Stage 2 – Passage Study

Biblical Narrative: Two Truths Together

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I’m giving a lot of thought to the preaching of biblical narrative at the moment.  I have a seminar on the subject coming up this weekend and I am thoroughly enjoying preparation for that event.  Somehow, when it comes to narrative passages, there are two truths that don’t seem to sit easily together in peoples’ minds.  These are the historical accuracy of the biblical narratives, and the literary artistry in the biblical narratives.

On the one side you have some conservative preachers who treat the narratives as historically accurate, but essentially no different than any other biblical text (just dissect and deliver!)  On the other side you have other less conservative writers who may recognize the literary skill, but deny historicity (my mind goes to Robert Alter’s term “historical fiction” in reference to the Hebrew Bible).

I appreciate this definition from Jeffrey Arthurs’ excellent book, Preaching with Variety:

Biblical narrative can be defined as a historically accurate, artistically sophisticated account of persons and actions in a setting designed to reveal God and edify the reader. (Page 64)

He goes on to write, “Although biblical narrators do not make up events and characters, they do select, arrange, and depict them with skill.” Historical accuracy and sophisticated literary artistry are not mutually exclusive categories.  As Leland Ryken put it in Preach the Word, “While fictionality is a common characteristic of literature, it is not a necessary feature of it.” (Page 45)

As we prepare to preach biblical narratives, let’s make sure we don’t fall into the either/or thinking.  Historical accuracy.  Literary artistry.  Two truths that sit comfortably together.

Preaching and Affective Hermeneutics

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I don’t spend much time going from blog to blog.  However, one blog that I do read and appreciate is A Spreading Goodness by a good friend and major influence on my life – Dr Ron Frost. He kindly asked me to write a guest post for his site which I was delighted to do. It’s a little longer than my typical post on this site, but I hope it’s worth taking the time to read. I won’t re-post it here as I’d like to redirect you to A Spreading Goodness – you might enjoy the earlier content on there and become a regular (I particularly recommend “I’m a Sinner…” posted on December 15th).

So for today’s post, please click here: spreadinggoodness.org

Preaching One Text – Part II

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Yesterday I addressed why it is generally best to preach on a single text.  Today I’d like to address a possible misunderstanding that might result from this suggestion:

This emphasis on preaching a single text does not mean that I advocate preaching biblically naive or theologically unaware messages.  To really understand a particular passage usually requires us to study (or at least be aware of) other passages that feed into it.  For instance, can we grasp what is going on with the marriage issues in Ezra/Nehemiah without being thoroughly informed by the Torah?  Can we understand the prophets as they seek to enforce the covenant if our awareness of that covenant in Deuteronomy is lacking?  Can we grasp New Testament teaching built on Old Testament paradigms if our Old Testament pages remain clean and stuck together?  Walter Kaiser speaks of the “informing theology” of a passage.  We must be careful not to miss critical elements for understanding our preaching text when those elements are recorded earlier in the Bible.

Having studied to the full extent of our resources (time and skill), we then need to consider what our listeners actually need to hear.  A sermon should not be an information dump in which every detail of our exegesis is piled onto the ears of our listeners.  Perhaps no “informing theology” is necessary to communicate this passage.  Perhaps only a brief summary will do.  Sometimes we need to have them turn the pages and see it for themselves.   We must do everything we can to fully understand the passage, but remember that all our work cannot be squeezed into the minutes available for preaching, or squeezed into the minds and hearts of our listeners.  We study at length, then cut out everything unnecessary for preaching the main point of the message.

We may preach one passage, but let us not preach biblically naive or theologically unaware messages.

Preaching One Text

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I emphasize the need to preach a single text in most sermons.  There are exceptions, but generally one text is the way to go.  I want to be clear why I make this suggestion (today) and address a possible misunderstanding (tomorrow).

I strongly suggest preaching on one text most of the time, because it is so easy to scratch the surface of a passage and yet fail to preach the text.  Multiplying texts only multiplies the likelihood of missing the point and failing to really preach the text at all.  It takes a lot of work to wrestle with a text and have a text wrestle with you.  It takes a lot of prayerful thought to engage with historical and written context, to recognize rhetorical structure, to analyze each detail of content, to ascertain authorial intent (purpose as well as meaning) and to synthesize the core idea of a passage.  I don’t think I’m being lazy when I suggest taking multiple passages multiplies the workload beyond what most of us can bear (if we are to really preach rather than scratch the surface, or scratch some itchy ears).

What is Preaching Primarily About?

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Just a short teaser of a post today, then a break tomorrow (because you really shouldn’t be reading about preaching on Christmas day!)  I’ve just been writing a longer article for another blog.  I’ll link to it once it is posted there.  But in it I address the real foundation of homiletics. While some may consider the field of homiletics to be all about communication techniques – “mere rhetoric” if you like, this is missing the point.

Preaching is a complex subject with many vital tributaries.  I would suggest that the technical stuff has to be built on a solid foundation of the hermeneutics and the spirituality of the preacher.  There are other critical foundational elements too . . . but the article is already too long!

Have a great Christmas!

With the Time You Have

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

As I wander through Preach the Word, I am taking advantage of little nuggets here and there to prompt posts.  Today I’m influenced by Wayne Grudem’s article on “Right and Wrong Interpretation of the Bible.”  He makes a point that I have probably made before, but it bears repeating.

Grudem writes, “It is possible to do a short or long study of any passage.  Do what you can with the time you have, and don’t be discouraged about all that you cannot do.”

Study time is not prescribed. I’m often asked how long sermon preparation should take.  A standard question, to which I give a probably standard answer – “as long as you have.”  It doesn’t help to feel bound to a ten-hour minimum study phase if you simply don’t have ten hours to study the passage.  Grudem gives the example of having to give a devotional talk with ten minutes warning.  Can it be done?  Of course.  He doesn’t suggest it is a good idea to prepare for ten minutes, but it can be done.  On the other hand, the same passage might be studied for twenty hours in anticipation of a Sunday sermon, for two or three hundred hours in the preparation of an academic article, or for a full year or more for the sake of a PhD.

Don’t be discouraged by time you don’t have. Seems obvious, but it’s so easy to get discouraged when we think of all that we have not done in our preparation.  Resources not checked, words not fully studied, verbs unparsed, syntax not diagrammed, cross-references not referenced, etc.  If you didn’t have time, God knows that, and we need to know that too.

Don’t be disqualified by time you didn’t use. I would add this to the mix.  Often there is not enough time.  But sometimes we fail to use the time we have.  Obviously that is not good.  Often it is inexcusable.  Who was it that referred to time-wasting as the greatest sin of the younger generation?  Anyway, when you know your time is running out and you can’t honestly say you used every moment as you should have, what should you do?  You shouldn’t carry a weight of guilt and self-recrimination that steals your heart away from the privilege of knowing God and preaching His Word.  It is important to do what you preach – keep a short account with God, confess, repent, accept forgiveness.  We don’t sin so that grace may increase, but praise the Lord that there is plenty of grace in His character . . . we need it!

Fullness, Not Dipping – Narratives

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I’d like to share another post in light of the chapter by Leland Ryken in the book he co-edited entitled Preach the Word (in honor of Kent Hughes).  In writing of the importance of understanding the Bible literarily and not just theologically or historically, he states the following:

A biblical scholar who caught the vision for a literary approach to the Bible has written regarding Bible stories, “A story is a story is a story.  It cannot be boiled down to a meaning,” that is, adequately treated at the level of theological abstraction.  A person listening to an expository sermon on the story of Cain should be aware from start to finish that the text being explicated is a narrative, not a theological treatise.  The text exists to be relived in its fullness, not dipped into as a source of proof texts for moral and theological generalizations. (Ryken, quoting John Drury, Preach the Word, 43)

A couple of comments from me:

I agree with the general thrust of this, particularly what is affirmed. I fully agree with Ryken’s qualified version of the Drury quote – a story cannot be “adequately treated” at the level of theological abstraction.  However, this is not to say that there is no place for theological abstraction in the preaching of stories.  Listeners should know they are hearing a narrative preached, rather than a theological treatise.  In fact, discerning listeners should, over time, recognize that very little in the Bible is best described as theological treatise – most of the Bible is highly “occasional” in nature, but still highly relevant to our “occasion” or situation.  Certainly, let’s not treat any Bible passage as a source of proof texts!

I would slightly disagree with what is denied. Listeners listening to a narrative explicated will either consciously or sub-consciously be looking for both unity and relevance in the message.  This puts the onus on us as preachers to make sure the main idea is identified and relevance is emphasized.  This is not about abstracting from a narrative to create some sort of literary-less set of propositions.  It is about making sure people don’t simply hear a story and make of it what they will.  By working toward a statement of the main idea in a narrative, we are forced to study and seek to understand not only the content, but also the intent of the author.  For a story is certainly a story, but Bible writers didn’t waste papyrus on entertainment alone, they were also theologians seeking to communicate about God by means of the highly effective literary form of story.

So let us preach texts in their fullness, let us make sure the stories we study are still stories when we preach, but let’s not think the hard work of defining the main idea is unnecessary with biblical narratives.

We Preach Literature – Part 2

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Yesterday I noted Leland Ryken’s comment that expository preaching “keeps its focus on the announced text instead of escaping from it to other material.”  Another feature of expository preaching, in his mind, is as follows:

2. “Expository preaching interacts with the chosen text in terms of the kind of writing that it is instead of immediately extracting a series of theological propositions from it.” – Again, amen.  Too much preaching treats every passage as a 2-D series of propositions, rather than appreciating and learning from the form the text is in.  The Bible writers didn’t send post-it notes to their recipients.  They thought carefully about the most effective way to form the message they wanted to communicate.  Sometimes they chose to send a discourse in the form of a letter.  Much more, they chose to write in some form of poetry.  Even more again, many chose to communicate by means of narrative forms.  Rather than focusing purely on the “what?” (content) of a text, we also need to wrestle with the “why?” (intent), both of which are influenced by the “how?” (form).  Our general hermeneutics must also take into account the special hermeneutics related to the literary form of the text we are preaching.

Notice that Ryken resists “immediately extracting a series of theological propositions” from a text.  This does not mean that literary analysis should lead to proposition-less, truth-free or vague-subjective comments about a Bible text.  Different forms of writing allow a writer to communicate something more effectively, but the writer was still communicating something.  To put it in simple terms, any Bible text is “someone saying something about something in some way to someone” (thanks to Gordon Fee for this insightful sentence!)  The “in some way” is critical and literary analysis recognizes the influence of that in order to grasp the “saying something about something” – which in other terms is the main idea of the passage.  The problem is not with finding the proposition of a passage, but “immediately” (rushing to that rather than really understanding the passage and its form), rushing to “theological propositions” (treating the Bible as a collection of proof texts for our personal systematic theology).

May we always be sensitive to the literary skill of the Bible writers, and thereby be more accurate and effective biblical preachers.

We Preach Literature

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I’m enjoying Preach the Word and will add a full review in due course, but I’ll share some highlights along the way.  This is the book of essays intended to honor Kent Hughes of College Chapel in Wheaton.  This morning I enjoyed a chapter by one of the editors, Leland Ryken, on the Bible as literature.  He urges preachers to learn from the field of literary analysis and not presume theologians have all the answers when it comes to accurately understanding the Bible.  Early on he notes the need for preachers to add even a “modicum of self-conscious literary analysis to their methodology” to improve the incipient literary criticism that all have to participate in during preparation.

Then he notes a couple of features of what constitutes expository preaching, in his opinion.  I offer you these two features for your thoughts and response.  This is not an attempt at an exhaustive definition, but two features of expository preaching:

1. “Expository preaching keeps its focus on the announced text instead of escaping from it to other material” – I wholeheartedly agree.  I have written before on the limited legitimate reasons to go elsewhere in the Bible in a message.  I would offer these three as legitimate excursions, rather than unhelpful escapes.  First, when the idea of the passage seems unbiblical, it is good to show that the truth is consistent with teaching elsewhere (perhaps a brief, fast-paced tour of key texts).  Second, when the passage being considered leans heavily on another passage, such as an Old Testament quote later in the Old Testament or in the New Testament (perhaps a meaningful, but not excessive day-trip to the text in question).  Third, when it is considered helpful and appropriate to trace out the thought of the passage, or see the fulfillment of the passage, later in the Bible (not any and every excuse to “get to Jesus,” but a purposeful advance after fully dealing with the preaching text, perhaps to aid in application for the listener today).

Unhelpful escapes to other passages include running to more familiar territory.  Or jumping texts based on familiar language.  Or perhaps seeking to be exhaustive on a theme in the text, thereby exhausting listeners rather than seeking to plumb the depths of the preaching passage itself.  Or even twisting the meaning of the text in order to get to some sort of contemporary spiritualized application of the gospel. Then there is the issue of “illustrating” the preaching text by means of another text (that then needs to be explained, potentially overwhelms the preaching text and certainly doesn’t help to land the application in listeners’ contemporary experience.)

I’ll save the second feature for tomorrow, but let’s be sure to think carefully before losing focus on our announced text!

It’s Not the Technique That Counts

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There are technically correct ways to write an outline for a message.  But more importantly, there is a point to having an outline.  Some people can do a perfect outline in form with every indent and numerical marker correct.  However, some people who can do a perfect outline, still don’t achieve what the outline is meant to achieve.  It is designed to reflect the shape of thought.  It’s purpose is to give a visual representation of the flow and shape of thought.  It is supposed to present visual ratios of spoken content, relative importance of message elements, etc.

If you have perfect outlining technique, great.  But make sure your outlines are helping you preach.  Ultimately it’s not what you have on paper that matters, but what is said in the message.  However, this does not mean we can dismiss outlining altogether.  If your technique is not perfect, but it accurately reflects what you plan to say, perhaps that is good enough.  If your technique is perfect, but somehow it doesn’t represent the message well, that is not good enough.  If your preaching is good, but you have no idea how to outline well, then it would be worth learning in order to augment the preaching.

There are many such supportive techniques associated with preaching.  It’s good to learn them well and it’s good to use them.  But it’s even better to make sure that our preaching is the best it can be, and not have a false confidence from skill in supportive techniques alone.