being handled at arms length from the Bible text to the listeners, via the notes of the preacher, now the message comes through the preacher with the force of the life transforming power of the Word – clear and unhindered.

I am not really writing about notes. More about whether the Bible is a curiosity and data source, a professional tool, or a personal treasure from a God who moves intimately into our personal space to wreck our self-absorbed worlds, bring about massive transformation and a deep intimacy. I am suggesting our message preparation should be a unique experience for each of us, rather than following the checklist of someone else’s model. I am saying that our delivery should come from the totality of a gripped heart and life in transformation, rather than being a mere transfer of information from notes to listeners.

It’s hard to pin down exactly how one message can be preached at arms length, while another comes through the heart of the preacher. Yet as a listener it is usually not so hard to tell the difference.

Letter Frame – Preacher’s Treasure 7

November 29, 2013November 28, 2013 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

In this series I have looked at letter openings and closings. Lots of treasure that is often overlooked and ignored despite being fully inspired and massively preachable! Here are a few closing ideas to pull the series together:

1. Preach a whole book through the lens of a key element in the letter frame. By taking an opening greeting, a doxology, or whatever, it is possible to introduce and preach the big message of an entire epistle. This could function as a stand-alone message.

2. Introduce or conclude a series in a book using opening or closing elements. Instead of sounding like an introductory page in a study Bible (i.e. just giving a bland author, recipients, date, occasion, map, etc.), diving into the body of an epistle and ignoring the opening or finishing a series abruptly, consider the value of an overview intro or conclusion that is a legitimate exposition of an inspired text.

3. Consider a series of doxologies, closing prayers, or whatever, with whole epistles reinforcing each message in the series. This would be a challenge for the preacher, and might require some awareness from the listeners, but it could be highly effective. It would help us break out of a “standard section length for every sermon” approach. Whole books have big ideas that transform lives. Letter frames offer summaries that root those ideas in shorter texts.

What other ideas would you add? How have you heard a letter frame preached effectively?

Letter Frame – Preacher’s Treasure 6

November 28, 2013 / Peter Mead / 5 Comments

There are some stunning doxologies in the epistles. They are a potential treasure for preachers:

1. Doxologies tend to offer a succinct overview of the content of a letter. What the writer was pondering as he wrote or dictated tends to come out in this late point of praise. As preachers we can tap into that to review or overview the epistle as a whole.

2. Doxologies offer the preacher an opportunity to preach a different genre within the epistle. Just as introductory and closing materials can offer a more narrative type of content (i.e. accessing the narrative behind the letter), so the doxology allows the preacher to preach something akin to poetry. Preaching poetry offers something different to the discourse that predominates in the epistles.

Here are some doxologies to ponder:

* Hebrews 13:20-21 . . . The preacher (remember that Hebrews is not an epistle, but rather a sermon with an epistolary postscript) points to God’s raising Jesus from the dead, and to the blood of the eternal covenant, as the one who will equip the hearers to live lives pleasing to Him. The Jesus-focused encouragement throughout the “letter” is seen even here.

* Jude 24-25 . . . One of the more famous doxologies pointing to God’s ability to guard and protect believers in an antagonistic world.

* 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 . . . An easy one to miss, this is effectively a doxology within the body of the letter (similar to Paul’s explosions of delight at the end of Romans 8 and Romans 11:33-36).

* 2 Corinthians 13:14 . . . Is Paul offering three elements of God’s goodness within a trinitarian framework, or is he actually referring to the One who is the grace and love of the Son and Father, that is, the Holy Spirit? Jonathan Edwards understood this doxology as being entirely about the Spirit, which would fit a letter gripped by the New Covenant ministry theme.

* 1 Corinthians 16:22-24 . . . A striking and often ignored conclusion to a letter. Perhaps verse 22 is key to the complexities of church life in Corinth? I have never heard anybody preach from this section, have you?

* Revelation 2-3 . . . Don’t miss the treasure in Jesus’ seven epistles to the churches of Asia Minor. Recognizing the consistent themes within and throughout each individual letter is key to making sense of the details. The promise to the overcomer always makes sense in light of the description of Christ and the commendation/complaint within the letter.

Seems like there is plenty of scope for a series of messages based purely on the doxologies. After all, pondering the truth and life-changing relevance of the gospel should lead us to praise God!