Blessings and Woes of Preaching

Clifton Black of Princeton Theological Seminary has an excellent little piece of beatitudes and woe oracles about Preaching from the Gospels and Acts. Well worth reading.

HT: Steve Walton.

Christ Centred Interpretation Only?

Earlier I posted on Jason Hood's article about "Christ Centred Interpretation Only?" published in SBET. As a follow up, in the latest issue of CT, Colin Hansen has a piece on "Christ-Centred Cautions" that highlights Hood's concerns that Christ Centred preaching can denigrate those who preach a message of moral exhoration from Scripture. Hood's concern is that Jesus and the biblical authors themselves use Scripture for a great deal of moral exhortation. Hood accepts the premise that Christ is the centre of Scripture and rejects crass moralizations. But there is no escaping the fact that much of the NT use of the OT focuses on moral exhortation.

A few other thoughts:

1. While it might sound a bit neat, there is clearly a "both/and" balance here. Undoubtedly when NT authors and the Church Fathers came to a biblical text they brought with them the story of Scripture itself, they read the Bible christocentically, because the Bible explicitly told them to (e.g., Luke 24:27; John 5:45-47; Rom 10:4, etc.). And yet we should also read the Bible ecclesiocentrically because we are supplied with the example of this as well. How much of the NT's use of the OT talks about the church in the context of its coming into existence, warnings from Isael's past, and its hostility with the world around it (e.g., Romans 9-11!). In my mind 1 Corinthians 10 shows both elements since in 10.4 we see that the rock that followed Israel in the wilderness was "Christ" and then in 10.11 the wilderness narrative was written "as warnings for us on whom the end of ages had come". In fact, Richard Hays argues that the ecclesiocentric element is more prolific than the christocentric element in Paul.

2. In certain Reformed circles it is common to see the necessary application of every sermon to be, somehow, about the Law vs. Gospel distinction. This seems like an odd thing to interject into every sermon. Yes, Gal 3:12, "The Law is not of faith", but let's note also Rom 3:27 with the "law of faith" and by faith "we uphold the Law". There is undoubtedly two epochs of Law and Christ (Gal. 3.10-14 and Rom. 3.21), but they are part of a single story in which there are continuities and discontinuities and focusing on the discontinuities seems like an odd thing to trump out twice on Sunday.

3. As someone who preaches a fair bit around the traps, I tend to think that the goal of preaching is transformation. Transformation in terms of conforming our minds to the Word of God and conforming our lives to the pattern of Jesus Christ.

Some New IVP Books on Ministry

I get regularly get books in the mail from publishers and I have a batch of two little gems from IVP.

Derek Tidball
Ministry by the Book: New Testament Patterns for Pastoral Leadership
(Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2009).

Derek Tidball is the former principal of London School of Theology and currently visiting scholar at Spurgeon's College. Tidball's contention in this book is that biblical ministry is "multicoloured, not monochrome" and he advocates "that the New Testament writers set before us a number of models of ministry, each one of which is shaped by the needs of the church they were serving and, no doubt, by their own individual personalities and interests as well". Tidball believers that "An in-depth review of the books of the New Testament on ministry will lead to a far richer understanding of the mulvaried forms of ministry that is customary among most churches today. It can prove a very releasing exercise for many pastors who struggle to fit into a current ecclesiastical mould even when they know their gifts do not quite match it, helping them to play to their strenghts. It can prove a very salutary exercise for church authorities, whether national or local, who have attempted to compress the variety of God's gifts into a dull uniformity" (pp. 14-15). I know exactly what Tidball means. I've seen some seminaries that are in effect clone factories where the graduates end up believing all the same stuff, preaching with the same style, and more scarily even end up dressing the same! I'm very grateful for the college that I trained at, but if I had to make one criticism, it is that I got the feeling that our sole purpose was to try to become the next Rick Warren. Tidball gives a good survey of the patterns of ministry in the NT.

Darrel W. Johnson
The Glory of Preaching: Participating in God's Transformation of the World
(Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2009).

This book is a book to encourage preachers. I've never been a pastor, but I know what it's like to stand in front of people Sunday after Sunday and wonder to myself "Is anybody really listening to this? Are they gonna remember any of this after lunch? Would they rather be watching football or shopping than listening to me?" Johnson wants to emphasize preaching as the transformative moment where we encounter God. He quotes the second Helvetic confession: "The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God". He believes that when God speaks, something happens. When the preacher speaks, God is speaking. When God speaks something happens like we get a clear vision of the living God in Jesus; a better understanding of the gospel; an alternative reading of reality; a new way of seeing things, feeling, and acting; and a new power to enable us to walk in this new reality. His book word is, hence, "participation". It's a book about "Dare to preach ... and see what happens". Most encouraging!

Evangelistic Sermons

Con Campbell (Aussie NT linguistic, jazz musician, and evangelist extraordinaire) has a good blog post on what texts to use for evangelistic sermons. I agree in part with his warning of forcing texts to say something that they don't say. The old mantra "Christ in every sermon" works better in some texts than others. But I think there has to be a balance between respecting the context, content, and concern of an OT text and reading the OT canonically. After all, in our reading of the OT we bring the gospel story with us even if we have to be careful to avoid spiritualizing allegory and eisegesis. We don't preach or listen to Zechariah 5 from the vantage point of post-exilic Judeans, but as Christians. Well, that's my thoughts. But I agree with Con in the comments, Romans 5:8 is a great text to preach evangelistically!

Evangelicalism: Sacrament and Word

Is evangelicalism too logocentric in its worship services? In Tom Wright's lecture at Calvin College on the Sacraments (see the clip below), he makes an interesting point that in some churches there is such a focus on the preached Word and on the centrality of the pulpit that the sacraments are pushed to one side with the result that the service becomes more like that of a Mosque with all Word and no Sacrament! Now, Wright can't be accused of having a low view of preaching, consider the following quote: "A church without sermons will soon have a shrivelled mind, then a wayward heart, next an unquiet soul, and finally a misdirected strength" (Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship [London: SPCK, 1997], xi). I do get what he's saying since I've been in (= orchestrated and lead) services where the whole worship and prayer session is merely an extended overture to the sermon. I've also been in churches where the eucharist or Lord's Supper is served at every service (esp. Anglican and Church of Christ congregations) and if often becomes very mechanical and meaningless. I've also noticed that some liberal churches include more Bible readings than some "Bible believing" churches. I do wonder then how one integrates this all together: Prayer, Sacrament, Praise, and Word. Perhaps it's time that evangelicals (re)discovered liturgy.

Five things not to do in sermons!

5. Do not yell out at the top of your voice, "Will someone shut that kid up!" even if you want to say it.

4. Do not repeatedly scratch your genitals if you have a transparent perspecs lecturn as your pulpit.

3. Do not try to break the record for how many power-point slides you can fit into a sermon.

2. Do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, quote the Left Behind series.

1. Do not begin your sermon by saying: "I'm gay and Jesus loves me" and then pausing for a long time. Note: I have actually done this. It was a sermon about homosexuality and I was quoting a UMC minister who had recently outed himself, but a Deacon in the frontrow nearly had a coronary before I could put the quote into its proper context.

Why Preach?

For those of us who pour our time and souls into sermons that some will find refreshing and others will forget in a matter of hours, there is an important reminder as to why we should continually mount the pulpit to preach. Tom Wright gives a good reason!

A church without sermons will soon have a shrivelled mind, then a wayward heart, next an unquiet soul, and finally a misdirected strength.

Tom Wright, Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship (London: SPCK, 1997), xi.