Becoming a Deep Theologian for Your Faith-Family

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Your Stack of Good Pastor-Theologians

Over the past several weeks these posts have been switching back and forth between help on preaching through Numbers (Ouch!), what I’m learning from Jonathan Edwards’s early sermons (Yes!), and what I’m learning from, Preaching That Matters (Interesting!). This week I’m combining the second and third categories. Here’s why…

Carrell writes,

“If your sermon communication content is going to be deeper, you are going to have to be deeper. Depth isn’t something you can borrow from a source you find on a website. As a spiritual leader, you must go as far below the surface as possible.” (p. 113).

I’m all in when it comes to having to become spiritual, intellectually, exegetically, and theologically deeper. It’s the middle sentence that arrested me, so let me nuance it a bit.

It’s true: you can’t borrow depth that doesn’t belong to you. Carrell states, “Speakers who live and breathe their subject matter are deeper” (p. 113). But you can gain depth through reading someone like Jonathan Edwards.

Certainly. Pick another pastor-theologian if you like or at least settle for a theologian. But have your favorites and read your favorites so that you learn to think like they think about the Scriptures and their listeners. You can’t borrow depth, but you can burrow deep into the depths of someone like Edwards on a regular basis.

“Why did he say that? What caused him to think like that?” That’s what I ask while I read him. And, over time, I begin to find myself going deeper.

I know I’ve said this before, but you realize that most pastors are reading more church growth and leadership material than they are reading deep theologians. Our deep preaching comes from deep thinking, which, for me, comes in a large part to deep reading.

And may our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as a result of our Spirit-driven efforts.

Randal

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Categories: pastoral preaching, preacher, Preaching of Jonathan Edwards, spiritual life of the preacher, theology, Thinking
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Your thoughts?

4 thoughts on “Becoming a Deep Theologian for Your Faith-Family”

  1. I recently listened to a lecture from Pete Scazarro where he said something like this, “We’re so busy that we have to live off of other people’s spirituality because we don’t have time to develop our own.” It’s too easy to, as Carrell writes, “…borrow from a source you find on a website” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fPb2UPfpxI). Reading good books critically is so important for our own spiritual depth and I find that I grow personally when I read books of value and engage with the ideas that they convey. I really like books, but I’m a pretty slow reader. It can just be so challenging to fit reading into my busy schedule. This blog post is a good reminder that it’s so necessary as pastors to take the time to go deeper in reading and serious study.

    Reply

    • Jesse, thanks for reading my post and replying. I appreciate the honesty in the difficult to carve time out of the schedule for reading. I’ve found the key to be consistently reading small amounts to get started. Assuming you’re choosing good resources that will develop your theological sensitivities, regular short readings can be very helpful. Then, the other thing is to learn to read more efficiently, not necessarily faster. Glad we can study preaching together!

      Reply