The Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching: A Comprehensive Resource for Today's Communicators

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

The chapters in this book have come from four choice sources: the best of the best on preaching from twenty-five years of Leadership journal, nearly five years of PreachingToday.com, some twenty years of Preaching Today audio (all preaching resources of Christianity Today International), and chapters written specifically for this publication.

A manual like this—overflowing with helpful information—must be managed. Like eating chocolate, the chapters can be so rich that we want to read and read, but the number of insights can be overwhelming. Like attending a week-long seminar, we come to a point when there is too much to assimilate, too much to think about as we prepare and preach.

As with great musicians, men and women in ministry grow over time. We expect this manual is one you will grow with for years to come. You will consciously focus on one important principle from a chapter for weeks or months. Eventually it will become second nature, and you will be ready to focus deliberate attention on another principle.

If you don’t have one already, create your personal preaching checklist, which serves as a repository for things you want to remember to do as you prepare and preach a sermon. Add to that checklist as you read this book (noting the page numbers to refer to again later), knowing you won’t be able to grow and work on each aspect at the same time. But with a checklist you have peace of mind and a plan for growth you can use and work on as your abilities allow. Perhaps this year you won’t be able to implement those great ideas found in an article, but next year you will.

After you prepare a sermon, review your checklist to ensure you have covered at least your essentials. A checklist helps build a normal process of sermon preparation that keeps you from being paralyzed by the complexities of preaching well.

In the manual we have laid out the parts and chapters aiming for a natural flow, but the material does not build like bricks in a wall. Each chapter stands alone. You can begin reading anywhere you like and skip around at will in pursuit of your special interests.

You may especially like certain writers and want to read everything they have written in this book. To do so, check the Author Index in the back for a complete list of articles by each writer.

You may want to read everything on a narrow subject such as delivery or emotion, even when that subject is addressed in only a portion of a chapter. To do so, see the Subject Index.

You may want to see discussions related to particular Scriptures. To do so, see the Scripture Index.

Another way to read, of course, is a chapter at a time, focusing on a more general area of preaching—such as illustrations or style. These chapters cover the waterfront, but you will notice they don’t cover it with a blanket. This is not an encyclopedia of preaching. For example, the book does not have chapters on preaching in each of the major traditions.

We commend this book to you with our prayers and faith, believing it can chart your growth and enrichment in the high call of preaching for years to come and hoping you find many articles that end up on your annual rereading list.

We offer special thanks to the host of writers whose chapters reside between these covers, for their expertise and permission to use the material. These writers agree about the importance of preaching; naturally they do not all agree about how it should be done. Even within the pages of this book there are healthy differences of viewpoint.

Our thanks also go to Paul Engle, associate publisher for editorial development and executive editor at Zondervan, for his vision and direction for this book over the full course of the project; and to the editors, in particular associate editor John Beukema, and assistants listed on the Contributors pages for their diligence, skill, and labor of love.

It has been a joy and honor to serve you in this endeavor.

Haddon Robinson

Craig Brian Larson

CONTRIBUTORS

General Editors

Haddon Robinson

Craig Brian Larson

Executive Editor

Kevin Miller

Associate Editor

John Beukema

Contributing Editors

Kenton C. Anderson

Jeffrey Arthurs

Rich Doebler

Lee Eclov

Mark Galli

John Koessler

Editorial Assistants

Leslie Bauer

Drew Broucek

JoHannah Reardon

Writers

Jay Adams taught homiletics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and is author of Preaching According to the Holy Spirit (Timeless Texts, 2000). Now retired, he continues to speak and write.

David L. Allen is W. A. Criswell professor of expository preaching at The Criswell College in Dallas, Texas, and codirector of the Jerry Vines Institute.

Gordon Anderson is president of North Central University in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Kenton C. Anderson is assistant professor of applied theology at Northwest Baptist College and Seminary in Langley, British Columbia, a past president of the Evangelical Homiletics Society, and author of Preaching with Integrity (Kregel, 2003).

Jeffrey Arthurs is dean of the chapel and associate professor of preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, and a past president of the Evangelical Homiletics Society.

Craig Barnes is pastor of Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, former pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., professor of leadership and ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and author of Sacred Thirst (Zondervan, 2001).

Dan Baty is pastor of Valley Brook Community Church in Fulton, Maryland.

Alistair Begg is pastor of Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, daily radio speaker on Truth for Life, and author of Made for His Pleasure (Moody Press, 1996).

Rob Bell is teaching pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan, and author of Velvet Elvis (Zondervan, 2005). He is also featured in the first series of NOOMA short films.

John Beukema is associate editor of PreachingToday.com, preaching pastor of Western Springs Baptist Church in Illinois, and author of Stories from God’s Heart (Moody Press, 2000).

Paul Borden, former homiletics professor at Denver Seminary, is acting executive minister for the American Baptist Churches of the West in San Ramon, California.

Stuart Briscoe is pastor-at-large of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, and author of Preach It (Group, 2003).

Wayne Brouwer is pastor of Harderwyk Christian Reformed Church in Holland, Michigan.

Mark Buchanan is pastor of New Life Community Baptist Church, Duncan, British Columbia, and author of Things Unseen (Multnomah, 2002).

D. A. Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and author of numerous books, including The Cross and Christian Ministry (Baker, 2004) and Becoming Conversant with the Emergent Church (Zondervan, 2005).

Noel Castellanos is president of the Latino Leadership Foundation and pastor of Nearwest Connection in Chicago, Illinois.

Bryan Chapell is president of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri, and author of Christ-Centered Preaching (Baker, 1994).

Rodney L. Cooper is professor of discipleship and leadership development at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, former national director of educational ministries for Promise Keepers, and coauthor of We Stand Together (Moody Press, 1996).

Fred B. Craddock is Bandy distinguished professor of preaching and New Testament emeritus at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and author of As One without Authority (Chalice, 2001).

Ken Davis is a speaker and comedian, president of Dynamic Communications International in Arvada, Colorado, and author of Secrets of Dynamic Communication (Zondervan, 1991).

Ed Dobson is pastor of Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and author of Starting a Seeker-Sensitive Service (Zondervan, 1993).

Richard Doebler is pastor of Cloquet Gospel Tabernacle in Cloquet, Minnesota.

Maxie Dunnam is chancellor of Asbury Theological Seminary in Willmore, Kentucky, and author of volume 31 of the Communicator’s Commentary (Nelson, 2003).

Lee Eclov is pastor of the Village Church of Lincolnshire in Lake Forest, Illinois, a consulting editor to Leadership journal, and a columnist for PreachingToday.com.

Kent Edwards is associate professor of Christian ministry and leadership of the Doctor of Ministry program at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California. He is a past president of the Evangelical Homiletics Society. He is author of Effective First-Person Biblical Preaching (Zondervan, 2005).

Richard Exley is a writer and speaker based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is author of Witness the Passion (Whitestone, 2004).

Richard Foster is professor of spiritual formation at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California, and author of Celebration of Discipline (HarperCollins, 1988).

Randy Frazee is pastor of Pantego Bible Church in Arlington, Texas, and author of The Connecting Church (Zondervan, 2001).

Mark Galli is managing editor of Christianity Today and coauthor of Preaching That Connects (Zondervan, 1994).

Scott M. Gibson is assistant dean and associate professor of preaching and ministry at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, and editor of Making a Difference in Preaching (Baker, 1999).

Bill Giovannetti is pastor of Windy City Community Church in Chicago, Illinois.

Stephen Gregory is pastor of Alliance Church of Dunedin in Dunedin, Florida.

Ted Haggard is pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and author of Dog Training, Fly Fishing, and Sharing Christ in the 21st Century (Nelson, 2002)

Daniel T. Hans is pastor of Gettysburg Presbyterian Church in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Richard P. Hansen is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Visalia, California.

Wayne Harvey is pastor of First Baptist Church in Sanford, Florida.

Jack Hayford is president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and chancellor of The King’s College and Seminary, Van Nuys, California, founding pastor of The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, and author of The Spirit Formed Church (Regal, 2004).

David Helm is one of the pastors of Holy Trinity Church in Chicago, Illinois, and a board member of the Charles Simeon Trust.

Bill Hybels is pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, Illinois, and author of Courageous Leadership (Zondervan, 2002).

David Jackman is president of The Proclamation Trust, director of the Cornhill Training Course, and author of Opening Up the Bible (Hodder & Stoughton, 2003).

Darrell W. Johnson is associate professor of pastoral theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and author of Experiencing the Trinity (Regent College Publishing, 2002).

Timothy Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York, and author of Ministries of Mercy (Zondervan, 1989).

Jay Kesler is president emeritus of Taylor University and preaching pastor of Upland Community Church in Upland, Indiana.

Matthew D. Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in Christian Ethics and Practical Theology at The University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

John Koessler is chairman and professor in the Pastoral Studies Department at Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, Illinois, and author of True Discipleship (Moody Press, 2003).

Craig Brian Larson is editor of PreachingToday.com and Preaching Today Audio, pastor of Lake Shore Church in Chicago, Illinois, and coauthor of Preaching That Connects (Zondervan, 1994).

Greg Laurie is pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California, evangelist for Harvest Crusades, radio speaker on A New Beginning, and author of Why Believe (Tyndale, 2002).

Duane Litfin is president of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, and author of Public Speaking (Baker, 1992).

Crawford Loritts is daily radio speaker on Living a Legacy, associate U.S. director for Campus Crusade, and author of Lessons from a Life Coach (Moody, 2001).

Grant Lovejoy is associate professor of preaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas.

Dick Lucas is founding chairman of the Proclamation Trust, based in England. In 1998 he retired as Rector of St. Helen’s Church, Bishopsgate, in London.

Gordon MacDonald is editor-at-large for Leadership journal, teaches at Bethel Theological Seminary and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and is author of Ordering Your Private World (Nelson, 2003).

James MacDonald is pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, speaker on the radio program Walk in the Word, and author of Lord, Change My Attitude (Moody Press, 2001).

Steven D. Mathewson is pastor of Dry Creek Bible Church, Belgrade, Montana, and author of The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative (Baker, 2002).

Alice Mathews is distinguished associate professor of educational ministries and women’s ministries at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and author of Preaching That Speaks to Women (Baker and IVP, 2003).

S. Bowen Matthews is pastor of Brandywine Valley Baptist Church in Wilmington, Delaware.

Dave McClellan is senior associate pastor of Riverwood Community Chapel in Kent, Ohio.

Marilyn Chandler McEntyre is professor of English at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and author of Drawn to the Light (Eerdmans, 2003).

Joe McKeever is pastor of the First Baptist Church of Kenner, Louisiana.

Rick McKinniss is pastor of Kensington Baptist Church in Kensington, Connecticut.

Robertson McQuilkin is president emeritus of Columbia International University in Columbia, South Carolina, and author of Understanding and Applying the Bible (Moody Press, 1992).

Kevin A. Miller is executive editor of PreachingToday.com, vice president of resources for Christianity Today International, and author of Surviving Information Overload (Zondervan, 2004).

Jesse Miranda is professor and director of the Center for Urban Studies and Hispanic Leadership at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, California.

Jim Nicodem is pastor of Christ Community Church in St. Charles, Illinois.

Susan Maycinik Nikaido is senior editor of Discipleship Journal.

John Ortberg is teaching pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, in Menlo Park, California, contributing editor to Preaching Today, and author of The Life You’ve Always Wanted (Zondervan, 2002).

Larry Osborne is pastor of North Coast Church in Vista, California.

Bill Oudemolen is pastor of Foothills Bible Church in Littleton, Colorado.

Earl Palmer is pastor of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, Washington, and author of Mastering the New Testament: 1, 2, 3 John and Revelation (W Publishing Group, 1991).

Ben Patterson is campus pastor at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California, and a contributing editor to Christianity Today and Leadership journal.

Randal Pelton is pastor of The People’s Church, Hartland, New Brunswick, Canada.

John Piper is pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, radio speaker on Desiring God, and author of The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Baker, 1990).

The late Ian Pitt-Watson, author of A Primer for Preachers (Baker, 1986), was professor of preaching at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Kenneth Quick is chair of practical theology at Capital Bible Seminary in Lanham, Maryland, and author of Healing the Heart of Your Church (ChurchSmart, 2003).

Michael Quicke is professor of preaching and communications at Northern Seminary in Lombard, Illinois, and author of 360 Degree Preaching (Baker, 2003).

Alfredo Ramos is pastor of Hispanic ministry at Moody Church in Chicago, Illinois.

Eric Reed is managing editor of Leadership journal.

Rick Richardson is associate director for evangelism with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship nationally, an ordained priest with the Anglican Mission in America, and author of Evangelism Outside the Box (IVP, 2000).

Haddon Robinson is Harold John Ockenga Distinguished Professor of Preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, in South Hamilton, Massachusetts; senior editor of PreachingToday.com; radio teacher on Discover the Word; and author of Biblical Preaching (Baker, 1980, 2001).

Torrey Robinson is pastor of First Baptist Church in Tarrytown, New York, and coauthor of It’s All in How You Tell It (Baker, 2003).

Ed Rowell is pastor of Tri-Lakes Chapel in Monument, Colorado.

Stephen N. Rummage is associate professor of preaching and director of doctor of ministry studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and author of Planning Your Preaching (Kregel, 2002).

Bob Russell is senior minister of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, and author of When God Builds a Church (Howard, 2000).

Greg R. Scharf is chair of the department of practical theology and associate professor of practical theology at Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois.

Jim Shaddix is dean of the chapel and associate professor of preaching at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in New Orleans, Louisiana, and coauthor of Power in the Pulpit (Moody Press, 1999).

Emily E. Shive is speech and voice instructor at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon.

The late Lewis Smedes, author of My God and I (Eerdmans, 2003), was professor emeritus of theology and ethics at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California.

Chuck Smith is pastor of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California, founder of Calvary Chapel Fellowship, and radio teacher on The Word for Today.

Fred Smith is a retired business executive in Dallas, Texas, a board member of Christianity Today International, and a contributing editor of Leadership journal.

Andy Stanley is pastor of North Point Community Church in suburban Atlanta, Georgia, and author of The Next Generation Leader (Multnomah, 2003).

Chris Stinnett preaches for the Park and Seminole Church of Christ in Seminole, Oklahoma.

John R. W. Stott is rector emeritus of All Souls Church in London and author of Between Two Worlds (Eerdmans, 1982).

Joe Stowell is teaching pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, and author of The Trouble with Jesus (Moody Press, 2003).

Don Sunukjian is professor of preaching at Talbot School of Theology, La Mirada, California, and a columnist for PreachingToday.com.

Chuck Swindoll is pastor of Stonebriar Community Church, Frisco, Texas, chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary, radio Bible teacher on Insight for Living, and author of The Grace Awakening (W Publishing Group, 2003).

Barbara Brown Taylor is the Harry R. Butman chair in religion and philosophy at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia, and author of Speaking of Sin (Cowley, 2001).

Virginia Vagt is former director of research and planning for Christianity Today International.

John Vawter speaks for You’re Not Alone ministries and is author of Hit by a Ton of Bricks (Family Life Publishing, 2003).

Dave Veerman is a partner of the Livingstone Corporation in Carol Stream, Illinois, and primary contributor to the Life Application Study Bible (Tyndale, 1997).

Walter Wangerin Jr. is writer in residence at Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Indiana, and author of The Crying for a Vision (Paraclete, 2003) and The Book of God: The Bible As a Novel (Zondervan, 1996).

Rick Warren is pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and author of The Purpose-Driven Life (Zondervan, 2002).

Timothy S. Warren is professor of pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary and ministers to adults at Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, Texas.

Scott Wenig is associate professor of applied theology at Denver Seminary and leadership development pastor at Centennial Community Church in Littleton, Colorado.

Warren Wiersbe is a writer and speaker, and coauthor of Preaching in Black and White: What We Can Learn from Each Other (Zondervan, 2003).

F. Bryan Wilkerson is pastor of Grace Chapel in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Dallas Willard is a professor in the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and author of Renovation of the Heart (NavPress, 2002).

William Willimon is bishop of the North Alabam Conference of the United Methodist Church and is editor of Pulpit Resource and the Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching (Westminster John Knox, 1995).

Paul Scott Wilson is professor of homiletics at Emmanuel College in the University of Toronto and author of The Four Pages of the Sermon (Abingdon, 1999).

Mike Yearley is a teaching pastor at North Coast Church in Vista, California.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In part 4, the article The Big Idea of Narrative Preaching by Paul Borden and Steven D. Mathewson is adapted from Paul Borden’s chapter, Is There Really One Big Idea in That Story? in The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching (Baker, 1998), edited by Willhite and Gibson. Used by permission of Baker Book House (www.bakerbooks.com), copyright © 1998. All rights to this material are reserved.

In part 5, the article Lifeblood of Preaching by Ian Pitt-Watson is excerpted from Ian Pitt-Watson, A Primer for Preachers, p. 61. Used by permission of Baker Book House, copyright © 1986. All rights to this material are reserved.

In part 11, the article A Comprehensive Check-Up by Haddon Robinson is excerpted from Biblical Preaching, Baker Book House, copyright © 1980. Used by permission. All rights to this material are reserved.

Part 1

THE High Call OF Preaching

How Can I Be Faithful to What God Intends Preaching to Be and Do?

Chapter 1

CONVICTIONS OF BIBLICAL PREACHING

Haddon Robinson

To do the tough work of being biblical preachers, men and women in ministry must be committed to certain truths.

(1) The Bible is the Word of God. As Augustine put it, When the Bible speaks, God speaks. This is the conviction that if I can really understand a passage in its context, then what I know is what God wants to say. (I don’t believe that many evangelicals as well as liberals really believe this.)

(2) The entire Bible is the Word of God. Not only Romans but Leviticus, not only Ephesians but Esther. Not merely the hot passages but the cold ones.

(3) The Bible is self-authenticating. If people can be exposed to an understanding of the Scriptures on a regular basis, then they do not need arguments about the veracity of Scripture. Therefore, a listener or reader doesn’t have to buy into the first two commitments before God can work in a person’s life through his Word.

(4) This leads to a Thus saith the Lord approach to preaching. I am not referring to a homiletical method here, but to a desire to open up the Scriptures so that the authority of the message rests on the Bible. (This works against the anti-authoritarian spirit of our society.)

(5) The student of the Bible must try to get at the intent of the biblical writer. The first question is, What did the biblical writer want to say to the biblical reader? Why? The Reader Response theory embraced by many literary scholars today will not work for the study of the Bible. Simply put, The Bible cannot mean what it has not meant.

(6) The Bible is a book about God. It is not a religious book of advice about the answers we need about a happy marriage, sex, work, or losing weight. Although the Scriptures reflect on many of those issues, they are above all about who God is and what God thinks and wills. I understand reality only if I have an appreciation for who he is and what he desires for his creation and from his creation.

(7) We don’t make the Bible relevant; we show its relevance. Truth is as relevant as water to thirst or food to hunger. Modern advertising creates needs that don’t really exist to move the merchandise.

Chapter 2

A DEFINITION OF BIBLICAL PREACHING

John Stott

Iintend to supply a definition of biblical exposition and to present a case for it. It seems to me that these two tasks belong together in that the case for biblical exposition is to be found in its definition. Here, then, is the definition: To expound Scripture is to open up the inspired text with such faithfulness and sensitivity that God’s voice is heard and his people obey him.

Now let me draw out the implications of this definition in such a way as to present a case for biblical exposition. The definition contains six implications: two convictions about the biblical text, two obligations in expounding it, and two expectations in consequence.

TWO CONVICTIONS ABOUT THE BIBLICAL TEXT

(1) It is an inspired text. To expound Scripture is to open up the inspired text. Revelation and inspiration belong together. Revelation describes the initiative God has taken to unveil himself and so to disclose himself, since without this revelation he would remain the unknown God. Inspiration describes the process by which he has done so, namely, by speaking to and through the biblical prophets and apostles and by breathing his Word out of his mouth in such a way that it came out of their mouths as well. Otherwise his thoughts would have been unattainable to us.

The third word is providence, that is, the loving provision by which God has arranged for the words that he has spoken to be so written down as to form what we call Scripture, and then to be preserved across the centuries so as to be accessible to all people in all places and at all times. Scripture, then, is God’s Word written. It is his self-disclosure in speech and writing. Scripture is the product of God’s revelation, inspiration, and providence.

This first conviction is indispensable to preachers. If God had not spoken, we would not dare to speak, because we would have nothing to say except our own threadbare speculations. But since God has spoken, we too must speak, communicating to others what he has communicated in Scripture. Indeed, we refuse to be silenced. As Amos put it, The lion has roared—who will not fear? The Sovereign LORD has spoken—who can but prophesy? (Amos 3:8), that is, pass on the Word he has spoken. Similarly, Paul echoing Psalm 116:10, wrote, We believe and therefore we speak (2 Cor. 4:13). That is, we believe what God has spoken, and that is why we also speak.

I pity the preacher who enters the pulpit with no Bible in his hands, or with a Bible that is more rags and tatters than the Word of the living God. He cannot expound Scripture because he has no Scripture to expound. He cannot speak because he has nothing to say, at least nothing worth saying. Ah, but to enter the pulpit with the confidence that God has spoken and that he’s caused what he has spoken to be written and that we have this inspired text in our hands, why then our head begins to swim and our heart to beat and our blood to flow and our eyes to sparkle with the sheer glory of having God’s Word in our hands and on our lips.

That is the first conviction, and the second is this:

(2) The inspired text to some degree is a closed text. That is the implication of my definition. To expound Scripture is to open up the inspired text. So it must be partially closed if it needs to be opened up. And I think at once I see your Protestant hackles rising with indignation. What do you mean, you say to me, that Scripture is partly closed? Is not Scripture an altogether open book? Do you not believe what the sixteenth-century Reformers taught about the perspicuity of Scripture, that it has a see-through quality, a transparent quality? Cannot even the simple and the uneducated read it for themselves? Is not the Holy Spirit our God-given teacher? And with the Word of God and the Spirit of God, must we not say that we need no ecclesiastical magisterium to instruct us?

I can say a resounding yes to all of these questions, but what you rightly say needs to be qualified. The Reformers’ insistence on the perspicuity of Scripture referred to its central message—its gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone. That is as plain as day in Scripture. But the Reformers did not claim that everything in Scripture was plain. How could they, when Peter said there were some things in Paul’s letters that even he couldn’t understand (2 Peter 3:16)? If one apostle did not always understand another apostle, it would hardly be modest for us to say that we can.

The truth is that we need one another in interpreting the Scriptures. The church is rightly called to hermeneutical community, a fellowship of believers in which the Word of God is expounded and interpreted. In particular, we need pastors and teachers to expound it, to open it up to us so we can understand it. That is why the ascended Jesus Christ, according to Ephesians 4:11, is still giving pastors and teachers to his church.

Do you remember what the Ethiopian eunuch said in the chariot when Philip asked him whether he understood what he was reading in Isaiah 53? Did he say, Why of course I can. Don’t you believe in the perspicuity of Scripture? No, he didn’t say that. He said, How can I [understand it] . . . unless someone explains it to me? (Acts 8:31).

And Calvin, in his wonderful commentary on this passage in Acts, writes about the Ethiopian’s humility, saying that he wished there were more humble men and women in his day. He contrasts that humility with those whom he described as swollen-headed and confident in their own abilities to understand. Calvin wrote:

And this is why the reading of Scripture bears fruit with such a few people today because scarcely one in a hundred is to be found who gladly submits himself to teaching. Why, if any of us is teachable, the angels will come down from heaven to teach us. We don’t need angels. We should use all the aides, which the Lord sets before us to the understanding of Scripture, and in particular preachers and teachers.

But if God has given us the Scriptures, he has also given us teachers to expound the Scriptures. And those of us who are called to preach must remember this. Like Timothy, we are to devote ourselves to the public reading of Scripture and to preaching and teaching (1 Tim. 4:13). We are both to read the Scriptures to the congregation and to draw all our doctrinal instruction and exhortation out of it.

Here, then, is the biblical case that God has given us in Scripture a text that is both inspired, having a divine origin or authority, and is to some degree closed or is difficult to understand. Therefore, in addition to giving us the text, he has given us teachers to open up the text, explaining it and applying it to people’s lives today.

TWO OBLIGATIONS IN EXPOUNDING THE TEXT

Granted that the inspired text needs to be expounded, how should it be done?

Before I try to answer that question, let us address ourselves to one of the main reasons why the biblical text is to some degree closed and difficult to understand. It concerns the cultural canyon, or ravine, that yawns wide and deep between the two worlds—the ancient world in which God spoke his Word and the modern world in which we hear it. When we read the Bible, we step back two millennia beyond the microprocessor revolution, beyond the electronic revolution, beyond the Industrial Revolution, back, back into a world that has long since ceased to exist. So even when we read the Bible in a modern version, it feels odd, it sounds archaic, it looks obsolete, and it smells musty. We are tempted to ask, as many people do, What has that old Book got to say to me?

Don’t resent the cultural gap between the ancient world in which God spoke and the modern world in which we live. Don’t resent it because it causes us problems. It’s one of the glories of revelation that when God decided to speak to human beings, he did not speak in his own language, because if God has a language of his own and had spoken to us in it, we certainly would never have understood it. Instead, he condescended to speak in our languages, particularly in classical Hebrew and in common Greek. And in speaking the languages of the people, he reflected their own cultures, the culture of the ancient Near East and of the Greco-Roman world and Palestinian Judaism. It is this fact of the cultural conditioning of Scripture, of the consequent tensions between the ancient world and the modern world, that determines the task of biblical exposition and lays on us our two obligations.

(1) The first obligation is faithfulness to the biblical text. You and I have to accept the discipline of thinking ourselves back into the situation of the biblical authors—their history, geography, culture, and language. If we neglect this task or if we do it in a halfhearted or slovenly way, it is inexcusable. It expresses contempt for the way in which God chose to speak to the world. Remember, it is the God-inspired text that we are handling. We say we believe this, but our use of Scripture is not always compatible with what we say is our view of Scripture. With what painstaking, meticulous, conscientious care we should study for ourselves and open up to others the very words of the living God! So the worst blunder that we can commit is to read back our twenty-first century thoughts into the minds of the biblical authors, to manipulate what they said in order to conform to what we would like them to have said, and then to claim their patronage for our opinions.

Calvin again got it right when in his preface to the commentary on the letter to the Romans he wrote a beautiful phrase: It is the first business of an interpreter to let his author say what he does say instead of attributing to him what we think he ought to say. That’s where we begin. Charles Simeon said, My endeavor is to bring out of Scripture what is there and not to thrust in what I think might be there.

That, then, is our first responsibility—faithfulness to the ancient word of Scripture.

(2) The second obligation is sensitivity to the modern world. Although God spoke to the ancient world in its own languages and cultures, he intended his Word to be for all peoples in all cultures, including us at the beginning of the twenty-first century in which he has called us to live. Therefore, the biblical expositor is more than an exegete. The exegete explains the original meaning of the text. The expositor goes further and applies it to the modern world. We must struggle to understand the world in which God has called us to live, which is rapidly changing. We must listen to its many discordant voices and especially to the questions it is asking. We must feel its pain, its disorientation, and its despair. All that is part of our Christian sensitivity in compassion for the modern world.

Here, then, is our double obligation as biblical expositors: to open up the inspired text of Scripture with both faithfulness to the ancient Word and sensitivity to the modern world. We are neither to falsify the Word in order to secure a phony relevance, nor are we to ignore the modern world in order to secure a phony faithfulness. It is a combination of faithfulness and sensitivity that makes the authentic expositor.

But because this process is difficult, it is also rare. The characteristic fault of evangelicals is to be biblical but not contemporary. The characteristic fault of liberals is to be contemporary but not biblical. Few of us even begin to manage to be both simultaneously.

As we study the text, we need to ask ourselves two questions in the right order. The first is, What did it mean? If you like, What does it mean? because it means what it meant. As someone has said, A text means what its author meant.

So what did it mean when he wrote it? Then we ask the second question: What does it say? What is its message today in the contemporary world? If we grasp its meaning without going on to its message, what it says to us today, we surrender to antiquarianism that is unrelated to the present or to the real world in which we’ve been called to minister. If, however, we start with the contemporary message without having given ourselves to the discipline of asking, What did it originally mean? then we surrender to existentialism—unrelated to the past, unrelated to the revelation God has given in Christ and in the biblical witness to Christ. We must ask both questions, and we must ask them in the right order.

TWO EXPECTATIONS IN CONSEQUENCE

If we are convinced that the biblical text is inspired yet to some degree closed and needing to be opened, and if we accept our obligation to open the text in a way that is both faithful and sensitive, what can we expect to happen?

(1) We can expect God’s own voice to be heard. We believe God has spoken through the biblical authors, but we also need to believe that God speaks through what he has spoken.

This was the conviction of the apostles in relation to the Old Testament. They introduce their quotations from the Old Testament with one or other of two formulas: Either It stands written, or It says. Paul could even ask the question What does the Scripture say? We could respond to him, "Paul, come on now. What on earth are you talking about What does the Scripture say? The Scripture is an old book. Old books don’t talk. How can you ask, ‘What does the Scripture say?’ But the Scripture does speak. God speaks through what he has spoken. The Holy Spirit says, Today if you will listen to his voice, do not harden your heart" (see Heb. 3:7). The Word of God is living and powerful, and God speaks through it with a living voice (4:12).

Now such an expectation—that as we read and expound Scripture God will speak with a living voice—is at a low ebb today. As someone has said, We have devised a way of reading the Word of God from which no word from God ever comes. When the time for the sermon comes, the people close their eyes, clasp their hands with a fine show of piety, and sit back for their customary dose. And the preacher encourages it by his somnolent voice and manner.

How absolutely, radically different it is when both preacher and people are expecting the living God to speak. The whole situation is transformed. The people bring their Bibles to church. When they open it, they sit on the edge of their seat, and they are expecting God to speak. They are hungrily waiting for a word from God. The preacher prepares in such a way that he is expecting God to speak. He prays beforehand and in the pulpit that God will do it. He reads and expounds the text with great seriousness of purpose. And when he’s finished, he prays again. In this great stillness and solemnity when his message is over, everybody knows that God is present and has confronted his people with himself.

That’s the first expectation, and the second is this.

(2) God’s people will obey him. The Word of God always demands a response of obedience. We are not to be forgetful hearers but obedient doers. Our spiritual life and health depend on it. Throughout the Old Testament we hear the terrible lamentation of God, O that you would listen to my voice. God is still saying that today. He kept sending his prophets to his people, but they mocked his messengers, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of Yahweh was aroused against his people and there was no remedy. The epitaph engraved on the tomb of Israel was: They refused to listen.

I fear it’s the same often today. Dr. Lloyd-Jones wrote in his great book Preaching and Preachers that the decadent eras of the church’s history have always been those in which preaching has declined. It’s true. Not only the preaching of the Word but the listening to the Word have both declined. The spiritual poverty of many churches throughout the world today is due more than anything else to either an unwillingness or an inability to listen to the Word of God. If individuals live by the Word of God, so do congregations. And a congregation cannot mature without a faithful and sensitive biblical ministry and without listening to the Word themselves.

How should they respond? Response to the Word of God depends on the content of the Word that has been spoken.

• If God speaks to us about himself and his own glorious greatness, we respond by humbling ourselves before him in worship.

• If God speaks about us—our waywardness, fickleness, and guilt—then we respond in penitence and confession.

• If he speaks to us about Jesus Christ and the glory of his person and work, we respond in faith, laying hold on this Savior.

• If he speaks to us about his promises, we determine to inherit them.

• If he speaks about his commandments, we determine to obey them.

• If he speaks to us about the outside world and its colossal spiritual and material need, then we respond as his compassion rises within us to take the gospel throughout the world, to feed the hungry, and to care for the poor.

• If he speaks to us about the future, about the coming of Christ and the glory that will follow, then our hope is kindled and we resolve to be holy and busy until he comes.

The preacher who has penetrated deeply into his text, has isolated and unfolded its dominant theme, and has himself been deeply stirred to the roots of his own being by the text that he has been studying will hammer it home in his conclusion. The preacher will give people a chance to respond to it, often in silent prayer as each is brought by the Holy Spirit to an appropriate obedience.

It is an enormous privilege to be a biblical expositor—to stand in the pulpit with God’s Word in our hands, God’s Spirit in our hearts, and God’s people before our eyes waiting expectantly for God’s voice to be heard and obeyed.

Chapter 3

A WEEKLY DOSE OF COMPRESSED DIGNITY

How a sermon gives worth to the soul

Craig Brian Larson

I went to the home of a woman who attended the church I pastored. When I walked into the flat, her husband was asleep on a cot in the living room, a gaunt shell of a man, his substance sucked out by whiskey. His skin was yellow. When he awoke and we met, his voice was rumbly and harsh from smoking, and frighteningly loud. His eyes had something hateful about them that made my blood run cold.

This was the demanding, abusive man whom the woman in our church tried to placate day by day. She had told me chilling stories about him.

They lived on welfare, and their house had poverty written all over it. In the dirt yard sat an abandoned tire. The kitchen floor sloped steeply, and the gloomy walls needed paint. In the living room, the fabric on the arms of the chairs was worn through, a chair or two tilted because of a missing leg, the cushions gave no support. Mousetraps were everywhere. Dimly lighting the place were bulbs that could not have added more than forty watts apiece.

But each week something happened in the life of this woman that elevated her to a higher, brighter plane. She would come to church and hear a sermon. That sermon was nothing less than a condensed dose of dignity that saved and ennobled her battered spirit. Regularly I saw the tears of gratitude as she grabbed my hand before she left for home.

No matter what our station, daily life in a fallen world is a walk through a gauntlet of belittlement. Those who attend our churches are daily bombarded by false values and beliefs that cheapen God’s creation, by personal slights and insults, by Satan’s accusations. Their minds are assaulted by scabrous images in the media and by profanity that is objectionable to God precisely because it debases the creation. They are subject to sins that mar God’s image within them. They suffer distorted images of themselves that contradict God’s truth.

After such a week, it’s a wonder that a person can walk into church with any sense of worth (and the faces of many confirm that).

But then they hear anointed preaching, and gravity reverses as people sense the upward pull of heaven. The sermon reveals the character of God, who infuses all life with meaning and majesty. The sermon tells who we are in God’s sight: created in the divine image, beloved beyond description, destined for glory. The sermon uncovers sins—then announces how to be redeemed. The sermon honors the morality that exalts humankind. The sermon assumes that people can think and discern about life and the Book of Life. The sermon appeals to the will, treating people as responsible agents whose choices matter forever. The sermon preaches Christ Immanuel, forever hallowing human flesh, second Adam who will one day resurrect believers in his likeness. A sermon is the most intense dose of dignity any person can receive.

To sit through a quality sermon is something like ascending the Mount of Transfiguration. Prior to that moment, Jesus resembled any other man. He looked and dressed and groomed himself like a common man. But on the Mount of Transfiguration, his appearance changed to display his full divine nature. The glory of God radiated forth, his face blazing like the sun and his clothes becoming heavenly white. The curtain was pulled back, revealing reality.

During a sermon, we are in a sense transfigured. Our true dignity from God shines forth. Nothing else in life treats a man or woman in a way that assumes greater worth or higher powers.

There is no more costly gift I could have given that downtrodden woman than my best and God’s best in a sermon. It is a weekly dose of compressed dignity.

Chapter 4

OVERFED, UNDERCHALLENGED

A message must do battle for the will

Jay Kesler

Preaching is distinguished from teaching in that it calls for commitment and attempts to bring people to a point of action.

THE NEED FOR CHALLENGE

Somewhere I read about two men. When one man preached, people leaned back and said, How interesting. When the other preached, they said, Let’s march. To me, preaching is an appeal to the will.

Years ago, Billy Graham said if he preached without an invitation, he felt no loss of energy. But if he preached and gave an invitation, he was exhausted afterward. The demand of preaching toward commitment is much greater. Obviously everyone preaches at times without giving an invitation, but spiritual warfare takes place in a greater way when your appeal could change a person’s allegiance.

Someone has said, Men don’t rebel against the idea of God; men rebel against the will of God.

One key sermon resulted in my call to the ministry itself. I was a Christian. I felt an urge to reach others with the gospel, but my father, a labor leader, was anti-church, anti-Christian, but mostly anti-preacher. When I felt the call to preach, tension was building in my soul over facing a contest between my father and God.

I went to hear a tent evangelist named Pete Riggs. The theme of his crusade was Let Go and Let God. I remember the almost irresistible pull of the Holy Spirit to follow the voice of God.

I walked forward and was surrounded by people who knew me to help me clinch the nail. That night one of the pastors gave me this verse from the apostle Paul: For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of, for a necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel (1 Cor. 9:16, KJV). This has been my sense my whole life—woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.

Living in the world of higher education the last eighteen years, virtually every meeting I attend lacks real challenge, because many educators have no idea why they exist. Education today is utilitarian. We leave meetings thinking, I’m giving my life to prepare the workforce for the twenty-first century. Many educators think of relevance only in terms of materialism and upward mobility.

This is very unchallenging to me. We’re not human doings; we’re human beings. Helping someone to be is what real challenge is all about.

Worthwhile challenges go back to humans created in the image of God. All purpose in life is tied to that. Anything that makes a person less than that—a means to an end, for instance—I find unworthy.

UNDERCHALLENGING A CONGREGATION

There is tremendous danger of inoculation. As a little bit of cowpox will keep you from getting smallpox, so little doses of the gospel will prevent you from an inflammation of faith. I think it was Tozer who said, Sermonettes make Christianettes.

A presentation of the truth that doesn’t arrive at the place where hearers understand that it involves movement or commitment can have an inoculation effect. This is why many people who are orthodox are not evangelical, and why many who are evangelical are not evangelistic.

When we preach the gospel faithfully, it results in mission, outreach, and evangelistic desire. It has both a vertical dimension of salvation and a horizontal, social dimension of practical charity.

In an environment where people are sitting on the premises rather than standing on the promises, something is usually wrong with the preaching. It starts with the pastor. The easiest thing in evangelism is going down—down to the less educated, down to the youth, down to skid row, down to the impoverished. But unless pastors have a ministry across to their peers—community leaders and so on—they can’t browbeat people enough to get them to do it themselves. They have to lead by example.

CHARACTERISTICS OF OVERCHALLENGE

A kid in Youth for Christ camp once asked me, Would you pray for our pastor?

I’m cautious of this request, wondering what motivates the criticism or concern for a pastor. I asked, What do you want to pray for your pastor?

He said, Every Sunday after he preaches we sing three or four invitation hymns, and it seems like he’s not happy until he’s got all of us looking at our shoes, until everybody in the place feels reduced to a puddle. I don’t understand it.

What do you want to pray for?

He said, Let’s pray that my pastor would feel forgiven.

That knocked me out. This kid understands something deep. The pastor is trying to exorcise his own guilt through catharsis of some kind as opposed to understanding grace.

Gilbert Beers said, Even Moses moving the children of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land had to move at the speed of the smallest lamb. Pastors need to sense when people are overloaded.

There are certain people you have to take aside and say, You need to spend more time with your family. I know we’ve got a church workday this weekend, but I don’t think you ought to come. You need to take your kids fishing. You need to know your congregation enough to know which ones need challenge and which ones need rest.

As president of Taylor I drove around the campus in a circle, like Joshua around the walls of Jericho, and I prayed, Lord, here’s the circumference of this place. Please, God, do something. I need you. No pastor can effectively challenge people or move people toward God without the power of prayer.

Chapter 5

THEOLOGY OF POWERFUL PREACHING

Nine beliefs at the heart of biblical preaching

Jay E. Adams

What we truly believe determines what we do. What we believe in our heart of hearts about preaching will determine how we carry it out. In that sense, nothing can be more practical than our theology of preaching. The following nine beliefs are foundational to biblical preaching.

1. THE ULTIMATE AIM OF PREACHING IS TO PLEASE GOD

It is a core belief of the faith that God is sovereign and all things must be done to please him. Pleasing a sovereign Creator means discovering what he desires and, through his grace, doing it. To preach God’s Word God’s way should be the aim of faithful preachers. As sovereign, God tells us what to preach and how to do so. Ministers of the Word have no right to deviate from his instructions. Human ideas and speculation, therefore, must be foreign to the pulpit.

2. PREACHING PLEASES GOD ONLY WHEN IT IS TRUE TO SCRIPTURE

Christian preaching begins with the Scriptures. Unless preachers acquire and maintain the proper beliefs—and therefore attitudes growing out of these—about the Scriptures, they will fail to preach in ways that please God. Whether our preaching is effective is determined not by the number of persons who attend it, nor the number of professions of faith, but by the faithfulness of preachers to the message that we are called to preach. Those who do not faithfully proclaim God’s Word may claim numbers and supposed professions of faith. And some who do, fail to attract large followings. The sovereign God is the one who produces the results. When he began to preach to a rebellious people, Isaiah was told beforehand that the results would be minimal because the people lacked the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Failure to obtain outward results, however, may never be used as an excuse for flawed preaching.

This message, in every instance, must be true to the Bible. The preacher is a herald (keryx) whose task is to convey God’s Word to his people and to call the elect from the world into the church. To these ends, we must understand what is required of us and how to pursue it.

3. THE SCRIPTURES ARE THE INERRANT, INSPIRED WORD OF GOD WRITTEN

All true preachers acknowledge the Bible as the source from which to learn and proclaim God’s truth. They accept what they read there as inspired and inerrant in the autographs. By inspiration (the term in 2 Timothy 3:16 means God-breathed) they understand that scriptural words are as much God’s Word as if he spoke them by means of breath. If one could hear him speak, he would say nothing more, nothing less, and nothing different from what is written by means of his apostles and prophets. The Scriptures are the very Word of God written.

4. PREACHING IS A SACRED RESPONSIBILITY

The attitude that these beliefs should call forth is one of reverence for the text that the preacher expounds, along with a great desire to learn what each passage means so as to impart this understanding of the message to those who hear. Moreover, trustworthy interpreters of Scripture recognize that they are handling the most important information in all of life and want to be faithful in doing so. We will not engage in shoddy study or inadequate preparation of messages. We will recognize that in all that we say, we represent the God of the universe, and if we fail to understand or faithfully proclaim the truth, we will misrepresent God. To be faithful to the text and the Holy Spirit who caused it to be written is our fundamental concern. In this connection, conscientious ministers keep 2 Timothy 2:15 before themselves at all times.

5. THE SCRIPTURES WERE INTENDED NOT ONLY FOR THE ORIGINAL HEARERS BUT FOR OUR UNIQUE HEARERS TODAY

As heralds who bring a message from God to those who listen, we will not be satisfied with an approach to the text that views it as long ago and far away. We appreciate that the Scripture is for all times, for people in all lands. We keep in mind Paul’s words when he declared that these [Old Testament] events happened as examples for us (1 Cor. 10:6), and that they were written for our instruction (10:11, NASB). Consequently, we will understand that the message of the text is for the edification of our listeners every bit as much as for those to whom it was originally written.

Believing this, we will preach the text as a contemporary message. We will direct the words of the passage to our congregations as if it were written with them in mind. We do so because, as Paul explained, that is the actual fact. Therefore, we will not lecture on what happened to the Amalekites; rather, we will talk about what their experience has to do with our church members. That means that we will not preach about the Amalekites but about God and his people from the account of God’s dealings with the Amalekites. Our preaching, then, will be fresh and contemporary in nature.

Preachers today, like the Lord who powerfully wrote to seven of his churches in Revelation 2 and 3, analyze their congregations so that what they preach meets their needs. While preaching may be expository, as one preaches through a book, the choice of the biblical book itself should be made with those needs in mind.

6. THE ORIGINAL INTENT OF THE TEXT CONTROLS ITS MESSAGE TO HEARERS TODAY

Informed preachers will demark portions of Scripture for sermons on the basis of their intent. This intent may also be referred to as the telos, or purpose, of the portion. Every preaching passage, then, is selected because in itself it is a complete message from God. This message may be but part of a larger one, but it is a message that calls on the listener to believe, disbelieve, change, or do something God wishes that ultimately will contribute to the two great purposes of the Bible—to help the members of our congregations to love God and their neighbors.

Throughout the history of preaching, unfortunately, that has often not been the case. Preachers have used the Scriptures for their own purposes rather than for the purposes for which they were given, thus losing the power inherent in any given preaching portion. It is not without reason that the Gospel of John has been used more frequently than any other to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ; it was written for that purpose. The Spirit, who produced the Bible, will bless its use when the preacher’s intent is the same as his own.

7. THE SUBJECT OF EVERY MESSAGE IS GOD AND PEOPLE

Contemporary preaching that proclaims God’s message to his people is always personal. That means the preacher will not attempt to preach in a lecture form. We will avoid abstract language and concepts. We will not speak about the Bible, but we will preach about God and his congregation from the Bible. We will open the Scriptures as Jesus did (Luke 24:32), informing our listeners about its content, but always making apparent the relevance of the text to them. We recognize that we are not merely giving a speech, but we are preaching to people about their personal relationships to God and their neighbors. That is to say, we will cast our sermons in a second-person mold. The dominant word will not be I, he, she, it, but you. We will take our cue in this regard from the preaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

8. CLARITY IS PARAMOUNT

In order to preach effectively, we will adopt a clear, simple style that is easily understood by those who hear. We will recognize that the apostle Paul declared it a duty to be clear (Col. 4:4) and even requested prayer from his readers that God would help him to fulfill this duty. We will not only pray about our preaching ourselves, but will enlist our congregation to do so too.

In our efforts to maintain clarity throughout, we will adopt nontechnical language (unless we explain it). We will avoid preachy terminology, obsolete terms, and outdated phraseology. We will proclaim God’s message without strange tones, singsong, or anything else that calls attention to itself rather than to the truth. We will keep ourselves in the background as much as possible, thrusting Christ to the forefront of the message.

In order to achieve clarity, we will use illustrations and examples that help listeners to comprehend. These will be culled largely from contemporary experiences so that through them we may be able to demonstrate not only what the passage means in everyday life, that it is practical and not merely theoretical, but also how God expects the listener to appropriate the truth.

God’s truth must not be jumbled up in the proclamation. It should flow inexorably from start to finish in a reasoned, logical manner. This means that