Text in Preaching (Part 2)

Jesus argued in his great “Sermon on the Mount” that until heaven and earth disappear, not even an iota or a keraia will vanish from the Scriptures. And those who luse (loosen or destroy) any bit of it “will be least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches (it) will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:19 NIV). Unfortunately, in some churches, the Word of God is not only adhered to loosely, it is twisted to mean whatever people want it to mean. One could argue that contemporary Christianity is a combination of legalism and spiritualism wrapped up in Christian clichés.

Greater emphasis must be placed on the postmodern preacher’s job of doing careful exegesis, faithful practice, and proper instruction of biblical texts. This is what Paul was commending Timothy to do when he said, “What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you – guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us” (2 Tim. 1:13-14 NIV). Training in the study, practice, and teaching of the Word is crucial for Christian leadership in every age, but especially in this postmodern era when texts and rational communication is deconstructed and dismissed as relative.

There is another enemy of proper Christian attention to the study, practice, and teaching of texts today; a uniquely postmodern erroneous belief in an antithesis between “head knowledge” and “spiritual knowledge.” This myth assumes that “spiritual” wisdom is something that drops out of the clear blue sky directly from God, rather than being something revealed by God to human minds and hearts. This is a great contributing evil to some of the chaos in our contemporary scene. Sincere, well-meaning men and women, chiefly because of an ignorance of basic biblical truths, teach heresy in the name of Christ. If proper exegesis of biblical texts is ignored, ignorance will be studied, practiced, and taught.

At our church, we are endeavoring to study, practice, and teach the Word of God together. The teachers are committed to faithfully exegeting the actual texts of the Scriptures. As previously mentioned, we teach through whole books of the Bible. We invite our congregation to test everything that is taught against their own understanding of the texts through personal study. The members of the team of teachers also hold one another accountable to be faithful representatives of the Word. We help one another, ask one another, commend one another, and forgive one another when we fail. The authentically Christian, postmodern preacher must be committed to be a serious student of the Word first, and then to be one who exposes the actual texts of God’s revelation to his/her congregation.

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!

Sensuality in Preaching (Part 2)

In 'Revelation', John re-imagines this kind of sensual experience when he describes worship in the heavenly realms. There are trumpets and voices, rainbows and lightning, blood and incense, rumblings and tears, and sweet and sour scrolls. In the premodern, western Church, there was a greater sensual experience than what grew out of the modernist enlightenment. European cathedrals were designed to enhance the appreciation of God through all five senses. These attentions to the sensual experience in worship must be regained in the postmodern Church to help this emerging generation attend to God.

At our church, we are attempting to experiment with sights, sounds, touches, tastes, and smells. We use “PowerPoint,” not only to project song lyrics, but also to show beautiful images throughout the worship experience. We listen to songs, speeches, and silences. We are highly touch-oriented (relational). We feel and smell the bodies around us in worship, and we feel and taste the bread and wine in communion, and the coffee and desserts afterwards. The Christian life is a five-sense, corporeal experience. It is rooted in the humus of our bodies in time and space. It is realized through our physical beings. And the authentically Christian, postmodern preacher will engage her congregants' fully sensual lives.

Sensuality in Preaching (Part 1)

Dan Kimball wrote, “God created us as multisensory creatures and chose to reveal himself to us through all of our senses. Therefore, it’s only natural that we worship him using all of our senses.”

Spiritual formation through preaching to postmoderns must be given in a context that engages one’s full sensual experience. With the rejection of modernist rationalism, a greater awareness of the sensorial experience of life and worship is emerging. This is seen in the importance of music, mystery, and beauty in emergent churches. Postmoderns are not interested in anything that is perceived as merely intellectual. The appropriately irreverent, relevantly real, grounded, Christ-centered faith community will engage the whole person in worship.

This is not a new thing for the faith community. The aberration was the modernist practice of intellectualizing and sanitizing the worship experience. The Old Testament experience of worship, at the Sinai Tabernacle or the Jerusalem Temple, was a fully sensorial experience. Imagine a gathering of the masses bringing their daily sacrifices. There were the sounds of the prayers of thousands of human voices mixed with the chants of hundreds of priests, and the cries of thousands of animals mixed with the blasting of worship instruments. There were the sights of the throngs, the blood, the candles, the altar, the smoke, the dazzling gold, and the colorful priestly garments; the smells of the incense, the burnt grain and meat, and the blood, feces, and sweat. There were the feelings of the crowd on one’s body, the washing water on one’s face and hands, the altar fire on one’s skin, the smoke in one’s lungs, the blood-soaked ground between one’s toes, and the animal, vibrantly alive and then limply dead in one’s hands. There were the tastes of the dryness of the mouth in prayer, the tears of joy and repentance, the flavors of the sacrifices, and the feasting on food before and after. This was an intensely sensual experience.

Inquiry in Preaching

Bishop Daniel Wilson wrote, “It is the mark of our true and holy religion that it courts inquiry and denies no species of fair investigation.” Spiritual formation through preaching to postmoderns will need to engage congregation through inquiring questions. Someone once pointed out that Jesus asked questions and told stories, while many in churches today gives answers and tells lectures. The mantra of 60s western rebels was to “question all authority.” They are now the grandparents of the emergent Church generation. It is simply a part of the fabric of life and faith that one challenges all authority and questions every proposition. On average, this generation is also highly educated and well informed of local and global events, and trends and ideas.

Therefore, preaching to postmoderns can never simply be dogmatic assertions of propositional statements about biblical content or a preacher’s pet topics. Rather, the postmodern Christian preacher must engage people with his own real questions, and listen to and incorporate his audience’s own questions into any interaction with Christian texts and ideas. One must encourage the kind of habit the Bereans were commended for in Acts, as they “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11b NIV). The preacher must be the humble representative of God’s Word who invites the community into a relevant dialogue, asking questions about what God says and wants, and representing the quandaries of his people.

It is a part of the very essence of the record of God’s Word that it holds up to fierce inquiry. The Bible record gives names, dates, and locations for its “salvation history” events. Christianity is not a faith based on people’s personal experiences or opinions, but the record of a communicative God who has revealed his character and will through real events. These events are attested to as historical facts. This is not human fantasy, but divine revelation, and he expects his people to know, love, and serve him correctly.

Of course, there are essential doctrines of the faith that must be believed for one to be a Christian “believer.” There is specific content to the Christian faith. But one’s understanding of these essential beliefs, as well as one’s ongoing reception of God’s continuing revelation through his written Word, must be personally appropriated. Faith is not a matter of people blindly agreeing to rote information. Our questioning, searching, doubting, and inquiring are all vital to the authentic Christian life and faith development, especially in this postmodern context.

            

At our church, we attempt to encourage inquiry through many avenues. Sermons often begin with a query. The congregation is invited to dialogue about a question related to the theme of that week’s pericope. Also, people are invited to meet the preacher after the service at our own café, for questions, arguments, or concerns about the message. Small groups are encouraged, to allow for diversity in opinions or practices. Our website provides space for people to share their questions and ideas. Doug Pagitt invites his congregation to participate in a sermon development discussion on Tuesday nights, and then even encourages what he calls “progressional dialogue” wherein anyone can interject a comment, question or challenge as a vital part of the Sunday sermon.

We are interested in everyone’s opinion on anything. However, the question that must guide all discussions is always: What does God say about it? The dictum, “In essentials unity; in nonessentials disunity and charity over all” is a good one. Certainly there is disagreement about what is “essential.” But we agree that the essentials are revealed in God’s Word, and it is there that we must debate, question, study, and examine to see if what anyone teaches or believes is true.

Relevance in Preaching (Part 3)

While teaching a youth Sunday school class, one leader wanted to ask the youth to suggest which topics they wanted to cover during the school year. I suggested that we ought to simply read through the Gospel of Mark, letting these topics surface out of the text. This was attempted and all were surprised that all the subjects were covered, but in context of God’s greater story, rather than using the Scriptures as proof text for our topical list. This is what Dick Lucas and John Stott and the other founders of “Proclamation Trust” urge preachers to do. We ought to faithfully and relevantly teach God’s message in the Bible texts. Once, at a Dick Lucas preaching seminar, an Anglican priest exclaimed, “But that makes it so easy! I don’t have to come up with snazzy new topics to preach on all the time! I can just teach the text!”

            

Jason Van Bemmel asks, "So, who wants to be relevant? Well, I do. I want to speak the truth of God in a way that my generation will understand. But I don’t think we’ll do that by capturing the White House or the music charts. I think we’ll only do that by loving one another and the world around us radically and sacrificially – just like Jesus."

Finally, to be real and relevant in this generation is to be relational. Faith Worship Center in Greensville, SC uses this statement on their website: “real, relevant, relational…that’s faith!” Someone once said, “This generation doesn’t care if it’s true. They want to know if it’s real.” To be real means it works relationally, in everyday, lived-out relationships. The postmodern preacher must be a relational communicator, building community. And, speaking humbly, he must also proclaim the relational message of the Scriptures.

Relevance in Preaching (Part 2)

When the people of God were in exile, they wondered, “How can we sing the songs of the Lord while we are in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:4 NIV). The emergent Church finds itself in a foreign land today. Alan Roxburgh argues that the Church is in “exile” and must recover its soul, a passion in mission. One might ask, what does this look like? It will essentially look the same as in every era: the people of God gathering together to listen to the Word of God read, sung, prayed, and preached, in the relevant context of their day and place.

The Hebrew faith community adjusted to its new Babylonian context. They were without land, a temple, or a king. They listened to God’s Word in small groups, in new settings at synagogues, and responded with the new language of apocalyptic poetry. Through each stage in God’s salvation history, the people of God have begun with the WORD, and then they have applied what has been revealed to their existential experience, in a garden, in a new promised land, in a kingdom with a temple, and in captivity without a temple. The people of God have experienced many settings, yet have always been the people of the WORD, relating its revealed message to their ever-changing contemporary cultural reality.

At our church, we read, sing, pray, and preach through whole books of the Bible over weeks or months. We listened to the whole of God’s story in Genesis over eight months. We engaged God’s message, but related it to the contemporary lives of our community as the Word was reflected on and applied. In December, we recognized the season of advent, but did not stop listening to Genesis. Genesis was our anchor to God’s world. Advent bridged us into our world. Some of the leaders thought we should stop our study in Genesis for the Advent time, especially for our Christmas service. “It’s got nothing to do with Christmas!” someone argued. But it was counter argued that it has everything to do with Christmas. The whole of the Scriptures are the story of Christmas. We stayed with the text throughout the season, and a rich juxtaposition provided some deeper insights relevant to both God’s Word and our world. Jesus is on every page, as is God’s Word for our contemporary experience.