Stage 5 – Message Purpose

Ingredients of Delivery: Biblical Narratives

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When it comes to preaching a Bible story, many skills come into play.  I would like to mention a couple for your consideration.  In the next weeks many will be preaching story, even those who tend to stay rooted in the epistles.  So what is needed for effective delivery of a Bible story?  One thing is important to mention before we get to the delivery . . . when you are preaching a Bible story, tell the story!  Don’t just dissect it, label it, apply it, etc., but fail to tell it.  Stories are powerful, so let them loose on your listeners.  Here’s the first key skill, another is coming tomorrow:

Description – Good stories form in the imagination of the listener.  In the old days people would crowd around a crackling radio to catch the latest installment of a powerful story.  Ever since there were children, stories have been told to captivate, excite, scare and encourage.  In recent generations the visual media of television and film have overwhelmed the traditional theatrical presentation of story.  Either on the screen, or on the screen of the mind, a good story forms images, it can be “seen.”  When we preach we need to tell the story in such a way that people aren’t hearing information, but seeing the images.  Description is not easy, but it is worth working on.  Accurate description is important, but so too is sensory description – what it looked like, what the sounds were, the smells, the touch, the taste.  We need to grow in our awareness of and use of adjectives.  Not to show off obscure vocabulary, but to effectively describe so that the story can form for the listener.  When was the last time you read quality descriptive literature?  (And I don’t mean description of kenosis or intra-trinitarian relationality!)

To tell story well, we must describe well.  Practice in your conversations today, practice on your children, seek to develop this skill . . . your preaching will benefit every week!

Don’t Be Intimidated By Your Previous Sermon

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I’m not sure if this is a common experience or not, but I’ll mention it just in case.  One week you preach a sermon and it seems to work very well.  The next week you feel a pressure for this sermon to have the same elements as last time.  For instance, last week I was in a church and was asked to preach John 9 – blind man healed.  This week I am in a different church and need to preach the last episode in Mark 10 – blind Bartimeus healed.  Somehow I have felt an internal pressure to find similar sermon elements to last week.

The truth is that this message, whatever it is for you, is a unique passage and unique message.  We should not preach it under the shadow of a previous positive or negative experience.  We should look to preach it in all the simplicity and specific elements required of this text for this people on this occasion.

Whatever you did last week, make sure that this week you preach this week’s text.

The Preparation Process in Question Form

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Perhaps you have already thought it through in this way, or perhaps this will be helpful to you.  The eight stage preparation process can be stated in the form of questions:

1. Passage Selection – Which passage will you prepare to preach?

2. Passage Study – What does the passage say and mean?  (What is the content of the passage?)

3. Passage Purpose – Why was the passage written? (The intent of the passage.)

4. Passage Idea – What is the author saying about what he’s writing about?  What is the heart of the unit of thought?  What is the main point here?  (The goal is to write a one sentence statement succinctly and accurately.)

At the mid-point (not necessarily half-way through the preparation time), you begin to seriously consider to whom you will be preaching the passage.  Audience analysis is essentially answering the “who?” question in reference to the preaching event.

5. Message Purpose – Why do these people need to hear this passage?  Why will you stand and deliver this passage to them?

6. Message Idea – How can the idea of the passage be stated with an emphasis on the relevance to these particular listeners?  How can the idea be stated in a way that is succinct, clear, accurate and ideally, memorable?

7. Message Outline – How can the purpose of the message be achieved?  How can the idea of the message be delivered?  This is the point of deciding the form of the sermon, the preacher’s strategy.

8. Message Detail – How can each movement in the message be developed: explained, supported, applied?  How can the message be most effectively introduced?  How can the message be most effectively concluded?

Just a couple of observations on this:

Observation A – The idea of a passage must be informed by both content and intent, by both what and why.  Equally, the idea of the message must be influenced by the what of the passage, but also by the why of the message (ie.why preach this passage to these people?)  Too often the idea of a message is influenced by content, but not by a carefully considered purpose for the message.  (Even more “oftener” the idea is absent altgether, but that’s another issue!)

Observation B – The first four stages are all about probing and understanding the passage.  Most of the questions in the last four stages are “how?” questions.  The preparation of the message is largely a “how” issue – a matter of preaching strategy, creativity, deliberate clarity, etc.

Passage Precedes Message

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I just read a post on communication that related to content versus visuals in their relative importance.  The conclusion was that neither trumped the other, but in fact connection trumped them both.  In the more specific realm of biblical preaching, we have to give precedence to the content, but that does not mean we neglect all other aspects of effective communication.

A point made concerned the preparation of a presentation.  It is not good to start by sitting at the computer to plan the visuals.  It is much better to spend time in thought with pen and paper to determine the desired outcome and the best way to achieve it.  How true that is.  It is true for a business presentation, and it is true, with modification, for preaching as well.

How easy it is to slip into starting with illustrations, visuals, message details.  It is also easy to start with thinking about what we want to achieve and then go hunting for a text to utilize in that quest.  But really we should be starting away from the PC, Bible in hand and congregation in our prayers.  Good preaching preparation does logically follow the eight stages I advocate on this site, but this is not a formula.  Good preaching starts with a real soak in the text, out of which can spring the budding thoughts on how to preach that text, outline, illustrations, etc.

It is that initial soaking in the text (study, analysis of structure, content and intent, coalescing of the main idea, etc.) which is the critical first half of the bridge we are hoping to build to our listeners.  Too many preachers build backwards only to discover the bridge is weak on the Bible side and consequently, weak in authority, power, etc.

Presumed Knowledge

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There is an epidemic of biblical illiteracy.  This is not only true in the streets of our towns, but often in the pews of our churches.  It is easy for preachers to presume too much knowledge in our listeners.  We can assume that they know the names, places, themes of books and key points of theology.  But the reality is that an increasing number are more than foggy on the basics.

Here are a couple of suggestions, feel free to add more:

1. Teach the big picture story. Often in giving the context for a specific passage, we can locate it in the flow of the bigger story.  Sometimes we should consider preaching bigger pictures sermons – a whole book in one message, or the whole Bible in one message or two.

2. Don’t teach by illustration. Don’t presume that giving other biblical examples will reinforce the knowledge of your listeners.  The truth is that an increasingly biblically illiterate people will be confused and overwhelmed by many biblical illustrations that might have seemed effective a generation ago.  If the illustration requires too much explanation, then it detracts from the point of sharing it.  As Don Sunukjian teaches, once people understand a passage, they need contemporary application rather than ancient illustration.  If they don’t understand the preaching passage, don’t add another to the mix.  If they do, then don’t stay in the past, but earth the truth in the realities of their lives.

3. Scan your next sermon for presumed knowledge. Do you make passing reference to an Old Testament context for a quote in your passage that needs more explanation?  Do you identify the characters referred to so that people know who they are?  Do you make passing references to such things as incipient gnosticism, overrealized eschatology, or even justification?  Scan your next message to make sure no presumed knowledge slips in carelessly.  If we take care, it will help our listeners greatly.

Other thoughts on this?

Do We Preach a Distant God?

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Yesterday I made a passing reference to the fact that our God is not the deity of the deists.  That is to say that He didn’t wind things up and then sit back disinterested with His arms folded.  Before we start pointing the finger at famous deists like Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein or even Antony Flew, let’s check our preaching.  Is it possible that we inadvertently preach deism?

We are right to both study and present the author’s meaning in a passage.  The first stage of effective Bible study has to look at the inspired text “back then.”  Once we have understood the author’s idea in the passage, then we can consider how to legitimately apply that idea in our world today.  However, there is a potential danger in solid exegetical methodology.  The danger is that we present God’s work as “back then” but not “today.”  There is a real risk that we imply a God at work in the days of Moses, Matthew or the preacher to the Hebrews, but today we have only the reflected benefit of careful application.

The truth is that God is at work today.  He is as intimately concerned about each life as He ever has been.  Some err by emphasizing the direct revelation of God today to the neglect of His Word which He inspired long ago.  Likewise, some of us may err by emphasizing the act of inspiration long ago to the neglect of His present concern, sovereignty and involvement in the world today.  I appreciate Don Sunukjian’s shorthand definition of preaching for this particular reason.  He states that preaching is “Listen to what God is saying . . . to us!”  An absolute commitment to sound exegesis.  A clear commitment to a divine involvement in the act of preaching.

We must get both the “back then” and the “today” aspects of our preaching on target, otherwise we risk preaching a diminished deity.  An emphasis on “today” at the expense of “back then” leads to a subjectively defined experiential deity.  An emphasis on “back then” at the expense of “today” might lead to a distant deity.  God inspired the Word back then, and His Word still speaks with force today.  We preach an ancient text . . . relevantly.  Let’s beware that we neither preach an overly imminent experiential God, nor an excessively distant historical God.  Let’s be sure to preach the God who inspired the Bible, the God who still speaks through His Word today!

How Will You Touch the Heart?

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We have probably all heard people attempting to distinguish preaching from teaching, or even preaching from lecturing.  Typically there is some reference to preaching being more impassioned, touching the emotions, etc.  To be fair to the teaching and lecturing professions, the good ones know that to be effective they should do more than merely transmit information.  Nevertheless, today is Sunday, so let’s keep the focus on preaching.

When we preach we do not merely transmit information gleaned in our study time.  We speak from the heart – a heart touched by God’s Word, moved by God’s Spirit, a heart shaped by the personal experience of God working the passage truth into our lives.  We speak from the heart – the heart of God, for He did not inspire the canon to merely give us a repository of truth statements from which to inform ourselves.  We speak to the heart – the heart of listeners desperate for a word from God’s heart.  They may be interested in information, they may not.  But we speak to hurting hearts, empty hearts, longing hearts.  We speak to the hearts of people whose real need is probably not the need they feel and are distracted by, but whose real need can only be met by God Himself.

Preaching should be truthful, accurate, informed, solidly Scriptural, etc.  But it must do more than merely inform.  We preach as persuaders, influencers, spokespersons for the living God who is not a deistic disconnected deity, but a passionately concerned and involved holy lover of souls.  So today, what is the plan?  How will you preach not only from the head to the head, but from the heart and to the heart?

Apologetics for Homiletics – Part 3

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So the critical matter of the role of the Spirit raised issues concerning evaluation of past “fruit,” and more importantly, the dynamic tension between good stewardship and self-reliance.  Now another objection:

Doesn’t homiletics create a methodological strait jacket? People with years of experience in reading a passage, soaking in it and then coming up with something to say may resist a more “formulaic” approach.  After all, “soak then say” preaching methodology seems a lot more flexible than Haddon Robinson’s 10 stages, or Mead’s 8, or Ramesh Richard’s 7, or Bryan Chappell’s 14, etc.  Here are a couple of thoughts to consider:

1. Good methodology recognizes the natural progression from text to sermon, it does not impose a rigid process. When I teach homiletics I follow the order of the stages, but I regularly recognize that thoughts may come for any part of the process at any time.  Hence it is good to work on loose sheets of paper so insights and ideas can be noted in the appropriate place, before returning to the current stage in the progression.  While thoughts may come randomly at times, there is reason for the order.  One cannot and should not be forming the message before understanding the passage.  In the first four stages one cannot determine the passage idea before studying the passage’s content and intent (intent becoming evident primarily from content), etc.  In the last four stages, there has to be a message before there can truly be an introduction or conclusion, and the message structure cannot precede determination of the idea, etc.  The order is logical, not arbitrary, it recognizes the progression, it doesn’t impose restriction.

Again, there is more to say, but I will defer that to the next post.

Specific Aims

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As you head forward to preach today, are you clear on your aim?  A great main idea that is fired indiscrimately is not as good as a great main idea fired at a specific target.  Do you have a specific statement of sermon purpose?  Is it something you want listeners to do?  Is it something they should believe or know as a result of the message?  Is it something tangible?  Sometimes a sermon purpose will be in the area of belief rather than action, but how might that changed belief influence action this week?

Expository biblical preaching not only explains the meaning of the text, it also lands that text in the lives of listeners so that they can apply it.  Where do you aim to land the bridge today?

Making Words Clear

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Here in London you can visit the British Library and look at such priceless items as Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus.  While it is a privilege to see them, they are not the easiest things to read and understand.  Written in uncials, ITISNOTEASYTOREADTEXTWITHOUTGAPSORPUNCTUATION.  Never mind the fact that it is in Greek, just the running together of endless letters is tough enough.

Thankfully we don’t have to read Greek text written in uncials.  We are blessed to have the Bible very accurately translated into our language, with all the blessings of spaces between words, punctuation, etc.  They’ve even conveniently added in the widely recognized and accepted verse and chapter divisions.  They usually also add the equally uninspired and sometimes unhelpful section headings.  Nevertheless, with all this help, the text is still often perceived to be a block of writing with one word running into the next.

As we study a passage in order to understand it and then preach it, we start to recognize the structure of the thought.  Just this week I was in Ephesians 5:1-14.  Initially it feels like a whole series of almost random instructions and explanations.  Gradually the flow of thought becomes clearer.  Major thoughts stand out, supporting thoughts fall into place.  Typically in the epistles I will use some kind of clausal layout and/or exegetical outlining approach to see the flow of thought more clearly.

When we preach our task includes the need to make a string of words clear.  We don’t have to start with an uncial script, but to all intents and purposes, we practically are.  Listeners hearing a string of verses often grasp very little first time through.  As we preach we look for ways to emphasize the main thoughts, we look for ways to demonstrate how the “support material” in the text explains, proves and/or applies the main thoughts.  Without technical jargon, our preaching needs to verbally achieve the formation of something like a clausal layout in the minds and hearts of our listeners.  Certainly, by the time we are done preaching, they should not see the text as a string of random words or thoughts . . . it should be much clearer than that!