Enjoying Exegesis

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At its core, a commitment to expository preaching is a commitment to biblical exegesis. If we are going to rest our eternity on the message of the Scriptures, and entrust the needs of our congregations to that message, then we must diligently pursue the meaning of the text. Our ministry demands a disciplined, responsible and wholehearted commitment to exegesis. While our exegesis should be rigorous, we should not allow it to become a chore for us. The journey of discovery as we wrestle with God’s Word can be a lifelong delight. As Richard Erickson puts it, “…always keep the ball rolling, however slowly. . . . Strive not for perfection, but for persistence.” His book on New Testament Exegesis is on its way to me, and I look forward to reading it. But more importantly, let us enjoy the privilege of studying God’s Word.

One of my professors at seminary, Dr Bruce Fong, now at Michigan, would always start class the same way, “Well, good morning class, always a pleasure to welcome you here. No place on earth I’d rather be, than studying God’s Word with you. Man, O man! What a privilege!” Let us never allow the pressures of ministry, the problems of people and the perpetually approaching deadlines to steal from us the joy of studying God’s Word.

Spiritual Warfare and Preaching – Part 2

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In part 1 I opened the subject of spiritual attacks on us as preachers.  I’m sure I’m not alone in experiencing unusual technical difficulties before presenting, or out of the ordinary family tensions on a Sunday morning.  Then there is the more overt attacks both before and after preaching.  Not always, but sometimes.  But if we are thinking about the work of the enemy, it is important to remember he can also target the listeners in a preaching event.   Our ancient foe seeks to work woe on various fronts.

As 2Cor.4:4 states, the enemy works to blind listeners to the gospel so they cannot see the truth.  There is also the possibility of distraction before and during preaching, as well as discouragement whispered direct.  I do not want to give any credit to an enemy who stands defeated, but it would be naive to ignore this dimension of preaching.  We tremble not for him, but must be sure to stand firm in our role as God’s spokesmen.

My hope with this post is to stimulate thinking in this area.  Please comment on strategies you perceive against yourself or your listeners.  There will be a part 3, and we will consider practical ways to stand firm and be effective in our ministry.  Praise the Lord, the right man, of God’s choosing, is on our side, and his kingdom is forever.

Spiritual Warfare and Preaching

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Whenever the subject of spiritual warfare is raised, there is a danger of falling into one of two extremes.  On the one hand it is easy to become paranoid, “seeing demons behind every tree” and giving Satan far more credit than he deserves.  On the other hand, it is easy to become overly relaxed and essentially treat the spiritual realm as having no effect on our lives.  Yet if there is a realm in which we should be aware of spiritual warfare, surely it is in the realm of preaching.  Surely the enemy would love to disrupt or damage the proclamation of God’s Word, the presentation of the Gospel, the encouragement of believers and the praise of God.

Today I am merely going to scratch the surface of the subject.  Then in future posts I’d like to consider it further.  First of all, spiritual warfare and the preacher.  What tactics does the enemy use against us as preachers?  Here are a few, perhaps you have others to add.  One danger constantly facing us is that of pride, which leads to a lack of dependency on God.  Then there is temptation to sin – how often do we face waves of temptation in areas of vulnerability while preparing to preach, or the day after we preach?  Perhaps distraction is a tool of the enemy – things thrown in our path that keep us for the task at hand.  Then there are lies, the discouragements meant to bring down our high goals with their high prayers.

I’d like to pursue this subject further, but let me ask you – what tactics does the enemy seem to employ in relation to your preaching ministry?

Application’s Oft-Missing Ingredient . . . ?

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Recently Steve Mathewson wrote a helpful post on the PreachingToday blog concerning application.  He warned of the danger of too many “life application points” in preaching.  How easy it is to overwhelm our listeners with to-do lists.  I agree that this is a huge danger for us. 

In some church circles people have become very fond of what they perceive to be highly relevant preaching.  This often takes the form of “7 Keys to a Happy Marriage” or “5 Smooth Stones for Spiritual Battle.”  Because people seem to respond to this kind of “list” preaching, it is a temptation to incorporate that into a more expositional model of preaching.  So at the end of an expository sermon, the preacher will give a list of life application points.  These are specific strategies to be implemented in daily life.

It is easy to overwhelm list-driven people with more lists to add to their backlog of lists.  So what should we do?  First, we should be sure to apply the main idea of the text/sermon rather than lists of secondary suggestions.  Second, we should concentrate on helping people visualize how this could look in normal life.  Perhaps we share two or three examples, but not as a list.  Rather, this is a selection of possible scenarios out of which at least one will help listeners to see what the idea would look like in action in their life.  Sometimes several scenarios will be unnecessary.  Third, we must look for ways to include an encouraging tone in our application.  This does not just mean an enthusiastic team talk that fires up our people.  It means stirring an inner sense of motivation and a feeling of competence in our listeners.  We easily overwhelm, but instead we should strive to give appropriate encouragement (the oft-missing ingredient).

If you didn’t see Steve’s post, it is well worth a read: http://blog.preachingtoday.com/2007/10/the_challenge_of_application.html

More on the 2 Basic Stances

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Bob asked some helpful questions on yesterday’s post.  Generally an expository sermon will have “back then” and “today” stances because by definition an expository sermon needs to both explain and relevantly apply the text. So at a certain level the progress will typically go from then to now (allowing for the sermon to start in the present before moving back in order to create need). Within a sermon point, you would often include both.

However, there is a nuance that I intend here. It is possible to explain a text either with our feet firmly planted in the present, or by travelling back to Bible times and getting into the mind and situation of the writer. Also it is possible to apply the text from “back then” or from a “today” stance.

Perhaps first-person preaching is the best explanation of this. When you choose to preach in character, you have several choices to make. One key choice is whether your character is visiting today, or whether the congregation is visiting back then. I recently preached Nahum as Nahum, but I decided to have Nahum visit contemporary England to give the message. This allowed him to make more specific applications to my listeners than if they had been transported through time to Nahum’s day. However, if I had chosen to take them back there, I would have been able to explain the text more vividly. Instead of referring back to what happened all those centuries ago, I would have been able to engage imaginations more directly and create a sense of fear at the Assyrians who live over there, etc. In first-person preaching, a “back then” stance is stronger for explanation and weaker for application (because it can only be hints that people have to translate into their own world). But a “today” stance is often weaker on explanation while allowing more in application.

In normal preaching it does not have to be either/or. We have the freedom to select the stance throughout the sermon. If we are aware of the strengths of both, perhaps we will do better at selecting the most effective means of preaching the Word. Perhaps taking a few minutes to “experience” through imagination exactly what the writer is meaning by his words would be worth it for better understanding (rather than just making explanatory comments from two-thousand years away). But then you want to clarify the relevance of that understanding, so you switch back to today and address people in their contemporary life situations. Application is usually better when direct, clear and vivid. Explanation is usually better from a closer perspective.

This may seem obvious, but I have heard a lot of preachers choosing the wrong stances. I’ve done it myself. It is easy to analyze the text from a distance, sitting very comfortably in the 21st century. And then somehow we hope that vague applications in the terms of the 1st century will hit home. How much better to get us back into the 1st century to understand the passage, but then vividly apply in contemporary terms. Be aware of the basic concept of preaching stance and evaluate your sermon accordingly. These are not hard and fast rules, but perhaps a helpful insight.

Stances Between Two Worlds

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John Stott’s classic preaching text, Between Two Worlds, is one of several works that have utilized the metaphor of a “bridge-builder” in relation to preaching.  Stott rightly notes that in preaching we have to build from the world of the text and earth the message in the world of our listeners.  Good biblical preaching will always include explanation of the text and application to our times.  

Whether we think in terms of the bridge or not, we are constantly faced with a two-option decision in preaching.  It is true in first-person preaching, in “normal” preaching, in expository-topical preaching, etc.  The choice is a choice of stance.  Let’s say you are in the second point of your sermon.  You have a text and you need to talk about it.  Which stance do you take?  Do you orient yourself back then, taking people toward the world of the writer, the culture, the situation, the language, etc?  Or do you orient yourself to today, bringing the text into the world of the listeners, their culture, their needs, their situation?  

When you choose, for a section of a sermon (a section which may only be as long as a sub-point in your outline) to orient toward the “back then” . . . then you probably hope to achieve better explanation of the meaning of the text.  When you choose, on the other hand, to orient toward “today,” then you probably are aiming for better application of the text.  Since true preaching includes both explanation and application, it follows that during a sermon there will be times when your stance is more “back then” and times when it is more “today.”  Be sure to include both, and do so purposefully.  Both have their strengths, so use both accordingly.

Review: A Preaching Pod Prod

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This morning I’d like to point you to a helpful new resource for us as preachers. The Preaching faculty at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary have recently begun a weekly podcast for preachers entitled “Preaching Points.” It is free and it is well worth a listen. At this point there are already four brief podcasts on the site. Titles so far include “Boredom is a Form of Evil,” “Be Yourself,” and “Being Biblical and Contemporary.” Each one lasts about five minutes. To access it you can either click on this link:

http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/cfp/preachingpoints/archives.php

or type ‘Preaching Points’ in iTunes. Perhaps you will find these podcasts a helpful pod prod for preaching excellence.

The Problem of Performance

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The danger of performing is not only there when preaching a first-person sermon. It is a danger every time we preach. After all, as a preacher we study an ancient text, determine its main idea and its contemporary relevance, then design a message to communicate both the meaning and the relevance to the congregation who will sit before us on Sunday morning. Our goal is not to fill time, but to stir people and to see lives transformed. As has been said many times, we preach to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. And if we’re honest, there are ways to get that done. It is not out of our reach to spin a story a certain way in order to turn the emotions of our listeners, or ask a rhetorical question that we know will poke a nerve of guilt in them. So how are we to avoid stepping up to the pulpit and treating it like a stage?

1. Give preparation time to soak. Last minute preparation will lead to last minute desparation wherein “preaching tactics” will seem like our only hope. We must be diligent to begin the study and thinking process early enough for a message or a series to soak in before we must pour out. Even if all we can do is to start reading and making some notes ahead of time, it is worth it. Performance is lines through an actor, but preaching is truth through personality (Phillips Brooks succinct definition). Allow time for the preparation to become a part of who you are so that you preach something you truly believe and know deep down.

2. Prepare more, not less. In the quest for “natural” delivery, it may be tempting to prepare less. The hope is that what comes out will be less of a performance and more “from the heart.” The reality is that unprepared preaching will often lean heavily on our own abilities. It is better to craft, to sweat, to wrestle, to pray, to think and to think some more. As I have written before, in an ideal world it is best to write out a manuscript in full and edit it closely and prayerfully. All that extra work will result not in performance, but genuine preaching “from the heart” as well as “from the text” – choosing to do minimal work will compromise both the text and your heart, leaving only any performance skills you may have.

3. Pray. Not just a “bless this effort” prayer, but real prayer. Personal wrestling with the God who is at work in you first. Persistent wrestling for those who will receive the message. There is a great spiritual battle raging around you and around them. Let us not fight in the pulpit a battle we have not first heavily engaged in the closet.

Preacher’s Worst Nightmare

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There are all sorts of things that can go wrong for a preacher. What is your worst nightmare? Last week I was at an event at All Souls in London, where a preacher referred to arriving at a church and realizing the message he planned to preach there was one he had preached there before. Is that a nightmare? What about sitting in a service as the first part dragged longer and longer, leaving less and less time for the message? I haven’t enjoyed that experience when it has happened. Or the other extreme. A couple of years ago in the Caribbean I was asked to preach for twenty minutes, but when we arrived at the church I was told my message would be live on the radio and I had to finish on the dot at 10:05am . . . and I was introduced at 9:00am. A twenty minute message squeezed into sixty-five. I’m sure you could add to this list of preaching nightmares.

But the worst nightmare? That’s easy. Preaching a sermon that is all me and no God. That’s the worst nightmare.

Preaching Short – The Challenge

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When people are first asked to preach, their main concern is “how can I fill that time?”  Once preachers have some experience, they tend to want more time than they have.  If you are used to preaching for 30, 35, 45 minutes, then it is a real challenge to prepare a 10, 12 or 15 minute message.  It forces you to “think yourself clear” to a far greater extent.  It forces you to cut more diligently and preach lean.

Sometimes that is forced on you.  Today I am preaching in a series, but through a translator as we have a load of guests from France with us.  The blessing of preaching through an ‘interrupter’ is that I have had to think through the message to a greater level of clarity and simplicity.  I am not sure if I have succeeded yet.  But it is an interesting thought.  Why not deliberately preach short once in a while?  Why not preach a message half as long as you typically do?  It will challenge you as a preacher, it will shock your listeners and demonstrate that church form is not set in stone.  It will allow extra time for musical response, personal response or fellowship.  I am not advocating preaching shorter sermons all the time.  If you are in a church that allows and appreciates longer sermons, then praise the Lord.  But why not cut the length of a sermon periodically, for your sake and for theirs?  Is that a challenge worth taking?