Stage 2 – Passage Study

Preparing to Preach OT Narrative – 2

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Yesterday I pondered the challenges of unfamiliarity of context.  When we preach from the Old Testament, if our listeners are more used to the New Testament, then this will be a challenge.  We thought about the canonical context, as well as the historical context.  There’s another challenge:

Low expectation of relevance.  I have to remember that by the time I come to preach from Ruth, I will have spent many hours in studying it.  It will have taken root in my heart again and God will have stirred me through His Word.  This will not be the case for the listeners.

They will be coming into the meeting with minds and hearts on all sorts of things.  They will be thinking of anything but pre-monarchical Israelite history.  So if I start into the message with an assumption that Ruth is a motivating destination, I may well be starting into my message alone.  I’d much rather take folks with me.  How can I do that?  A couple of thoughts:

1. Introduce with relevance.  I have written this before, but I’ll reiterate because it is important.  It is not dishonouring the text to start with an introduction before reading it.  I think the text can be dishonoured by reading it before people care to hear what it says.  So one approach is to craft an introduction that overtly seeks to connect the listeners and their current state of disequilibrium with the text as relevant to them.  This is not to “pander” to felt needs, but to recognize the reality of life and what it is to be a listener.  Getting relevance into the introduction makes all the sense in the world.  The listeners need an early appreciation of the fact that the preacher is relevant, the message is relevant and the text itself is relevant.

2. Let the narrative bite quickly.  This does not necessarily contradict with the previous point.  With a narrative the preacher has the advantage of the inherently gripping nature of the genre.  TV show producers know that there is a better way to grip viewers than a long series of opening credits with promises of big name actors and actresses (as they did thirty years ago!)  The best way is to let the narrative begin and bite quickly.  Once bitten, viewers will then tolerate the 40 seconds of opening credits (sometimes several minutes into the show).  This illustrates what I am saying here.  The listeners should be gripped if the first three or four verses of Ruth are presented effectively.  Maybe it would be worth getting into the tension of the plot before pulling back to make sense of context, etc.

Preparing to Preach OT Narrative

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I am preparing a series of messages from the book of Ruth.  Consequently I am processing some of the challenges that come with preaching through an Old Testament narrative.  Perhaps some of the thinking might be helpful, or at least there can be a sense of conversing together about this important subject.  As ever, no claim here to being exhaustive, but hopefully mildly provocative in a good way.

In our church it is fair to say that the majority of messages, from both in-house and visiting speakers, come from the New Testament.  This means that the Old Testament is much less familiar turf. As I prepare to preach Ruth, then, I must take that into account.

Less familiar literary context – I have to be careful not to assume anything here.  Ruth comes in a period of about four centuries covered by the bleak book of Judges.  Here is the jewel on the dark velvet.  But I can’t assume folks understand the book of Judges.  For some it will be a collection of children’s stories (where protagonist is always portrayed as a full-on hero, whatever the text may hint).  For others it will mean nothing at all.  So I need to think through how to make sense of the fact that “In the days when the judges judged” is the opening line of Ruth.

At some point I might think about showing where Ruth came in the Hebrew ordering of the canon.  Not after Judges (in the former prophets), but after Proverbs (in the writings).  Specifically, after Proverbs 31 . . . a wife of noble character, who can find?  Again, I can’t just drop that in without confusing people.  It will need a bit of explanation, perhaps I might use a powerpoint slide to help visualize the difference.  Perhaps.

Less familiar historical context – Not only is the Judges context unfamiliar, so is the culture of this time frame.  It is considerably further removed from today than the more familiar world of the New Testament.  This is pre-monarchy.  This is before the prophets and their impact on the nation of Israel.  I don’t want to preach it with assumptions, and have some listeners envisioning the action in the context of the Roman occupation, or whatever.

I need to think through what is pertinent about the context, the culture, the politics of the day, etc.  And I need to think through how to communicate that in the messages.

The Dangerous Half Quit

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

A post on this theme from five years ago caught my eye, so I thought I’d offer a re-write.

There are always reasons to quit. This is true in anything you might pursue. Sport, music, hobby, fitness, work, ministry, marriage. Anyone who has ever been successful at anything has had to overcome numerous opportunities to quit. How true is that in preaching?

There are few things that can compare with preaching – how important it is, how much people need it, how much you give both in preparation and presentation, how emotionally and physically draining it can be, how open to criticism you become, how relentless the schedule can feel, how exacting the standards are in peoples’ minds for every other area of your life. To give the Lord our best as preachers we must exhibit a tenacious relentlessness.

The temptation to quit may always be lingering in the background, but for various reasons, good and bad, many of us would not simply quit. Perhaps it’s a little like marriage among some Christians a couple of generations back. A marriage could go very sour, but divorce was considered so inappropriate that couples would live out a “Christian divorce” – two separate lives lived under one roof for the sake of appearance. That’s a danger for us as preachers. When the pressures build, as they do so regularly, so do the temptations. Temptations to quit may be rejected. But temptations to half quit are an ever present danger!

When the schedule is tight and you are drained emotionally and physically, pulled in numerous directions, don’t half quit on your preparation. It may seem tempting to not really study the text, to short-circuit all exegesis.

When Sunday is rapidly approaching and your energy is low, don’t half quit on sermon shaping. Don’t just go with your study notes, but try to think through your audience and their needs, think through the best way to communicate this passage to them.

When you go through the post-sermon emotional roller-coaster that many preachers feel so often, don’t half quit.  Don’t make decisions that will undermine your subsequent ministry because of how you feel at that moment.

When you are on the receiving end of unfair criticism or unjustifiable sniping, don’t half quit. Don’t steel your heart against the people you minister to so that by not loving them they can’t hurt you. When you love you get hurt, but love anyway.

I’m not saying anything about rest, responsibilities with family, etc. I’m not saying sacrifice yourself to the point of burnout in an attempt to be spiritual. There are all sorts of appropriate balances to wisely employ in ministry. But those are for another post. All I’m suggesting here is that preaching is no easier than most other things you might pursue in life, and in many ways it is harder. To be the best you can be, to give the best you can give, you must be doggedly relentless. Don’t quit. And maybe more importantly, keep leaning on our good God and don’t half quit.

Table Fellowship

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

A couple of weeks ago I pondered the grains that work their way through Bible books.  Today’s post considers the rich theme of table fellowship in Luke’s Gospel.  Perhaps we need to take stock if our lives are so packed we are choosing fast food on our own.  Let’s instead choose to never eat alone, but enjoy the richness of fellowship with others and with our Lord!  Click here for the post.

Watch the Whiplash

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

I have been writing about how preaching is the communication of the revelation of a Person or three. It isn’t something less than that. When the preacher steps up following a time of worship and  communicates only some sort of code for living, or peer pressure, or socialization program, then there is a whiplash effect that is felt by listeners. Let me probe that a little:

1. Whiplash from the worship tone to the message tone. This is common. The worship time focused in on the amazing grace and wonderful person of Christ. Then the preacher gets up and changes the tone completely. This can happen as the reflective, focused and prepared listeners suddenly get hit with an insensitive introductory joke. It can happen with a shift from the worship emphasis on being pleased by Christ to the message tone of pressure in the name of Christ.

2. Whiplash from the worship focus to the message focus. This is similar. The worship time typically will focus hearts and minds toward heaven, fixing the gaze on God in Christ. Then the message too easily shifts that focus in one of three ways. Either it can be the heart-jerking whiplash of focusing on how bad society is, or it can throw us toward focusing on the preacher (with his attention seeking behaviour, or his showing off, or whatever), or it can suddenly shift the gaze onto the navels of the faithful – you got saved by God’s grace, but now let me help you understand the burden you live under!

3. Whiplash from worship content to the message content. Okay, this is slightly repetitive, but unashamedly so. I am not hankering after a three point outline. I am trying hard to hammer the point that our hearts shouldn’t suffer whiplash when the Word is preached. We tend to sing of how wonderful God is, his grace, our love response to His, our hearts captivated, our lives stirred. Then the preaching can so easily swing over to how we must try harder to be better, be good, be disciplined, etc.

This kind of whiplash will always be present when preaching doesn’t preach the Person, but offers a program, a pressure, a commentary on societal ills, etc.

Preaching the Person in the Old Testament cont.

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

As well as Christophanies and explicit predictions, there are other ways in which the person of Christ is to be found in the Old Testament. Jesus told the Pharisees that the Scriptures speak of Him. He showed the two on the road to Emmaus. To what else did he perhaps point?

3. Thematic fulfillment – There are legitimate themes working their way through the Old Testament. We need to go beyond a children’s story with moral morales and see how the Hebrew Scriptures are woven together to build a gripping revelation of God and His plan. His Son is central to that thematic design.

4. Legitimate types – There are some legitimate types of Christ in the Old Testament. It is hard to miss, if our hearts are sensitive and tuned to the full story, when we read of the sacrifices, the feasts, etc. We need to be careful not to become fanciful or appear to abuse the communicative intent of the original authors.

5. The macro story goal – Sometimes people abuse the text by making every sentence speak of Christ no matter what it originally said. It is healthier to grow attuned to the goal of the whole, the Christo-telic intent of the Hebrew Scriptures. We don’t have to make things say what they could not have been understood to say. Instead let’s be clearer on how the whole fits together with the goal of God’s promise plan fulfilled in Christ.

With these five aspects of Christ in the Old Testament, we should have plenty to be going on with (probably more than could be communicated in a seven mile walk to Emmaus!) And this means we don’t need to fall into a common error:

X. The subsumed or twisted biblical character – There are hundreds of characters in the Old Testament plot lines. Many of them were not intended to be either a type of Christ, nor a foil for Christ. Let’s not miss the many characters in the grand narrative responding to God. Let’s not twist their stories to tell a different story. Let’s trust God’s communication and not try to be cleverer than the God who inspired a wonderful canon! If the text doesn’t push us to directly tie the character to Christ, let’s do the work of understanding how the text in its context communicates specifically and relevantly. Sometimes the Christ-leap that is made undermines any sense that God is an effective communicator in His Word.

Preaching the Person in the Old Testament

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The Old Testament reveals the same God as the New Testament. Sometimes the focus is on the Father, sometimes even the Spirit. Let’s be sure to preach the triune God of the Bible as clearly and effectively as possible.

Now what about preaching Christ in the Old Testament? This is an important subject. I think there are many ways to preach Christ in the Old Testament. But not as many ways as some seem to think.

1. Christophanies – Ok, don’t worry about the technical term, but when we see the LORD walking on two legs, what we have is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. I think Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration knew Christ not simply because he’d been with the Lord after death, but because they had met face to face in the tent of meeting. Others encountered the LORD in similar ways. Abraham, Jacob, Manoah, Isaiah, and others.

2. Explicit predictions – There is a lot of prediction in the Old Testament from the very beginning. The seed of the woman, right the way down the line to the great promise to David, and so many generations in between. When we preach the Old Testament we should be stirring our listeners to anticipate the One who has already come! The already come-ness of Jesus should not dull our delight at the divine plan as seen in the Old Testament.

Tomorrow I will complete this list, and offer one way that we should be wary of preaching the personal God in the Old Testament.

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?