Category Archives: rhetorical strategy

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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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The “intense preparation” it Takes to Preach Without Notes

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It’s not so much about whether you have notes or not, but…

In my previous post I mentioned reading, Augustine and the Cure of Souls: Revising a Classical Ideal, by Paul R. Kolbet. It’s one of those books that majors on pastoral ministry with a minor in preaching.

One of the interesting things about the book is that it shows how the Greco-Roman world of Augustine’s day influenced his understanding of pastoral ministry. One way the G-R world influenced Augustine and all public speakers was in the area of speaking without notes.

Here’s an example:

“To a sophist’s audience, such oratorical display appeared spontaneous and effortless–the ad lib creation of the moment coming into existence in their very presence–but that spontaneity was, in fact, an illusion made possible through intense preparation and skillful use of known rhetorical methods.” (p. 21)

Yes, “an illusion made possible through intense preparation…”

Elements of that kind of intense preparation are:

  • Begin writing your sermon from the moment you begin studying the text. This means training yourself to never write notes without thinking about how you will say it to your listeners. As you write, you’re talking to them about them from the biblical text.
  • Treat your biblical text as your cue card. If you are an expositor, then the Bible is your primary manuscript. I use to tell preachers-in-training: “If you lose your place in the sermon, just look down at your Bible, find your place in the text, and continue. No one knows your plan which means they don’t know you’ve lost your place unless you tell them.”
  • If the biblical text is your cue card, that means you should be able to follow the logical flow of thought or argument of your text. This is critical for helping your listeners follow along with you. This will prevent you from losing your place.
  • Internalize both technical and restatements of the most important theological concepts in your text. This does take some time and effort. Know key definitions from HALOT or BDAG, for instance, but also an easier-to-understand version you’ve created.
  • Finally, save time Saturday evening and early Sunday morning to read through your manuscript carefully, editing along the way. You’ll experience times when you say, “That isn’t clear to me,” or “I lost myself at this place,” or “There’s a better way to say that.” Great learning takes place during these practice sessions.

And, the bottom line is, it’s not how many notes you have or don’t have in the pulpit that makes communication effective. It’s how well you communicate with your parishioners. Do they hear you talking to them about the Bible or talking to them about them from the Bible?

May our Lord continue to receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as you continue to communicate His Word each Sunday.

Randal

P.S. Most Sunday’s I have on my iPad a limited number of Scripture verses or quotes from authors that I don’t want to memorize, but want to read.

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How Did Edwards Identify Genuine Believers? Does It Matter?

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Part 2 of, Can You Tell The Difference And Does It Matter?

As I wrote last time, Jonathan Edwards spent an enormous amount of intellectual energy trying to tell the difference between genuine and counterfeit Christianity. In Marsden’s, An Infinite Fountain of Light, is a chapter, But How Do We Tell? The Signs of Rightly Ordered Loves. Marsden lists twelve “positive signs” of genuine faith (p. 109).

Edwards’s starting point, similar to Augustine, is “a ‘new sense’ of God’s love. (p. 112) That spills over, of course, into a new sense of love for God. The first three revolve around some aspect of love. I have found this such a helpful way to address my listeners. Often I will ask whether this instruction from Scripture makes us love God more. Keeping our affections front and center is a helpful antidote toward any tendency to engage in a more sterile or clinical kind of faith.

I found Edwards’s sixth sign extremely telling: humility (p. 117).

Marsden writes, “Edwards highlights humility as ‘a great and most essential thing in true religion.’ In that emphasis, he stands firmly in the Augustinian and Reformed tradition–and in fact in a note he quotes John Calvin, who in turn quotes Augustine, saying that if asked what was the first precept of the Christian religion, ‘I would answer, firstly, humility, secondly, and thirdly, and forever, humility.'” (p. 117).

Earlier Edwards points out that one of the primary character traits of hypocritical or nominal Christians “is that they are in love with their religious experience; they value it for what they get out of it.” (p. 118)

Of course, humility is tricky: “So Edwards says, ‘An infallible sign of spiritual pride is persons being apt to think highly of their humility.'” (p. 119)

Edwards’s other traits in the list of twelve make for interesting reading.

It’s a reminder to me that each Sunday, I am preaching God’s Word to a mixed crowd. Our preaching portions in Scripture will address various aspects of genuine, saving faith and its opposite. As you look for such things in your Text for this weekend, may our Lord receive “glory in the church and in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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How to Tell the Difference Between Sheep and Goats: It Mattered a Great Deal to Edwards

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Can you tell the difference between sheep and goats? Does it matter on Sundays?

I trust you experienced a rewarding Easter celebration with your faith-family. I know Michele and I did.

You may recall earlier posts containing excerpts from Marsden’s, An Infinite Fountain of Light: Jonathan Edwards for the Twenty-First Century. It’s amazing how current Edwards’s approach is even though his 18th century context and style of ministry is so different from ours.

One lasting effect of Edwards’s thinking and writing is his well-known, “A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections.” I first read it as part of my required reading in the mid- to late 80’s when I studied the church in America at Dallas Theological Seminary.

Marsden writes, “Edwards spent almost his whole life wrestling with the question of how to tell the difference between authentic Christian experience and its imitations: self-delusion and hypocrisy” (p. 104). He describes Edwards’s understanding of “affections” as,

“the sort of love for a person that brings joy unspeakable. True affections for Edwards include the joy and delight–at the heart of his theology–of experiencing the beauty of perfect love” (p. 106).

Okay, let me stop and say that my ministry for over 30 years has been in the context of two, Bible Church kind of churches. I half-jokingly say to our folks, “We’re a Bible Church which means we don’t feel anything.” It’s true; we don’t feel much and rarely do we let it show on our faces on a given Sunday morning. So, this makes it difficult to know if my listeners are experiencing authentic Christianity.

Edwards asked how we know the sheep from the goats.

He begins with indicators that don’t prove anything:

“high emotional experiences, preoccupation with religious things, readiness to quote Scripture, great self-confidence in one’s own spirituality, and other traits that can be found among hypocrites as well as among some genuine Christians” (p. 107).

As you can see, counterfeit Christianity exists. But Scriptures often provide ample opportunity for us to challenge the kind of faith our listeners have. One way is to continually ask if their faith-journey includes a dose of “joy and delight” and the “beauty of [God’s] perfect love.”

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as we address both sheep and goats each Sunday.

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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Assisting our “Silent Learners”: Augustine on Preaching

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Some of Our Listeners may Be Silent, but They Are Thinking.

I wrote recently that I finally read Augustine’s classic little paperback, On Christian Doctrine (translated by Robertson). Augustine provides a look at one challenge of the traditional, monologue sermon. He instructs his students,

“In a conversation anyone may ask questions. But where all are silent that one may be heard and all are intent upon him, it is neither customary nor proper that anyone inquire about what he does not understand. For this reason the teacher should be especially careful to assist the silent learner. [emphasis added]” (p. 134)

You can see that, in Augustine’s day, preachers didn’t engage in dialogue with their listeners. In his era, all were “silent that one may be heard and all are intent upon him.” Probably your preaching resembles that too. You preach and your parishioners listen without asking questions about what they don’t understand.

Here are some things to think about as you develop this week’s sermon(s) that will help you “to assist the silent learner”:

  1. As you study your preaching portion, make a list of all the questions you have of this text.
  2. Try to anticipate the kinds of questions that someone who has not studied as much as you might ask of that text.
  3. Try also to anticipate the disagreements they may have with you as you preach. One homiletician called these push-backs, contrapuntals (I knew you’d like that word!).
  4. During the sermon, ask your listeners questions in such a way that they know you expect them to answer. Even if you don’t expect them or necessarily want them to answer, still ask a question sincerely to help them think with you. I say that because, through the years, I’ve seen more than one preaching ask their congregants a question in such a way they knew he really didn’t expect an answer.

Our typical monologue-method on Sunday mornings presents some real problems for communicating biblical truth. Through the years I’ve found a conversational style to be more effective than the one-way method. Most of my listeners are used to monologue sermons, but appreciate the conversation.

If you find that you fit into Augustine’s mode of preaching, may our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as you carefully assist your silent learners.

Randal

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Confusion or Clarity? A Brief Word From Augustine

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Augustine was very sure he was being clear! I am not always so sure!! You?

Last week I finished reading Augustine’s classic little paperback, On Christian Doctrine (translated by Robertson). I had seen it quoted so many times through the years and figured it was about time.

Early on in the book, Augustine baldly stated:

“I am not to blame because they do not understand.” (p. 3)

If I remember correctly, Augustine took a job teaching rhetoric in order to pay the bills. So, he was well-trained in communication. Evidently, he knew how to be crystal clear when he taught Scripture. And he was confident in his abilities.

His statement reminded me of the importance of being clear. It’s more important that being interesting or clever. As much as I value preaching with accuracy, what is accuracy without clarity?

Augustine got me thinking about what enhances clarity. Here are some things to consider as you prepare to preach this week:

  1. Exchange your informational sermons titles (I am assuming your titles provide statements) for transformational titles (ones that hint at application or response even before the sermon begins).
  2. Similar to #1 is to clearly state the primary worship responses to your Text. As I have written before, you might complete this sentence: “We worship this morning by_____________.” This is another way of talking about sermon application. When you insert this sentence into the opening minutes of your sermon introduction, your listeners are clear about how to worship during the sermon.
  3. Whether you use formal outline points or not, make sure to create clear transitions from thought-block to thought-block. Everyone should hear how the parts fit together so the sermon doesn’t fragment in their minds.
  4. I find it’s easy not to be clear with defining key terms. I am trying to make sure my sermon manuscript has one robust sentence for any word that requires careful evaluation. The lexicons are still my favorite source for concise definitions in context.
  5. I need to practice this more: follow up a lengthy quote, with something like, “Now, what D. A. Carson is saying is, ___________________.” That gives listeners two opportunities to hear the content.
  6. Finally, be clear about the Gospel, how Christ-crucified makes it possible for us to put the Scripture into practice (the worship response in #2 above).

Maybe, after all that, I can say with Augustine, “I am not to blame because they do not understand.” And may our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21), because of our sermon clarity.

Randal

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The Attitudes that Affect the Way We Respond to God’s Word

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Things that get in the way of applying life to the Bible

In my last post I began summarizing some of the things I’m learning from Marsden’s, An Infinite Fountain of Light. In the book he highlights a number of ways in which Jonathan Edwards is relevant for our day. Much of Edwards’s enduring value stems from the similarities between our listeners and those in the eighteenth century.

Here are some excerpts that help us know what is in the air we breathe:

“the autonomous individual is the fundamental unity of society” (p. 33). Which explains why it is very difficult to get a local church to think about community or to even think that the church is important enough to commit to.

“the God within” (p. 33). Virtually everyone in our society has been trained to think that listening to their own voice or following their own heart is the way to success. Each weekend you and I give them another word, a Word from God that is outside of themselves.

“the privatization of meaning” (p. 33). This is a spinoff from the one above. People in our day are ditching parents or a close knit group of neighbors or spiritual community and opting to discover their own meaning. Again, on Sundays we confront them with God’s Word and His meaning, but it’s not easy because deep down they believe they are the final authority on meaning.

That’s only three of them, but they are big ones that we face. What’s fascinating is to read how all this started with someone like Benjamin Franklin (remember, he and Edwards are contemporaries). Marsden points out one huge difference between their society and ours: they believed that there was some kind of transcendent basis for their values; our society does not.

This kind of analysis reminds me that when I am preaching, listeners are hearing God’s Word in the context of their cultural values. These attitudes always affect the way people interact with God’s revelation. As you head into this Christmas week and prepare to teach and preach on Christmas Eve, keep this in mind. See if your Scripture speaks directly to these attitudes and may our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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Learning About How Meaning Is Made For Biblical Preaching

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Discover how meaning is made before asking what the meaning is.

Last week I had the privilege of teaching the Ph.D. course BIB909, Old Testament Hermeneutics and Theology, for LBC|Capital Seminary & Graduate School. One of the concepts we discussed during residency days in Greenbelt, MD was how meaning is made in a pericope.

It is not a familiar topic, especially when worded that way. It comes from the world of literary studies.

In my own practice I always discover how meaning is made in my selected preaching portion before attempting to discover what the meaning is. This allows me to allow the biblical author to show me what he means to say.

In many cases this means beginning with the passage’s structure. In a narrative, for instance, trace the storyline of the text (setting, rising action, climax, and conclusion). This is how theology is communicated. This is how meaning is made. This shows the interrelationship between the many ideas in a narrative. This helps you know what idea is prominent and which are subordinate.

In other cases, such as didactic texts, you are tracing the flow of thought or argument of a paragraph. This provides the logical relationship between sentences and paragraphs. This is how theology is communicated. This is how meaning is made. Again, this shows the interrelationship between the many ideas in the argument. This helps you know what idea is prominent and which are subordinate.

In both case above, you will have to investigate further. You will have to ask how various elements in your preaching portion mean something to your readers. Here’s an example from Matthew 10:1-15, my text for this coming Sunday, Lord willing.

In a text like this, Jesus’s instructions to the Twelve somehow instruct us in how to make disciples.

That’s it.

You’ll have to decide how much of the details transfer to our day, but as far as how meaning is made, you’ve got it. There’s authority, specific instructions on what to do, including how to handle rejection and what that means for those who do that.

It’s your turn. If you’re preaching Sunday and if you didn’t do this already, take a moment and analyze how meaning is made in your preaching portion. And may our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through your Spirit-guided efforts! (Ephesians 3:21)

Randal