Category Archives: intention

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How Does Your Text for This Sunday Function for the Church?

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You and I Practice Theological Interpretation Every Week!

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading, A Manifesto for Theological Interpretation, edited by Bartholomew and Thomas. It’s important for our preaching because of the way in which they define TI (or TIS, theological interpretation of scripture):

“…we define broadly as interpretation of the Bible for the church…” (p. ix.)

The question is, what do they mean “for the church”?

I usually expand the definition a little bit by saying that TI/TIS is interpreting Scripture so it functions for the church.

But, then, what do I mean by “function”?

Think of the function of Scripture in terms of what God intends for Scripture to do to His readers. You might recognize that this meaning of TI closely resembles what we’ve always known as the application of Scripture. Christopher Wright wrote describes this as applying life to the Bible (I think he wrote this in his book, The Mission of God).

On page 17 they define TI as:

“…theological interpretation reads Scripture to hear God’s address, so that the church might be transformed into the image of Christ of the sake of the world.”

With those definitions in mind, our pressing question is, how does the text signal its intention?

I’ve been preaching through Matthew’s gospel since returning from my sabbatical so here’s an example from this morning’s study time. My preaching portion is Matthew 15:1-9. The religious leaders question Jesus about His disciples breaking “the tradition of the elders” (they don’t wash their hands!). Jesus replies by challenging them about their habit of breaking God’s commandments by the way they keep their traditions (they don’t care for their parents because they give the money to God).

In vv. 7-9 Jesus insults them (calling them “hypocrites”) and announces to them that Isaiah prophesied about them.

So, it’s fairly clear to me after my Monday morning study session that this text is designed to make sure all professing Christians do not follow the example of the religious leaders. They function as a “go and do otherwise” example.

If you have your text for this coming Sunday, can you identify early on how it functions for the church?

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as we practice theological interpretation each week.

Randal

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Curing Souls Through Preaching “beautiful words”

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Are You A Persuasive Preacher?

Personal Note: Thanks to the generosity of the Calvary Bible Church leadership, I am writing during June, July, and August while on sabbatical. In June, Michele and I are residing in St. Petersburg, FL (another example of someone’s generosity!). No wonder the snowbirds leave before June! It’s hot! I have three writing projects on the go this summer. The first is to complete a book I began years ago, The Preacher As Soul-Watcher, a theology of preaching in the local church. The second is tentatively titled, The Monday Morning Expositor: A Guide to a Preacher’s First Few Hours of Study. Finally, I will attempt to turn some of my recent Ph.D. dissertation into a hermeneutics text that bridges the gap between exegesis and application by an analysis of what we mean when we say a text means something.

But, that’s not important right now. What is is more insights from Kolbet’s, Augustine and the Cure of Souls: Revising a Classical Ideal.

As Augustine trains for pastoral ministry he encounters something called, psychagogy. It describes a practice whereby mature individuals influenced less mature individuals to become more wise in the way they lived. It was an ancient term for mentoring or the care and cure of souls.

The reason why this was on Augustine’s radar is because he was trained in rhetoric and that field used psychagogy. But, as with almost everything in Augustine’s early life and training, he had to sanctify the practice. In the case of psychagogy, Augustine had to disinfect the common practice of persuading others with things that were not true.

So, Augustine wrote that in the case of being clergy, it was important to use, “a kind of speech whose persuasiveness does not diminish its truthfulness.” (p. 9)

That’s a great reminder for me. My preaching needs to include persuasiveness connected to truthfulness. I persuade my listeners to respond according to God’s intention for that particular preaching portion. I have written extensively about locating the intention of a text and how that intention is directly related to meaning.

But back to what Augustine was reacting against. On p. 19 Kolbet cites Plato:

“The soul is cured by means of certain charms, and these charms consist of beautiful words.” (Chrm. 157a)

It might be too much of a stretch for you to think of your Sunday ministry in those terms. I liked the thought of preaching “beautiful words” of the Gospel each Sunday. I like the thought of curing souls through the “charms” of preaching. Not in terms of casting a spell or magic formula, but in terms of pull, appeal, or draw.

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as we persuade our listeners to worship as we preach the Word.

Randal

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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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How to Apply Part of Jesus’s High Priestly Prayer

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How to Locate the Worship Response to Jesus’s Prayer

Happy New Year to you!

Usually, at the start of each year I create a mini-series on some aspect of being a part of a local church. This year I am spending four Sundays on our four core values. Calvary Bible Church is:

  • biblically-shaped (we stand on God’s unchanging Word in an ever-changing world)
  • worshipful (we offer Him all that we are because of all that He is)
  • Disciple-making (we are new creations going to our neighbors and nations)
  • faith-family (we have been adopted by the Father, so we live and love like family)

But, that’s not important right now. What is is that this past Sunday we focused on being biblically-shaped from Jesus’s prayer in John 17:14-19: “Sanctify them in the truth…”

Preaching that text gave me an excellent opportunity to teach our congregants how God intends for them to worship Him through Jesus’s prayer. It is a unique aspect of theological interpretation. How is an ancient prayer of Jesus intended to function for the church?

The answer lies in God’s desire that His people would hear Jesus pray and then ask themselves,

“Am I experiencing a walk with God that Jesus prayed about?”

To use the brief excerpt above, Jesus asks His Father to sanctify His disciples in the truth. By implication our worship response is to make sure by the grace of God that we are being sanctified by the truth of God’s Word. This helps answer one of the most important theological questions about this prayer: does God automatically answer this prayer of Jesus or does it take a response from Jesus’s disciples?

Pretty simple.

You will run into this regularly. There are no imperatives in Jesus’s prayer: He says things to God and asks things of God, all intended for use in church. This approach is necessary for any attempts to worship with texts such as Pauline benedictions or prayers.

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as you preach and teach such Scripture that describe experiences intended for all God’s people.

Randal

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Our Dual Role as Exegetes and Theologians

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Preachers function in the dual role as exegetes and theologians.

Recently, I gained the privilege of teaching a Ph.D. class this fall for Lancaster Bible College | Capital Seminary & Graduate School. The course is BIB 909 Old Testament Hermeneutics and Theology.

One of the many stages of preparing to teach includes selecting major textbooks. One of my choices is Bruce Waltke’s, An Old Testament Theology: an exegetical, canonical, and thematic approach.

[If you plan on preaching from the OT, then this is an excellent resource to have on your shelf. I can’t say enough about the quality of Waltke’s scholarship. Despite being only 100 pages into the book, I am glad I purchased it!]

Near the end of chapter 3, The Method of Biblical Theology (Part 1), section 3 is, “Abstract Themes, Ideas, and Messages.” The last paragraph reads,

“After the exegete has interpreted the text and mined its message, the theologian through critical reflection interprets that message from its old horizon to the new horizons of the canon and then of both to the contemporary church. In other words, the theologian builds his or her interpretation that unites the ancient message with the contemporary world after the exegete has done his or her interpretive work….In this way godly theologians inform the conscience of the church.” (p. 92)

Notice, pastors have a dual role as exegete and theologian for the faith-families they serve.

It is true, then, that interpretation doesn’t end with our exegesis. It extends to our ability to locate the message that functions for the church.

You’ve stopped short of that dual role if you cannot articulate what God intends for your preaching portion to do to the church, to your listeners (“the contemporary world”).

Remember, the meaning of your text for this coming Sunday should combine content (exegesis) + intent (theological interpretation). When meaning combines content and intent, you are functioning in your dual role as exegete and theologian.

And our Lord will continue to receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

P.S. Waltke basis this understanding of our roles on the nature of the Bible. He writes, “The Bible is more than concepts about God….It is God’s address to his people and his encounter with them. His ‘ideas’ and ‘principles’ are true and call for a personal response to obey and participate in the truth, the divine reality.” (p. 91).

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Moving From Stated Reality to Application: What I’m Learning From Reading Jonathan Edwards’s Early Sermons

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Edwards never let his listeners forget the goal of the sermon!

One of the things I’ve benefited from by reading Edwards’s early sermons is his emphasis on application. If you read his sermons you’ll see a balanced presentation of deep theology and practical exhortation.

In his sermon, The Way of Holiness, on Isaiah 35:8 (“And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it.”), Edwards concludes with an application section containing three elements. Here are the first two:

  1. By inference, Edwards reasons, “how many poor creatures are there that think they are in the way to heaven who are not?” (p. 476). I will never forget hearing veteran pastor, Chuck Swindoll, announce that the longer he pastored his church, the more he felt that less of his parishioners were saved.
  2. If this verse is true, then it is critical that his listeners “examine [them]selves by this doctrine to see whereabouts [they] are, and see whether or no [they] are in the way to heaven…” (p. 477). Under this point, Edwards exhorted: “Meditate on the holiness of God, and see if you cannot see a conformity, a likeness in your mind….It is not supposed that ever any copy comes near to this original, nor ever will; but yet they may perceive whether the same spirit, the same temper and disposition, in a lesser degree be in them, that was manifested by the life and conversation of Jesus Christ.” (p. 477)

Notice that Isaiah only presents stated reality. Edwards teaches by example that our job is to move from stated reality to the application inferred by that reality.

If you read this before tomorrow (Sunday), or early next week, see if your Scripture contains a stated reality that requires the same hermeneutical/homiletical move as Edwards.

And our Lord will receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21),

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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Me and God in the Study

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Thinking about what I actually bring to the equation for a given Sunday Sermon

This weekend I am thinking about what I actually bring to the equation with respect to sermon development. I had the privilege to preach Luke 14:25-35 this morning where Jesus explains the high cost of following Him.

Sometimes I feel that I contribute very little except for the ability to read the best material that other scholars have provided. It is an important part of preaching, but I thought we might give this some thought.

First, is this feeling true? To what degree do I add original material to my sermons? Second, if it were true, is that okay?

So, first, it is not true. Each week I select my preaching portion, trace the argument of that Scripture, and begin my analysis without consulting any of the best exegetes and theologians I can access. Being able to read Hebrew and Greek help me use excellent lexicons to get to critical definitions-in-context. Oh, and God’s Spirit operates in answer to my prayers for insight: “Lord, grant to me keenness of mind, capacity to remember, skill in learning, subtlety to interpret…”

But, more than that, each Monday provides an opportunity to also identify the big idea and intention of that passage. I now know what God intends to do to those in our faith-family that have ears to hear. And I know enough of the flock to know this is going to be a very important act of watching over souls.

Second, if it were true that I brought very little to the sermon equation, it would not be okay. God has called me and is equipping me to help shepherd a little flock. Not someone else. So, while I might benefit from Marshall’s fine treatment of Luke 14, it can’t be Marshall’s sermon.

As we head back to work tomorrow morning and begin preparing for our next sermon, let’s enjoy our time with God and His Word so He receives glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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The Critical Move from Meaning to Application

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Okay, maybe not “Good Results,” but, certainly, “Good Intentions.”

Not good results because we can’t guarantee “ears to hear.” We can’t guarantee that our listeners will respond to God. But we can guarantee that each Sunday we will supply God’s intention for the preaching portion.

Tomorrow, as you begin working on your Sunday sermon, be prepared to complete the following sentence:

“This morning, we worship our Lord by _______________________________.”

You and I fill in the blank with God’s intention for the passage of Scripture. This is the foundation for all expressions of application.

So, as you begin to practice your exegetical method this week, include the search for the intention of the passage. You will have to look for clues provided by the biblical author. It’s easiest usually in the epistles; toughest usually in OT narratives.

The main thing is to ask yourself what God intends to do in what He has written. Or, you might ask it this way: “How does God intend for this Scripture to function for the church?”

If done correctly, the way you fill in the blank above will be determined by the big idea of your preaching portion. The meaning and application are organically related through God’s intention.

So, while you can’t guarantee good results (actual worship), you can guarantee you will communicate good intentions, God’s intentions for the passage.

And He will receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

P.S. I practice trying to complete the worship response as early as possible in my work week. That way, I do not have to wonder how the exegesis is functioning all week long. I am thinking about application early on in the process. And since God’s intention is the focus, I don’t have to worry about the search for application tainting the exegetical process (kind of an ole school approach!).

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Thinking of Application in Terms of Intentionality

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The Text Signals It’s Intention By It’s Shape

Even if you were not familiar with the three tools shown above, you could probably figure out what they were intended to do. Just look at their shape. Also, think about what would happen if you tried to make their functionality interchangeable. Imagine using the saw in the middle for a hammer!

Biblical texts–our preaching portions–signal their intention by their shape. Theology is conveyed through literary structure, things like grammar and syntax, and the type of literature. That’s why I live and die by this method:

After I pray Aquinas’s famous prayer, “Grant to me keenness of mind…”, my first study minutes are devoted to tracing the argument of the passage.

Pauline epistles convey their theology through logical argumentation. Old and New Testament narratives communicate through their storyline. Old Testament poetry preaches through parallelism.

That’s all simplistic, I know, but true enough to make the point.

Our search for applications begins with a search for intentionality. Here’s the key question:

What does God intend to do to His readers in this preaching portion?

Answer that and you’ve got the foundation for any form of application from that pericope.

In order to answer that question, you have to know what to look for. The epistles or other didactic genres (types of literature) are easiest, I think. Follow the imperatives and the logical flow. Doctrinal sections intend for readers to affirm them as real, real enough to elicit praise and corresponding lifestyle.

Narratives are the worst. We can talk about that next time, Lord willing.

For now, as you head into another work week, be thinking in your first hours of study what God intends to do to His readers, your congregants so He receives glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal