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Randal Pelton, Ph.D., D.Min., Th.M.

Senior Pastor, Professor

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Is Your Preaching More Translation Than Interpretation?

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Your Preaching Reflects Your Understanding of Meaning

I am getting back into a more normal schedule after teaching two classes. The first was an eight week master’s level course at Lancaster Bible College, Hebrew Exegesis to Exposition. The second was a Doctor of Ministry cohort, From the Study to the Pulpit, at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Here’s a look at the D.Min. group under the lights:

One of my goals was to help my new friends answer this basic question:

What does this pericope mean?

It sounds elementary, but proves quite challenging whether I’m posing the question to Masters, DMins, or PhD students.

If I asked you, “What does this Scripture mean?” how would you answer?

Exodus 4:24 At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. 25 Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said, “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” 26 So he let him alone. It was then that she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.

What I’ve discovered is that we are better at providing meaning in the form of summary or translation. We’re heavy on word studies and translating all the interesting concepts in this brief, bizarre OT narrative. We use the best tools we can to get to the bottom of their respective meanings.

If we are trained in some variation of identifying the big idea, we might present meaning as one cumbersome sentence that captures the interrelationship between the ideas of the narrative:

The results of the Lord meeting Moses and seeking to put him to death was that Zipporah circumcises their son, insults her husband, and the Lord let Moses alone.

Notice that this is not interpretation, but a summary of the narrative.

As I continue to teach the intersection of hermeneutics and homiletics, I keep urging my friends to consider what it means to interpret the meaning of a text.

More on that later.

For now, analyze your own method. Can you identify the meaning of the narrative? Does your meaning statement(s) include interpretation? If so, what is interpretation and what does that mean for your preaching/teaching?

Randal

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The Place of Exegetical Reading in Expository Preaching: An Example From Psalm 104

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Sometimes the size and kind of Scripture means only having time for “exegetical readings.”

This morning I had the privilege of preaching through Psalms 104. It’s 35 verses long which is a lot for me to cover in a 45-50 minute message.

Even more challenging are verses 1b-32 that list almost 30 references to God’s creative activity that made the world we experience.

You have a choice when it comes to preaching a Psalm like this, or any Scripture for that matter that contains lists. One option is to keep your normal method of diving into the details. Choosing door #1 will mean covering the Psalm in a mini-series. The two or three sermons will contain the same worship responses since they are coming from other places in the Psalm.

I chose door #2: performing an exegetical reading of the lengthy section.

That means I began reading at v. 1b and predetermined the places where I would add some exegetical insights. One example is the fact that Psalm 104 shows God creating the world in the same order in Genesis 1 (light is first, heaven is second, etc.). Psalm 104 is the poetic version of Genesis 1.

The goal of exegetical reading is partly to keep the pace up during this sermon segment. That many verses means not allowing myself to get bogged down in the details.

So, when v. Ib describes God’s clothing as “splendor and majesty” I just need them to know that He presents Himself as royalty, as King of the Universe. Or, at v. 7 where the poem says, “At your rebuke they fled [referring to the waters that covered the earth during the early creation narrative],” I want them to see this referring to when God spoke the dry land into existence (continents appear).

That’s the stuff of exegetical readings.

Most important, this exegetical reading has a place in expositional preaching. That’s because all that data about God creating and sustaining His world functions as the reason why we bless Him. Psalm 104 begins and ends with “Bless the Lord, O my soul…”

And all that talk about creation leads to the Psalmist’s prayer/wish in v. 35:

“Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more!”

After all that information in the exegetical reading part about God creating His world, we get to the concept of those who are destroying God’s good creation (cf. all the repetition, “God saw that it was good” in Genesis1). Any hope for the new creation, a new heaven and new earth, is linked to God one day answering the prayer/wish in v. 35.

When we say what the Psalmist says in that verse, we automatically must separate ourselves from the sinners and the wicked. Not because we don’t sin, but because our God in Christ and His Spirit forgives our sins on account of our faith in Him and has made us new creatures.

That’s just some of the expositional elements. The bulk of sermon minutes were devoted to the exegetical reading.

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) whenever you have opportunity to practice exegetical reading as a part of your expositional preaching and teaching.

Randal

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Effective Preaching from Judges’ Comments on American Idol 2025

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Three Judges for American Idol, plus Jelly Roll

Almost every year I learn something about effective preaching from judges’ comments on American Idol.

I know; you’re shocked by that. I get it.

But for years I’ve paid close attention to their feedback to these young singing artists. This year is no different. I’m writing this as Michele and I get ready to watch the current episode (they’re down to the top six and I’m rooting for country singer, John Roberts).

A few weeks ago, here’s what legend, Lionel Ritchie, said to my favorite:

“You were so comfortable that it made it believable for us.”

Preaching works like that too. To the degree that you and I are comfortable as a result of trusting the Lord while preaching, there is a level of believability that helps our congregants respond to God.

And then, that same evening, guest mentor and legend, James Taylor, said to the young lady singing the song, Take a Little Piece of My Heart,

“Read the lyrics out loud without the music to get into the story.”

Another gem for preachers. She was singing but she wasn’t believable. She needed to “get into the story.” Again, we help our listeners when we are able to relate well to God’s Word. They sense it and it helps them in some way to believe it too.

By the way, I never remember a year on American Idol where so much attention was given to Christian music. One whole evening was devoted to songs of faith. And Jelly Roll is a guest musician showing up each night and demonstrating incredible heart for these performers.

Thanks for reading a lighter-than-usual post!

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as we continue to strive for excellence in the delivery of God’s Word each Sunday.

Randal

P.S. Vote for John Roberts!

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What Can I Do That AI Can’t? Reflections for Preachers in a Digital Age

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What Preachers Can Do That IA Can’t Do

I am offering a more light-hearted post this afternoon, the result of my first exploration into ChatGPT (I know, I’m late to the party!).

So yesterday, before completing my sermon review for this morning’s preaching on Psalm 95, I decided to see how AI would handle that Psalm. The short version: very impressive with respect to summarizing the main idea and suggesting applications.

Then, I thought: “I wonder how it would answer this question: ‘What can I do as a preacher that you cannot do?'” Be encouraged in your work by the following:

  1. You provide Holy Spirit-empowered exposition of Scripture. “AI can analyze, suggest, even imitate—but it cannot be filled with the Spirit or move in communion with the living God.
    You preach with presence. AI can only offer presence in metaphor.”
  2. You preach to your people in person. “You embody the Word in relationship. AI only operates in response.” [As an aside, even the great preachers online or TV cannot do what you do: provide that personal context.]
  3. Your preaching is an act of soul-watching. “Preaching carries divine weight (kērygma) that can’t be outsourced to a machine. Your voice carries the mystery of vocation.”
  4. You preach as a person who is under the Word of God with all your own struggles of faith. While you’re preaching you’re responding with your hearers. “You can bleed with the text. AI can only parse it.”
  5. Your preaching includes helping your listeners apply their lives to God’s Word in the moment. “You can pastor while you preach. AI can only perform analysis.”

Then, ChatGPT provided this wonderful little summary:

In Summary:

Preacher (You)AI (Me)
Spirit-filledData-driven
Embodied & pastoralDisembodied & generic
Relational & contextualContextual only to prompt
Authority by callingUtility by design
Participates in mysteryObserves the mystery

Then, finally, it gave this closing statement:

“This distinction is not meant to diminish AI’s utility but to clarify the uniqueness of the preacher’s role. Tools like this can assist, supplement, and enhance our preparation—but they can’t replace the Spirit-led, relational, incarnational work of preaching.”

It can’t replace YOU! Be encouraged!

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as you do what AI can’t do!

Randal

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How Psalm 92 Functions for the Church: Theological Interpretation and Preaching the Psalms

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When the Psalmist asserts himself by stating reality, something that is true.

I had the privilege of preaching Psalm 92 this morning. It begins:

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord…to sing praises…to declare your steadfast love…and your faithfulness…” (vv. 1-2)

This is an example of the illocutionary category called, an assertive. I wrote about all five illocutionary categories in my last post. The categories are important because they can help show what the Psalmist intends to do to us readers.

In Psalm 92 the opening assertive states a reality with the intention of eliciting faith in all of us readers. The Psalmist intends for all of us to believe that this reality is true and respond accordingly. In the case of vv. 1-2 God says it’s good to do three things.

In v. 6 we read, “The stupid man cannot know; the fool cannot understand this…” Here is another example of an assertive. This time the stated reality works in the opposite direction. Whereas in vv. 1-2 the stated reality is desirable, in v. 6 the Psalmist intends for us to avoid this reality: we believe this is true and avoid being like this.

If you take a moment to read Psalm 92 you’ll see that the Psalm functions by presenting these types of stated realities. When we preach this Psalm we encourage our listeners to respond according to the Psalmist’s intentions. Those intentions are based on the illocutionary categories.

Is this important? Yes.

Illocutionary intent, according to speech act theory, is part of meaning. Psalm 92 means something at the level of illocutionary intent listed above. This provides a critical link between standard meaning and application.

May our Lord continue to receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) when you practice theological interpretation and preach/teach the Psalms.

Randal

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How to Read the Psalms for Authorized Applications

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If Michele says, “Randal, the dog needs to go out,” what she really means is…

After almost a two-year break from preaching through the Psalter, I am back in it. Here is a way for you to discover how the Psalms function for the church. What follows is a summary of illocutionary categories. The term, illocutionary, comes from the world of speech act theory. The categories come from the writings of Austin and Searle. As I result of my recent studies into speech act exegesis, I have added an inferential step (“with the intention of…”) to the categories to show how illocutionary acts do something to the reader.

Here are how the illocutionary categories function in the Psalms:

Assertives = the Psalmist asserts himself by stating something to be true or announcing the current state of affairs with the intention of eliciting faith in the biblical reality and the desire to enjoy or avoid the state depending on its character.

Directives = the Psalmist directs the hearer to do something through a command or instruction with the intention of urging either adherence or avoidance depending on the nature of the command.

Commissives = the Psalmist commits himself to some future action through making a promise or stating that he will do something with the intention of urging readers to follow.

Expressives = the Psalmist expresses himself in the sense of revealing feelings, such as thankfulness or gratitude, or thoughts with the intention of eliciting the same feelings in the reader.

Declarations = the Psalmist declares something and in the act of declaring, that something becomes reality such as a blessing with the intention of the reader experiencing the created condition.

In summary, assertives assert, directives direct, commissives commit, expressives express, and declarations declare.

When you work in the Psalms watch for the Psalmists doing these things.

In the case of Michele stating, “Randal, the dog needs to go out,” what she is doing is really asking me to take the dog out. That’s how illocutionary intent works.

As you allow these categories to work for you, your listeners will hear how the Psalms work and our Lord will receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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Your Preaching in the Context of the Great De-Churching

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An excellent read if you’re preaching on the importance of the local church.

I recently completed a six-week series on the importance of the local church. Along with selecting key Scripture to read with our faith-family, I decided to read Davis and Graham’s, The Great De-Churching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back?

According to their research, we are preaching at a time when, within the past 25 years, 40 million Americans have left the church (p. XV).

The book was interesting because it described the thinking of many that decided to stop attending church. Even more important for me was how the information in the book helped me warn our faith-family about some of the tendencies they experience.

Here is an example of what might be tempting your parishioners:

“One large group stopped attending church without initially intending to do so. Some moved to a new city with the intention of finding a church but never took that next step into a faith community. Many young professionals prioritized personal networks around their careers and, as a result, found themselves disconnected from a local church. Some families prioritized children’s sports and other activities that increasingly happen on Sundays. Then there are those who stopped attending church during COVID-19. They developed new Sunday rhythms and now prefer those new activities over Sunday morning worship. We call all this group the casually dechurched.” (p. 24)

As you can see, except for the virus issue, the other phenomena remain a threat.

The book contains other lists like the one above. I found that such information provided extra motivation for highlighting how important it is to gather for worship every Sunday.

We’re preaching in a social environment that devalues church before any de-churching occurs. One of the ways we can emphasize the importance of church is preaching in a way that emphasizes the importance of corporate worship and God’s Word. You and I have the opportunity to do this every Sunday we’re privileged to preach.

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as you preach His Word to those who continue to attend.

Randal

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Practicing Theological Interpretation: Jesus’s disciples feed “about five thousand men…”

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“They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Ya! Right!

Like you, maybe, I’ve come through an Advent series. I am currently in a mini-series on Covenant Church Membership to begin the new year. Lord willing, in a few weeks I’ll settle back into a “normal” series through Matthew’s Gospel or back to the Psalms.

In today’s post I want to continue to explore how Scripture functions for the church (theological interpretation). My example is from Matthew’s account of feeding the five thousand in 14:13-21.

You can tell from v. 16 that Jesus is going to teach His disciples when He replies to their idea with, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Then they respond with, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.”

God is speaking to His people, to us and our congregants, through this impossible request.

I titled my message: The Earthly Life of “God with us”: Sharing His Compassion to Help Heal a Badly Broken World

The compassion part comes from v. 14 (“…and he had compassion on them…”). Evidently, His disciples didn’t catch that yet. Or, to be fair, we might say that they have compassion but can’t get beyond the impossible ministry assignment.

You might develop this in different ways, but the primary applicational angle stems from vv. 16-17.

What did the disciples learn from this miracle? Imagine what they thought when they reflected on what just happened, what they were able to do because of Jesus’s power.

That’s the point. And the narrative leads us there with the interaction between the disciples’s statement about the situation and Jesus’s viewpoint.

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as you and I continue to read Scripture so it functions for the church.

Randal

P.S. What an exciting day for our country and a vivid reminder of how much we need to pray for our governing officials!

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The Monday Morning Expositor: Announcing A New Arrival!

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That’s not me in the picture, but pretend it’s you on a Monday morning when you are preparing to preach. What do you do for your first few hours?

I am happy to say that the e-book version of my latest book, The Monday Morning Expository: Rethinking Your Study Sequence For Sermon Development, is available.

The book is arguing a reversal of the normal study sequence. Usually, pastors begin to do their exegesis and amass all kinds of exegetical data from the passage. That results in notes filled with isolated fragments of meaning.

Through the years I’ve heard this comment from preaching pastors: “I get toward the end of the week, have lots of notes, but still don’t have the sermon yet.”

As I’ve thought about those comments and experienced it myself in my early years, it led me to the contexts of this book. I give more detail early in the book about how the new sequence came about in my own practice.

For now, if you would like to think about the first few hours of your study for sermon preparation, you might be interested in my book. It fleshes out the following acrostic (my students and blog readers might recall this):

A.B.I.T

Argument, Big Idea, Intention, and Theology.

If you practice this method on Monday morning, or whatever day your first few hours of study occur, you will end up with more of a big picture of the meaning and application of your preaching portion. You will have the gist of the sermon even though you don’t yet have all the exegetical details.

I know it sounds backwards, but that’s the point. Trust me when I say, you can gain great insight into preaching your passage with this process.

Anyway, I hope you’re enjoying preaching through Advent. May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) through our Spirit-driven efforts.

Randal

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Practicing Theological Interpretation for Your Upcoming Sermon

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I haven’t read this book, but love the title in light of this coming Sunday’s sermon, The Art of Relevance.

This little series of posts on theological interpretation of Scripture (TIS) is the result of the privilege of spending three days teaching a Ph.D. required course, OT Hermeneutics and Theology to a new group of friends. The subject is important because one of our goals is to interpret the OT so it functions for the church (my simply definition of TIS).

After surveying several definitions of TIS from leading scholars in the field, the common denominator was an interpretation that includes what we normally think of as application. When I saw the book title, The Art of Relevance, it made me think about art and science.

Unfortunately, we haven’t done a great job teaching a “scientific” method/approach for identifying the primary application of a biblical pericope. We’ve done pretty well with our exegetical method to arrive at some form of meaning. What I am after in these posts is meaning that includes authorized application.

My meaning formula for TIS is:

II-M (illocutionary Intent-Infused Meaning) = EC (exegetical content) + II (illocutionary intent)

Even if you’re not familiar with the speech act vocabulary, here’s the point:

when we identify the meaning of a passage for Sunday, we need to include what God intends to do to the church in our text.

The question is, how do we do that? That’s where some art comes into play (because we simply don’t yet have a solid method).

Let’s use Matthew 14:22-32 for our example this week. You remember this narrative: Jesus made the disciples get into the boat, a huge storm hits them in the night, Jesus walks on water to reach them, they are terrified, and He chastises them with, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” As soon as Jesus gets into the boat, the wind stops and they confess, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

The disciples begin as a “go and do otherwise” example, but finish in the “go and do likewise category. Help your people follow that same pathway in this text and our Lord will receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (cf. Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

P.S. As you complete your Sunday sermon, see if you can add the intentional element to your meaning. It should sound something like this: “This text is saying…with the intention of…” That combines content and intent that functions for the church.