preaching – Page 3 – St. Eutychus

A song with a story: It Is Well…

Last Sunday I was on the Atherton Tablelands for this year’s round of my Trials for License. A process that people who want to become ministers in my denomination are forced to endure (thus the name) during their candidacy. It was fun. The Tablelands are a nice part of the world. I spoke at the Youthgroup up there about using Facebook for Jesus, and did a couple of different sermons (one in the morning, one at night).

My morning sermon was on Psalm 122. A song of ascent. A song about the security God’s city offers his people in the OT, and I talked about how Jesus changes the idea of security and “God’s place” in the New Testament, especially in John 4 (talking to the Samaritan woman about where to “worship”) and John 14 (talking to the disciples about not being afraid because they have the Spirit).

I talked about what it means to not fear, and to put your trust in God for security in a fallen and broken world. And I talked about Horatio Spafford as an example… Horatio wrote my favourite church song of all time, a song that does stir me emotionally, mostly because I know this story, and as I sing it I marvel at his ability to write these words when he did.

Mars Hill put together (or at least uploaded) this little snap shot of the story behind the song.

Amazingly powerful stuff.

November 2, 2011

Manipulation and the fine art of persuasion…

Right. I’ve been meaning to put some thoughts into writing for a few weeks. Doing so now was prompted by a possibly throw away line in the Q&A at the Moore College School of Theology as collated by my friend Kutz. I wasn’t there. But this line resonates with a position I’ve been trying to articulate lately (the line is from Peter Bolt):

“Manipulation can be positive. If you’re doing it to align people to the word of God then it’s a good thing.”

Manipulation and persuasion are essentially seeking to do the same thing – move a person from point a to point b. So what’s the difference? I’ve settled on this distinction…

Persuasion is the transparent act where two parties enter a dialogue with one hoping to move the other from point a to point b.

Manipulation is less transparent and involves one party trying to shift another party from point a to point b, probably without their knowledge.

I’ve settled on this because in my experience if you catch somebody trying to shift your position when they haven’t told you that’s what they’re doing you feel annoyed and accuse them of “manipulating” you, where manipulating is a pejorative. There are heaps of ways to manipulate, and most of them fall outside the classical tools of persuasion – pathos (emotions), logos (facts and words), and ethos (how you act/live). Tools of manipulation tend to involve tugging really hard on one of those threads, where persuasion is a more subtle movement, kind of like a puppeteer with a marionette.

I reckon manipulation is fine. I know we hate it. But it’s a great art, until you get caught. Like pickpocketing, not Oliver Twist style, but like the TV guy who takes your watch while you’re talking to you and then gives it to you later. Manipulation, honest manipulation, probably involves pointing out what you’ve achieved to the person after the fact, so they recognise they’ve moved from point a to point b, but during the process your mark should be a bit like the proverbial frog in a gradually heating pot of water…

This all came up, for me, when I was told I needed to engage a little more with the emotions when I preach (because I’m a pretty rational/stoic type of thinker). So the summaries of the Moore College Lectures on Kutz’s blog have been interesting. I react against this suggestion, not because I think tugging on the emotions is “manipulation” as though that’s a bad thing, but because I think I’m more likely to get caught out if I’m doing something that isn’t within my normal character. I’m all for subtle chord changes, a little bit of emotive muzak in a movie, and all the other little “manipulative” tools – I’m also for putting a bit of emotion into a sermon, like a tear jerking illustration, I’m just against doing it in a way that means I’m likely to get caught.

Persuasion is pretty safe ground, but doing both is potentially more effective, I’m just not sure what that looks like. Most people in the pews are there hoping to be persuaded (or taught), so there’s implied consent there for being “manipulated,” providing your end point is something you’ve implicitly agreed to (essentially the ends identified by Peter Bolt in his quote). It’s a little murkier when it comes to PR and marketing, but manipulation is where the fun is. It’s making ads that are more than just a boring presentation of a product, it’s also harder to do thanks to the Gruen Transfer and market awareness about the tools advertisers employ. Anyway. Those are my thoughts. What are yours?

September 15, 2011

What a day…

Well, more like what a week. Blogging has taken a back seat. Sorry dear readers. Let me explain. And then you can leave words of comfort and encouragement in the comments…

Here’s a snapshot of my week…

On Monday I had what was possibly my only day of holidays this semester. That was nice. I don’t remember what we did, so it must have been good.

On Tuesday the future of the Queensland Theological College, my educational home, became clear with the announcement that Gary Millar was going to take over as principal. I also took some photos for a story that was going in the local paper about a Hymns afternoon we had at church today. The story was based on a media release that I wrote last week, and was good (but small) except for a pretty minor factual error.

On Wednesday I gave a “devotion” (I hate that word) at the Presbyterian Church of Queensland State Assembly. I spoke on Romans 14. I wrote the talk on Tuesday, I’d done a sermon and an essay on the passage already so I thought it would be ok, but it seemed like a dangerous passage to choose to preach on as a student to a room full of old and experienced ministers. Then Robyn and I met up with somebody to discuss where we might end up as student ministers next year.

On Thursday I woke up having had a pretty restless night’s sleep to write my sermon for church, I’m preaching tomorrow on Revelation 19-20. Two exciting chapters. You should read them. I also had a few deadlines to meet for a PR consulting contract I’ve got on the boil, which is all coming to a head in a couple of weekends. The stress I was already feeling was compounded by an email from our landlord wanting to conduct an inspection we’d been trying to line up for about two months this Saturday (today). Given that we’re not going to be around much in mutually agreeable times in coming days, I said yes.

Yesterday I woke up and jumped in a car with a few college friends for a tour of some breweries and cafes on the north coast of New South Wales and on the Gold Coast. It was a terrific day. I really enjoyed it. And I’ll review a couple of the cafes on thebeanstalker.com tonight. Check them out. I got home late because peak hour is horrible and it hates me. And got stuck into tidying up a few rooms that we never use that have essentially become store rooms, and a house that had been a little neglected due to endofsemesteritis. I had a long conversation with the boss about some problems with my sermon, and when I went to bed after midnight, the house wasn’t finished.

We got up before 8 this morning to finish off the tidying ahead of an 11am inspection. The inspection came, the landlord and his wife are chatty, the inspection went. My parents turned up for a visit, right when we were due to leave for my 1pm soccer game. A 1pm soccer game which was the first of the season to be scheduled an hour away on the other side of the city. And I had the team kit. So I had to be on time. I also had to leave at half time, and our team was already short of players (and I’m the manager). We had to go to the hymn day, because I was making coffee (coffee I’d roasted during an already busy week). I’d promised to be there at quarter past 2. But because I was late to our soccer game with the shirts, the kick off was late, half time was late, so I was already running late when we got in the car. And then. We took two wrong turns (or missed two turn offs and had to do a u-turn) because google maps and street signs didn’t really agree. So I was late. The hymn day program was thrown into disarray. Fifty plus oldies who were visiting our church had to wait until the end of the program to get their coffees. And I smashed out 40+ coffees in 30 minutes.

Then I came home to finish/fix my sermon. Which I’ve now done, though it’s too long. Like this post. You’re probably tired just reading it. You probably didn’t make it to the end. Mostly because it was boring. But I hope it explains why I haven’t blogged much this week.

Now I’m sitting in front of the TV and I’m too tired to complain about the Bondi Vet and his stupidly trite cliches, his overly good looking face and his all too pleasant demeanour.

Why am I more stressed on holidays than during semester?

June 25, 2011

An Easter stunt I won’t be pulling tomorrow…

Ahh. Good Friday. The day, unlike all the other days of the Christian life, where we pay attention to the death of Jesus. Oh. Wait.

I am preaching. Preaching on the cross is interesting, because finding a new angle is hard.

This guy, in his pre-Easter sermon, decided to have a rant about how people who visit church just at Easter time dress. And then he decided to climb in a baby pool to keep preaching.

Skip through to 4 minutes 40 for the pool bit. He stays there for the rest of his sermon.

For more interesting reasons, from the Greek, that this guy is an idiot. Read this Scotteriology post.

April 21, 2011

Gary Millar on Preaching OT Narrative (Liveblog)

Gary Millar is back at QTC, and he’s talking us through preaching OT narrative in our preaching lecture today. He’s cool because he knows U2. Well, he knows the Edge’s parents.

Four Obstacles to preaching OT

1. Familiarity – we all think we know what the Old Testament narratives mean – because we’ve been through Sunday School and learnt about the characters and the “moral” lessons of the stories. We’re not so good with the theology of the OT narratives.

For example – Joshua 2 – what is it about?

The majority would say that it’s about the miraculous way in which God saved Rahab, which is an element of the passage – but it’s almost a footnote when compared with the disobedience and ungodliness of the spies – who when entering the promised land head straight to a prostitute, and when given an opportunity to speak about God ask “are you going to save our lives”… the main thrust of the chapter isn’t Rahab, it’s on the spies.

When we come to this narrative, and we realise people know this story, we need to remember that their main focus is going to be on Rahab – because that’s what they’ve been taught.

People already think they know what the Old Testament means.

2. Perceived irrelevance

People think the Old Testament is obscure and obsolete. The only Bible reading that ever got a round of applause at the end of it was Nehemiah chapter 3. It’s a long and boring list of insignificant names. In the context of Nehemiah it’s a crucial chapter. Some people, the nobles, thought they were above the rebuilding of the wall. It has huge implications for the book. But we read it and say “this has got nothing to do with me”… sometimes that can work well, sometimes people sit back and say “there’s no way he can connect this to us today” – which gives us an opportunity.

3. Genre – we don’t know what to do with stories

We treat all these stories like they’re one of Paul’s epistles. The problem is that often OT Narrative is one story – like the book of Ruth – not a series of messages. But when we’re preaching the narrative we break it up into pieces. Chapter 1 of Ruth becomes a story about sad women. Which has nothing to do with the point of the book, which at the end of the book is about preparing for the coming of a Messiah.

4. Time – limited time to prepare, limited time to talk

So what do you do with a story that is really long? The Samuel narrative – from Israel asking for a king, to Saul becoming king, is really long. How do we cover it all? There are two problems – we’re probably not familiar with all the details of the story – how many commentaries are you going to read? Two or three. If you engage with that many, that’s a good week. That’s ok if you’re engaging with a short pericope in the New Testament. You go to 1 Samuel 8-11, and you’ve got sixty pages to read through, and the text is huge. Simply to read it in English takes forever. Handling it from the pulpit is difficult. You could just read it. And your time would be up.

If we followed Haddon Robinson’s approach to preaching narrative, working out the characters etc, not only would we have no time to do anything but preparing our sermons, ministry wise, we’d also never see our families.

So…

Five Simple Rules for Preaching

1. Read what it says, not what you always thought it said.
Example – Daniel 1 – is really not about vegetables. They have a purpose in this story, but they aren’t the purpose. Daniel 1 is about setting up Daniel in the king’s court.

2. Learn to feel with the story

Gary quotes from this article by Roy Clements.

“In this respect we must listen humbly to the criticism that expository preaching has been too wedded to rationalistic modes of interpretation. The intention of God in Scripture is certainly to impart objective knowledge of himself but it goes far beyond that. In addition to informing the mind, God seeks to address the will and the feelings. He may wish to encourage or to warn, to praise or to challenge; he may wish to make us weep, or laugh or frown. The purpose of the imperative ‘rejoice!’ is not just to impart objective knowledge about joy but to make the reader feel joyful!

Any Bible exposition will have failed if it locates the intellectual content of the text, but neglects to communicate the emotional texture in which that content is embedded. Good exposition invites the listener to feel with the text as well as to think about it.”

Look for hints, pregnant pauses, what’s left out, the unexpected, mood markers…

You’ve got to get people into the text. Standing beside Daniel as he prays in Daniel 9. Get them to feel with Daniel. Don’t take them away from the text to make them feel by analogy. We don’t want to manipulate people. How does Daniel feel at the end of the prayer? Desparate. It’s not a model prayer, it’s Daniel’s emotional response to learning that spiritual exile doesn’t end with the physical exile.

The best way to help people to read the Bible properly is to read the Bible properly, and to preach it.

The hardest narrative books to deal with are the longest.

Understand the way stories work – Neb isn’t described as a pompous king, but the way chapter 3 of the book unfolds it’s clear that he’s pretty full of himself just by how many people he surrounds himself with in court. We don’t need subtitles in movies to spell out “this is a pompous man” (Me: we do, however, have musical cues to frame a narrative – perhaps we should put music to the passages in our heads as we work through the story…).

Remember just because something is described doesn’t mean it’s prescribed – so when Nehemiah pulls out everybody’s hair we’re not to make an ethical judgment about hair pulling, we’re to understand the frustration that is driving his actions.

3. Zoom out as far as you need to

Get the whole story – don’t make a sermon out of Joshua 1:6-9 where the young men are told to be courageous. See it as part of the broader story. We underestimate the death of Moses. Joshua’s need to be strong and courageous isn’t about entering the land, so much as dealing with his own people.

Don’t be afraid to preach really big chunks. Genesis 38-50. It’s a long story spelling out one basic principle. That God used the evil acts of Joseph’s brothers for his purposes.

Question:What would you say about drawing ethical principles from the text?

Answer: I don’t have a problem with that. Because they are there. Sometimes they are made very clear from the story. But they’re always the minor point – but we get into problems when we focus on the minor thing rather than the major flow. This is the last resort for busy preachers, minor points are better than no point…

Big picture is important. Understand the driving force behind the narrative.

Question: Isn’t there a problem of reductionism if we reduce a book to a big idea and ignore all the other bits – aren’t we ignoring divine revelation by summing everything up in a big idea and preaching it

I would say that understanding the big idea is paying attention to, and respecting revelation. Which we’ll cover in point 4.

Understand the point of the details that seem odd – like the Levitical laws – where the point might be – it’s really important to take God seriously.

4. Make sure you keep pace with the story

There’s a lot of stuff going on at the start of 2 Samuel, and then you come to 2 Samuel 7. The story has been rolling on, and then bang. You get a massive event. And then you’re back into the chronological “this happened, then this happened” rolling out of the text. We should move at the pace the story does. See how the threads of 1-6 move, preach them. Then because chapter 7 makes a big deal about one event, make it important.

5. Preach the story, not the detail

The message of the text should be the message of the sermon. Get the message of the text right, don’t bring your own agenda or favourite parts of the text into the spotlight. Daniel’s prayer life isn’t the focus of the book of Daniel, it’s about the sovereignty of God and the transition out of exile.

The story of Deborah in Judges isn’t about women in leadership. We have to make sure the main message of the talk is the main message of the narrative.

Question: How much Bible do you read on the Sunday morning?

Answer: We’ll focus on the key “jump out” section, or extracts, with somebody giving the flow of events before and afterwards.

April 5, 2011

David Cook’s top 10 tips for preaching

David Cook is the outgoing (and departing) principal at SMBC (Sydney Missionary and Bible College). He’s here today at QTC (Queensland Theological College) sharing his top ten tips for preaching (and other stuff).

Tip one: Learn to shake hands and greet somebody. By the name they give. If they give a surname go with Mr or Mrs. Use names. Don’t just say “hello”… the sound of one’s name is the “sweetest sound in the whole world”…

But that isn’t about preaching.

Have a clear big question – avoids the knowledge dump. Why should I listen to you? Because you have a good answer to a good question. Great questions are answered by the passage and are marketable. You need to show how the text answers that question and why that answer is important to the listener. Every time I get up I answer a question. Opening with “last week we looked at” isn’t really helpful. It is an intro to a knowledge dump. Why do I need to hear this? That’s the question we should open with.
Stress the indicative before you stress the imperative – Liberalism imposes the imperative – it tells you what you should do. And often it’s wrong. The “distinctive difference” between liberalism and Biblical Christianity is that the latter begins with the triumphant indicative – on the basis of what God has done, this is what you do. We need both the indicative and the imperative or we either lean towards license of liberalism. The Bible uses the indicative first. Romans, up to chapter 6, is indicative, indicative, indicative. The first imperative is ch 6:11. The Qu’ran opens with the imperative. This is the distinctive difference between Christianity and every other religion. This is our point of difference. The triumphant indicative. The Catholics have blended the two in an untrustworthy manner. Get the indicative first. Followed by the imperative. Not just what I’ve got to do, but why… knowledge of the verbal moods in Greek is absolutely vital. Be able to identify the imperative verbs. Taste of God through the gospel of God’s grace before you move to our response.
Make the heart of your sermon explanation, not illustration/application – the text has the power. Not your illustration. Better the textual and dull preacher than the interesting but not textual. Better to be both. Don’t rush to illustration before you’ve preceded it with explanation.
Work on your angle – tell me something I don’t know. Don’t just bounce superficially off the text. You must work off the angle of the text, and tell me something I don’t know. What’s the point otherwise? What is my angle here? How can I preach on something you know backwards that gives you a new slant on something? Anticipate the questions people are asking about the text.
The art of preaching is the art of summary – Learn to summarise. You are not saying everything the passage says. You are saying less than the whole. You are making a judgment about what not to say and what to say. The other cardinal rule is that the summary does not interpret. We aren’t interested in what you think – just tell us what is says. Get to the author’s mind – not your take.
Cultivate a close reading of the text – show respect to the text. Avoid humourous populism. Don’t go for the laugh. Get people watching the text. Closely. Use the original languages to check for puns, rudeness, wordplay – figure out what’s going on in the text. And communicate it. Bring passages to life by picking up the little details when they drive your text. Observe. It is there. It is there for a reason.
Don’t be negative – why put barriers in the way. Don’t attack the other guys. Don’t be negative. Be winsome and persuasive. Know what you’re talking about – what is good about x that makes people so loyal to it. Think about the way you sound, and whether you’re looking angry or smiling. Don’t attack, provide a positive alternative. Use simple words and propositions. Repeat them again and again and again. Read good books about persuasion. Don’t confront. Just talk in a winsome way. “The Gentle Art of Persuasion” is a good book. How to win friends and influence people is another one.What is my point? What am I trying to achieve. It is a foolish advocate who insults the person who is there to try the case.
Work hard at the sermons you pay least attention to – the occasional sermons (funerals, weddings, Christmas, Easter, children’s talks etc). These are the sermons that people who aren’t members of the congregation come to. Why do you go easy on the occasional sermons while working hard on the inside sermons. Don’t just preach a stock ball sermon for funerals and weddings. Every person is unique. Prepare a fresh sermon for each person. Don’t let people die alone, that’s not your job as the pastor of your flock. The elderly and disabled are victims of the church planting movement. We’ve discriminated against the people who need us the most. Work really hard at using the children’s talk as a free hit – a chance to summarise your talk in a new way for a new audience to clarify your thinking, teach the children, and engage the adults.
Be Clear – You’re not writing an essay. Don’t preach your footnotes. You are writing a sermon. In a sermon you will illustrate. Repeat. Emphasise. You are turning ears into eyes. You are striving to be clear. Don’t just say one thing. Say it again. And again. And again.
Preach Christ. Preach Grace. Preach Faith. Preach encouragingly.

The relationship between the Big Question, the Big Idea and the Big Answer
Big Question -> Big Idea -> Big answer

Use the subject and the compliment – what is he talking about? What is he saying about that?

Turn the big idea into a big question.

The easiest answer for a preacher to give is to the “how” question – but “why” is much more important if you don’t want to breed superficiality. How to questions are good, but shallow.

John 3:16 case study

The subject looks like God (use the first and the last words) – but almost every passage is about God – so lets go with Eternal Life.

The Big Idea: Eternal life comes through Jesus, God’s gift of love.

Big questions: How can I have eternal life? Is death the end? What will happen when you die?

Format of a sermon

State the truth of the passage -> explain the passage -> illustrate the passage -> apply the passage.

If you illustrate first it’ll be without power. Explain first.

The Pyramid

At the bottom level you are summarising with verse references.

At the next level you are looking at the movements in the passage. Which determine the structure of the sermon.

Next. The dominant picture (from On teaching and preaching with creativity – “the human brain is a picture gallery, not a debating hall”).

Subject and compliment.

The Big Idea.

The tip is the Big Question.

Five Keys to Clarity

Isolate the dominant thoughts of the text.
Structure your material. Don’t hide your structure. Build your sermon around structure. You’re communicating. Don’t be scared of communicating. Use stuff like alliteration and things people will remember.
Don’t use too many quotes. Who cares what John Stott or Don Carson say. This is not an essay. If they’ve said it, it’s probably not original to them – so just say it. Don’t always quote people. Only quote if you can memorise the quote and if the person who said something is particularly relevant or significant to the quote. Ideas are there to be used. Sometimes you can add weight to a quote. But too much quoting is bad.
Be dialogical. Dialogical preaching is very, very important. Have a dialogue. Anticipate questions, and answer them. “Do I hear some of you say” “But Billy, you say…” do it in the form of a conversation.
If you are going to be clear. Watch your vocabulary and grammar. The plural of you is you. Saying youse is not ok. Really. In any context. You don’t want your kids hearing people saying “youse”… sweat the details. Work hard on your grammar and your vocab. Play by the house rules. Dress for the host. Use their version of the Bible.

March 3, 2011

Hollywood is a remix, and how that changes my thinking on preaching

This year Hollywood studios aren’t being very adventurous with the type of movies they make. They, like all other forms of art, are relying on the remix.

“With that in mind, let’s look ahead to what’s on the menu for this year: four adaptations of comic books. One prequel to an adaptation of a comic book. One sequel to a sequel to a movie based on a toy. One sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a movie based on an amusement-park ride. One prequel to a remake. Two sequels to cartoons. One sequel to a comedy. An adaptation of a children’s book. An adaptation of a Saturday-morning cartoon. One sequel with a 4 in the title. Two sequels with a 5 in the title. One sequel that, if it were inclined to use numbers, would have to have a 7 1/2 in the title.”

Which, if you think about it, should provide some encouragement to preachers who just want to point people to Jesus every week. We seem to enjoy the same stories. Retold. But with bigger explosions. Next time I preach I’m taking some dynamite to church.

“But for now, let’s just admit it: Hollywood has become an institution that is more interested in launching the next rubberized action figure than in making the next interesting movie.

Which is why my church will one day need to offer these plastic Jesus toys to raise revenue. Because there’s lots we can appropriate from Hollywood.

March 2, 2011

Preaching and adrenalin

I love public speaking. I’m not one of those people who gets filled with dread standing up in front of a crowd. In fact, the bigger the crowd the better. I guess at that point I’m classically extroverted. It’s a rush. Preaching is the thing that excites me most about vocational ministry. It’s not that I think I’m good at it. I’m not. I’m not bad – this isn’t an exercise in false modesty. You’d hope with a journalism degree I’d be ok at stringing some words together. But there are a few things I struggle with. But this isn’t a post about today’s sermon.¹

I’m wondering about the long term effects of the adrenalin rush I get every time I preach. I love it. For me it’s like sky diving or extreme sports. The act of getting up in front of people – regardless of what I’m actually saying. I love MCing stuff as well.

Will I get addicted to it? Is that why preachers sometimes travel the globe preaching? Does this pose long term risks to my health? Most importantly, I’m wondering how sustainable my Sunday afternoons are going to be with the post adrenalin crash. Man. What goes up sure comes down. By about 2pm I can hardly keep my eyes open. I go blank. All that energy that I gain in the morning as I get ready to preach (I reckon the adrenalin kicks in at about 8am when I’m preaching at a 9:30 service) drains out, and takes whatever reserves I have with it. I’m pretty sure the adrenalin is what gives other people preacher’s belly – though for some it’s doubtless channelled as fear rather than exuberance.

I’d love to know how others go on the adrenalin front – is the Sunday arvo crash a common thing? Not having a night service anymore seems like such a good innovation on the days I’ve preached in the morning.

¹Today’s sermon was mostly good. The last little application bit felt a little tacked on, and I really wasn’t sure where to go once I’d established that I didn’t think the passage was about sexual ethics, but rather about seeking God’s kingdom. So I said that. I talked about commitment. I tied it to Jesus (which was easy because of Matthew’s genealogy). I compared the righteousness of Tamar with the unrighteousness of Judah. But blah. Blah. Blah. That’s how I felt about the last fifth of my talk.

My other little bit of self critique (and I’ll post the audio for this sermon when I get it) is that I’m much more engaging (in my opinion) when I’m illustrating and telling a story entirely in my own words, as I would naturally. And in most of these cases I leave the script behind. At times I feel like I suppress my personality a little in the writing of my talks and I end up cold and robotic rather than talking how I would normally talk. Actually, I don’t sound robotic, I sound like a journalist, not a real person. On the plus side, all the old ladies tell me I speak clearly and audibly. I don’t write an essay – I try to write the way I talk, but I suspect I haven’t beaten out the writing for TV part of my previos training. There’s something just not quite right. It’s like I’m preaching in black and white rather than colour too. For the most part. Or at least that’s how I feel. Feel free to chime in if you heard me this morning (or once you’ve listened to the audio).

February 27, 2011

Preaching tomorrow

On Onan the Barbarian.

Here’s a wordle. See if you can figure out what my big idea is.

February 26, 2011

On Humans and Snakes

This is a sermon I’ve preached a few times now. I fluctuate between thinking it’s good and thinking it’s bad. It’s almost a theology of Snakes. I hit about five passages – though it’s ostensibly based on Numbers 21 and John 3.

Feel free to check it out and tell me what you think. If Shane Warne’s stock ball was the leg break – this is currently my stock “one off sermon”…

I’m aware of a few problems with it that I’ll fix next time around – and it was written prior to my year at college, so if I started again it might look different. But it does have a killer opening illustration. And that’s something.

January 17, 2011

Trials and Tribulations

After a few days holidaying in Airlie Beach and catching up with friends in Townsville, which have been really nice, tomorrow sees me “trial for license” – part of the ongoing process of becoming a Presbyterian minister.

I’m preaching at a fairly old school Presbyterian Church in Townsville in front of a few members of the North Queensland presbytery who will “appraise” my performance and pass judgment on my ministry suitability.

I’m preaching on the Beatitudes. Here’s a paragraph from my sermon.

“But I want to suggest, at this point, that we’re not looking at the beatitudes right if we understand them as a set of rules to follow to be part of God’s kingdom. I grew up thinking that the word “beatitude” was a description of what these verses mean – I thought they were a set of instructions for how we should behave, and what our attitudes should be. The beatitudes. But I think the meaning of these verses does hinge on what the word beatitudes actually means. It’s latin. It means “blessings.” And it picks up on that repeated “blessed are” phrase at the start of each verse.

The beatitudes aren’t about what we have to do to be in the kingdom – and in fact, as soon as we read them that way we’re slipping into the same trap as the Pharisees. We’re making rules and regulations for belonging to the kingdom.”

Then I say that the beatitudes are about God’s blessing of us, through Jesus, whose life and ministry are modeled on the beatitudes. Doesn’t seem heretical to me… how about to you?

December 18, 2010

Busy, busy, busy

Apologies for the stagnation. My little sister is getting married tomorrow, and I’m preaching on Sunday. So expect it to continue for a couple of days.

I will try to find interesting things to say in the meantime.

November 26, 2010

Cicero on Preaching

While trying to get my head around Augustine’s On Christian Teaching (which isn’t particularly complicated) I’ve been reading the work of some of his influencers. Including Cicero, the great Roman Orator and champion of the Republic. Cicero wrote a book called De Oratore (On the Orators) which you can read in a parallel Latin/English .txt version here. It’s not pleasant to navigate.

He had some good stuff to say about preaching.

“This is why, in those exercises of your own, though there is a value in plenty of extempore speaking, it is still more serviceable to take time for consideration, and to speak better prepared and more carefully. But the chief thing is what, to tell the truth, we do least (for it needs great pains which most of us shirk), — to write as much as possible. The pen is the best and most eminent author and teacher of eloquence, and rightly so. For if an extempore and casual speech is easily beaten by one prepared and thought-out, this latter in turn will assuredly be surpassed by what has been written with care and diligence. The truth is that all the commonplaces, whether furnished by art or by individual talent and wisdom, at any rate such as appertain to the subject of our writing, appear and rush forward as we are searching out and surveying the matter with all our natural acuteness; and all the thoughts and expressions, which are the most brilliant in their several kinds, must needs flow up in succession to the point of our pen ; then too the actual marshalling and arrangement of words is made perfect in the course of writing, in a rhythm and measure proper to oratory as distinct from poetry.

These are the things which in good orators produce applause and admiration; and no man will attain these except by long and large practice in writing, however ardently he may have trained himself in those off-hand declamations; he too who approaches oratory by way of long practice in writing, brings this advantage to his task, that even if he is extemporizing, whatever he may say bears a likeness to the written word; and moreover if ever, during a speech, he has introduced a written note, the rest of his discourse, when he turns away from the writing, will proceed in unchanging style. Just as when a boat is moving at high speed, if the crew rest upon their oars, the craft herself still keeps her way and her run, though the driving force of the oars has ceased, so in an unbroken discourse, when written notes are exhausted, the rest of the speech still maintains a like progress, under the impulse given by the similarity and energy of the written word. ”

October 27, 2010

Systematics and the system

I was thinking this morning, sitting in church as Andrew preached a topical sermon, that the fruit of a generation of people faithfully preaching expositionally with sound exegesis is a generation of people who have had some of the hard work of exegesis done for them – at which point it’s much easier to systematise. Provided you trust the people who have taught you. It’s much easier to draw connections between different books and doctrines if people have done the hard work on those books and taught you from that platform already. Sometimes it can even feel intuitive when it seems to have been so hard won by that previous generation.

So my generation has to maintain the balance of faithfully working through the Bible and doing the systematics stuff too. It’s a luxury of not having to function as a corrective.

So. Thanks oldies.

October 10, 2010

Paul House on preaching Isaiah

1. Know the context/background. Biblically, historically, literarily.
2. Look for important doctrines.
3. Look for how the New Testament makes use of the book. They are identifying patterns linking books in the Old Testament to Jesus.

These three steps require that we know the whole Bible, and have a framework of Biblical theology.

It’s very difficult to preach Isaiah verse by verse. It’s massive.

Big Picture: Four kings mentioned in Isaiah 1 as being part of the landscape of the book.

Assyria was a pretty nasty empire who used to extort countries through the threat of invasion. Their artwork and historiography shows that they ruled by terror. Impaling heads. Burning people. All that sort of stuff. They ruled Judah, one way or another, for over 100 years.

Then there’s Babylon. Babylon eventually conquered Assyria, but before that happened Babylon was a thorn in Assyria’s side. And Assyria conquered them a bunch of times. So when we see that Assyria conquered Babylon in the text – we have to ask “which time”… the Ancient Near East was a volatile political mix constantly one step away from (or in the midst of) conflict. The kings of these nations jostle for status and make bold proclamations about their greatness.

And Isaiah is focused on promoting Yahweh as the real king of kings and lord of lords. He preaches and predicts Assyria’s arrival for thirty years, and then becomes the comforter and conscience of Israel and Judah.

The message of Isaiah starts with sin and degradation and ends at Zion. It’s creation and new creation – God acting through a redeemer to bring his people to the new creation and he punishes the wicked.

Isaiah 2:1-22 describes the nations are coming to the Lord and invites Israel to do the same. Isaiah, like Jesus and Paul, was to go first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.

The gospel has always been “accept my king, and you will be at home in Zion (the new creation).” It comes with a downside. The gospel is very good news to those who put their trust in it, and very bad news for those who don’t. That’s one of the most pressing challenges of our time – preaching judgment. But everybody, deep down, wants justice. So we need to figure out how to preach that truth with love.

Chapter 25 describes the gift from the true king (as opposed to the gifts from kings of surrounding nations) as life. Delivery from death. Chapters 21-33 are the hardest to preach in the book of Isaiah. There are some beautiful passages in chapter 19 that promise the Egyptians, the Assyrians and the nations will be part of God’s people.

The prophets never give up on getting Israel back into the fold.

The book speaks to the late eighth century and early seventh, primarily, but it also says something about the future. And about a future that still has not happened today.

Structure – Seven Cycles.

1. The Bloody City and Glorious Zion. 1:1-4-6.
2. The Spoiled Vineyard and the Rejoicing Citizens of Zion. 5:1-12:6.
3. The Wicked Nations and Yahweh’s Resurrected People . 13:1-27:13.
4. Proud Ephraim and the Rejoicing Remnant. 28:1-35:10.
5. Blaspheming Gentiles, the Covenant with David, and Righteous Gentiles. 36:1-56:8.
6. Blind Watchmen and Citizens with a New Name. 56:9-62:12.
7. A Blessed People, New Heavens and Earth, and Burning Sinners. 63:1-66:24

The book ends with the call for missionaries from many nations (Isaiah 66:18-21).

The big issue is “are you a servant of the servant?”

Jesus quotes Isaiah when he starts his ministry. John the Baptist cites Isaiah. Several times in the New Testament the writers use Isaiah to show that they are preaching “THE GOSPEL” the same one that Isaiah had been preaching. Isaiah is a great model for ministering to all sorts of people in all sorts of settings.

August 31, 2010