Bible Handling Mirror

July 19, 2011July 15, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Every preacher probably thinks their preaching is biblical. Even that really bad preacher that you once heard. Sadly, probably especially that really bad preacher that you once heard! To put it bluntly, we all have a tendency to be naive about our level of biblical accuracy. It is genuinely hard to know what you don’t know. There is never a guarantee that you will spot poor Bible handling in the mirror. So, what to do about it?

Well you can take courses from trustworthy instructors and see their feedback on your Bible handling. Or more immediately, you can ask someone who knows what they are talking about for feedback. (The only problem with this is that if you don’t what you don’t know, how do you know if they know . . . still, worth getting feedback, probably from multiple evaluators.) Some probing questions to ask them:

1. How diligently do I observe the text? Am I really careful to see exactly what it does say? Do I notice the key details? Do I represent what is actually said in the text precisely? To put it another way, am I diligent to preach this text and not jump from it to say what I want to say?

2. How effectively do I interpret the text in context? Am I obviously alert to, and influenced by, the context in which the passage sits? Do I seem to be genuinely familiar with the book as a whole? Do I show how the details of this passage make sense in light of the flow of the broader section in which it sits?

3. How familiar am I with the relevant historical and cultural background to the text? Am I preaching the text demonstrating a natural familiarity with the historical background, the cultural background, the geography, the “world” of the text? Or am I preaching the text at very long arms length with all the presuppositions of our individualistic, affluent, democratic, freedom obsessed culture firmly in place?

4. How alert am I to the author’s flow of thought? Does the sermon feel staccato and bitty, or do I show the flow of thought? Does it feel like separate thoughts bound together by a title, or does it feel coherent?

5. How accurately do I interpret the details in the text? The words, the names, the grammar, the dialogue, the details. Do I show a good level of precision when it comes to the analysis and close work in the text?

I’ll add another five tomorrow…

So What You Are Saying Is . . .

June 2, 2011May 10, 2011 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

So let’s say you are preaching on Ephesians 2:1-10. And you happen to see on Facebook that the Apostle Paul is preaching at an event not far from you on that very text, just two days before you are due to preach. Let’s assume he is not able to come and take your preaching engagement, but you can get to hear his.

After he preaches the passage, explaining his way through it, you decide to cut to the bottom line. You approach him afterwards and get to him before any of the others who line up behind you. “Thanks Paul, great to meet you, so you are saying, in Ephesians 2:1-10…” then you just decide to state your main idea of the passage to him, “that God saved us by grace, making us alive so that we can do good works?”

If Paul’s response might be, “uh, yes, sort of, but what I’m mostly saying is that it is all of God’s grace that he has made us who were dead, alive with Christ . . .” then you should change your message. If your main idea is not what he’d say his main idea was in the passage, then your main idea should change.

Remember, as a preacher your task is not to come up with your own message somehow based on a text. Your job is to re-present the message of that text, targeted to a new audience and situation, but remaining genuinely faithful to the intent of the author. Be nice to ask him in person, but let’s be sure to check our main idea against the text itself, and to do so more than once. Feel free to ask someone else too, not the author, but someone who will look at the text carefully and test your idea.

Is a Theme Sentence a Main Idea?

May 27, 2011May 10, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

It all depends what you mean. Some people use the notion of a theme sentence to refer to exactly the same thing as the main idea or big idea of the passage or message (the exegetical idea or homiletical idea in Robinson terms). Others mean something entirely less specific.

The main idea, or big idea, or theme and thrust, or proposition, or whatever you want to call it, should express both what the passage is about (the subject of the passage), and what it says about that (the complement of the passage).

When we have only the theme without the thrust, that is, the subject without completing it, then we may have a theme sentence of sorts, but really it is something significantly diminished. The theme without specificity is perhaps a title (though probably a weak one), but it is not the succinct, pregnant, clear, focused distillation of the details in the passage that is a main idea sentence.

If you have a theme sentence that is a couple of words long, and may not even be a sentence (i.e.a title lacking a verb or completion), then you do not have a sermon ready to expand into the time available. You have a title. You have a start. But to have the single sentence summary of the whole passage that is worth it’s weight in gold, be sure to complete the sentence, complete the thought. You’re preaching about God’s love? Great. What is the passage saying specifically about that?

Eight Ways To Dissipate the Impact of Your Message

May 10, 2011May 4, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The preaching of a Bible text should make an impact, its point should hit home. Yet as preachers there are times when we inadvertently dissipate the impact as we preach. Here are eight ways we sometimes provoke a dissipation situation:

1. By unnecessary multiple cross-references

There may be a need for taking listeners to other Bible passages, but often there is not. If it isn’t really helpful, then piling on references and quotes will only dissipate the impact of this particular text. Don’t steal time from this passage for only a passing reference to something else.

2. By only slightly connected examples

It is tempting to use related examples that may not be specifically related to what the passage is saying. So if the passage is speaking of gratitude toward God for salvation, this may or may not be an ideal moment to tell the “thank you” story you have from your encounter with the child next door, or whatever. Sometimes we see a term and jump to an example that is not really relevant to the specific nature of this text.

3. By unnecessary illustrations

It is tempting to think that we have to add interest to the Bible. Wrong motivation. The Bible is interesting and relevant, our task is to help people see how that is true. If an illustration of some kind will be helpful for explaining, or proving, or applying the passage, then use it. But piling on illustrations is not helpful as it can significantly dissipate the impact of the text itself.

4. By overpowering illustrations

Sometimes a story or image is simply overwhelming. It is powerful, it is effective, it is memorable, but perhaps it is better left out. Is your goal really to have people go away remembering the moving story of the little orphan boy and the sporting achievement, or the message of the passage? If it is too much, leave it out.

We’ll finish the list tomorrow, but please add any that come to mind…

Overemphasized Misrepresentation

May 6, 2011May 1, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Preaching is a balancing act. You are always in danger of overemphasizing some element in a text so that you misrepresent the whole. For example:

1. A theologically weighty word can send you up like a rocket. For example, I was working with a group of preachers looking at Ephesians 1:3-14. We observed features of the text, including the references to God and the relationships within the Trinity, we saw the amount of grace, love, lavished, blessing language. We saw all that God has done for us, in Him. But then we saw the word that might light the fuse and obliterate everything else – predestined! It would be so easy to take off and end up with a message bereft of intra-trinitarian relationality, stone cold and lacking in loving grace toward us, with some personal hobby horse message on predestination (in favour or against, depending on your position). Of course one should preach about predestination in the course of preaching this passage, but not to the exclusion of all else that is so richly interwoven!

2. A seemingly misplaced verse can take over the passage. For example, we were looking at Ephesians 2:1-10. Verse 10 is intriguing. Should it be seen as part of what Paul is saying in 8-9, or does it stand alone? Various groups processed the passage in different ways. Those that included 10 with 8-9 seemed to recognize it as a sub-point (i.e. after affirming that we are not saved by works, Paul does cover himself in case any miss his point and neglect good works altogether, but the focus is on God’s saving grace). Those that separated out verse 10 seemed to end up seeing the whole passage as culminating in the good works of believers, the goal of all that God did in our salvation. In one approach the verse was a passing, albeit important sub-point. In the other approach, it became the goal of all. I’m not affirming one or either of these here, I’m just making the point that how we see a verse working with those around it will determine our understanding and explanation of the whole.

3. A vivid image in a text can overwhelm the whole. So there’s a term in your passage that is particularly vivid and preaches so well in terms of visual imagery. Be careful that it doesn’t take over the message and end up becoming the dominant motif for the whole passage, when in reality it is a small part of a much bigger whole.

Understanding a passage is so much more than simply checking what words mean in a biblical dictionary and breaking the passage down into sections. The whole issue of relative weight and flow of thought is a massively important element in studying a biblical passage.

Control Checkpoints

May 5, 2011May 3, 2011 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

During the sermon preparation process there are several control checkpoints. These are points at which we get to check the text yet again and make sure our grasp of the text is accurate. Here are some of them:

1. Writing the summaries of the sections within the passage.

When you force yourself to distill the details in a section of the text into a single complete sentence, it forces you to check that your summary is actually reflecting the details in the text.

2. Distilling all the study into a summary of the whole passage.

When you force yourself to distill the details of the whole text into a single complete sentence, it forces you to check that your summary is reflecting the important content discovered in the outlining of the passage structure. Are the key details showing in your summary? (Your statement of the passage idea)

3. Checking the commentaries

Once you have thoroughly studied the passage for yourself, it is good to check with a learned conversation partner or two. If I’m preaching Romans I’d like to interact with Doug Moo, Tom Schreiner, brother Cranfield. If I’m studying Hebrews I’d like to interact with George Guthrie, Paul Ellingworth, Craig Koester, etc. That’s why commentaries exist.

4. Testing the sermon idea

When I start planning the message and shape the main idea of the text into the main idea of the message, then I need to test that I’ve built the bridge effectively. Part of that includes a look back toward the text to see if the message idea still reflects the uniqueness of the text. I sometimes talk about the Bible Expert test. That is, if I phoned someone who really knew their Bible, and quoted my message idea, would they be able to identify the passage based on my message idea? If not, maybe my message idea has grown too generic and lost the specificity needed to really preach this passage.

5. Listening to the message pre-preached

Sometimes it is not until you stand and preach through the message that you hear with your own ears that it actually doesn’t convey the meaning of the text effectively. That is why it is better to preach it through ahead of preaching it publically (better to discover a weakness before Sunday morning).

Preacher’s Log – 2

May 4, 2011May 1, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Following on from yesterday’s post . . . Sunday is getting ever nearer!

Tuesday to Thursday before – I am busy all day each day with Cor Deo training, so don’t have time for sermon preparation, but am chewing over the passages and their implications during spare moments, praying for Sunday’s messages to go well. I’m also pondering again the people to whom I’ll be preaching these passages, wanting God’s best for this church.

Friday before – Key preparation day. I work on outline of the text, main idea of the text, and prepare to form the main idea and outline/strategy of the sermons. I check a couple of commentaries. Actually, three. I check RT France’s NIGTC commentary, particularly to interact with some key sections of Greek exegesis (I simply haven’t had time to work through the whole section of Mark in Greek, but I do check a few key verses and decide whether I want to change anything based on his input). I check Rikki Watts’ focused presentation of Mark’s reliance on Isaiah’s “new exodus” motif (this was massively helpful in some sections of Mark, less so in others). I check Donald English’s very accessible BST (very good on seeing the big questions of Mark and the larger flow of the text).

Prayerfully thinking about the people to whom I am preaching on Sunday, I think through my strategy (outline) and message idea for Sunday’s messages. I would have liked to get to the details of how I will explain, any illustrative/applicational elements, but have run out of time.

Saturday morning – I have an hour and so can try to catch up a bit and think through the details of the messages. Actually, Sunday morning’s message comes first and so gets the attention.

Saturday evening – I don’t have time during the day (family are important ministry too), but in the evening I take some time and preach through Sunday morning’s message. Couple of things need to change, so I make a couple of notes, then head to bed (better to have slept than to have worked through the night striving for a better message!)

Sunday morning early – I pray and preach through the morning message. It is very hard to think about the evening message with the morning one looming.

Sunday afternoon – I take a couple of hours to look at my notes for the evening message on Mark 10, and then preach it through. Couple of tweaks, but time runs out.

Message is preached.

Monday after the message – I listen through both messages as I prepare the files to put them online. This is a chance to evaluate and also to be thankful to God for His help. I think back on the feedback received and process that before the Lord in prayer.

I was very happy with the Mark 10 message. Wasn’t perfect, they never are, but I am thankful for how that went.

Not Too Good, Just Good Enough

March 23, 2011March 23, 2011 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Here’s a quote from David Gordon’s chapter on the state of preaching in Why Johnny Can’t Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers. I reviewed the book on Monday and recommend it as a quick but insightful read. Anyway, here’s the quote:

[People distort my concern with] “Ah, David, you’re right; ours is not a day of great preaching.” This is not my concern. . . . I don’t care about its presence or absence one whit. What I care about is the average Christian family in the average pew in the average church on the average Sunday. And the problem there is not that we don’t have “great” preachers; in many circumstances we don’t even have mediocre preachers. If Jesus tests Peter’s profession of love by the ministerial act of feeding his sheep, our sheep do not need gourmet meals. But they do need good, solid nourishment, and they are not ordinarily getting it. (pp14-15)

I agree. Now let me put this positively. I tend to teach people, particularly in respect to the main idea of their sermons, that the goal isn’t stunning or great. The goal is just good, faithful and clear. We read super-ideas in some preaching books. These stunning, out of the park, hit it for six, idea-of-the-year, super-main-ideas tend to be the very best the author has ever preached. We can’t live up to some of these pithy, witty, clever, assonated, succinct and memorable main ideas. We may never achieve a single one good enough to be published. But the thing is this – if we will just preach consistently biblical, faithful, plain, clear, just decent main ideas that are derived carefully from the text and targeted prayerfully toward the hearts of the people . . . just a steady diet of good main ideas will transform our churches.

Get the Idea? – Part 2

December 29, 2010December 30, 2010 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

This is the middle post in a series of three on Big Idea preaching. Specifically, I’ve been struck by how many people recommend Haddon Robinson’s book, yet seem to not have grasped what it teaches. I understand that they are impressed by the well written chapters dealing with various elements of sermon preparation and delivery (I was impressed first time through), but the powerful notion of the Big Idea is not instantly grasped (took me a while!) So yesterday we thought about The Big Idea being about communication. But more than that . . .

Continue reading →

Behold My New Phone

November 25, 2010November 25, 2010 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I’d like to revisit the theme of the last two posts from another angle. Perhaps an analogy might help. Sitting across from a friend in Pizza Hut, I decide to “preach” my new mobile phone to him.

I place it on the table and say what it says on it. “Samsung.” Then I describe it a bit, sharing a bit of the knowledge I’ve gleaned in my research. “It’s a Samsung Galaxy S. Free with most usage contracts. It runs Android 2.1 currently, and it’s mostly black.”

Then I construct a message based on the phone. “You see the N in Samsung? This makes me think of the iPhone, because that has an N in it too. The iPhone is very popular now and the new operating system has really improved on the old 3GS, even with all the controversy over the signal dropping. Now for my next point, do you see the two S’s in the name? This makes me want to talk about Sony Vaio laptops – they really have come down in price lately, not as elite as they used to appear in the market.”

I could go in any number of directions with “my message” based on the Samsung sitting in front of me. I could talk about mobile phones, or technology, or communication, or any subject of my choice. If I could make enough connections to the phone, my friend might even think I was clever!

But all the while my Samsung phone is sitting there, black, dormant, inactive, unused, undemonstrated. The focus is on my cleverness in message construction, technology association and sheer verbosity.

How different it would be if I would pick it up, turn it on, and show my friend the phone in action, let him see the resolution, experience the new text input method, enjoy an app or two. Suddenly I’m not preaching my message based on the surface details of the phone. Now I’m preaching the phone!

The same is true of preaching a Bible text. Some of us are happy to have the text sit open in front of us while we construct our message based on the text. We make the most random associations in order to preach from the Bible book we would have preferred to be preaching from. We jump off relatively incidental details (at least in the way we use them) to get to the message we are itching to share.

All the while the text sits there. Inspired dynamite ready to be detonated in the hearts and lives of listeners, lying dormant while we wax on eloquently with our message based on the text, sort of. Can I be so bold as to summarize my point in three words? Preach the text!