I thought it might be worth saying something about approaching a preaching and teaching series through a Gospel. There are a few ways in which you can do this. You can choose to approach the whole book like you might do other books of the Bible and work through passage by passage, alternatively you can pick up on a few themes such as “the son of man”, “miracles”, “the kingdom of God” and trace them through a Gospel. Another approach might be to pick up on a few passages but not try to cover all the material in the Gospel. This might involve letting the preacher each week choose a bit of a chapter that stands out for them. Alternatively, you could look at conversations with Jesus, meals with Jesus or specific things Jesus said such as the I am sayings in John’s Gospel.
If you choose to work through chapter by chapter, which is my preferred approach then the next question is about how to break things down. It is possible to take small sections at a time, to look at each parable, miracle event or small section of teaching in order. There can be a benefit to doing this though it may end up taking a long time. More importantly, there are positive reasons for “going large” by which I mean preaching on larger sections such as a chapter at a time. In fact, we might argue that there is a theological reason given that we see how the Gospel writers intentionally order their material in order to communicate their message. In othw words, if Luke groups two or three miracles or parables together then we are meant to look at them together. I remember it being pointed out to me a number of years ago that we are in the habit of taking one parable and subdividing it in order to make three points whereas the Gospel writers seem to take three parables in order to illustrate one big point.
How to approach big narrative preaching
What this means is that you aren’t going to attempt to work through verse by verse through a whole chapter, especially ones like Luke 1 where you are going to try and cover 80 or so verses. Nor should you try to choose one or two bits to cover. Instead, what you want to do is to spend a good bit of time reading and re-reading through the chapter, using all the exegetical tools available to you such as sentence flow mapping, identifying key words and phrases etc in order to reach the point where you can sum up the whole section and what it is about in one or two sentences just as you would with a smaller section. This will then help you to identify what the one big application is that you want to make.
From there, it is a case of looking back over the events, teaching and parables recorder to see how the work together in order to nuance, illustrate and develop the point. This will mean identifying common themes, phrases and words that link parables or healings together. It will also mean looking at how the subsections work with each other to complement, develop or nuance.
Finally I would think in terms of how I can use all the material in the chapter or passage to support the main point. This might include retelling the stories from the Gospel passage in my own words and/or highlighting specific things from each subpassage.
Some worked examples
Here a few examples of how you can cover the whole of a big section of a Gospel whilst remaining succinct. First, up, here is an example of a short evangelistic piece for a Christmas evangelistic booklet which looks at Luke 15. Whilst I later went into specific detail on the parable of the prodigal, I started by giving an overview of the whole chapter.
Where the Lost things go
Jesus tells three parables about lost things in Luke 15. First, he describes a sheep lost out in the darkness, away from the rest of the flock. The shepherd leaves 99 behind to go and find the one that is missing.
In a second parable, Jesus describes a woman who has ten coins, each worth a day’s wages. She loses one of them and for whatever reason, be it that they belong together as a set or simply that she cannot afford the loss of that day’s money she sets about searching until she has found it.
In the third story, a son demands his share of the inheritance and then leaves home, losing everything, he goes home ready to be taken back as a hired hand. Instead, his dad throws him a party and welcomes him home.
What have these stories got to do with Christmas? They don’t seem very festive. However, these three parables point us to the events of the first Christmas because that’s exactly what Christmas is all about. It’s the story of how God sets out to seek and find you and me. When we were lost, he found us, when we were in danger, he rescued us. When we were dead, he gave us life.
Our big theme is“Worthy”. What are you worthy of this Christmas? The question is all about what you and I are worth. Our starting point is that Christmas tells us that Jesus considered us worth stepping into history, worth finding, worth dying for. Why is that so? Well, we are going to discover more as we explore the story of the lost son.
Reckoning
Luke 16 involves Jesus telling a parable about a manager who is called to account for his questionable work and efforts. He is going to get the sack, so he goes round to the boss’s debtors and settles their accounts favourable. The result is that when he is out of work, he finds he has friends to take him in. Jesus is of course not commending the unethical behaviour but notes that there is a shrewdness or wisdom displayed even by this ungodly man. He thinks about how to invest now given the day of reckoning coming.
There are then a few short snappy statements about the Law and Prophets, their message has been persistent until the coming of God’s kingdom. The arrival of that kingdom is getting the attention of everyone but this doesn’t take away from what the Law requires, the specific example of adultery is given. Jesus is not watering down the demands of Torah. We are accountable for our lives.
Then we have the famous story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man cares little about Lazarus until they die and then he finds himself in Hell whilst Lazarus is in paradise with God, in the care of Abraham. Then, the rich man begs for Lazarus to come to him to alleviate his suffering. He is refused. He had his opportunity during his earthly life.
It is worth noting too the themes of wealth, there is a rich man in the last parable whilst the Pharisees who hear the first sneer at Jesus because they love money. We can link that question of love and faithfulness, what or who do you love most to the example of adultery because the question is about faithfulness. One day, we will have to give an account before God. Have we been faithful?
Faithroots 