This is one of the additional chapters to “How do you know?” That I mentioned I was planning
It is impossible to talk about the Doctrine of Revelation and how we know about God, Creation, Humanity and New Creation without talking about preaching.
What is preaching?
It’s important though to be clear about what we mean when we talk about preaching. Over the years much ink has been spilt and many words uttered attempting to define and defend preaching, particularly in regards toa form of oratory distinguished from teaching. I have to say that the distinctions have often seemed vague to me and tend to focus on form and style often with a sense that there is something more spiritual to preaching as though the teacher or lecturer lacks something of the Holy Spirit. I think it was Martyn Lloyd Jones who defined preaching as “logic on fire.”
Scripture doesn’t really talk about a specific gift of preaching or an office of preacher. Rather, the point is that God’s Word needs to be proclaimed. It is through hearing God’s Word that faith comes.[1] I don’t think we are meant to be legalistic in either insisting that the proclamation must fit with a specific form or setting or indeed that it needs to be heard orally. There is nothing magical about the human voice. Hearing includes through reading written text as evidenced by the number of people who have put their trust in Jesus as a result of reading a Gospel and/or an evangelistic book,
I would argue that the crucial factors in terms of proclamation of God’s Word or preaching are first, that preaching must be about helping people to hear the very Word of God itself. Therefore, preaching is about expounding Scripture. It is not about seeking to hook your own ideas onto a e text or reading. However, preaching is about more than simply restating the words of Scripture themselves. Some people will talk about explaining or interpreting the text and to some extent this is necessary but if we believe in the clarity of Scripture then we will want to be careful about over emphasising this in such a way as to give the impression that Scripture is mysterious and needs a special class of clergy to mediate it to the people.
More important, I think is the need to apply Scripture, to help God’s people understand the specific relevance of God’s Word to their situation now. If preaching is about the “nowness” of God’s Word, then there is a close relationship between it and prophecy. Indeed, the puritans would sometimes describe it as such and hold prophecy meetings which were closer to preaching groups than a charismatic worship service.
Then there is a togetherness to preaching. We are meant to listen to God’s Word being applied together as a congregation. This helps us to be accountable to one another in our obedience, it also means the preacher is accountable but it also reflects the fact that the Gospel whilst received by individuals is not narrowly individualistic.
Bringing all of this together, we might helpfully define preaching as “Applying God’s Word to a congregation of God’s people.
Three things to exegete
We distinguish exegesis from eisegesis. Exgesis is about drawing the meaning out of something, eisegesis is about reading our own meaning into something. It is very easy to slip into the latter. We talk a lot when training preachers about the importance of exegeting the text and that’s where much of the rest of this chapter will focus. However, there are two other important things that we need to be able to exegete or read.
First of all, we need to exegete ourselves. We need to be aware of our own heart condition. In fact, because we know that we can deceived ourselves, it is better to say that we need God, through his word to search and exegete us. We need to allow God to disagree with us and challenge us. Before we can preach to others, we need to preach to ourselves. This is important because it helps guard us and our congregations from situations where we either get focused on our own hobby horses or steer away from subjects because we either have no interest in them or because we are sensitive to them and want to steer clear.
Secondly, we want to exegete the congregation or be able to read the room. This is one reason why I dislike the old habit, now thankfully dying where visiting speakers were ushered into the vestry and kept away from the congregation until the service began. However, more importantly, it’s why I prefer preaching to come from those who are part of a church family more than from visitors. It is as you do the work of pastoring, spending time with the church family that you het to know what they need to hear. What this also means is that whilst all Scripture is for the whole church, not every application is for this congregation at this time. You don’t want to be rebuking and challenging people who need encouragement or comfort anymore than you want to be comforting those who need to hear the Lord’s rebuke.
From there we can move to exegeting the text, spending time in God’s Word in order to be ready to apply it.
Context is king
The first thing to do when preparing to preach or teach is to get to know the context of what you are about to talk about. This means first of all looking at how a particular passage fits into the chapter of the book, what comes before, what comes after. Then how it fits into the book itself. Finally, you want to see how it fits into the unfolding revelation of Salvation, where the book fits into the whole of Scripture.
Where we are in the story matters. The Gospel, like a Greek or Shakespearean comedy is a good news story. Things start well and then disaster strikes but the hero intervenes to turn things around so that things are better at the end than the beginning. It’s important to think about where your Bible text fits into that picture. Has the hero arrived on the scene yet? Whilst there is the big meta-narrative running through Scripture, each individual book or story offers its own mini comedy or sometimes tragedy too.
Slow down
I think this is one of the most important parts of preparation. We need to slow down to make sure that we are actually reading the words accurately. Too often, we speed along filling in with what we expect to be there. That’s when we miss the detail and the surprises. Slowing own helps us to see what is actually there.
One way in which you can slow down your reading is by working with a version that is less familiar to you. In fact, it’s a good idea to read the text several times in different versions. Many of us have found that this is helped by reading in Greek or Hebrew, especially when we aren’t strong at languages.
Then either print out or copy into word the text from one version. I find a formal equivalent version the seeks to follow the grain of the Hebrew or Greek grammar, syntax and vocabulary helpful for this.
Read through again, annotating the text. Highlight words and phrases that seem to be repeated, underline words that are significant because of their use elsewhere in Scripture. Then identify the key conjunctions that connect phrases together. You are particularly looking for words and phrases like: therefore, so that, in order to. Those words help you to see the flow of logic in the text, mark them with an arrow pointing forward because they indicate that the idea they point towards is an important implication of what has gone before. Similarly, when you see “for” or “because” you can annotate with an arrow pointing backwords because what comes next acts as an explanation or reason for the idea already expressed. You can then follow the arrows as they point you into the main idea.
The Big Idea
At this stage, you should be able to sum up what the text is all about in one sentence of at most a couple of statements. What is the big idea that the writer wants to draw our attention to? In order to turn this into the big idea for preaching, you want to move from a statement about the text to a statement that describes the intended response in your hearers. The response might be the need to understand something better, to have a firmer grasp or belief of a truth, to repent and be sorry for sin, to stop doing something or to start doing something. All of our response should in some way be a form of worship and thanksgiving to God.
Apply through Christ
The risk is that we call people to respond by asking them to change their behaviour and this can end up as a form of legalism. The way to prevent this is to make sure that you remember that all Scripture is about Christ. So, we apply both OT and NT texts through him. This means that we both show how Jesus fulfils a specific text so that we are justified in him and how through the Holy Spirit he enables us to follow his example as he fulfils and obeys Scripture.
Application all the way down
One of the most helpful bits of advice I got on preaching was that rather than working through the text and then attempting to sum up with some application, I should apply as I go along. So, when I preach, I try to make each of my headings a sub application. Check, are your headings statements or imperatives/exhortations? This along with helpful illustrations can help to make the sermon stick.
[1] Romans 10:13.
Faithroots 