Category Archives: meaning

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Dangerous Christmas Sermons!

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I’ve never looked forward to preaching at Christmas time. Then R. T. France made it worse: “There is a significant mismatch between what most Christmas congregations expect to hear and what Matthew and Luke were primarily interested in conveying in their opening chapters. They did not write to tell the story of how Jesus was born….do congregations today either need or want to be convinced from Scripture that Jesus is the Messiah promised to the Jews….Is this what our Christmas congregations have come for?” (pp. 39-41 in his chapter, Preaching on the Infancy Narratives, in Preaching The New Testament).

For the past several years, I’ve started my homiletics classes with an audio clip of the introduction of an infant narrative sermon. The preacher introduces us to lessons we can learn about marriage from the interaction between Mary and Joseph as a result of Mary’s visit from Gabriel. Well, what do the infant narratives mean for the Church?

Well, certainly, at times Mary and Joseph are good examples to follow. We should emulate their faith. We should follow their devotion to God. The focus, however, seems to be on the information we receive about Jesus and His mission. Jesus is God’s promised Messiah who will do exactly what God said He would do. You know that and most of your congregants know that. Christmas sermons are a great time to urge us all to believe the descriptions about Jesus. Christmas sermons are a great time to help us all evaluate the extent to which our lives reflect faith in Jesus.

Along with misguided moralizing (e.g., lessons on marriage), Christmas sermons are also potentially dangerous because we can get so immersed in the details of the Story, we forget why Luke, for instance, included them in his Gospel. Gabriel told Mary that her Son would “be great” (Luke 1:32). Ask your parishioners if they believe that He is great. Ask them if their experience shows evidence of having such a great Savior.

What aspects of preaching at Christmas time are easy for you? What aspects are difficult?

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How To Identify Your Big Idea: An Example from the Transfiguration of Christ in Luke 9:28-36

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Lord willing, Michele and I will be traveling to Talbot Seminary later this week to participate in the annual meeting of the Evangelical Homiletics Society. In preparing for those meetings, I recently read Daniel Green’s paper, Robert Alter and the Apostle Luke: Finding the Big Idea of Lucan Narratives by Examining Direct Discourse. Some of you know that for the past 15 or 20 years, I’ve been extremely interested in finding ways to help pastors find the big idea of preaching portions. My forthcoming book, Preaching With Greater Accuracy (Kregel), presents a method that allows genre and structure to signal meaning. So, I was excited to read Daniel’s application of Alter’s method to Luke’s Gospel. I’m also currently preaching through Luke, so the timing was excellent for me personally.
 
Green summarizes Alter, “Direct discourse, the spoken parts of the narratives, carries the crux meaning literarily and theologically.” It’s true that direct discourse often carries crucial parts of meaning, but in narratives the plot drives the subject. The placement of direct discourse in the story determines if it contains the subject or complement. Take for instance, Luke’s record of Jesus’ transfiguration. In verse 35 we hear God saying, “This is my Son…listen to him!” Because God’s speech appears so late in the preaching portion, it forms a major part of the complement. The subject, however, occurs early in the plot as Jesus’ handpicked trio sees Jesus’ glory (what Ryken in his commentary on Luke refers to as a “vision of the glorified Christ”).
 
We could state the big idea of the transfiguration: The result of seeing the glory of Christ (subject) is that we should recognize Him as God’s Son and listen to Him (complement).
 
Find your subject in the opening plot and let that subject drive your sermon. Then, allow strategic speeches occurring in the climax or conclusion of the narrative to complete your subject and provide the primary application.
 
Question: How did you identify your big idea in yesterday’s sermon?
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Preaching Two Kinds of Faith

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Recently, I was preaching on Psalm 112 and emphasizing the aspect of fearlessness in verses 7-8, “He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid.” In my search for images for that Sunday’s slides, I came across this saying:

 

“Let you faith be bigger than your fear.”

 

After thinking about this for a moment or two, I realized that this kind of thinking betrays a lack of understanding of biblical faith. What struck me harder was the fact that the saying seemed to preach so well. I could hear myself saying something like this in an attempt to apply our lives to this Psalm.

At the risk of nit-picking, let me suggest that genuine faith in Christ is, by nature, stronger than fear. To tell someone to let their faith be bigger than their fear is actually telling them to exchange less-than-saving/sanctifying faith for genuine faith. So, it’s actually not about letting faith be bigger; it’s about explaining how faith in Christ conquers fear. That exercise in theological exegesis will help our congregants be the kind of person described in Psalm 112, which is what the Psalm is intended to do.

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Preaching the Synonyms of Faith (part 2)

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Preaching through the Gospel of Luke provides an excellent opportunity for us to repeatedly teach the nature of saving faith. You may have realized that many professing Christians are unclear about what faith is and how it works. In Luke 7:40-50 Jesus’ visit with a religious leader, Simon, is interrupted by a visit from “a woman of the city.” In v. 47 Jesus says, “…her sins, which are many, are forgiven–for she loved much.” But, then Jesus says to the woman in v. 50, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Jesus teaches us that her faith saved her, but also that had there been no love, there would’ve been no forgiveness. Functioning as theologians for our faith-families means explaining the relationship between loving Jesus and believing Him. It was Jonathan Edwards who said that love was the main thing in saving faith. As I said in a previous post, look for opportunities to teach the synonyms and antonyms of faith. This will broaden the theological understanding of our congregants and also create a solid foundation for working out their own salvation.

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Preaching the Synonyms and Antonyms for Faith

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In Luke 7:18-35 Jesus responds to a question posed by John the Baptizer. In Jesus’ answer, He says in v. 23, “…blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” This is an example of using antonyms to define saving and sanctifying faith. Usually, we’ll spend a moment in the sermon explaining this statement. Our explanations will, no doubt, include synonyms such as being turned off by Him. However, this is a great opportunity to explain what faith is. The opposite of being offended by Jesus is embracing Him and His teachings. In this context, those who were not offended by Jesus were responding well to John and his baptism. They acknowledge their need to be cleansed from their sin. Another example of this is in verse 30: “but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves.” Here’s another opportunity to explain faith. Synonyms will explain their unbelief; antonyms will explain the proper response intended for Believers who hear this narrative. See if your preaching portion for Sunday contains any synonyms or antonyms for faith.

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What Our Applications Say About Our Interpretations

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I just finished reading, Whose Community? Which Interpretation?, a brief discussion of how philosophical hermeneutics affects the church. On page 110 the author writes, “To understand is to apply; to apply differently is to understand differently.”

Probably the best example of this is how sermons on the Prodigal Son are usually applied. The most common application of Luke 15 is to call all prodigals to come home to Christ. We understand the parable to revolve around the prodigal who left his father’s house. To understand is to apply. You probably know that the parable is designed to focus attention on the attitude of the religious leaders (cf. Luke 15:1-2). To understand the parable that way means applying it differently: focusing on the older brother (the only one who does not rejoice when the lost is found). This requires a different kind of altar call.

Whenever you’re preaching on a narrative, check to see if your application (often some form of exemplar: “go and do likewise” or “go and do otherwise”) points to a different understanding than the preaching portion is intended to communicate.

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Preaching on Fathers’ Day Can Be Hazardous!

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Thankfully, I was on vacation on Fathers’ Day Sunday.  Not that I especially like being on vacation, but because I didn’t have to twist a text to apply it to fathers.  How did you manage that Sunday?  I worshiped in a church in Maine.  The pastor selected Luke 15’s parable of the Prodigal Son.  I appreciated his emphasis on the father portrayed in the parable, though some of the principles he developed for us to follow may have been stretching the truth.  It shows how difficult it is to preach with greater accuracy if we are too focused on being relevant.  Often the occasion of the sermon takes precedence over the occasion of the Scripture.  Or, our purpose for choosing a sermon on Luke 15 for Fathers’ Day overrides the purpose for which that Scripture was given by God.  God help us for the sake of your reputation!