Stage 2 – Passage Study

Discourse: The Danger of Spiritualization

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

We’ve noted that there are discourse passages in almost every section of Scripture – history, wisdom, prophet, gospel, etc.  Awareness of the broader plot within which discourse is placed is helpful both in understanding the passage meaning and purpose, and also for preaching the passage with contextual understanding and tension.

So if we decide to preach a discourse in a typical analytical manner – for instance a deductive sermon – what should we be wary of?  Be wary of direct transference of relevance to a different audience.  Joshua 1 does not give direct promises to contemporary readers that wherever we place our feet, we can claim for God.  Equally it does not mandate military action on our part.  Yet the passage yields much that can be so relevant to us.

Be careful to work through the process of exegetical analysis (in that context), drawing out the abiding theological implications (in any context), and recontextualizing the principles (in this context).  Be careful not to then re-attach original phrasing in a careless manner that might imply direct transference of details by a spiritualization process (i.e. let it show that you are not simply reading the text and then telling people to “claim land” as God instructs us to “march” over what we should “conquer”).  By showing some process in our preaching, we can protect our people from bad practice in their own Bible study.  By showing awareness of audience (original and contemporary) and passage purpose (original and preached), we guard our people from inappropriate application.

When Discourse Sits in Narrative

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Discourse text often sits within a narrative.  Consider the teaching sections of the Gospels, how a Jesus sermon is set in the context of the story of His ministry or passion.  Consider the speeches in Acts as they move the story forward time and again.  Consider the direct communication of God to Joshua at the key transition point in Israel’s leadership, or the direct communication of the prophets as they address a specific issue at a specific point in Israel’s history.  Whatever form the book may take generally, these specific instances are essentially discourse Scripture.

When a discourse text sits in the midst of a broader narrative, what do we do?  We should analyze the broader plot to see the function of the discourse within it.  The narrative plot then serves as context for the details of the discourse.  Of course we could choose to preach the text in some kind of narrative form, but equally we can choose to keep that plot-work at the level of context and purpose analysis.  A discourse type text can yield clear and effective outlines through careful analysis.  By giving time in our study to the plot within which the discourse sits, we can add tension and interest to the preaching of the discourse.

This applies to epistles too, incidentally.  Just because an epistle may consist entirely of discourse, we should not lose sight of the broader narrative of history in which it sits.  An epistle is a point in time, a point on the plot line of the story of that particular church or individual.  At a key juncture in the story of the church at Rome, or in Colossae, Paul wrote to them.  We have his discourse, but we can also trace the tension of the church’s history to that point, and be left with the tension of how they would respond to his instruction in the letter.  Awareness of the broader narrative can always add tension and interest to the preaching of a discourse.

Discourse usually sits within a broader narrative framework.  Awareness of that helps our interpretation of the passage. It can also help our preaching by adding more life to the living words!

Discourse is Not Just Epistles

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

When I teach preaching courses, I tend to refer to the three types of Scripture: discourse, narrative and poetry. The various genre fit within these categories and so they give a good overview of different Biblical text types. So the principles of narrative interpretation would apply in the Gospels, Acts, historical books and so on. The principles of poetry would apply in Psalms, of course, but also other wisdom literature and poems found in historical books (eg.Exodus 15). The principles of discourse interpretation naturally work in the epistles, but that is not the only place we find discourse.

As direct communication, discourse is often the easiest type of passage to interpret, and it is usually one of the easier ones to preach. While narrative and poetry have real advantages for sermon formulation (for instance we could mention tension and imagery respectively), discourse tends to be direct instruction. With a sensitivity to the original context and audience, appropriate progression through exegetical, theological and recontextualization stages of sermon preparation, the preacher is able to formulate an attractive preaching plan for the text.

Other New Testament Discourse – Obviously the Epistles tend to be the preacher’s favorite in the Bible churches of the western world. But consider the other discourse possibilities in the New Testament. In each of the Gospels we have recorded speeches by Jesus – direct instructional communication. His Sermon on the Mount, or Olivet Discourse, or instructions to the seventy-two, etc., can all make for great preaching. Then in the book of Acts we have the speeches of Peter on Pentecost, Stephen on his promotion day, Paul in Athens and so on. In Acts it seems that the speeches do not supplement the action, but actually are the action, moving the broader narrative forward time and again.

Old Testament Disourse – Consider Joshua 1, for instance. God’s instructions to Joshua at that key moment of transition. It is part of history, part of a broad narrative, but actually those first nine verses are not a plot to trace, they are a discourse. Then you’ll find discourse in the wisdom literature, such as Job and Ecclesiastes, but arguably in poetic form throughout.  Likewise many of the oracles in the prophets bear features of discourse-driven communication, along with poetic structuring.

As preachers we may easily fall into the trap of thinking anything outside the epistles will be either narrative or poetry. This is not true, and tomorrow we’ll consider what this means in our preparation.

Getting to Grips with the Genres: Poetry (1)

/ Mike Roth / Leave a comment

Poetry is different from narrative and it is very different from discourse. How though is our preaching of poetry different from our preaching of narrative and discourse? To answer this question, today we will consider how poetry works and functions. Then tomorrow we’ll consider some implications for preaching poetry.

How Poetry Works – Besides employing literary devices such as imagery, metaphor, allegory, simile, wordplay, irony, hyperbole, etc., the prevalent literary device in Hebrew poetry is parallelism. There are many ways to describe parallelism. One common way is to discern between four kinds of parallelism – antithetical parallelism, synonymous parallelism, synthetic parallelism, and emblematic parallelism. In antithetical parallelism, the first line of a sentence is in contrast to the second line (Ps 34:19). In synonymous parallelism, the first line of a sentence is similar to the second line (Ps 49:3). In synthetic parallelism, the second line of a sentence builds upon the idea of the first line (Ps. 49:5). In emblematic parallelism, the two parts of a sentence connect through simile or metaphor (Ps 49:20).

How Poetry Functions – Parallelism insists that the reader slow down, mull over, and consider how each sentence functions. More than that, because each sentence is laced with metaphor, allegory, simile, wordplay, irony, hyperbole, etc., poetry insists that its content be felt. Rhetorically, poetry connects affect to ideas.

Blessings and Responsibilities

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

We live in a time of unique blessings.  We have unmatched access to information on the internet.  We have more commentaries and Bible study resources than ever before (even online materials).  We have visual media unknown to previous generations.

I don’t think the best way to handle these changes is by ignoring them.  It may sound very pious to lock yourself in a study with just the Bible (especially an old translation), and live out a monastic sermon preparation process.  I think we should be grateful for whatever extra tools God has allowed us to access.  But with the blessing comes responsibility.

We may be able to do instant concordance searches and access lexical information at the touch of a mouse button.  So what do we do with the extra time no longer spent flicking through chunky tomes of fine print?  If the fruit of quicker access to information is cheaper exegesis, then the church will be all the poorer for these advances in technology. Let’s try to take the time our predecessors had to spend in page turning in prayerful interaction with the text and the sermon preparation process.

We are blessed by the visual media available to us.  When the Passion of the Christ was in the cinema I saw it with a group of men from our church.  Then I was preaching on the crucifixion and so went back to see it again, on my own.  It was very moving to watch through it again as part of my preparation.  Since many people were watching it, I wanted to make sure my sermon wouldn’t differ confusingly from the film.  But also, and more importantly, I had to make sure I preached the inspired text rather than Mel Gibson’s screenplay.  It was certainly a blessing to see.  Something previous generations never had.  But it added a responsibility, I had to check the passion narratives more.

We live in an age of many blessings, but we must not forget that with blessing there is usually responsibility too.

Preaching Easter (Pt4): Resurrection Implications

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

NT Wright made an interesting comment this week. He suggested that the New Testament presents many implications that come from the resurrection. However, the one that most preachers tend to emphasize is not really presented in the New Testament. Namely, “Because Jesus rose from the dead, we can go to heaven when we die.” I mention this not to affirm the comment, but to prompt our thinking and Bible study.

Before preaching the resurrection this Sunday, check your text for the implications that are present. For instance, in 1st Corinthians 15 we read that His resurrection gives us hope of our own (v16-20), the fear of death is removed (v26, 54-57), there are ethical implications (v32-34), motivation for ministry (v58), and even prompting to practical help for the poor (16:1, note Galatians 2:7-10).

Let’s preach the truth of the resurrection, let’s even allow our excitement to show, but let’s also try to be specifically clear in presenting the implications. It is easy in our excitement about the event to fall short in our relevance and application. Truly, everything is changed because Jesus rose from the dead. Part of our task is to help people see how that is true.

Preaching Easter (Pt3): Harmonization and the Gospels

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Whenever we preach from the gospels we need to be aware that there may be up to four accounts of the story before us. In the past a great deal of emphasis was placed on harmonizing the gospel accounts. That is to say, placing all four side by side and seeking to combine them in order to have the “full” story. There is certainly a place for this practice, but how much of this should we concern ourselves with as preachers?

There are many elements in the Gospels that only appear in one gospel. In this case the issue of harmonization is largely irrelevant. But then there are events found in all of the gospels. The passion narrative, obviously, is found in all four.

Check all four gospels for accuracy in your preaching. If you are preaching from, say, Luke’s account, then it is helpful to check the other three. You wouldn’t want to undermine your preaching by telling the story in such a way that you make errors because you forgot to check the other gospels.

Preach the text rather than the event. Having checked the other gospels to make sure you are not presenting an error in your sermon, be sure to actually preach Luke’s account (or whichever you have as your preaching text). The gospel writers did not simply recount a transcript of a video taken the first Easter. They selectively chose the details to include in order to write an historically accurate theological presentation. Seek to preach the emphasis of the text you are in.

Saying the Text’s Something

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

You have a text, maybe more, but certainly one.  You study it.  You determine what it’s purpose was and the author’s idea.  Then you consider your congregation and the purpose of preaching the sermon.  You shape the idea, then the sermon and preach.  Simple really.  But there are some traps we easily fall into.  Here are a couple to consider:

Don’t Overqualify.  Often the text will be saying something quite strong.  We want to make sure we’re not misunderstood or somehow imbalanced, so we qualify it.  This text says this.  But don’t forget that other text that says that, and the other that says something else.  Before we know it, we’ve overqualified the message and the force of the sermon has been dissipated like replacing a bullet with two dozen marshmallows.  There are times when we must communicate careful balancing of a potentially misunderstandable idea.  Generally though, don’t overqualify a message and end up saying nothing.  A lot of balancing can come through future preaching of other texts.

Don’t Overteach.  It’s easy to cram a perfectly good message with extra information that would be best suited in perfectly good other messages.  Either we can try to dump every scrap of exegetical inquiry into the message, or we can cram too many ideas into a one-idea time slot.  “Seven great lessons from the book of whatever” would generally be more effective as seven separate sermons.  Once the ideas start to pile up, people will either synthesize the message in their own way (over which you have no real influence), or they will take one “nugget” and ignore the rest (and that nugget may be a merely anecdotal illustration), or they will simply take away nothing.  Generally speaking, don’t overteach in a message so that in saying lots, people actually take home little to nothing.

Don’t try to say everything.  Don’t try to say lots of things.  Don’t risk the people getting nothing.  Say something.  Say the something the text pushes you towards.  Say the text’s something and try to say it well.

A Life’s Work

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

As preachers we have the privilege of intensive Bible study. Most believers have the privilege of Bible study, but few have the added pressure of having to communicate it to others. However, it is easy to fall into the trap of simply meeting the next deadline and preparing the next sermon. This way of functioning can easily get us trapped in a “micro” approach to God’s Word. Instead, I’d like to encourage us all to be “macro” students of the Word.

Bible study requires both micro and macro views. My first professor of hermeneutics used to refer to the analysis-synthesis interchange. This speaks of the moving back and forth between analyzing the details and synthesizing the passage as a whole in its larger context. Details, like words, can only be truly understood in their context or setting.

Three things push us toward micro Bible study. The first thing is preaching itself. We tend to need details that “will preach” in order to make the sermon sound biblical and interesting. The second thing is personal preference. Some of us are more micro-inclined, while apparently fewer are more macro-inclined. Third, Bible school training has traditionally given more micro tools and approaches, leaving many students unsure how to pursue “bigger picture” study.

We need to master the Book, book by book. As we study a book in order to preach it (or for personal growth – imagine!), let’s try to be aware of the whole. How does the argument flow throughout, how do the pieces fit together? Keep a document that is all about the big picture of the book. As one writer puts it, “Begin to build up a living understanding of Colossians, or of Genesis, or of Mark’s Gospel – whatever – as a whole. Make it your life’s work, and take your time. Let yourself enjoy it.”

I agree. We can never truly master the Book, but let’s spend our lives trying, book-by-book.

Not Commentaries, But Within Reach

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

One of my preaching instructors at seminary once mentioned a handful of books that he keeps within easy reach of his desk for sermon preparation.  I’ve done the same ever since and find myself referring to them often.

To preach the text effectively we have to do more than dissect the text and preach the parts.  We have to be concerned with understanding the flow of thought, the literary artistry, the implications of the genre and form, etc.  So when I’m preparing to preach a text, I tend to use the Scripture index to find if it is addressed in books like these:

Words of Delight: A Literary Introduction to the Bible by Leland Ryken is a very helpful book – perhaps just a paragraph or two, but often those thoughts are very helpful.  The Art of Biblical Narrative by Robert Alter – a classic that should be required reading for us all.  It covers less biblical texts, but its great when the text is in there!  Reading Biblical Narrative or Poetry, both by JP Fokkelman is worth a look too.  As is The Literary Structure of the Old Testament by David Dorsey.

There are others, but I’ll leave it there.  These are not atomistic commentaries, but rather literary guides.  Do you have a shelf like this close at hand?  What is on it?