Category Archives: communication

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From Cicero to Augustine to our Preaching

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Cicero influenced Augustine who, in turn, has influenced all of us!

The last few weeks I’ve been sharing key thoughts from Augustine’s, On Christian Doctrine (translated by Robertson). Because of my emphasis through the years of the intersection of homiletics and hermeneutics, I have read very little on ancient rhetoric. However, Augustine has given me a glimpse of it in this book and another that I began last week (Augustine and the Cure of Souls: Revising a Classical Ideal, by Paul R. Kolbet [not Stephen Colbert!].

You might be interested in the following quote from Augustine citing Cicero in the context of your own teaching and preaching work:

“Therefore a certain eloquent man said, and said truly, that he who is eloquent should speak in such a way that he teaches, delights, and moves. Then he added, ‘To teach is a necessity, to please is a sweetness, to persuade is a victory.'” (p. 136).

You and I are not interested in eloquence for eloquence’s sake.

However, we are interested in teaching. I had the privilege this morning again to teach the sacred Scriptures. It was my responsibility to interpret a section in Matthew’s Gospel in such a way that it functioned for my faith-family. We give biblical information and instruction.

We might not think about the second one, “delights.” Maybe because we’re not into entertaining. But what if I changed the angle with a quote from my mentor, Haddon Robinson: “It’s a sin to bore people with the Word of God.” So, if you struggle with the thought of delighting your listeners, you probably don’t struggle with trying to avoid boring your congregants with the Bible.

Finally, the third element, persuasion, is one that I expected to hear, even with my limited reading of ancient rhetoric. And this is one that you and I are extremely interested in. All our efforts to teach serve the goal of persuading our congregants to respond properly to sacred Scripture. Preachers talk about application or persuading listeners to apply their lives to the Bible.

N.B. You may recall from earlier posts that authorized persuasion is organically connected to theological exegesis. This requires skill to identify meaning of a passage that includes what God intends for that passage to do to listeners.

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as we begin preparing for victory in our next preaching/teaching assignment.

Randal

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Assisting our “Silent Learners”: Augustine on Preaching

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Some of Our Listeners may Be Silent, but They Are Thinking.

I wrote recently that I finally read Augustine’s classic little paperback, On Christian Doctrine (translated by Robertson). Augustine provides a look at one challenge of the traditional, monologue sermon. He instructs his students,

“In a conversation anyone may ask questions. But where all are silent that one may be heard and all are intent upon him, it is neither customary nor proper that anyone inquire about what he does not understand. For this reason the teacher should be especially careful to assist the silent learner. [emphasis added]” (p. 134)

You can see that, in Augustine’s day, preachers didn’t engage in dialogue with their listeners. In his era, all were “silent that one may be heard and all are intent upon him.” Probably your preaching resembles that too. You preach and your parishioners listen without asking questions about what they don’t understand.

Here are some things to think about as you develop this week’s sermon(s) that will help you “to assist the silent learner”:

  1. As you study your preaching portion, make a list of all the questions you have of this text.
  2. Try to anticipate the kinds of questions that someone who has not studied as much as you might ask of that text.
  3. Try also to anticipate the disagreements they may have with you as you preach. One homiletician called these push-backs, contrapuntals (I knew you’d like that word!).
  4. During the sermon, ask your listeners questions in such a way that they know you expect them to answer. Even if you don’t expect them or necessarily want them to answer, still ask a question sincerely to help them think with you. I say that because, through the years, I’ve seen more than one preaching ask their congregants a question in such a way they knew he really didn’t expect an answer.

Our typical monologue-method on Sunday mornings presents some real problems for communicating biblical truth. Through the years I’ve found a conversational style to be more effective than the one-way method. Most of my listeners are used to monologue sermons, but appreciate the conversation.

If you find that you fit into Augustine’s mode of preaching, may our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as you carefully assist your silent learners.

Randal

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Confusion or Clarity? A Brief Word From Augustine

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Augustine was very sure he was being clear! I am not always so sure!! You?

Last week I finished reading Augustine’s classic little paperback, On Christian Doctrine (translated by Robertson). I had seen it quoted so many times through the years and figured it was about time.

Early on in the book, Augustine baldly stated:

“I am not to blame because they do not understand.” (p. 3)

If I remember correctly, Augustine took a job teaching rhetoric in order to pay the bills. So, he was well-trained in communication. Evidently, he knew how to be crystal clear when he taught Scripture. And he was confident in his abilities.

His statement reminded me of the importance of being clear. It’s more important that being interesting or clever. As much as I value preaching with accuracy, what is accuracy without clarity?

Augustine got me thinking about what enhances clarity. Here are some things to consider as you prepare to preach this week:

  1. Exchange your informational sermons titles (I am assuming your titles provide statements) for transformational titles (ones that hint at application or response even before the sermon begins).
  2. Similar to #1 is to clearly state the primary worship responses to your Text. As I have written before, you might complete this sentence: “We worship this morning by_____________.” This is another way of talking about sermon application. When you insert this sentence into the opening minutes of your sermon introduction, your listeners are clear about how to worship during the sermon.
  3. Whether you use formal outline points or not, make sure to create clear transitions from thought-block to thought-block. Everyone should hear how the parts fit together so the sermon doesn’t fragment in their minds.
  4. I find it’s easy not to be clear with defining key terms. I am trying to make sure my sermon manuscript has one robust sentence for any word that requires careful evaluation. The lexicons are still my favorite source for concise definitions in context.
  5. I need to practice this more: follow up a lengthy quote, with something like, “Now, what D. A. Carson is saying is, ___________________.” That gives listeners two opportunities to hear the content.
  6. Finally, be clear about the Gospel, how Christ-crucified makes it possible for us to put the Scripture into practice (the worship response in #2 above).

Maybe, after all that, I can say with Augustine, “I am not to blame because they do not understand.” And may our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21), because of our sermon clarity.

Randal

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Exposition that Doesn’t Follow the Structure of Scripture, but for Good Reason

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Let’s Not Make Communicating God’s Word
Any Harder by our Sermon Structure.

This past Saturday I had the privilege of co-leading a four-hour workshop on the campus of Lancaster Bible College | Capital Seminary & Graduate School, Unpacking Sacred Scripture. Our task was to help unpack Psalm 1 and 2, the formal introduction to the Psalter.

I suggested we follow the structure of Psalm 1 and 2. The flow of thought is easy to follow. Here’s what I mean in Psalm 1:

1:1-3 describe the blessed person.

1:4-5 describe the wicked person.

1:6 explains why this is reality.

This past Sunday I had the privilege of preaching Psalm 86. I chose not to follow the structure of the Psalm. Psalm 86 is filled with at least 15 requests to God, with virtually each request followed by reasons why we pray like that.

For instance, 86:1a is “Incline your ear…and answer me…” and 86:1b explains, “for I am poor and needy.”

This same flow of thought continues throughout much of the Psalm.

So, as I often do, I decided to make the first major movement of the sermon devoted to the requests. The second movement dealt with all the reasons why, such as 86:1b above.

In this way, I kept the communication from bouncing back and forth between request and reason. I could spend several minutes of the message focused on the requests and their contribution to theology and the faith-journey. Then, in the second major point, I grouped the reasons why together.

My goal in straying from the structure was to make communication lines a little clearer. It is risky. I made a judgment call that breaking the structure didn’t break the theology of the passage. I preserved the theology by making sure we all knew that the Psalm presented requests with their reasons (keeping the structure intact in our minds).

Before Sunday see if there may be a need to group similar ideas together in a point, even if the text scatters them throughout the preaching portion.

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as we work hard at clear communication.

Randal

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How Do You Know What A Preaching Portion Means?

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Adding a Meaning Element from Speech Act Theory

Yesterday I had the privilege of joining Dr. Mark Meyer, Hebrew specialist at LBC|Capital, at their D.C. location (Greenbelt, MD) for a workshop, Unpacking Sacred Scripture. We worked together in Psalms 1 and 2, the introduction to the Psalter, to show the combined exegetical and homiletical process. Our goal was to help close the gap between finding meaning and application.

One of my responsibilities was to introduce the participants to a new kind of meaning summary. You can see that in this slide:

Consider this kind of meaning to be your goal as you begin sermon or lesson preparation this week.

I call our target meaning, illocutionary intent-infused meaning (II-M). I’ll spare you the boring details and only say that this fancy language originates from Speech Act Theory and their concept of illocution. Illocution describes what a person is doing by what they are saying.

My favorite illustration of the illocutionary element of communication is my wife, Michele, saying, “Ran, the dog needs to go out.” If I respond with, “That’s nice, Dear,” and go back to my very important job of writing a blog post, then I missed what she meant. In saying, “The dog needs to go out,” she’s really asking me to take the dog out. That’s what she was doing in what she was saying.

As you can see from the slide, II-M is the combination of biblical content and biblical intent. The intent part is critical because this contains the seeds of valid application derived from the meaning of the text.

So, before Sunday, see if you can detect your pericope’s intent. Answer this question from your text:

What does God intend for this Scripture to do to the listener?

If you can add intention to your meaning summaries, you will always keep primary application tied directly to meaning. And, I am suggesting that we really do not know what a Scripture means until we have identified how God intends for it to function for the church.

So, as you begin to identify the meaning of your upcoming Text, complete the meaning summary by adding: “____________ with the intent of_________”

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as we communicate both content and intent.

Randal

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Lessons from Listening to Student Sermons

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Two Observations and Suggestions from Watching Another Round of Student Sermons.

No offense to my recent students, but my mentor and long-time homiletics professor, the late Dr. Haddon Robinson, once said:

“I’ve listened to so many bad sermons in my lifetime, it’s a miracle that I am still a Christian.”

I’m pretty sure he was only half joking.

Last week I had the privilege of listening to many good sermons preached in my Advanced Homiletics class. Here are a couple of observations and suggestions:

  1. Introductions usually are too long in proportion to the number of sermon minutes. Novice preachers tend to create sermon introductions that are too long. This tendency might be caused by a failure to think carefully about what introductions must do. It also appears that preachers think introductions are more valuable than they really are. A sermon introduction must do two things: (1) introduce the subject of the sermon and (2) tell why listeners need to hear that subject matter [a bonus (3) could be telling them the worship response: “We worship this morning by ____________.” In light of what I just experienced, my suggestion is to shorten your sermon introductions.
  2. The segment between the introduction and the first point is too long. Again, the more inexperienced preachers seem bent on spending precious sermon minutes on contextual or background information. Part of the reason might be what the students are used to hearing from their professors or from reading commentaries. My standard rule in class is, only supply contextual/background-type information that is critical for interpreting your preaching portion. My suggestion is before placing contextual or background information in the sermon, ask yourself, “Could I understand the meaning of this text without this piece of background information?” If the answer is, “yes,” then leave it out of the sermon.

As you can tell, I am a huge fan of saving sermon minutes for the theological interpretation of Scripture. And that clock sure moves quickly on Sundays!

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as a result of our evaluations and striving to preaching well.

Randal

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Expository Preaching Should Always Reach Beyond Our Comprehension: What I’m Learning From Jonathan Edwards’s Earliest Sermons

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We are, after all, preaching about “God’s excellencies” every Sunday!

It’s been some time since I have written about what I’m learning from reading Jonathan Edwards’s earliest sermons.

One of those sermons was, God’s Excellencies, on Psalm 89:6

“For who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord, and who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord?”

Well, the answer, of course, is “Nobody can be compared to our Lord!”

In his introduction to that sermon, Kimnach, using Edwards’s own words, describes it as,

“a sermon in which the subject matter is frequently beyond ‘the outmost verge of our most outstretched thoughts.'” (p. 413)

Kimnach explains that one of Edwards’s favorite sermon themes was “the grandeur of God” (p. 414). No wonder Edwards spoke of going beyond the outer edges “of our most outstretched thoughts”!

This reminded me of the balancing act we attempt every Sunday with respect to expository preaching. If we are really preaching the Bible, not just from the Bible, our task requires finesse. We need to communicate the excellencies of our God, but those excellencies, according to Edwards, often extend beyond “the outmost verge of our most outstretched thoughts.”

Think Advent and incarnation!

One way to think about the effectiveness of our preaching is to assess the degree to which we can clearly present the excellencies of our God and just as clearly state that we haven’t done Him justice.

This gives our listeners the opportunity to worship in two ways. First, they can worship the Lord according to what they have just learned. Second, they can also worship the Lord by acknowledging that what they just learned doesn’t match His greatness.

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus because of this exhilarating, Sunday morning tightrope walk (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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How Rules for Exegesis Affect Preaching

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The Implication of “Scripture’s exactness” on our preaching

If you’ve read some of my material through the years, you know that most of my reading centers on hermeneutics, exegesis, and theological studies. The reason is because I put a premium on those topics in the context of my preaching and teaching homiletics. The reason is because I value their contribution over most, purely homiletical writings. The reason is because of my conviction that precision is more important than presentation.

[Caveat: however, I work hard at both precision and presentation and realize that poor preaching can eclipse the exegetical/theological precision used in the sermon development stage.]

Last week I began reading, Biblical Reasoning: Christological and Trinitarian Rules for Exegesis, by R. B. Jamieson and Tyler R. Wittman.

Chapter 3 contains an interesting discussion of “Scripture’s Exactness” (p. 50). The section begins:

“Early Christian interpreters often spoke of Scripture’s ‘exactness’…to underscore divine teaching’s intentionality, reliability, and attention to detail” (p. 50).

The authors explore two implications of this concept.

First, God chooses His words very carefully. This is especially important when considering how many different authors, styles, and genres are in Scripture. God chooses those words very carefully (you will, no doubt, read this through the grid of your own view of inspiration).

Second, and I will quote them here, “what is taught carries a degree of precision that we must grasp” (p. 51).

Therefore, during sermon development it is important that I pay close attention to the words God uses to reveal Himself and His plan for His people. I cannot be a lazy reader, but a close reader of Scripture. That will serve my faith-family well as I prepare to read with them each Sunday.

The second implication for preaching is that, by God’s grace and the Spirit’s enablement, my precise understanding of Scripture must match Scripture’s precision. That almost always requires me and you to paraphrase and restate what God is saying precisely. That means you and I must choose our words and illustrations very carefully to be as precise as we can be. An example is our use of the word, trinity, or nature, words which may not be found in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek.

Anyway, I hope you get a taste of how a doctrine such as Scripture’s exactness affects our preaching. May our contemplation of God’s inspired revelation and its implication result in God receiving glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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You’ve Heard of Thinking on Your Feet, but What About Listening on Your Feet?

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Are you able to listen to the Lord while you preach?

A couple of Sunday’s ago I experienced one of those times when I thought of something new while I was preaching. It wasn’t in my notes; it wasn’t even on my radar (I hadn’t had a fleeting thought that didn’t make it into my notes, only to be recalled while preaching.) In this case it was an illustration that came to me, one that really helped drive home the point in the text. I attributed it to the Holy Spirit’s help, not to something gastro-intestinal.

You too have probably had this happen. While you’re preaching or teaching you think on your feet. It can be described just as accurately as listening on your feet.

So, what has to happen for you and me to listen to the Spirit and learn while I’m preaching?

First, I do not think we can control this. If I remember correctly, the wind blows wherever it wants to. There is no formula that guarantees the Spirit will teach you something new, something substantial, every time you preach/teach.

But here are some things that may make it possible for the Spirit to teach me while I preach.

  • I choose to believe that just because my official study time and sermon prep is over, I am not done learning. I want to remain teachable and eager to learn from the Lord, especially while I am preaching.
  • The better I know my material, the better I am able to listen to the Lord while I am preaching. A good handle on the material means I don’t have to think about what to say next.
  • My congregants have some good insights that teach me while I am preaching. There are many times when dialogue teaches me. I had not thought of it and the thought of it added to my sermon. Technically, you might say that that was not the Spirit but another Christian. I agree. For the sake of this post, let’s say that the Spirit taught them, so He indirectly taught me.
  • Finally, I can preach and think at the same time. I don’t mean thinking about what to say, but really think about the Text and what it means. Ask yourself whether you are able to think and learn while you’re preaching. I don’t have to stop studying, stop listening to God, because I started to preach.

Anyway, I hope that you are able to invite the Spirit of God to teach you while you preach and teach His Word. In my case a couple of Sunday’s ago, the Lord received glory in the church and Christ Jesus because I was listening on my feet (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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How Outlining A Sermon Helps Me, Not Just My Listeners

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How does outlining help you? And your listeners?

Through the years I have tried many different outline methods.

The method I taught in my early years of teaching preaching was that each major point should be worded as an application. It had some merit since it forced preachers to see listener response in each major point and not just at a segment at the end of the sermon. It helped listeners to respond each step of the way.

Then, I spent several years preaching without any outline. Instead of announcing major points, I simply used logical transitions to move from one segment to the next.

For the past several years my outlining follows the method of Timothy Keller, former pastor at Redeemer NYC. You may not know this but Keller’s method of outlining follows the method of another famous preacher named, Jonathan Edwards. I found that out after listening to hundreds of Keller’s sermons and, later, reading Edwards’ sermons.

My best attempt to explain the method is to say that the outline reflects an attempt to show the logical divisions of a particular idea.

Which brings me to my point in this post.

Now I teach and practice a form of outlining that stems from tracing the argument of a passage. My students know this as the “A” in ABIT.

The outline emerges from the practice of dividing a preaching portion into thought blocks, summarizing each block in a sentence, and identifying the logical transition that exists from block to block.

In this way the practice of tracing the argument contributes to the formation of a preaching outline. And for me, this exercise begins on Monday morning. While I might not create the final wording of the outline until later in the week after my exegesis is complete, I understand how the meaning is made in the pericope.

You probably do something like this to create your outline.

Our outlines may help our listeners keep the sermon from fragmenting into too many ideas. The major points all fit together.

The outline helps me make sure I understand how the author is communicating theology. It is a teaching tool for me. If I can outline it right, I am more confident I can communicate the theology clearly.

And, as always, the goal in such clarity is that our Lord would receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21),

Randal