Text in Preaching (Part 1)

Daryl Johnson wrote, “That’s biblical preaching. That’s what we’re trying to do; taking a text, living in that text, inviting other people into that text, and allowing the text to speak its Word to us as unencumbered as possible by our distortions.”

The content of authentic Spiritual formation through preaching in the postmodern setting must continue to be the properly exegeted true text of the Christian Holy Scriptures. John Stott wrote, "Here, then, is the preacher’s authority. It depends on the closeness of his adherence to the text he is handling, that is, on the accuracy with which he has understood it and on the forcefulness with which it has spoken to his own soul. In the ideal sermon it is the Word itself which speaks, or rather God in and through His Word. The less the preacher comes between the Word and its hearers, the better. What really feeds the household is the food which the householder supplies, not the steward who dispenses it. The Christian preacher is best satisfied when his person is eclipsed by the light which shines from the Scripture and when his voice is drowned by the Voice of God." 

The great Old Testament preacher, Ezra, “devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel” (Ezra 7:10 NIV). He found himself leading the people of God during a time of transition into a new orientation. Yet he relied on what the leaders of the faith community had always done; leading the people in listening to the texts of God’s Word in their contemporary setting. He exegeted the Word to understand its logos content. He conveyed the Word in the pathos of living practice. He taught the Word in the context of his contemporary ethos.

There is a description of Ezra’s method in Nehemiah 8. He stood before the assembled people, opened the Word, and he (and other Levites) read it and interpreted it so that the people could understand it. The people responded in prayer, praise, weeping, and worship. They started with the text, applied it to their lives, and responded to it with faith. They did not begin with some topics that they thought their people needed to learn about and then find some proof texts to teach mere “traditions of men.” Rather, they let God speak through his revealing Word. Ezra simply read the text “from daybreak till noon” (Nehemiah 8:3 NIV) before he and the other priests instructed. Many evangelical churches today do not have even a short reading of the text as a part of their service outside of the sermon. This is utterly shameful!