Religion

Saturday Short Thought: One Best Way

/ Peter Mead / 6 Comments

This week I’ve been pondering the grains that run through all biblical literature.  Recurring themes in the poetic books, traceable motifs in narrative books and unifying melodies in the discourse sections.  Some of these are limited to a section, others to a particular writer, and in a broader sense they can be traced across the canon as a whole.

So here’s the point for today.  How do we get to know these themes, motifs and melodies?  Some commentaries and books will prove helpful.  Seminary notes might be worth looking at again.  But the bottom line is kind of simple – we need to be reading the Bible.

That seems like too obvious a thought to be worthy of a post, doesn’t it?  Well, sadly I suspect there are many preachers who may study slices to preach them, but don’t have an appetite for the Word as a whole.  Everyone is impoverished as a result.

Personal spirituality becomes ritualistic or moralistic, study becomes burdensome, ministry becomes draining, sermons become shallow and often anthropocentric (person focused – what to do, how to live, instructions, commands, guilt…)

Our preaching should come from the overflow of a personal delight in the God who reveals Himself in His Word.  It may be a bit simplistic, but I’ll stand by the statement – unless we get into the Word the church will be gasping for “divines,” people who know God and speak out of the overflow of a heart filled.  A church wanting for true spirituality will ultimately be shrivelled to the core, no matter how many programs, no matter how practical the teaching may be.

Let me invite you back into God’s Word.

Planks and Slices 4 – Whole Bible Grains cont.

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Yesterday I shared two thoughts on preaching Bible-wide thematic grains. It isn’t about chasing every use of a term through the concordance (although that may be part of the study process and a valuable pursuit). Neither is our goal to overload listeners with references. So what should we do?

3. Pursue genuine grains that feed forward through the canon. That is, know the Bible as well as possible and don’t think the concordance is more important than the Bible. Get to know the writers and their books, their sources, their influences, etc. I’m not chasing into radical liberal theories of unproven phantom documents, but the intertextual connections that are present within the text.

Somehow Paul wasn’t only thinking of Roman soldier garb in Ephesians 6, there was some Isaiah 59 in the mix too. Commentaries may help, but the real key is to read the Bible and recognize when an earlier text is influencing a later one. Walter Kaiser speaks about the “informing theology” of a writer. How did Isaiah influence Mark, how did the Torah influence Jonah, etc.

4. Move forward from your text with hermeneutical honesty, avoiding anachronistic imposition. That is, show how the themes in a text progress forward through the canon, but don’t make the text dependent on later revelation. If the listeners are looking at a text in context and can’t fathom how the text had any value without revelation from centuries later, they may question either God’s ability to communicate, or your communication about God. Can the text in question bear its own weight?

When the New Testament is on the Old inflicted, or the Old is by the New restricted, then we can lose too much. Much better to see the richness of a passage, then see how it builds forward to the fullness of all we know now in light of later revelation.

5. Invite people into the Scriptures, don’t intimidate them with your knowledge. Seems simple – if you want people to be in the Bible for themselves, then don’t make them feel completely incapable of finding anything worthwhile without you. If you want them to rely completely on you, something’s gone awry.

Our listeners need to get a sense of the richness of Scripture as a whole.  What strategies do you have for achieving this?

Planks and Slices 3 – Whole Bible Grains

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

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 2 – Preaching Plank Grains

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Yesterday I introduced the idea of tracing a grain through the length of a Bible book. Today I’d like to offer a few more thoughts before moving on to the bigger idea of tracing themes beyond the borders of a single book.

1. “Knowing tones” don’t do the job of preaching the richness of the Bible. It is easy to preach through a book and emphasize certain terms with knowing looks, vocal emphases and passing remarks. This doesn’t mean that you are doing anything significant. People may not get the point that unity has emerged again in Philippians 4 after taking a back seat in chapter 3, just because you intonate in some way. They haven’t been soaked in the text as you have…

2. Be overt in highlighting some grains if it is helpful to the listeners. Not only should we be overt to help people spot it, but we need to be clear in explaining what we are referring to. We can’t assume listeners have picked up on something subtle. If we make only a subtle nod toward a theme, then we can’t rely on that nod to carry the sermon forward significantly.

3. Be clear in explaining how a thematic grain is worth noting. Most people aren’t collecting biblical trivia as they listen to us preach. Some love that kind of stuff, but most tend to value things based on their perceived value. We need to be clear how the theme is present and what the writer is doing with it.

4. Preaching thematically doesn’t negate the need for deliberate message unity and purposefulness. It may be tempting to see thematic grains as something that is overlooked by preaching textual slices, and therefore a shortcut to preaching “something new” . . . this is not the goal. We need to preach clear, biblical, relevant and engaging messages. Help people see the grains, but do so with a purpose in line with the purpose of the text itself.

5. Beware of repetitious overload in a series. We need to repeat things in preaching, but beware that a shorthand reference to a theme can creep in, especially in a series. The negative here is that some may not understand the knowing tones and passing asides, while others who have heard about it before may not be finding the rediscovery of a theme as a wonderful delight. Be sure that each sermon preaches effectively, and that the whole effect of the series is sensitizing rather than dulling to listeners. Let the main thought of a passage drive the message. Sometimes this means that a theme may recede in a particular message, even if present in the text.

Tomorrow I’ll start to ponder canon-wide thematic grain issues.  What would you add here?

Planks and Slices

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

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.

People and Passage

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I think it was Phillips Brooks who said something along these lines: He never went to his study and looked in the Bible without seeing his people’s faces running across his study.When he went out to meet his people, his study would beckon and he would see the Bible.

I suppose this could seem frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be.  If we engage the situation relationally then it can be a more exciting, rather than frustrating experience.  We read and study God’s Word to hear Him, we then continue the conversation as we engage with people, our lives intersecting with theirs, our prayer conversation ongoing.

The exciting potential is to bring God’s Word to the people, and to bring the people to God’s Word.  And remember, this isn’t about being a life mechanic, a drill sergeant or a success guru.  It’s about introducing people, and reintroducing people, to the Word of God who woos us to His Father.

As preachers we live in a tension between people and passages. This need not be a tension, but rather a glorious conversation.

Speech: More Than Pragmatic

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

I wonder if some of us are missing something deeply significant?  Preaching involves spoken communication, but what is that spoken communication?  Is it a tool we use to transfer the information that we need to get across?  Or is it profoundly more than that?

I’ve heard preachers who preach as if their speaking is about the information transfer, but little more.  So that sense of personal detachment, or coldness, or distance . . . is that just a matter of poor delivery, or is there something more going on?

What I want to scratch the surface of is the nature of speech itself.  Here are some quick thoughts on why speech itself is more than a pragmatic tool:

1. The Bible doesn’t treat human speech as just a tool.  There is a massive emphasis on hearing God’s Word.  Our response to what we hear defines us.  Our integrity of action to what we confess is critical.  The tongue is a powerful organ in the body.

2. The Bible is a story of “did God say?”  The serpent offered humanity an autonomous alternative to trusting dependence on God.  We can be our own gods.  Why would we want that?  Because of a distrust in God’s spoken word, which is a distrust of His gracious character.  Ever since then the hiss of the lie has been an ever-present.  And the question has always been, who will trust the word of God’s promise?

3. The Bible presents us with a God who speaks.  Why don’t we see more from heaven?  We can’t fathom that perhaps our eyes are not the senior sense.  We fell by distrust of speech, we are invited to trust based on God’s Word (and He even made His Word visible to us in a Person!)  But this isn’t some pragmatic condescension of God for our sake, He is eternally a speaking God.  What constitutes the reality of the Trinity?  We would do well to let go a little of a metaphysical conversation of substance, and ponder more the biblical revelation of a God in eternal communion.

4. The Bible seems to see speech as central to what it is to be a person.  Now we’re probing a bit more.  For centuries we’ve been caught up in the idea of personhood as being about rationality, will-power and individualism.  We’ve seen it as an issue of separation, of hierarchy, of a will to power.  What if what we are is not best defined by our CV/resume (skills, capacities, education, even references from the most impressive people we know)?  What if what we are is defined by who we have true relationship with?  We inherently sense that reality, but our world denies it.  And what if relationship is, at its core, a matter of speaking and hearing, of a mutual indwelling through communication?

Okay, enough for today, but here’s the thought I’m nudging us toward.  What if preaching is profoundly more about speech than we’ve ever realised?  Our God is a God who speaks.  A God who has spoken.  And at the centre of Christianity is our heart response to what He says?

Preacher, Be Amateur!

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Never a fan of amateurishness in anything related to church ministry, I think we have to be amateur when it comes to preaching.  What am I saying?  Simple – if preaching is not done for the right love, it will be done for the wrong love, but love will drive our preaching.

Love for me is never good.  That is to say, preaching for the love of position, love of status, love of kudos, love of attention, love of affirmation, love of power, love of paycheck, love of significance, etc…all of this is sanctified incurvedness – which is not sanctified at all, it is sin.

Love for God is the right kind of love.  We love because He first loved us.  Our preaching should spring from the response of our hearts and lives to God.  Our love for Him should stir us to give of our best in order to please Him.  What the pulpit desperately needs is not skilled orators, no matter how great the content.  What it needs is true divines – those who know God personally, closely, intimately.

Love for listeners is entirely appropriate.  We become like whoever we love and worship.  So our love for Him should result in an increasing sharing of His values, including a love for the listeners.  That love should drive us not only to study His Word, but to seek to offer it to others for their good.  And we will do so not in a cold and detached professionalism, but in a warm-hearted, God-representing loving approach to ministry.

Love for the Word of God surely fits.  Just to reinforce what has already been said, let us never study the Word out of a requirement to prepare a message, but with hearts stirred to hear God there.  Hearing our God who has spoken and speaks in His Word is not some ministerial pragmatic issue – it is at the very centre of who He is and what we are called to.  We are made in the image of a communicating-relational God.  So we should passionately pursue His Word, inscribed and incarnate, for our hearts should long to know God.

And if that is what is meant by amateur – love-driven preaching… then I want to be an amateur for as long as I live!

Amateur: Not All Good

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

To put it simply, the term amateur can be used in reference to something being done out of a love for it (rather than as a paid job).  Or it can refer to something  being done in a way that shows lack of skill, being done not very well.  Let’s ponder the latter today and finish positively tomorrow.

Amateurishness can be seen in various aspects of preaching:

* Lack of preparation, inadequate study and research, use of poor sources, surface-only work with the text, etc.

* Scattered (dis)organisation of content, poor logical ordering of content, lack of effort with word choices, etc.

* Poor delivery, excessive verbal pauses, um, any self-presentation that appears to be hiding the self out of nervousness (acting like a clown, for instance), etc.

I’m sure we could all list plenty of ways to preach in an amateurish fashion.  There is also the bigger picture of the whole service.  What people will enjoy in a group of 50 will be intolerable in a group of 250.  But there are two further points to ponder here:

1. Critiquing amateurishness is not to say there is no place for weakness.  We all have weakness and should preach in a state of weakness rather than prideful self-reliance.  What we might critique as amateurishness is more an issue of not preparing properly, or not growing into effective homiletical skill or delivery skill.  It is an issue of poor stewardship, not something that we should justify in some sort of reverse sanctification by extension process.  By all means let’s appear as fools and as weak to a world that is arrogant in its upside-down state.  But let’s let the gospel message itself be the “foolishness” and the “weakness” – not our own lack of good stewardship of the ministry we have the privilege of participating in.

2. Recognize who suffers from unnecessary amateurishness.  Here’s the strange thing.  When a preacher is genuinely very limited in skill, ability, knowledge, resources, time, etc., then the same perceived weaknesses are often unperceived.  But when we simply show a lack of commitment or passion for preaching, then we can’t rely on some loophole that guarantees God’s intervention.

Unbelievers will judge the gospel based not on the gospel, but on our demonstration of its value to us.  Believers will be frustrated and distracted so that the focus will be on the poor preacher rather than the wonderful biblical truth.  Amateurishness that flows from lack of effort both in the preparation of a specific sermon, and in the longer-term failure to grow in the ministry of preaching, is ultimately an issue of love – a lack of love for the lost, the believers we are supposed to shepherd, and for the Lord who gave everything for us.

Tomorrow we’ll think about the good side of amateur!