Effective Explanation: 15 Suggestions

June 12, 2012 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

I am pondering the issue of explaining the biblical text. This is one of the staple ingredients in all true biblical preaching. I wouldn’t like to taste omelette made without eggs, or preaching without explanation. But doesn’t explanation get a bit dull?

It certainly can. Read a verse, say what it means, read a verse, say what it means. This can be dullness personified in a pulpit. But it doesn’t have to be dull. Actually, it has to not be dull, otherwise we’re boring people with the Bible which has to be wrong.

So hear are some brief suggestions on ways to explain a biblical text.

1. Don’t think that the context isn’t critical. It really is. Neither short-change the historical situation and setting so that the text feels like a random set of statements, nor overkill the historical background so that the listeners feel like they need to lie down before they’ve even met the text you’re preaching.

2. Do set the scene with the written context. Even if it is only a few sentences, help orient listeners to what has come before, or how this text fits into the whole passage. Remember that most books/letters were written to be heard as a whole.

3. Don’t forget that length of explanation may influence order of content. In a single sentence, the order of thought may work in a way that it won’t when developed into a sermon. The same is true of some Bible texts. For instance, here’s a random sentence: “I am going to town, to go to the electrical store, to replace our dead washing machine.” That makes sense, but what happens if I “sermonize” it? “I am going to town: not to the country, nor to a suburb, but to town. Specifically, the town of . . . “ Suddenly it feels a bit random and aimless. The sentence wasn’t, but the explanation is. Maybe I need to clarify the goal earlier in a developed sermon on that sentence – “our washing machine has died and so I need to replace it, here’s the plan…” (Not compelling sermon material, but illustrative nonetheless!)

4. Do weigh words appropriately. Or to put it the other way around: don’t treat every word as equal. It can be dull beyond words to hear an explanation of word after word in a text. Take, for example, Ephesians 1:15 and following. It would be easy to explain great words like faith, Christ, love, saints, glory, etc., but lose people before they get to the main thought of the sentence – the end of verse 17 onwards. Put energy into the main words, not equal energy into all words. They all matter, but some are pushing you toward others.

5. Don’t treat a verse as a unit of thought. This is the same as above. It is tempting to go verse by verse, but sometimes a verse is half a sentence. Don’t feel bad about summarizing chunks effectively in order to emphasise the main thoughts in a section of text.

Tomorrow, another five. Meanwhile, any thoughts on these?

Saturday Short Thought: Dangerous Preaching x4

June 9, 2012 / Peter Mead / 1 Comment

I recently heard Gavin McGrath speaking and he was asked what he thinks constitutes dangerous preaching. I really liked his list of four off the top, as it were:

1. False teaching – of course.

But in good church circles, the other three would be –

2. The mocking or patronizing of non-Christians – So easily done, so unhelpful to all.

3. Legalism and feeding religiosity – If you perform better then you will be a better Christian. This leads to either pride or despair, but neither are helpful.

4. Formulaically simple preaching – Just follow this abc and you will have better life. Problem is that the Bible doesn’t teach that, nor is it effective.

What would you add now that you’ve had time to think about it?

The Four Places of Preaching – 3

June 7, 2012June 7, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

So the preaching process starts in the study, then the preacher needs to stop and pray (in an even less distracted place), but then comes the third location.

Place 3 – Starbucks. Huh?

Let me clarify before I start into this that I personally don’t tend to pick Starbucks (or pray in a closet, for that matter), but the principle applies. I have a good friend, and a preacher I highly respect, who does literally go to a coffee shop for this phase of his preparation.

He takes five 3×5 cards and puts names on the cards – the names of individuals in the church, a cross section, essentially. With his five listeners spread out on the table, and surrounded by real life and culture, he is then able to prepare the message. He can ask himself as he goes, “would this communicate to Jim?” or “How would Kerry take that?”

The goal in this place? To prepare a message that will effectively communicate the prayed-through main idea of the passage to the particular listeners as an act of love for them and for the Lord.

The best biblical content will be wasted if it isn’t targeted appropriately. Our task is not to make the Bible relevant. It is. Our task is to emphasize that relevance. And by definition, something can only be relevant to specific people. Relevant to this age. Relevant to this culture. Relevant to this community. Relevant to this church. Relevant to these individuals.

So John Stott was on target when he urged preachers to be at home not only in the world of the Bible, but also the world of the listener. Haddon Robinson took the two worlds notion and expanded it to distinguish contemporary culture from the specific culture of the local church. So we can misfire with traditional presentations in a changing culture, as we can with postmodern engagements in a church that hasn’t gone there.

Whether we sit in Starbucks, or ponder the church’s phone list. Wherever we spend time with church members and people from the community we seek to mark. Somehow we need to make sure our messages are more than great biblical content. They have to be on target, and to be on target, we must know the hearts we aim to reach.

The Four Places of Preaching – 2

June 6, 2012 / Peter Mead / 2 Comments

After spending significant time in the study, without company, yet not alone, the preacher needs to move to the second location. What comes out of the study is a deep awareness of the passage, its meaning, its intent, its contours and details, all summed up in a single sentence summary, and all held as a treasure in the heart because of the work of God during the time in the study. Now to the next place:

Place 2 – Stop and Pray (The Prayer Closet)

In his very helpful book, Deep Preaching, J. Kent Edwards urges the preacher to take God’s Big Idea into the closet and allow the Spirit to work there for the sake of deeper preaching. So true.

This place doesn’t need to be a closet (it’s hard to find one humans can fit in in some cultures!) It does need to be a place without study resources and Bible software and shelves of books, not to mention phones and email and satellite whatevers. It might be an extended walk in the woods, or a chair in the lounge, or even, one of my favourites, the empty church where the message will be preached.

What is the goal here? The goal is to spend focused time in fellowship with God concerning the preacher, God, the passage and the listeners, in order to be able to then prepare a targeted message for them from that passage.

Where is the focus? God was certainly involved in the study, at least, He should have been. But it is important to recognize that the preacher is not primarily a purveyor of ancient wisdom. The preacher is, or should be, in fellowship with the Living God. So the step isn’t from commentary to outline, but from study to focused prayer.

1. Preaching should involve enthusiasm for the text and what you have discovered, but it should be driven by who, rather than what. Prayer closet time allows that personal connection and responsiveness to the God who reveals Himself in the Word to develop and drive the preaching.

2. Preaching should involve awareness of the meaning and impact of the text, but it should be sealed on the heart and experience of the preacher, not just held at arms length as new discovery. Time in prayer allows God’s Word to be driven deep into our hearts.

3. Preaching should involve a message carefully crafted to communicate effectively to a specific audience, but for that to be an act of real love, then God’s heart for the people needs to be our heart for the people. Bringing the people before God, alongside the passage, is thus critical to forming and delivering a message as an overflow of God’s love for them.

More could be written, but let’s leave it there. Study. Then stop and pray. Then? Some people will be very excited by the next location!

The Four Places of Preaching

June 5, 2012June 6, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

There is a journey from text to message. A journey consists of a sequence of locations, so I’d like to lay out the four places of preaching. Perhaps this will be helpful to someone.

Place 1 – The Study

The first place the preacher needs to go is the study. Just the preacher, the Bible, perhaps a desk, whatever study resources may be available, and a prayerful pursuit of the meaning of the text.

What is the goal in this place? To be able to accurately state the main idea of the passage in a single sentence summary as a result of prayerful historical, grammatical, literary study of the passage in its context, with a heart laid bare before God.

Who is involved? This place is where the preacher is in prayerful pursuit of the meaning of the passage. So there is a historical focus, a sense in which the preacher is seeking to go back then to the time when the human author wrote the passage. There is a deep concern with making sense of the text as it was intended, as inspired, with the historical and written context, the inspired choice of genre, the content of the passage in terms of its details and its structure or flow, and the intent of the writer.

So the preacher is studying, exegeting, interpreting. Yet in that quiet place of wrestling with the text, the text is also wrestling with the preacher. This is not some sort of abstract and entirely objective study. The preacher is there. When the Bible speaks, God speaks, and when God speaks, lives change. So the preacher has the privilege of being marked by the text as the Spirit of God first applies the passage to the life of the preacher.

The study is a place of deep fellowship between the preacher and God.

Why, then, the study? Should this not be the library, after all, studying involves resources? No, this should be a study, because a library is a place of people pursuing information for a variety of purposes. The preacher’s study is a place where the preacher meets with God as the biblical text is studied both exegetically and profoundly devotionally.

Should this not be the office, after all, ministry is a complex business these days? No, this should be a study (whatever the room actually is), because an office is a place of action and interaction, of incoming emails and phone calls, a place where multiple plates are kept spinning. No great and profound preaching can come out of an office. (If your study is too much of an office, then study elsewhere – borrow a room and leave your phone behind, study in your car in the woods, but go somewhere where you can be with the Lord in a “study”.)

Tomorrow, place 2 . . .

Are We Jesus’ Plus One?

June 4, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

In today’s Cor Deo post I ponder whether our evangelistic analogies might hinder the very relationship they are intended to establish. Are we Jesus’ plus one, and if not, doesn’t that compromise our presentation of sin and wrath? To see the post, please click here.

I Don’t Feel Like Reading My Bible

May 21, 2012May 18, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

What advice would you give someone who says they don’t feel like reading their Bible? What advice would you give yourself? Just do it anyway? Today’s post is hosted on the Cor Deo site . . . click here to go there.

Preaching to the Whole Person and the Whole Congregation

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

In his chapter entitled “Powerful Preaching,” in The Preacher and Preaching, Geoff Thomas writes:

“One of the great perils that face preachers…is the problem of hyper-intellectualism, that is, the constant danger of lapsing into a purely cerebral form of proclamation, which falls exclusively upon the intellect. Men become obsessed with doctrine and end up as brain-oriented preachers. There is consequently a fearful impoverishment in their hearers emotionally, devotionally, and practically. Such pastors are men of books and not men of people; they know the doctrines, but they know nothing of the emotional side of religion. They set little store upon experience or upon constant fellowship and interaction with almighty God. It is one thing to explain the truth of Christianity to men and women; it is another thing to feel the overwhelming power of the sheer loveliness and enthrallment of Jesus Christ and to communicate that dynamically to the whole person who listens so that there is a change of such dimensions that he loves Him with all his heart and soul and mind and strength.”

Not only do we need to address the whole person before us, but also all the persons before us. Ramesh Richard lists three attitudes that will be listening during a message:

1. The I Don’t Cares! These are not hostile, they just don’t feel they should be there. They are there out of a sense of duty to friends or family, or habitual routine. For this attitude the need raised at the beginning of the message is critical. Without it, they are free to continue their inner stance of not caring.

2. The I Don’t Knows! They lack the background awareness that others may have regarding God, the Bible, Christianity and church life. These people need good biblical content clearly explained.

3. The I Don’t Believes! These people are doubtful about the truth of what is said, or the applicability of it to real life. They are likely to test what is said with questions such as, “Is this truth coherent?” or “Is the sermon consistent?” or “Is this truth practical?” and especially, “Will this work?” For this attitude you must demonstrate a coherent consistency as well as practical relevance.

Before preaching it is worth prayerfully considering whether the sermon is merely cerebral or emotional, and whether it will engage these three attitudes. Is a clear and valuable need raised? Is there sufficient accessible explanation? Is the message relevant and life engaging? We preach not to get our study into the public domain, but to see the lives, the hearts, the attitudes of our listeners changed by exposure to God’s Word.

Insightful Incidentals?

May 15, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Whatever passage you are preaching, there will be opportunity to make passing comments about relatively minor details. Of course, all Scripture is God-breathed and there is no such thing as a non-essential word in the Bible. But a high commitment to verbal plenary inspiration (i.e. the words are inspired, all of them), does not mean every word can become a preaching point on a whim.

So what sort of insightful incidental comments are best left unsaid altogether? Tomorrow I’ll address the potentially appropriate ones, but for now, just the baddies:

1. Distracting moralisms – For example, the preacher is working through the story of Zaccheus’ encounter with Jesus. The setup is finished, Jesus has just called Zac down from the tree and there is an interim comment before the big scene in his house. The interim comment is about the crowds grumbling. Cue preacher going off on a gentle tirade about grumbling and how bad that is for a church. A couple of wilderness quotes, the threat of excessive quail dinners and then the diversion is over, back to Zac’s dinner table. Oops. And then some. This story has nothing to do with whether people should grumble or not. Actually, if the preacher had observed more closely, it would have become clear that the comment by Luke is not wasted at all. The crowds grumbled at Jesus! Here is the key point in the story, the moment when Jesus diverts anger onto himself to free up sinner Zac. By looking for a moralistic application point, the preacher has missed the transformational gold of grace in action. Chances are, after missing that, the same preacher might go on to make Zac’s proclamation of distribution into part of his salvation negotiations, rather than the pure response that it actually is.

2. Errant critiques – For example, the preacher is working through the story of the blind man healed in two stages. In this case he hadn’t given any attention to the preceding content in Mark 6-8, which is so critical to understanding this unique story. Getting to the end of the passage, his eyes are drawn by the red ink of Jesus’ words in verse 26. “Do not enter the village.” Voila! Preaching point. We don’t do follow-up these days! We need to learn from Jesus. Jesus didn’t just heal, he also gave instruction. Don’t go back into the world. Just follow me. Etc. Etc. Meanwhile the more astute listeners have their eyes on the text wondering how the preacher missed the first half of the verse. Did Jesus ask this blind man to follow him? Or did he actually send him to his home? It is perilous to be looking for preaching points, rather than really reading the passage to understand it.

3. Personal soapboxes – I’m out of words, but you know what I mean. The slightest hint in a passage and off goes the preacher on a personal crusade.

So easy to preach in vague connection to a text. So much safer and better to preach the message of the text.

Biggest Big Ideas – 6. Redemption

May 7, 2012May 7, 2012 / Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I’ve been blogging through ten of the biggest big ideas in the Bible. Somehow every passage seems to touch on at least a few of these. So far we’ve pondered God, creation, sin, grace and faith. Today’s idea brings so much together, but may we never take it for granted:

6. In God’s great plan of redemption He brings home straying adulterous hearts into the fullness of His forever family.

The story of the Bible is the story of the redemption of humanity, but this doesn’t make it a story about us. Primarily it is the story of God.

It is His promised grace that overcomes fatal sin. It is His faithfulness to His word. It is His self-revelation, His becoming flesh and His sacrifice that does what we could never do. In the end it will be His bride presented to Him by His Father, and His kingdom presented to His Father. The redemption story is God’s story, and it reflects God’s character throughout.

The salvation offered to humanity is a gift beyond compare. Doctrines weave together into the richest tapestry, like the glorious righteousness in which we are clothed, and ultimately transformed. What are the beautiful threads?

Justification speaks of the transformative conquering of sin and guilt in the gracious and righteous declaration of a hideous price fully paid. Reconciliation speaks of the broken relationship restored to more than it ever could have been without the redemption story. Adoption speaks of the gracious inclusion into the inheritance and provision of the divine family. New birth speaks of the spiritual life transforming the dead heart into a living, beating reflection of the heart of our Abba. Cleansing speaks of the inside-out purging of impurity. Sanctification speaks of a precious and careful ownership. Glorification speaks of magnificence yet unseen in the loving embrace of a giving God.

As you would expect of a triune God, the imagery of redemption’s story is saturated in relational colours. Like a lost son we are arrested by a stunning display of our loving Father’s self-humiliating grace. Like a straying harlot wife we are melted and won by our groom’s persistent love. Like an enemy wishing Him dead, we are made His friends by His laying down of His life.

The problem of sin is so profound, and the solution so beyond the creature, that the whole of creation groans in anticipation of the redemption of the pinnacle of creation. Yet how creation will sing when made new in the final answer to the question of rebellion. Is there better life to be found apart from God? Is there life at all? No. He is the life giver, and what lengths He has gone to in order to give us life!

Eternal life in the joy filled family of the truly life-giving God.

So when we preach a passage in the Bible, we preach a snapshot from the family album that tells the tremendous tale of God’s great love story. Hallelujah, what a Saviour!