Category Archives: study

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Is Your Preaching Getting Better?

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skills-1

A while ago the following sentence caught my eye. It’s from Pandora’s bio on the singing group, Hot Chocolate:

“An interracial English funk and soul group, Hot Chocolate scored a pair of huge hits in the 70’s but were otherwise more enthusiastic than skilled.”

Ouch!

This immediately made me think of what someone could say about me or any other preaching pastor.

I recognize that skill levels vary with individuals. It’s that way with athletes. There is LeBron James and there are other basketball players (older blog readers insert Michael Jordan). And it’s that way with preachers. I’m no Tony Evans or Tim Keller.

This week I begin teaching Advanced Homiletics to a class at LBC’s northern Virginia campus. I’m also in the middle of working with a Baltimore pastor in an independent study in Communicating Biblical Truth. So, I’m thinking a lot these days about how to teach hermeneutical and homiletical skills. As always, it forces me to think about how I’m doing. How skillful am I at…

  • fighting the good fight of faith? At fighting temptation? At displaying the fruit of the Spirit?
  • interpreting how Scripture functions for the Church? At theological exegesis? At understanding the human heart?
  • communicating God’s Word in church? At speaking, pace, movement, energy, urgency? At relating to the learners?

Take a look at those three broad categories. What does it take to become more skillful in these areas. It takes intentional, intense prayer. It takes purposeful reading. It takes consistent pastoral interaction (loving and listening).

God help us preach better so that He gets glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

P.S. Preach a good sermon, will ya?!

 

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Honoring the Context from which OT Quotes Are Taken

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Context-is-King

If you ever preach on 2 Corinthians 9:1-11 and the subject of giving to the Lord’s work, you’ll encounter a quote from Psalm 112:9 “He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever” (2 Corinthians 9:9). Whenever your preaching portion quotes Scripture, it helps to read the immediate context from which the quote was taken. What can you expect to gain? Usually a bit more than simply, “The NT author quotes from Psalm 112 in order to add credibility to his argument.”

In the case of Psalm 112, verse 1 tells us, “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments!” Verse 7 says, “…his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.” And verse 10 contrasts him with the “wicked man.” So, when Paul addresses the Corinthian Believers about their giving habits, he’s addressing people who are like the God-fearing man described in the Psalm.

This is important because when Paul says in v. 8, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you…”, God is able to and does do so for the kind of person described in Psalm 112. The obedient Christian is like the righteous man in Psalm 112. The 2 Corinthian preaching portion assumes some readers will exhibit the kind of fear/saving faith described in Psalm 112. I find it very helpful to use the immediate context of Psalm 112:9 (e.g., verses 1, 7, and 10) to make a connection between faith in Christ and, in the case of 2 Corinthians 9:1-11, cheerful, bountiful giving.

Does your upcoming preaching portion contain any OT quotes? If so, honor the immediate context in which the quoted Scripture is found and reap the theological benefits.

Preach well for the sake of His reputation.

Randal

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Pastor, Scholar, or Both?

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google-scholar

How do you see yourself? More of a pastor or more of a scholar?

I’m fortunate each year to study with pastors from all over the world who are both pastors and scholars. They are pursuing advanced degrees partly because they enjoy studying hard. But I also rub shoulders with pastors who do not see themselves as the scholarly type. If you see yourself like that, you need to read John Piper’s segment of the little paperback, The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor. Professors will enjoy Carson’s take on how the professor functions for the Church.

Piper writes, “[God] did not have to give the church a book….So the very existence of the Bible as a book signals that the pastor is called to read carefully and accurately and thoroughly and honestly. That is, he is called to be a ‘scholar’….If I am scholarly, it is not…because I try to stay on the cutting edge in the discipline of biblical and theological studies. I am far too limited for that [Piper is very open about his limitations in his, largely autobiographical chapter]. What ‘scholarly’ would mean for me is that the greatest object of knowledge is God and that he has revealed himself authoritatively in a book; and that I should work with all my might and all my heart and all my soul and all my mind to know and enjoy him and to make him known for the joy of others. Surely this is the goal of every pastor” (pp. 66-67).

When you put it like that, surely this is our goal. Let me give you two ways to move in that direction if you don’t see yourself functioning as the scholarly type:

  • Subscribe to a scholarly journal, read at least two articles and the book review section in each issue. I enjoy BibSac, JEHS, and Preaching journals, but there are many good ones to choose from .
  • Make reading in biblical and theology studies a regular part of your week. There is a lot of pressure on us to read only church growth or practical ministry material. Find authors that will stretch your ability to think theologically.

Study hard and preach well for the sake of His reputation in the Church and in the world.

Randal

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Why Our Study Skills Are Inadequate and How to Buttress Them

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word-and-spirit

Last month, Michele and I made our trek to the Evangelical Homiletics Society annual conference. This year it was hosted by Talbot Seminary on the campus of Biola University near Los Angeles. The conference theme was, Spirit-led Preaching, and our plenary speaker was Jack Hayford. If you’re not familiar with Jack’s ministry, he is probably the most well-known and well-respected Pentecostal pastor in the U.S. The plenary sessions contained heavy doses of anecdotes, sprinkled with insightful one-liners. Hayford, for instance, described praying over your preaching portion as “interfacing with the One who breathed the Book.” In preparing to study he would pray, “Let me breathe in what you breathed on.”

Hayford gave me a passion for the Spirit’s active presence in my study. He helped me realize that my grammatical-historical-literary-rhetorical-theological method is inadequate. Hayford firmly believes that a passion for the Spirit’s active presence in my study contributes what good study habits can’t (the concept is his; I added and emphasized the word, active). He made me a believer, too. I’m sure you know that it is the Holy Spirit, for instance, that brings the Word alive. Think about what difference, if any, exists between the interpretation of an unregenerate scholar and a Spirit-led scholar. Then, think about the difference between a sermon preached by an unregenerate preacher compared with a sermon preached by a Spirit-led preacher.

Except for the grace of God, it’s possible that I could be working in my study just like a non-Christian theologian/pastor. I have been trained fairly well and possess adequate study skills. But, in the end, those study skills are inadequate. I want to buttress them with a passion for the Spirit’s active presence in my study and during the sermon. So, I’m trying to remember to pray for the:

  • Spirit’s help before I begin studying
  • Spirit’s help during my study
  • Spirit to change me during my study
  • Spirit to show me Christ and how faith in His work sanctifies (cf. John 16:14 “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”)
  • Spirit’s help right before I preach so that my learning and growing occurs in the moment.

Share your ideas about Spirit-led preaching.

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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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Do you learn during the preaching event?

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I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. That usually means agonizing over my studies so that I have everything “figured out” by Sunday morning. It didn’t take me long to realize that I never have the preaching portion all figured out. In more recent years I’m becoming more comfortable with the reality that all my interpretations are partial at best. I’ve also been able to look forward to what God will teach me during the teaching time. Virtually every weekend the preaching event, including the important interaction I enjoy with active listeners, adds to my understanding of the preaching portion. This means that my accuracy increases while I’m preaching. In Preaching & Preachers, Lloyd-Jones states, “…you never know what is going to happen to [the sermon] until you get into the pulpit and start preaching it….You will find that the Spirit Who has helped you in your preparation may now help you, while you are speaking, in an entirely new way, and open things out to you which you had not seen while you were preparing your sermon” (p. 99). Barth adds, “We should not try to master the text. The Bible will become more and more mysterious to real exegetes. They will see all the depths and distances” (p. 128 in Homiletics). I hope that you are finding this to be true of you–that you are learning while you preach.