Category Archives: purpose

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Do You Know How to Interpret Scripture So it Functions for the Church?

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What kind of interpretation do you practice?

A few posts ago I mentioned returning to this subject of interpreting portions of Scripture so it could function for the church.

This past week I had the privilege of teaching a required Ph.D. course for Lancaster Bible College’s Biblical Studies program. The course is OT Hermeneutics and Theology and I spent some time talking about a method for interpretation.

One thing I noticed is that we are better at summarizing a passage than interpreting it. Even the big idea method I’ve taught for years in advanced homiletics classes is a matter of summarizing, not interpreting.

So, back to my example in Exodus 4:24-26

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.

 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ex 4:24–26.

Do you know what that pericope means? Do you know which meaning you’re after?

My method aims at meaning that combines exegetical content plus illocutionary intent. The last part is a fancy, speech act theory way of saying that meaning includes what God intends to do to the reader with that Scripture.

So, according to my working theory, we have not interpreted a text until we are able to state God’s intended effect on the reader. Are you able to do that for Exodus 4:24-26?

It might sound something like this:

The result of God attempting to kill Moses at the lodging place was that Zipporah circumcised their son, called Moses a bloody bridegroom, and God stopped the attack with the intention of urging the church to trust that, unlike Moses, their Redeemer kept the covenant for them and transforms them into covenant keepers.

It’s a mouthful, I know. However, the “with the intention of,” part is the critical part of interpretation.

More on that a little later.

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as you faithfully interpret Scripture.

Randal

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Our New Commentary on Genesis Has Arrived!

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John and I took seven years to write this! Slow, I know!! (*smile*)

What was “forthcoming” for some time is now here!

While I was away on my annual motorcycle ride to old Quebec City with seven others, Michele sent me a picture of the two boxes Kregel sent me. When I got home I had the joy of opening the author copies of my new commentary on Genesis.

It took approximately seven years to complete this project. More than once I said to the Lord, “I love Genesis, but I am so done with it!” (I’m writing now so God was gracious in understanding what I meant.)

The Kerux Commentary series matches a biblical scholar (Dr. John Soden) with a preaching specialist (me). As you’ll see, John did the lion’s share of the work. He is an excellent exegete and adept at starting the move from exegetical ideas to theological ideas that get closer to serving the church.

Each pericope begins with one page that includes an exegetical idea, theological focus, preaching idea, and preaching pointers. Then the section proper begins with Literary Structure and Themes, technical Exposition that includes translation analysis and outline points, extensive Theological Focus, and Preaching and Teaching Strategies.

In the Preaching and Teaching Strategies is a section on Exegetical and Theological Synthesis, an attempt to tie together the exegesis and theology to form a solid foundation for preaching insights. The Preaching Idea is repeated and followed by Contemporary Connections: What does it mean? Is it true? and Now What? (you might remember these as Haddon Robinson’s three functional questions; he used to say you can only do three things to an idea: explain it, prove it, or apply it; this section of the commentary does all three to the degree the preaching portion calls for them).

Finally, I provide suggested preaching outline(s), Creativity in Presentation, and Discussion Questions for preachers and teachers to consider.

Anyway, there it is in a nutshell.

What a privilege for me to be invited to participate. I thank our Lord for insights and endurance to accomplish this in the middle of an extremely busy time in my life. May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) whenever Genesis is preached/taught.

Randal

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A Worthy Goal for Our Preaching and Teaching in Church

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Vanhoozer makes a very helpful statement: “…every church should, minimally, be forming readers to…”

I am writing from Elim Lodge in Lakehurst, Ontario, Canada. I won’t show you pictures because it’s located on a beautiful peninsula, surrounded by Pigeon Lake, and you’ll feel badly. The camp director and I studied together 40 years ago in NB, Canada and there are two other couples serving here that our dear friends of ours from our years serving in Canada. It’s been a great reunion.

But, that’s not important right now.

What is important is this statement by Vanhoozer. His Mere Christian Hermeneutics is one of my primary text this year for my Ph.D. course, OT Hermeneutics and Theology (Lancaster Bible College’s Ph.D. in Biblical Studies). In between speaking at the camp this week, I’m prepping for this course that opens August 25, 2025.

On page 102 Vanhoozer makes this statement:

“…whatever their particular denominational (or nondenominational) slant, every church should, minimally, be forming readers to read with a distinctly theological interest: to know and love God.”

It’s always helpful for me to hear this kind of condensing of ministry goals. It helps me keep things from getting too complicated.

In our ministry context, the “to know” God part comes fairly easily; historically, it’s expected in a Bible Church that we will learn biblical information about God.

It’s the “love God” part that is more difficult for us.

One way I attempt to form readers with such a theological interest to know and love God is to regularly ask myself and my hearers:

“Do we love God more as a result of learning this section of Scripture?”

That question may help you as you study for sermons and lessons.

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as a result of our Spirit-driven efforts to create learners who love Him.

Randal

P.S. Okay, just one picture of Elim.

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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.

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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