This week I am still trying to complete some writing projects from my recent sabbatical. One of those projects involved getting the manuscript of, Preacher As Soul-Watcher, in shape for those who prefer the paperback version.
Thanks to my dear wife, Michele, the paperback is available!
My prayer is that the e-book or paperback version encourages pastors to preach for God’s glory in their faith-families.
If you’re not familiar with the book’s content, here are the two Scriptures in focus:
Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of not advantage to you. (emphasis added)
1 Timothy 4:13-16 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (emphasis added)
I hope you were encouraged yesterday as you spoke on behalf of our Lord.
Thanks to the leadership of Calvary Bible Church in Mount Joy, PA, Michele and I enjoyed a summer sabbatical. The bad news is it’s officially over; I am headed into my first normal Saturday evening and Sunday morning since May! Lord have mercy!!
However, being away from church duties for those weeks allowed me to write two books.
First, I was able to complete, Preacher As Soul-Watcher: Why You and Your Congregants Need Your Sermons. It’s a theology of preaching in the local church based upon Hebrews 13:17 and 1 Timothy 4:13-16. That book is now available through Amazon in e-book format. The paperback version should be available in a few days.
Second. I have completed the first draft of, The Monday Morning Expositor: Rethinking Your Study Sequence For Sermon Development. Lord willing, it will become available in a week or so. That book is a practical guide for a preacher’s first few hours in the study. It focuses on a reversal of the normal process we learned in seminary. I call these four elements, pre-exegesis. They provide a big-picture look at the preaching portion that becomes the backbone for collecting normal exegetical data.
Back to the first book for a moment. One of my favorite sections in, Preacher As Soul-Watcher, is the exposition of 1 Timothy 4:13-16. Verse 15 ends with a surprise:
“…so that all may see your progress.”
In the book I write, “For some reason it is important for our parishioners to see us advancing….It is important that soul-watchers improve with respect to their faith-journey and ability to minister to God’s people.”
Later I quote Fee’s explanation: “By Timothy’s being a faithful minister of the word of the gospel, the people will be able to see the real thing.” (Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, p. 109, emphasis added)
On July 18, 2024 the WSJ ran an article, Sellouts, Streaming Put Country Atop The Music Business. What caught my attention was how popular Country music is right now and why. Back in June, the country music legend, George Strait, broke a record for most tickets sold at a U.S. concert (more than 110,000!).
And the “why?” One singer, Megan Moroney, said
“Authenticity is selling right now.”
The real thing.
Tomorrow morning, Lord willing, I will enjoy the privilege and responsibility of delivering the real thing. Authentic preaching.
That means believing what God is saying to us in Matthew 13:31ff.
That means living like I believe it.
That means communicating it is a way that conveys I believe it and live it.
May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as you and I go to work Sunday morning.
What took so long? Life and ministry, I guess, such as pursuing more learning, writing more books, and preparing to teach classes through the years.
My first exposure to Hebrews 13:17 where it really caught my attention was when I was preaching through the book of Hebrews at The People’s Church in Somerville, NB, Canada in the mid-90’s.
Then, at the inaugural meeting of the Evangelical Homiletics Society on the campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I was invited to preach as part of the conference schedule (either the fall of ’96 or ’97?). I selected Hebrews 13:17. It reads,
“Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”
It was important that I remind myself and EHS members that preaching is a subset of soul-watching.
Fast-forward to August 1, 2024 and I finally published my thoughts on a theology of preaching from that text and also 1 Timothy 4:13-16, the end of which reads,
“…Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
For years, God has given me the great privilege of studying hermeneutics and homiletics with other soul-watchers from all over the world. If you have blessed me with your presence in the classroom through the years, huge thanks. You may be interested in this expanded version of some of the things we, no doubt, talked about. If we’ve never met and you’re a pastor that preaches, you might be interested in my thoughts on why our preaching is so important.
You can find Preacher as Soul-Watcher on Amazon (KDP) or click the link above.
May our Lord continue to receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus as we watch over the souls entrusted to our care (Ephesians 3:21).
Randal
P.S. Over the next few weeks I will provide some excerpts from Preacher as Soul-Watcher. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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.
I recently put aside some hermeneutics reading to invest some time thinking about pastoral ministry and preaching. That involved reading a delightful book, Augustine and the Cure of Souls: Revising a Classical Ideal, by Paul R. Kolbet
On the very first page I struck gold with this quote:
“Who, then, will be this doctor of souls? What will his drugs be like, and what form will the regimen he prescribes take?” (Maximus of Tyre, Diss. 28.1)
Maximus is a late 2nd century rhetorician and philosopher or sophist. A couple of centuries later Augustine will emerge as one of these “doctor of souls.” While I knew that Greek rhetoric greatly affected Augustine’s preaching ministry, I did not know that his pastoral ministry was also influenced by Greek thinking.
In the coming weeks I will continue to share some insights from this helpful book. For now I wanted to begin by saying that we preachers are “doctor of souls” and the Word of God is our written prescription. In the broadest of terms, every time we apply our lives to the Bible we are showing elements of “the regimen” required for the cure of souls.
One part of sacred Scripture that guides my thinking is Hebrews 13:17
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
God has given us a tremendous privilege to “watch over…souls” each Sunday. I hope you know how important you are to your flock’s spiritual health. It’s all because of the gift He’s given you.
May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as we faithfully prepare for this coming weekend’s preaching ministry.
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.
Helping our Listeners Know What Influences Their Life Choices
Most mornings I continue to read Jonathan Edwards’s sermons as part of my devotional life. Along the journey through his preaching–currently in the Yale volume covering 1730-1733–I read for homiletical insights with the goal of being a more effective exegete/theologian/preacher.
Almost every sermon helps me learn how to apply Scripture. Edwards was meticulous in his application.
In his sermon, The Duty of Self-Examination, from Haggai 1:5 (“Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways.”), Edwards tells his listeners:
“We ought to consider which has the greatest influence upon us: our carnal appetites, or the promises and threatenings of God’s Word” (p. 486, vol. 10, Kimnach).
You’ll certainly want to explain “carnal appetites.” After you do, you have one half of an equation that affects our daily choices. The other half features two elements of sacred Scripture: promises and warnings.
Then, Edwards describes every moment of temptation:
“When there is set before us a self-denying, mortifying duty and a pleasant sin, for us to take our choice, the sinful pleasure and delight allures and entices on one side, and the favor of God and heaven invites on the other. Which do we choose, which has the greatest influence upon us…” (p. 486).
Your Scripture for this coming Sunday could have either direct or indirect reference to our “carnal appetites” or to “the promises and threatenings of God’s Word.” If so, then it’s a matter of identifying some specifics.
For instance, which element influences our thought life? What about the words we speak to each other?
And then, with typical Edward-like seriousness he states:
“Every man is in the way to heaven or the way to hell, and the way that we are now in, if pursued, will certainly bring us to one or the other of these” (p. 488).
And all that before the Application section of the sermon!
I hope that these excerpts from Edwards’s applicational angles helps you help your congregants put God’s Word into practice so that God continues to receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).
Over my recent vacation I was able to order a few new books and finished George Marsden’s, An Infinite Fountain of Light: Jonathan Edwards for the Twenty-First Century. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you know how much I love reading Edwards. Marsden’s book offers something unique: a look at the abiding influence of Edwards because of how similar today’s mindset is to Edwards’s. I didn’t expect that. I certainly didn’t expect that the similarity is due to the influence of Ben Franklin’s thinking.
I read this kind of material to continue learning about the kinds of listeners I preach to (and the kind of man I am). When we preach God’s Word, what kinds of influences affect the way we fight for faith and righteousness?
How about this list?
ever-increasing technology
aggressive market capitalism
celebration of self
trying to balance liberty and equality
materialism
permissive sensuality
nationalism
Sound familiar?
If you enjoy history, you’ll appreciate Marsden’s work on Edwards and Franklin. If you enjoy thinking about preaching to your listeners, you’ll benefit from keeping these cultural characteristics in mind. They influence all of us; they’re in the air we breathe. And Marsden suggests that all of this 18th century “semi-Christian or cultural Protestant” outlook continues today.
If he’s correct, this means that many of our listeners each Sunday believe in God but are most concerned with their own personal flourishing.
And if you have teenagers in your church, here’s their “most typical religious outlook…even those who had been reared in traditionalist Christian churches… ‘moralistic therapeutic deism.’ They tended to believe that there was a benevolent , mostly distant God who wanted people to be good and who might be called on in times of sickness or crisis for help and comfort. At the same time they believed in developing one’s now self-identity.” (p. 26, Marsden quoting Christian Smith’s, Soul Searching: The Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers)
May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) as you and I continue to exegete our listeners while expositing sacred Scripture.
How to challenge hypocrites without unduly stressing out the saints!
I’m not quite finished with Bavinck’s one volume theology, but couldn’t help starting to read, Theoretical-Practical Theology, written by Petrus Van Mastricht in the late 17th century. I was excited to read it because he wrote the theology book to train pastors. For instance, it contains a wonderful first section, The Best Method of Preaching. What a way to begin a systematic theology book!
In it, Mastricht speaks to a subject matter that may be difficult to do in some churches because of their goals. However, it is impossible to avoid if a pastor is committed to preaching through books of the Bible.
That subject matter is challenging the saints to make sure their lifestyle matches their profession of faith. In other words, the Scriptures regularly urge the saints in church to a faith that expresses itself in required virtues.
Of course, this kind of preaching will create some angst in those who know they are saved. So Mastricht writes,
“…from one perspective, we would not without cause lead the consciences of the pious into doubts and anxieties from which afterward we could not so easily lead them out; from another perspective, so that we would not also strengthen hypocrites and harden them in their carnal security” (vol. 1, p. 23).
That’s the tension that can be created in preaching the Word of God to both kinds of listeners. It’s the kind of preaching that some preaching portions demand.
When the Text demands it, may our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21) because of your faithfulness in not strengthening the hypocrites without pricking the consciences of the saints without cause.
Is it only me, or does the thought of the power of the pastoral office/ministry seem out of step these days?
I regularly read ancient confessions to help me think theologically. The goal is to add theological depth to my preaching in order to feed the flock well as we read Scripture together each Sunday.
I am also near completion of my first full-length e-book, Preacher As Soul-Watcher, which contains a section on Hebrews 13:17 and the preacher’s authority.
The Second Helvetic Confession (“Helvetic” is Latin for “Swiss” and this confession grew out of the context of Swiss-German Reformed Protestantism in the mid-sixteenth century) contains chapter 18:
“Of the Ministers of the Church, Their Institution and Duties.”
After the section on our Lord’s absolute power is,
“The Power of the Office and of the Minister” (p. 93, The Book of Confessions). It reads…
“Then there is another power of an office or of ministry limited by him who has full and absolute power. And this is more like a service than a dominion….In virtue of this power the minister, because of his office, does that which the Lord has commanded him to do; and the Lord confirms what he does, and wills that what his servant has done will be so regarded and acknowledged, as if he himself had done it” (p. 93)
When we preach God’s Word with accuracy, we’re doing what the Lord commanded us to do. According to the confession, the Lord confirms what we do and wants our listeners to regard our preaching as if He Himself had preached.
I don’t know from Sunday to Sunday who will think of my preaching like this, but I do know that this thought encourages me as I prepare for another Sunday.
I hope you are encouraged too by the thought of our derived pulpit power bringing glory to God in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).
