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Discourse is Not Just Epistles
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.
Be Sure To Thank These Heroes
Maybe they sit behind a desk more complicated than a 747 cockpit, or perhaps next to just two dials and a switch. It actually doesn’t matter, but if the sound tech in your church enables people to hear the message without distraction then they are a hero in my book. I was just at a conference in Nigeria where the sound was a real challenge for the techs – huge open building, smaller crowd, powerful loudspeakers, preachers holding the microphone too close to the mouth, etc. As I struggled to understand what was being said by other speakers I grew more and more thankful for the sound techs in the places where I regularly speak.
What to do if something isn’t right? Well, sometimes there may be feedback, or some kind of distraction related to the sound system. If possible, it is usually best to keep going and trust them to fix it. The problem is when the listeners and you become distracted. If it gets too bad, feel free to provide space for people to relax and the techies to spring into action. Just be careful not to embarress or draw excessive attention to them. The job is hard enough without dozens or hundreds of eyes turning their way. If the problem was known to all, then fixed, consider a public thank you. If not, then at least thank them after the service. The sound can be perfect for months and they hear no gratitude, but the week something goes wrong, they can easily feel unappreciated.
I’m thankful for sound techs who do something I can’t do. I’m going to recommit to expressing my gratitude for their work.
Warning! Danger Lurking Nearby!
All sin is dangerous. We should never be complacent about any sin or the risk it poses. But surely the sin of pride should be top of our danger list as preachers. Pride, a sense of independence, not needing God or others, is a strangely familiar companion to pulpit ministry. Perhaps it is something about the stepping out from the crowd in order to speak to the crowd. Perhaps it is a fruit of the respect many show toward those with up-front ministry. Perhaps it is the result of the higher level learning that is expected of those who speak. Perhaps the enemy turns up the pressure looking for a high profile casualty. There are many perhaps-es, but one certainty – pride is a serious danger for every preacher.
Watch out for the warning signs. A lack of prayer in preparation or following ministry. An attitude of complacency and a sense of being capable in your own strength. A yearning to get the microphone, then a resistance to giving it up. A yielding to the temptation to say what you know will receive praise from the hand-shakers after the meeting. An excessive appreciation of positive comments from listeners, and maybe an over-reaction to any who would dare to question or critique. A resistance to sharing the pulpit with appropriate others.
Pride is always lurking nearby. At the slightest hint of its presence, let us be diligent to humble ourselves at the foot of the cross again. In our brokenness, perhaps God will lift us up and use us as preachers again, but let’s lose the notion that this is guaranteed. He doesn’t need us. Yet He chooses to use us – a fact that borders on a miracle if we really look in the mirror!
Getting to Grips with the Genres: Poetry (2)
Yesterday’s post was concerned with how poetry works. Now let’s consider the implications for our preaching.
Implications for Preaching Poetry
-If preaching narrative connects listeners to plot and discourse connects listeners to ideas, then poetry connects listeners to feelings attached to ideas.
-This means that preaching poetry is slow. It’s less like going on a run than it is like sitting before a painting in an art gallery. The preacher is to draw out colors, themes, nuance, and ideas, line by line, in a way that gives time and space for listeners to connect not just cognitively but affectively to the poem.
-Consider using music, paintings, pictures, movie clips, etc., to draw-out an idea.
-Consider allowing for testimony that affirms the points in poetry. Consider attaching biblical narrative to the points too.
-Poetry speaks to truths and feelings that we have felt, will feel, and need to feel. They are not fiction but fact. We need to be shaped by them. Allow your preaching of poetry the time, space, tone, posture, and space to accomplish this. It’s worth it!
Getting to Grips with the Genres: Poetry (1)
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.
Land the Last Line
It’s true every time we preach, but especially on Easter Sunday. It’s great to land the last line. Some people regularly finish with a bang, a really pregnant final sentence that absolutely nails it. Others among us struggle for consistency with the finish. It’s always easy to fizzle to a close or to stick on a generic statement like, “So that’s why it’s an interesting passage.” But that last line can really hang in the air, linger in the memory and stick in the heart.
As I’ve written before, the best time to plan the end is before you preach. Trying to pull a stunning conclusion out of mid-air is almost always a wasted effort. Sunukjian makes the suggestion that the concluding statement should be positive rather than negative, and a statement rather than a question. Perhaps I’ll share more on his suggestions another time. If in doubt, it is usually a great place to restate the main idea one last time.
So before preaching the Easter Sunday message, try to take a couple of minutes and run through the final few lines. What a great day to land a last line really well!
Length of Rehearsal
I would strongly encourage preachers to run through their message, out loud, before preaching it. Call it a rehearsal if you like, or use a different term if that makes preaching sound too much like a performance. Preaching is primarily an oral and aural art form, so to restrict preparation to written and read forms makes little sense. A good outline should reflect the content and structure of the message. A good manuscript will reflect this plus the details and word choices. But running through the message verbally will help to clarify the flow, the efficacy of transitions, and so on.
New preachers tend to speed up. If you haven’t preached much, there is a good likelihood that your actual sermon will go quicker than the rehearsal. The story is told of Billy Graham, preaching for the first time and getting through his message so fast that he ended up preaching four messages in something like 10 minutes. (If you have a reference for the true story, please share it below.) Strong nerves tend to speed up delivery. Knowing this may help you to slow down delivery and time your practice appropriately.
Experienced preachers tend to take longer. Once the nervous reaction of putting the gas pedal to the floor and speeding through the delivery is overcome, the situation changes. Preaching through a message to an empty room is one thing. Preaching to dozens of faces, with all the feedback and distractions, is another. Unless you are a preacher with your head permanently stuck in your notes (search on “no notes” above!), you will subconsciously sense facial and fidgety feedback from your listeners. This will lead you to expand, restate, illustrate more, and so on as you go through the message. The result is usually that you need longer for delivery than you did in practice. If you need to preach 45 minutes, then practice aiming for 40. If the goal is 30 minutes, then practice towards 25-27.
Blessings and Responsibilities
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.
Beware the Power of Propagated Rumors
There are always troublesome trends around, even in the church. They may be ideas or vague concepts, but they creep in and stick around for a while. Perhaps books are written to support them, but something published is not something certain. Maybe it’s time to put your finger on the pulse of your church and see if there are any ideas drifting around. In some cases we don’t need to address them, but simply be careful not to propagate them in our preaching, either by attitude, inference or reference. In other cases we need to step in and overtly correct with direct Bible teaching.
The heretical understandings. For example, how many people in our churches have the idea that the Trinity can be explained by the illustration of water, ice and steam (a modalistic explanation) or three friends in one group (a tritheistic explanation). If there is heretical thinking, look for appropriate moments to clarify the truth.
The fashionable trends. Not everything we disagree with is outright heresy. Often they are theological fashions and trends. Perhaps an idea pushed in a book that is imbalanced or narrow. Perhaps an idea emanating from a certain “camp” in Christendom. Perhaps an idea pushed on us from pressure groups outside the church. Fashionable “trends” that I’ve heard lately would include the idea that eschatology is other-worldly, always “retreatist” in orientation and therefore irrelevant. The blanket statement that foreign missionaries are no longer needed in other countries. The notion that Paul hated women. Or that any social concern among Christians means they have given up on the gospel. Or the opposite idea that Christians concerned with evangelism have no concern for people. I want to be careful not to add weight to any of these ideas, no matter how popular they might be in some circles.
We don’t have to address every issue going on in broader Christianity. But we should be aware of any way in which a passing comment, or perceived attitude, might continue to propagate ideas we don’t support. And we should have our finger on the pulse enough to recognize when an idea is becoming imbalanced, or worse, when a heresy is becoming acceptable.
Biblical Preaching 