Authority and Clarity

April 24, 2012April 23, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

Two sibling doctrines. One gets all the attention. The other goes unmentioned. Actually, one is the darling of preachers. The other might well think we are out to get it.

Authority and clarity.

These two doctrines matter. Authority speaks of whose Word the Bible is. It speaks of how His Word got to us. It speaks of why we must hear it and apply it.

Clarity speaks of whose Word the Bible is. It speaks of how well His Word got to us. It speaks of how we can grasp it and apply it.

Some speakers overtly present the process by which the Bible got into our hands: how God was involved in revelation, inspiration, transmission, canonization and even in translation. Other speakers don’t get into specifics, but they keep on affirming that this is the Word of God.

Few speakers overtly present the clarity of Scripture: how God has communicated so well that His great book is able to be understood through diligent observation and interpretation, with prayerful reliance on His Spirit for illumination. Many speakers don’t get into clarity at all, if anything, they keep on giving the impression that God’s Word is out of reach to the average person.

That is the issue. While authority gets regular affirmation in the church, clarity is not only oft-ignored, but also oft-undermined. How so?

How easy it is to give the impression that people need the preacher in order to make sense of the Scriptures. How easy to undermine the listeners’ confidence that they have the necessary competence for reading and understanding the Bible.

I’m sorry to suggest this, but we need to ponder this issue: too many of us undermine the confidence of our listeners to take up and read. Tolle lege, if you will. Uh, I just demonstrated one way to do it…there’s nothing like an ancient language quotation to make normal people feel inadequate. But I didn’t mean that. Exactly. That’s how it happens.

Here’s the bottom line for today. The clarity of Scripture and our preaching. It is not about whether our sermons are clear or not (let’s hope they are). The issue is whether our listeners perceive themselves to be competent to pick up their Bibles and read.

That is a big part of our task. That is why I think Clarity deserves a break.

Saturday Short Thought: Reinforcing Every Time

April 21, 2012April 21, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

This week I have been pondering how to preach with a more developed set of motivational tools than just the pressure of guilt. I’m convinced this is an important issue, and not just a homiletical detail. It gets to the heart of our faith.

Is Christianity really and primarily about our responsibility to function in our own strength? Is Christianity about how, thanks to Christ, I can now become a good person? Is Christianity about creating good independent citizens, or is there the hiss of Genesis 3 in this version of the faith?

What if Christianity is much more about our response to Christ and His work in our lives? What if Christianity is about transformation from the inside out, born of a family relationship that changes our hearts and consequently, our behaviour? What if Christianity is not at all about independence, but dependence and inter-dependence?

The tension of duty versus delight is present in every sermon. Do I pressure people to perform, or do I offer the vision of Him who transforms?

Responsibility preaching throttles the life out of the gospel. Response preaching offers true life. Our preaching subtly reinforces one view of the gospel or the other, every time.

Don’t Burn Up Your Creativity Too Soon

April 20, 2012April 19, 2012 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Preaching is both art and science. It involves a certain amount of creative artistry. But most of us have a limited tank of energy when it comes to creative flair. Don’t waste it.

Don’t waste your creative energies when you are studying the passage. This is the time for your adventurous explorer energy to come out as you travel in foreign, ancient and sometimes dangerous lands. This is where you need the determination of an archeologist, digging into the historical documentation of the text. This is where you live out your suppressed inner-detective, following clues, asking probing questions, persisting until you get to the truth.

Passage study is not the time for creativity, it is the time for persistence, for diligence, for probing, inquiring, questioning, for travel through time, for cultural encounters of the ancient kind, for passionate prayer that God will do a work in you as you work in His Word.

Creativity in the passage study phase of your preparation may lead you astray. Even though some in your congregation may marvel at your creative new interpretations of Bible texts, what they actually need is the true interpretation of the text. If you are the first to come up with something in a passage, maybe its time for alarm bells to ring, rather than a time for celebration.

Save your creative energies for the message formation phase of the process. This is where many a preacher has collapsed, fatigued from their creative expending of energy in the interpretation phase, desperate to pull a message together from the study notes in time for Sunday morning. What tends to follow is a re-hash of the same old sermon form, shape, structure and strategy. It feels tired, and what’s worse, the content isn’t great either because of energies expended on “new” interpretation!

As you collapse into your favourite armchair after the adventure of studying, digging, travelling, interrogating and praying your way through the text, you will be both tired and thrilled at the journey you’ve been on. Tired because it is hard work to exegete well, but thrilled because of the God who has travelled with you, revealed Himself to you, and worked already in you.

And a change is as good as a rest, so as you sit back in your armchair before the fire let your prayers and thoughts meander through the possibilities available as you plot your message strategy. Pray for the people, consider the possibilities, get creative. You’ve got a message worth preaching from the text, now’s the time to pour out your energy into making it a sermon worth hearing. Be a shame to waste that energy too soon!

Beyond Guilt – Part 4

April 19, 2012April 19, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Some preachers rely exclusively on the pressure tactic of guilt in their preaching. Surely there must be a more biblically rounded approach? This week I’ve suggested we need to consider our stance, our tone and yesterday, our strategy. Let me offer the fourth factor today:

4. The Preacher’s Vision. Essentially, when we boil it down, what are we offering when we preach? Ok, the message of the text. So there will be an individuality to each message since every text is unique. But what does the Bible offer – even allowing for each text to be its own unique entity in the tapestry of the whole?

If you think the Bible offers instructions for living, your preaching will reflect that. If you think the Bible offers engaging ancient stories with helpful morals, then your preaching will reflect that. But if you think the Bible offers a vision of the heart and character and grace and personality of God, then your preaching will reflect that.

To put this another way, what is the good news offered in the Word? Is it the good news of a way in which a sinful humanity can now be empowered to live a more righteous life – that is, a gospel that somehow misses God out? Or is it the good news of who God is, offering a sinful humanity the privilege of relationship with Him who to know is life, and who to know will transform a life?

I wish this were so obvious that I didn’t see the need to write the post, but I have heard sermons where God is essentially, or even actually, omitted and absent. These are the kind of messages I might see as party political speeches, or “if only people would be good society would be better” messages, etc. There are many types of speeches in the world today, but the ones where God is at most a bit-part player are not the kind of speeches we need in the church.

If the vision captivating the preacher’s heart is the Law, then the message will likely be a guilt focused message. If the vision captivating the preacher’s heart is the grace and love of a loving God, then the message is likely to be more compelling, more transformative. After all, the gospel involves the transformation of lives from the inside out, not by the pressure of responsibility, but by the attractive invitation to respond to the goodness of our so very good God.

The vision captivating you will show in your preaching, and if it is the vision of the God who reveals Himself throughout His Word, then I suspect you will offer that same vision in your preaching – a vision that alone can truly transform lives.

Beyond Guilt – Part 3

April 18, 2012April 18, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

So far we have looked at issues of stance and tone in this series. It is easy to have a minimalist default approach of piling on the pressure and using guilt to twist arms. The biblical preacher needs to get beyond that.

3. The Preacher’s Strategy. Let’s face the real issue head on. What is our strategy in preaching? If the goal is life transformation, then what strategy makes sense? It certainly can’t be a simplistic answer since the human is a complex creature. But here are some pointers on strategy issues.

Transformation involves movement from a negative to a positive. Preaching for that transformation cannot simply critique the negative. We need to help people see what life would look like if the biblical truth were to take hold. Simply making people feel bad is not a solution.

Often people simply cannot conceive of what a faith-filled Christ-like in-step-with-the-Spirit life would look like in terms of a specific issue. In one sense then we have some role as life coaches. But it is more than that.

Transformation involves motivation for applying the message of God’s Word. Preaching for that transformation cannot simply inform, or even pressure, it needs to motivate. We need to understand how people work at the deepest level. If we think that information plus pressure will generate good things then we have been significantly led away from the teaching of the Bible by the thinking of this world.

What is the root issue Paul points to in Ephesians 4:17ff? People act and behave a certain way because of their thinking – so we need to educate! Hang on, yes we do, but he goes further, there’s a deeper issue…the root issue is the hardness of heart. Somehow the heart influences even how the mind will process information. Christian transformation is not really about well-informed minds and well-disciplined wills. It is an issue of the heart, inside to out, a matter of response as opposed to responsibility.

Transformation involves response to more than a vision of better living. It is not about realizing innate potential, but about responding from the core to a compelling love that alone can truly transform a life.

So our strategy includes presentation of application rather than just declaration of guilt. Our strategy includes communicating with people as if they are heart-driven beings and not just informed decision makers. But the ultimate issue has to be the One to whom people should respond, which I’ll leave until tomorrow’s post.

Beyond Guilt – Part 2

April 17, 2012April 17, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

This week I am pondering how to preach with a more nuanced approach than mere guilt pressure. As I’ve written already, there is a place for genuine conviction of sin, and I am not hiding from that. But equally, I am not just hiding in that, nor avoiding the danger hiding in a non-nuanced guilt approach.

How can we hide in a guilt approach? I suspect some see no other way to help lives change than to pile on the pressure. Every passage is turned into a guilt trip. Doesn’t matter what tone the passage takes, the message will have been filtered into a guilt and pressure tone.

And what danger is hiding in such an approach? There is an implicit danger with guilt focused messages. I say you should feel guilty. If I convince you, then you feel that you must change. Guilt alone will not drive people to God. It will drive them to despair or to efforts of the flesh. Neither result is good. Guilt has to come in a package with hope, with grace, with access to life transformation that has to come from God, not from self.

So, yesterday we looked at the issue of stance. Here’s another element, perhaps an obvious one, but still important nonetheless.

2. The Preacher’s Tone. Too many people think too simplistically. As if communication is about information transfer. But the truth is that communication involves a complex of signals, some of which can override others. So my body language can contradict, and overwhelm my words. So too can my vocal presentation. Voice and body language combine in regards to the tone of my communication.

If my tone is close to that of an angry prophet, that will override the most gracious of poetic content. If my tone is akin to that of a Victorian school master, then my words, my message, will take on a whole new meaning.

Children know this. If a parent says their name with a certain tone, they know they’re supposed to feel guilty. It’s voice, expression, posture, etc. But it boils down to tone.

Do you have a default tone that is guilt inducing? Can you make the most encouraging passage into a pressure text? Can you turn Psalm 23 into a rebuke for not being a good sheep? Can you take Jesus’ yoke and burden, which are easy and light, and make them tricky to put on properly if your listeners aren’t living just right?

Let’s be sure that when we preach, it is not just our words that reflect the meaning of the text, but that our tone also reflects the tone of the text, and the tone of the God who is speaking to these people on this occasion.

Stance and tone can be adjusted to avoid a guilt-only approach. They can be factors in a better motivational methodology. But tomorrow we’ll zero in on a key factor in preaching to encourage and motivate.

Beyond Guilt

April 16, 2012April 16, 2012 / Peter Mead / 10 Comments

A friend asked me how we can preach to encourage listeners apart from making them feel guilty. He and I would both recognize the need for genuine conviction of sin, a work of the Spirit and a feature of some texts (and therefore some messages). But I understand the need for the question – too much preaching relies too much on guilt as the primary, or even the only, change mechanism.

Guilt is a poor motivator. The Spirit of God certainly does bring conviction to people, to me. An absence of conviction of sin in a life is an indication of a real problem. But there is much more to the Spirit’s work than just conviction of sin. There is much more to life transformation than guilt.

As I read the Bible I find myself convicted, yes, but also stirred, inspired, encouraged, enlightened, intrigued, reassured, enlivened, thrilled, calmed, galvanized, spurred, moved, attracted, delighted, renewed, transformed, changed.

God uses the Bible to change lives, and He changes lives by more than just guilt. So how, as a preacher of God’s Word, can I beneficially engage the lives of listeners with more than just a guilt session?

This week I’d like to offer several elements of an answer to this question.

1. The Preacher’s Stance. Where do we stand? Guilt-only approaches tend to take a domineering and confrontational stance. This comes through sometimes before a word is even spoken. It shows in demeanour, in expression, in attitude. It may be justified in terms of the authority of God’s Word, etc., but it is worth rethinking.

I would suggest a stance that is empathetic rather than confrontational, although there is a place for the latter. I am not suggesting the preacher stands amongst the listeners as a sympathetic fellow-struggler with nothing more than shared struggle. We do stand with God’s Word and so do have something very profound to offer. But we also stand as recipients of that Word.

Sometimes our talk of authority can lead us to authoritarian approaches. Yes, God’s Word has authority and as I preach God’s Word there is a “thus saith the Lord” aspect. But it is right here that some betray their narrow view of God and come right back to a guilt-only approach. That is, they see God as being purely authoritarian and a guilt-approach-only Deity.

Thus saith the Lord. We represent Him. How did God reveal His own character, personality, values, etc.? On Sinai, through the prophets, in Christ? God didn’t just come as a pounding fist.

We should consider the stance we take as one standing and speaking God’s Word, while at the same time being one standing as a recipient of God’s Word. If our stance is simply a “lording it over” stance then we betray a worldly passion for power that reflects a twisted view of God Himself.

Tomorrow I’ll add another element to consider in pursuing how to preach with more than just guilt.

Preaching Cross-References?

April 13, 2012April 13, 2012 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

How much should the preacher use cross-references? Yesterday Dave wrote this in a comment:

In an effort to avoid falling prey to the errors you outline here I kept myself from using many cross references. When reviewing the sermon, my pastor said his biggest advice was to use more cross references! Do you have any hints on how to balance preaching the text and using cross references?

Dave, my advice is don’t use cross-references.

That should be the default. It will keep you in your passage and help your message stay focused. If there is a need for cross-reference, then do so, as much as is needed. For instance, if your passage is building on an earlier one, you might cite it. Or if the idea in your passage seems unusual in some way, it may be worth proving from elsewhere. I can’t think of many more reasons to cross-reference.

I certainly wouldn’t add cross-references to satisfy others who assume there should be lots of them. If someone advised me to use them more I would be inclined to ask why, what would they add, what is the reason for the advice? Some people think a sermon has to have lots of cross referencing, or three parallel and alliterated points, or application just at the end, etc. These are all strategy decisions that should be made on a case by case basis, not given as a standard guideline.

We have to keep in mind the down side of cross referencing in order to make an informed choice:

1. You lose focus on your passage. Some of those listening to you will hear a cross-reference and instantly have a clear view of that passage’s context, content, argument, occasion, etc. Most won’t. As they start thinking about that passage and whatever thoughts it triggers, they will not be contemplating the passage you are trying to preach.

2. You overwhelm listeners with scattered information. Some will try to turn to any reference, even after you’ve moved back to your preaching passage. Some will try to take notes of the references. Either way, their attention will be diverted and the potential for concentration burnout increases.

3. You lose depth in explanation of your passage. If they don’t understand the preaching passage, will going somewhere else really help explain it? Sometimes it might, but typically it means explaining another passage. Why not stay here and present it more clearly?

4. You lose time for application. If they do understand the preaching passage, why abdicate your role of applying it to them by going elsewhere and half explaining another one?

As a default, I suggest we use zero cross-references. Then when we do cross-reference, let’s do so on purpose. A sniper’s bullet, not scattered buckshot.

Preaching This Passage or That?

April 12, 2012April 10, 2012 / Peter Mead / 4 Comments

There is another subtle temptation all preachers face, potentially every time they preach. That is to preach a text other than the text they think they are preaching.

I saw this firsthand once when I listened to a series of lectures on the Pastoral Epistles from a lecturer who I could tell wished he had been given the more prestigious Romans class. Every chance he got, he was back to Romans. At the end of that series I didn’t feel like I knew the Pastorals much better than before, but maybe Romans!

There are several dangers in doing this sub-conscious leap from your passage to your preferred passage:

1. You will lack variety and richness in your ministry. That is, every passage will sound like the handful of your favourites that always trump the text before you. This does not make for a healthy and balanced diet for your church.

2. You will teach listeners that the Bible is very limited. They will start to copy you and soon be reading one thing and seeing their pet passages instead. Your people need the whole Bible for spiritual health.

3. You will lose integrity as a biblical interpreter. Your listeners will sub-consciously, if not consciously, start to recognize an inability to let the preaching passage mark your life and ministry. People typically have less respect for a pet passage preacher, or if not, they should.

4. You will miss out on the richness of the Bible. You will flatten it out into a 2-dimensional line drawing when actually there is a depth and richness throughout the canon. Even though you’re tempted to go elsewhere, study and preach the passage in front of you – it will be profitable!

Preaching What’s There But Not

April 11, 2012April 10, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I’ve mentioned it before, as have many others, but its worth another shot – don’t rush to “find a message” in your passage, be sure to find the message of the passage.

There are shortcuts that inevitably are attractive to busy and often tired preachers. Here are a few variations:

1. Harvesting Imperatives – you scan the passage and determine there are about three imperatives in the text. Bingo. Three point sermon. But what if those imperatives are all working together, but actually two-thirds of the passage has no imperative? There’s a lot more to making sense of a passage than just spotting terms that look like they might be imperatival.

2. Chunk Chopping – you scan the passage and determine a specific number of roughly equal chunks and chop the passage accordingly. Divide and conquer! Then each chunk becomes a point, and voila, a sermon! But what if there is an internal logic to the passage that isn’t simply about numbers of verses (there usually is something more going on!)

3. Highlight Spotlighting – you scan the passage for something “that will preach” and then you put the spotlight onto it. For instance, I heard a sermon where the preacher spent almost half the message extolling the virtues of getting out of financial debt, all because the passage made a passing transitional reference to having no debt except…well, except the one thing the passage actually was addressing (but that didn’t come through in the message, and nor did the actual message of the author).

4. Morals as Morales – you scan the passage, especially narratives, and identify a moral morale of the story, then preach that. Essentially you are using the text to make your “improving society” speech, but you are probably not actually preaching the text in its context. Certainly the Bible does address morality issues, but it does so in the context of a greater God-human framework than would lead to trite after-dinner morality speeches.

5. Shallow Starters – you say enough about a passage to look like you’ve said something about the passage, and then you get to say what it is you want to say. But this is preaching your own wisdom, why bother? I guarantee God’s content is better than yours.

There are other ways too, I’m sure, but it all boils down to this: do we believe that God is the greatest communicator? If so, then let’s do our best to actually preach the message of the passage, not just settle for a message from a passage.