Stage 8 – Message Detail

Help People Trust Their Bibles

/ Peter Mead / 7 Comments

I was just reading a post by Bill Mounce on the Koinonia blog (to see it click here.)  He offers a simple and graciously toned introduction to textual criticism set in the context of a natural question raised by folks in the church . . . “why is verse 4 missing in my Bible?”

Some textual critical questions would probably only be asked by people already heavily interested in the subject with apparatus in hand.  These kinds of questions may intrigue us, but usually shouldn’t find their way into the pulpit!  However, if people in the pew are looking at their Bible and asking a textual critical question, then we need to offer help.  Just a few brief thoughts in light of Bill’s good post:

1. Textual criticism can be explained relatively simply. People probably don’t need to know about every textual family, how to pronounce homeoteleuton, or the full rationale behind lectio difficilor potior.

2. Textual criticism can be explained with grace. This area of study can really stir up the tension, especially between adherents to different textual families.  Such tensions won’t help if shown from the pulpit.  Be gracious to people who disagree with you on Majority Text vs Critical Text issues.  Often you’d be fighting an unseen opponent anyway since people in the same church often tend to use the same version of the Bible (and most of these without any real understanding of text critical issues underlying the options)!

3. Textual criticism should be explained at the right time. Just because you’re enjoying a textual critical excursion in your personal study, or even in your sermon preparation, doesn’t mean the people are needing a dose of it.  But when a verse is missing and they are wondering, or when you’re going through Mark or John and you get to the square bracket sections, then is probably a good time to offer some explanation.

4. Textual critical explanations should build trust in our English Bibles. This has to be paramount.  What have you gained if you’ve showed off your knowledge, perhaps won a debate against an opponent not present, but undermined the confidence of every listener in their English Bible?

Don’t Rush

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I’m not referring specifically to the speed of delivery here.  Some of us need to slow down sometimes, others could really do with speeding up slightly, and we all need to be sensitive to the particular listeners before us.

I am referring to the pace of information being offered.  It is easy, especially after studying for many hours, to overload the listeners’ bandwidth.  Listeners need time to process information.  Images take time to form.  Stories take time to tell.  Take the necessary time.

As well as taking the necessary time, be aware of the aural equivalent of optical illusions.  There are things we do that may not speed up the pace the words are emerging, but will give the impression that the information is rushing out:

1. Mini illustrations, quotes and anecdotes. It is easy to jump through illustrations really quickly.  It may work, or it may overwhelm the bandwidth.

2. Piling up Biblical illustrations. It is so easy to jump in and out of a biblical book, then another, and another.  All the while you are seeking to underline the point of the main passage, but listeners can easily feel overwhelmed with unfamiliar contexts and content (even if they know the contexts, it still takes mental effort to process a passing illustration).

3. Key explanations unrestated. It is easy to make a vital connection.  I was just listening to a sermon where a key, critical, vital connection was made in the space of a handful of words.  “Here xyz means jkl.”  It was a link that required some backing up and explanation.  It slipped by and the next five minutes I was struggling to listen because I didn’t get the four-word sentence (I understood the sentence, but couldn’t see how he got there from that verse).

4. Transitions. While it is possible to drive quickly down the straight road, we need to slow down through corners.  Transitioning between one point and the next is a critical moment in the message, but it is so easy to fly through the bends.

5. Multiple purposes. If you are trying to achieve too many things, the message will feel choppy and disconnected.  When listeners can’t follow the flow that comes from unity of purpose, they will feel like the message is firing in multiple directions and therefore struggle to take it all in (in fact, they won’t, they’ll reprocess for unity and probably make the main thing the most compelling illustration or story used!)

Let’s beware of things we may do that give the sense of being too fast.  Allow listeners enough time in the passage you’re preaching to let it soak down into their lives and saturate their hearts.

Going Deeper Than Instruction

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

In a lot of preaching situations it is easier to simply present the text and press home the imperatives.  Whether or not there is technically an imperative in the grammar, we can easily turn a passage into an instruction and press for change through our words.

I wonder how often we miss the opportunity to go a step or two deeper and recognize the “why” behind the “should”?  Typically the epistles offer lists of instructions, but in the context of the letter, these instructions are very much set in the context of theological truth.  We are to present our bodies as living sacrifices, but it is in view of God’s mercies that we are to do so.  We are to walk in a manner worthy, but specifically it’s in a manner worthy of the calling we have received.  We are to set our hearts on things above, where Christ is, but this is in light of the Christ presented in the first two chapters.

Instruction and imperative don’t just sit on their own as burdens to place on people, but as appropriate response to the captivating truths of who God is, what He has done and so on.

As a preacher it is much easier to simply give instruction and apply pressure, but we must consider how to make sense of those instructions so that instead of pressured compliance, we might see captivated response.

Don’t Skip A Step

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

A missed step jars.  Try to accompany someone singing who misses a beat.  Try a choreographed dance but miss a step.  Next time you’re figure skating in the Olympics, miss a step before going for your quad.  Ok, these examples are getting slightly less likely, but what about in preaching?  I suppose there are a lot of steps that can be skipped to the detriment of our preaching, both in preparation and in delivery.  Here’s one:

You explain a particular text.  It sets out some clear expectations of how we should be living in response to God – perhaps instruction, perhaps command.  Application is clear, so you present it.  But in doing so it is obvious that some or many listeners would have fallen short of this in their experience.  Perhaps the demands relate to morality, purity, relationship, thought-life, etc.  (It should go without saying that you recognized people might feel convicted before delivering the message.)  So since some or all listeners have already fallen short of the application of this text you reassure people of God’s love and grace.

Hold on.  Missed a step.  Too often, perhaps in this generation in particular, it is easy to preach comfortable messages and avoid the discomforting but vital step of calling for repentance.  Are people helped by being reassured of God’s grace without also being urged to repent?  If God is a relationally jealous God, and we have been adulterous and unfaithful to Him, then is it enough to have feelings placated by assurances of His goodness?  Surely a jealous lover’s goodness is little comfort to an unfaithful spouse unresponsive to the necessary conviction for sin?

It may be harder to preach, but giving people opportunity to repent, reminder to respond, must be a necessary step in some sermons.

Preacher’s Block

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Years ago I read Heralds of God by James Stewart.  I just read a response paper sent to me by a friend.  It’s time I read the book again. He reminded me of Stewart’s advice regarding preacher’s block, or those times when artistic inspiration simply is not flowing, but discouragement is pouring in like a flood.

It is too easy to listen to our moods.  It is too simple to await the great thoughts before we begin.  Stewart quotes Quiller-Couch, “These crests [of inspiration] only arise on the back of constant labour.”  How true it is that moments of inspiration tend to reflect hours of perspiration.

I have a lot of preparation to do this week.  How easy it is to allow the flesh to control the process and wile away the hours with relatively meaningless tasks while awaiting some flash of divine enablement.  Can I trust the Lord to enable me as I graft at the preparation?  Bend the knee and pray.  Pick up the book and read.  Take up the pen and write.  Stretch out the fingers and type.  Simple really, but how easy to justify another path.

One Simple Truth, One Wonderful Christ

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I am sitting in the airport waiting for my ride home, so this will be a short and jet-lagged post (or perhaps a long and jet-lagged post since shorter is always harder!)

How easy it is in preaching to give too much information and not enough of the Lord.  Listeners are more easily overwhelmed with information than we realize.  We have processed information and refined it, allowing us to present a lot of information in a short amount of time (shorter than it took us to understand it!)  So it is very easy to overwhelm our listeners with more than they can take in while trying to listen at the same time!

We can easily pack sermons with information, with background material, even with the often lauded illustrations and applications, but still make very little of Christ (or of any person in the Triune God we worship).  So easy to default into speaking about us, but not really offering Him to our listeners.

While every sermon is different, somehow we need to present one simple truth, an understandable principle, while at the same time offering the compelling and captivating God of the Bible (lest we turn His self-revelation into a mere manual for effective living).

Application Is Not Always Last

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

Traditionally preaching means reading a text, explaining it at length and then eventually fitting in a block of application if time permits.  Practically that is rarely the best approach.  If emphasizing the relevance of the text is as much a part of our task as explaining the text (but necessarily requiring the explanation in order to have any authority), then we need to think about how to increase the sense of relevance in our preaching.  A few thoughts:

1. By explaining as much as necessary, but not over-explaining, we create time for application. It is tempting to try to present all the proof of our study, every nugget, whenever we preach.  It takes a commitment to application to only explain as much as necessary and use the rest of the time to target emphasizing the relevance to our listeners.

2. By stating our points and main idea in “us” terms, we drive relevance to the surface (and drive it deeper into the listeners). It doesn’t take much to state the point in relevant terms, then step back into the world of the text to explain and support that wording, following up again with an emphasis on relevance.  Instead of sounding like we’re preaching a commentary, instead we can sound like we’re speaking directly to our listeners.

3. If the main idea is the take home truth, why wouldn’t we try to put it in “us” terms? It may not always work, but often the main idea of the message can be stated relevantly, rather than historically or in abstract form.  This is the synopsis of the whole that we really want seared into the lives of our listeners.

4. Introduce relevance in the introduction. Don’t presume people are desperate for a sermon on 2nd Chronicles 13.  They probably didn’t come with that on their minds.  So use the introduction to demonstrate the relevance of the passage, the message, the speaker.

5. Even in explanation, season with relevance. It doesn’t take much time to drop in comments relating the back then to today.  Even the briefest of comparisons in the telling of an ancient narrative can shed contemporary light and give the sense of relevance to the listeners.

Application logically comes last in a message.  But if our goal is effective preaching, we’ll look for ways to integrate applicaton (in its various forms) and relevance throughout the message.

Application Is Not Always Pragmatic – 2

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Yesterday I suggested that preaching with applicational goals is entirely appropriate.  Furthermore, if done appropriately and sensitively (not to mention specifically), application that is very pragmatic certainly has a place in our preaching.  But we have to see the rest of the list too:

2 – Belief (the head) – It is important to recognize that behaviour is driven by belief.  If we only ever seek to fix behaviour, we will be frustrated because of the influence of underlying belief.  If a message calls for thinking a certain way about God, about life, about salvation, about conflict, about ministry, about whatever . . . then don’t feel bad about applying accordingly.  Sometimes a message transforms lives without a call to action, but with a call to respond in belief, in changing perspective, in thinking well about something.

1 – Affection (the heart) – If behaviour and conduct is driven by belief and thought processes, then it is important to recognize what drives our thinking and belief . . . the affections of the heart.  It is the heart that supplies values which function like software in the mind.  It is the hardening of the heart that stood at the root of the wrong thinking and bad behaviour of “the Gentiles” Paul wrote of in Ephesians 4.  And it is a new heart that is so transformative in the new covenant.  How easily we try to live new covenant Christianity as if we still have hearts of stone!  Applicational preaching needs to reach deep into the hearts of listeners and not settle for pragmatics or information transfer alone.

I know it is the work of God’s Spirit to change hearts.  But isn’t it only the Spirit who can truly influence thinking and action too?  Apart from me you can do nothing, Jesus said . . . so we must lean fully on the Lord as we preach His Word, but part of our task is to emphasize the relevance of the preaching text; the relevance to our conduct, to our beliefs, to our affections.

Application Is Not Always Pragmatic

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There is plenty of teaching around about the need for application in preaching.  If all we do is lecture on biblical truth, but don’t earth it in the lives of the listeners, then can we really claim to be truly preaching?  Having said that, application doesn’t have to be always pragmatic.  It really depends on the text, the listeners and the occasion, but essentially there are three targets for application:

3. Conduct (the hands) – this is the pragmatic application level.  This is where we give tangible and measurable suggestions to respond to the teaching of the text.  Some are quick to decry this, but remember that Jesus emphasised “doing” what he taught, and James makes a similar strong emphasis with his mirror illustration.  Where this often falls short is that it is either left too vague (so listeners agree, but have no plan to follow through), or there is simply so much of it, week after week, that many listeners simply feel burdened by endless “to-do” lists piling up in their Bibles.

But pragmatics is not all there is to say about application.  Tomorrow we’ll finish the list.

Feel the Force: Discourse

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This is where we sometimes struggle the most.  When preaching the epistles (less so the speeches of Joshua, Jesus, etc.), we can easily fall into logical information transfer and presentation of facts.  But the fact is that all discourse is set in a narrative context.  How do we make sure listeners feel the force of the discourse sections of Scripture, especially the epistles?

1. Be sure to set the scene contextually – the text is a glimpse into a narrative. It is when we treat the epistles as timeless statements or creeds, rather than letters, that we lose sight of the specific situations that sparked their composition in the first place.  Help people to feel the emotion of Paul writing his last letter to Timothy, or his anger at the corrupting of the gospel in Galatia, or his connection with the Philippian church, or his passion for the unity of the churches in Rome.  It takes effort and skill to effectively set a text in its historical context, but it must be done for listeners to really feel the force of the text.

2. Consider how to appropriately target the message to the listeners. If we are facing similar problems today, then perhaps the text can be preached with a sense of directness, rather than held at arms length as an exhibit from the ancient world.  Perhaps the Galatian error hasn’t been introduced in your church (although perhaps contemporary churchgoers are closer to that than we’d like to think!)  So if the original purpose and thrust doesn’t quite fit, would it work to imagine how it might and then preach directly?  Somehow we need to hear what God is saying to us, now.

3. Build on the imagery included in the text. The epistles are not pure logical argumentation.  They regularly refer to people, incidents, imagery, examples, rhetorical devices, etc.  As a preacher we can build on these to make sure our preaching of that text is not mere lecturing on the facts with tacked on application.  Most texts are far richer in imagery or wordplay than we tend to think.  Not only in poetry and narrative, but also in the epistles, the text will often yield plenty of “illustrative” material if we observe carefully!

4. Build a sense of progression into the structure. How easy it is to simply produce a parallel set of points that do not build, do not progress, do not intrigue and do not pack a punch.  A good outline is not only somewhat symmetrical (and not always that), but reflects the progression and punch of the text.

As we preach the text, let’s make it our goal to help listeners to feel the force of the text.  Understand it, yes.  Apply it, yes.  But more than that, feel it (for when the force of the text is felt, understanding and application will increase!)