Category Archives: logic

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Developing Your Rhetorical Strategy or Extra-Exegetical Material: What I’m Learning from Reading Jonathan Edwards’s Earliest Sermons

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Photo by Vlad Sargu on Unsplash
How do you determine your next move?

One of the values of reading sermons is that you are able to learn something you can’t from a good commentary: how a pastor/theologian creates their rhetorical strategy.

Along with obvious exegetical/theological developments, sermons contain evidence of rhetorical strategy. Preachers show you how they logically move from minute to minute, major/minor point to point, or move to move.

For instance, in Edwards’s third recorded sermon in Kimnach’s volume 10 (The Works of Jonathan Edwards), Wicked Men’s Slavery To Sin (based on John 8:34), Edwards states the obvious doctrine: “Wicked men are servants and slaves to sin.” The verse says that much. But his opening move is labled:

“[Query] I. How does it appear that wicked men are servants and slaves to sin? Perhaps you may think with yourself, ‘I don’t see but that wicked men are happy, and live as free as the best men in the world.’ Or it may be you may object in your mind that you are very wicked yourself…” (p. 340)

As you can see, Edwards anticipates the response of his listeners, something Buttrick called, a contrapuntal. He expects pushback from his listeners right from the start. So before he does anything, he wants to make sure everyone knows that this verse/doctrine is reality.

You may have also noted that Edwards is acutely aware he is addressing some wicked people and this means anticipating their response.

I am more geared to filling message minutes with exegetical data, but Edwards aims at proving God’s Word to be true. He develops three proofs for this first Query, the last of which is:

“Thus, if sin requires them to steal, swear, defraud, or commit fornication, it is done; if sin command them to do that which tends to their own ruin and destruction, it is done” (p. 342)

In order to preach like this, Edwards must know what God says elsewhere in His Word about this subject matter (i.e., the ability to cross-reference in a way that develops his argument). Even before that, he has been trained to think in the direction of what I’m calling for now, extra-exegetical insights.

Before Sunday, you might explore places in your sermon where your listeners may not all be on board yet and need some coaxing.

And may our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) through your efforts.

Randal

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Preaching the Christian Life as a Race and a Warfare: What I’m Learning From Reading Jonathan Edwards’s Earliest Sermons

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Grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning (Dallas Willard, I think?)
Photo by Sarah Cervantes on Unsplash

In the second recorded sermon of Jonathan Edwards in Kimnach’s volume, Value of Salvation, Edwards urges his listeners:

“We must in these things strive with all our might….The Christian life, for that reason, because of the diligence and labor that is required in it, is called a race and a warfare, because in running and fighting generally the utmost of the powers are laid out. [emphasis added]” (p. 332)

One thing I’ve gained from Edwards’s earliest sermons is his homiletical habit of preaching both grace and effort.

My experience in 29 years of being in a Bible Church environment has taught me that that combination makes some uncomfortable. Many hear effort as “works” or earning salvation, which of course according to Paul, cancels grace.

What that means, then, is that those listeners have the tendency to dilute the strength of the effort required in certain texts.

Typical Edwards, he reasons with his listeners from what they all know to be true in the world: “nothing that is great and excellent is attained unto without difficulty…” (p. 332).

But be prepared: to the degree your listeners hold tightly to the doctrine of eternal security, they will be able to hear such language such as, “Kill sin or it will kill you!” [Hear I’m thinking of someone like Owens who wrote, Of the Mortification of Sin] Usually, the firmer the belief in eternal security, the softer they will believe in effort.

So, for me in my setting Edwards reminds me to make sure I announce God’s gracious invitation and grueling exhortation all at the same time.

Every time I do it’s worth it and I hope seeing Edwards’s emphasis at the end of this sermon helps solidify your resolve so God receives glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21),

Randal

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The Consummate Persuader: What I’m Learning From Reading Jonathan Edwards’s Earliest Sermons

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Three things you can do to an idea: explain it, prove it, or apply it.
John 8:34 needs a strong dose of the second one.

In Edwards’s sermon, Wicked Men’s Slavery To Sin, his title comes directly from his text, John 8:34 “…Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” Pretty straightforward.

And his first statement of doctrine is also straightforward: Wicked men are servants and slaves to sin (p. 340, Kimnach).

In my previous post I pointed out how Edwards anticipates push-back from his listeners. He instinctively knows that some will not agree with this portrayal of reality. So, Edwards goes to work convincing his audience that God’s statement is true.

What I find fascinating about Edwards’s preaching–and I feel the same when I listen to Tim Keller–is that he knows the ways of the wicked so well. For instance, he writes,

“Wicked men generally think that the way of holiness and religion is much the hardest, and theirs to be much the easiest” (p. 341).

And the wickedness inside all of us thinks the same way. Is it because of our default setting? Or because our appetite for sin is stronger than our appetite for God? Or is it because of deception? Or all of the above? It’s the kind of theological thinking Edwards is very fond of.

Edwards goes on to show that serving God is far easier than serving sin. He quotes from the NT and Jesus’s yoke being easy, for instance. Then he shows the opposite by quoting from OT wisdom literature that lists “The leech” and “Three things [that] are never satisfied” (Proverbs 30:15-16). Obviously, whatever you have is never enough (think of lust and covetousness).

The second thing Edwards says is that “Wicked men are very obedient servants to sin” (p. 342). Whatever sin requires them to do, they do it, even if it means their destruction.

This kind of argument leads to genuine pity and compassion for those that are enslaved to sin. It also leads to the desire to serve God, not sin.

I hope that as you preach and teach you will follow Edwards’s example of reasoning with your listeners so that God receives glory in the church and in Christ Jesus as they believe God’s reality to be true (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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“most powerful arguments”: What I’m Learning from Reading Jonathan Edwards’s Earliest Sermons

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Edwards’s, The Value of Salvation

The second sermon recorded by Kimnach in his tenth volume of The Works of Jonathan Edwards is, “The Value Of Salvation.” The text is Matthew 16:26

“…what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul…?”

It is clear that Edwards followed God’s lead in creating a sermon full of “most powerful arguments” for making one’s soul utmost priority.

I learned from the way Edwards described our tendency to get earthly things: “If he hugs them [bags of gold and silver] ever so close, he must leave them forever and ever when once he leaves the world” (p. 313, emphasis added).

Then, as I’m seeing so many times in his sermons, Edwards is a master at creating powerful images to illustrate truth. Speaking of Alexander Magnus [The Great] when he was dying:

“he whom the whole could not contain must at last be confined to only a narrow grave. A few square feet of ground is large enough for him now, whom the earth was not broad enough for before” (p. 314)

Ouch!

When he turns to the inestimable worth of salvation, among several statements he wrote,

“They shall be perfectly delivered from sin and temptation. The saved soul leaves all its sin with the body; when it puts off the body of the man, it puts off the body of sin with it. When the body is buried, all sin is buried forever, and though the soul shall be joined to the body again, yet sin shall never return…” (p. 323)

Anyone in the house that realizes their sinfulness will surely smile at the thought of our bright, sinless future.

Edwards begins to wrap up the sermon with these these exhortations:

“We have now heard the most powerful arguments in the world to persuade us [to] take care of our souls….let us take no thought for this present any otherwise than as the means of the good of our souls.” (pp. 329, 330).

Finally, speaking of the Christian life in terms of a race or fight, “men don’t use [to] stop sometime and run sometime when they were upon a race; men, when they are engaged…in a battle, don’t use to stand still now and then to rest when their enemies are about them, for if they so do they are in danger every minute of being killed” (p. 333).

I hope that these excerpts from Edwards will fuel your desire to preach and teach God’s Word so He receives glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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How To Structure Your Sermon (part 2): What I’m Learning From the Early Sermons of Jonathan Edwards

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These posts are designed to give us a look at how Jonathan Edwards crafted his sermons. You can compare this to the way you do it.

Last week I began with Edwards first major sermon section, explication. This week we move to his second section, confirmation. Edwards confirmed the truths he explicated by:

positive proofs from Scripture or reason and also by providing solutions to some major doubts and questions that arise from the text. (cf. Kimnach, p. 30 for more details, including the weird spelling below).

Edwards divides his time between what he called “notionall”, “doctrinall” and “practicall” truths. His powerful logic works thr0ughout the sermon to convince his listeners that what God says is true. And since his third major sermon section is application, you can see that the “practicall” truths he presents already bleeds into the application section.

Edwards is relentless in his attack of the mind of his listeners to grasp the meaning, proof, and implications of Scripture. He literally argues with his audience and their thought-patterns along the way in his second major section of the sermon.

So, before Sunday, see if you have some places in your message where you can confirm the faith and challenge to the doubts and questions of your listeners. See if you are taking them on a logical journey that is impossible to deny (provided they start with your presuppositions about Scripture, God, and the plight of sinful man, of course).

My mentor, Haddon Robinson, used to say that there were only three things you could do with an idea: explain, prove, or apply. These three certainly piggyback onto Edwards distinct Puritan sermon form of explication, confirmation, application.

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) due to the way you structure your sermons.

Randal

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Tell ‘Em Why: What I’m Learning From Reading Jonathan Edwards’ Sermons

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In these posts I’m observing how Jonathan Edwards crafted what may have been his first sermon, Christian Happiness. His text was Isaiah 3:10 “Say unto the righteous, it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.” (cf. Kimnach, pages 296-307)

In his doctrine section, proposition II is “The good man is happy in whatsoever condition he is in; and that, First, because…”

What follows are three reasons why this proposition is true. Let me give you the three so you can see what Edwards is doing in this segment of the sermon.

“First, Because no worldly evils can do him any real hurt….

Second….because of the spiritual privileges and advantages, joys and satisfactions, he actually enjoys while in this life….

Third. And lastly, from the joyful hope and assured expectation of the enjoyment of the completion of happiness eternally hereafter…”

There are at least two things to consider. First, why does Edwards spend these minutes developing these reasons. Second, how does Edwards maintain biblical authority while answering these questions that his passage doesn’t answer.

First, Edwards identifies these reasons because the listeners requires some proof that this is true. Isaiah 3:10 is too good to be true in a badly broken world (the same could be said about Romans 8:28). Sometimes this kind of theological/philosophical exposition–remember, I’m not entirely happy with this designation but feel it’s adequate for now–requires our investigation of why the assertion of the Word of God is true or not true.

Second, Edwards answers these questions that are not answered in his text by appealing to the rest of Scripture’s teachings. At times Edwards appeals to multiple Scriptures without quoting them directly. If you read this sermon, you could easily insert Bible references because of Edwards’ ability to loosely quote Scripture. At other times Edwards paraphrases the teachings of Scripture that directly affect his text in Isaiah.

Before Sunday, see if your text contains questions that need to be answered and answer those questions, especially the “why?” question so God receives glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

 

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Exegetically Lite, Theologically Heavy: What I’m Learning From Reading Jonathan Edwards’s Sermons

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I’m learning from Jonathan Edwards’s sermons that I should be able to display the coaster above all over my church or home study. I saw another t-shirt sign, however, that reflects most preaching practice: “Will exegete for food.”

I said in a previous post that most of us think more about exegesis than we do theology. It shows in our sermons. A typical sermon in my theological camp is often exegetically heavy and theologically light. This usually involves in-depth word studies and grammatical insights, plus some cross-referencing for added support.

 

Edwards’s sermons appear to be exegetically lite and theologically heavy (I might argue that the same goes for Timothy Keller’s sermons too). That doesn’t mean there is no exegesis. It means that the sermon is constructed with minimal exegesis and maximum theological insights.

And I’m not really sure if “theological” is the right word for what I’m seeing. Maybe better to describe Edwards’s sermons as theological-philosophical.

So, in his sermon, Christian Happiness, Isaiah 3:10 is the foundational text: “Say unto the righteous, it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.”

Edwards’s opening sentence displays his theological/philosophical method:

“Reasonable beings, while they act as such, naturally choose those things which they are convinced are best for them…” (p. 296, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Vol. 10).

Edwards is quick to point out that God deals with us as reasonable beings. And we are persuaded by this desire for our own good.

Before Edwards gets to any of what I would call pure exegesis of Isaiah 3:10, he highlights how God’s motivation is designed to work. Isaiah doesn’t tell us how, but Edwards goes on to tell us how. That’s one of thousands of examples of Edwards’s exegetically lite and theologically heavy preaching.

Before Sunday, see if there are places in your preaching portion that could benefit from this type of analysis for God’s glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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What Keeps Your Sermon From Fragmenting?

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I recently returned from a wonderful week with doctoral students enrolled in Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Doctor of Ministry track, Preaching the Literary Forms of the Bible.  We met on GCTS’s Charlotte, NC campus.  One of the things we talked about was keeping our sermons from fragmenting.  Fragmentation happens when I (1) fail to follow the flow of thought created by the Author/author or (2) I choose to replace the existing flow of thought with my own deficient presentation.  We noticed a tendency of not clearly stating the logical connections between moves or thought-blocks in the sermon.  What is clear in the mind of the preacher is unclear to the listener.  While you’re developing your sermon double-check all your transitions as you move from major clause to major clause.  Ask if you are carrying the logic forward.  As you know, theology is conveyed more through the logical flow of thought than in the isolated content.