Why attendance is low on Good Friday

Thanks, Wumo.

How to read Scripture in worship

Most men arrive at seminary with little to no training in public speaking, and for the most part the seminaries which confessional presbyterian preachers attend offer little to no training in the basic mechanisms of public speaking. (Frankly, I find this shocking, and so should you. I'm even more shocked by indifference to this sad state of affairs.)

As a lapsed Lutheran (currently Roman Catholic), Russell Saltzman probably hasn't visited many confessional presbyterian seminaries, but he does all their students and alumni a service with "Everything I Know About Being a Lector I Learned in Third Grade," over at the First Things website. He writes for Roman Catholic lectors, but presbyterian pastors (or rather, their congregations), would profit greatly from a careful study and implementation of his advice.

(In other First Things-related news, yesterday I finished reading the January 2016 issue before the February issue was delivered, thereby catching me up to the present moment. This has never happened before.)

The case for reparations

Quite some time ago, I concluded, with Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address, that the Lord has already determined, and wrought, the reparations owed for the years of American chattel slavery. Credit is owed to Ta-Nehisi Coates for accomplishing the near-impossible feat of making me reconsider an opinion with his Polk-prize-winning 2014 essay, "The Case for Reparations." He powerfully demonstrates that systematic oppression of African-Americans continued long past the formal end of chattel slavery, effectively countering my assumptions regarding that for which African-Americans might be owed reparation. It's a long read, but Coates' arguments are thoughtful and deserve thoughtful engagement.

What reparations, then? How might they be gathered, administered, and distributed? Is money even the issue? At the end of section IX, Coates writes,

What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history.

Amen.

But how to effect such a spiritual renewal? Nate DiMeo, creator and producer of the elegant and wonderful The Memory Palace, has a suggestion in "Notes on an Imagined Plaque to be Added to the Statue of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, Upon Hearing that the Memphis City Counci has Voted to Move it and the Exhumed Remains of General Forrest and his Wife, Mary Ann Montgomery Forrest, from their Current Location in a Park Downtown, to the Nearby Elmwood Cemetery." DiMeo and Coates agree that in order for our nation to truly change, we must first become historically aware.

But that, in turn, must be a spiritual renewal. Our nation must want to become historically aware, to know its sins in order to make amends for them. Those who want to know their sins are those who want to repent of them because they long to lay them at the foot of the Cross of Christ.

Both Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nate DiMeo speak eloquently of the persistent and evil problem of race relations in these United States. Perhaps unwittingly, the case they make is, ultimately, a case for the preaching of the Gospel.

6. The solo pastorate is a young man's game

Presbyterians believe in a highly educated clergy, but not because we believe in higher education; at least, not as an end unto itself. (I personally do, but that’s a subject for another day.) The basic work of a teaching elder is to study, interpret, and teach the Bible, which can be done competently only by one well-trained in the humanities: we believe in a highly educated clergy because we value preaching. Writing a sermon is not unlike writing a term paper: it requires hours of research and preparation before one can begin writing, not to mention the time spent on actual writing. Learning Greek and Hebrew is a necessary prerequisite to preaching; one has to slog through a text’s grammar and vocabulary before one can interpret it.

It’s not the hardest job around, but it is a lot of work: imagine writing two term papers a week. As with any labor, it gets more difficult with age. I have never had much time left over at the end of the week after producing my two sermons, but it became extraordinarily difficult to keep up after I turned 40. I have wondered whether this is my own problem (I have had a series of health problems which caused some cognitive impairment), but I’ve learned it’s fairly common, at least amongst my middle-aged colleagues. 

In fact, frank conversations over the past few years have revealed a dirty little secret: very few  not-so-young-anymore pastors write two sermons a week, at least according to the sermon-writing standards to which I was trained. Instead of translating the sermon text, they will “look at” their Greek or Hebrew Bible. Instead of doing their own study of the text first, they read a few commentaries to learn the basic theme. The morning sermon may reflect the preacher’s best work, but often the evening is more of a make-do “study.” (I’ve come to realize that “study” is a euphemism for “kind of shallow.”) 

(Full disclosure: for the last several years, on the typical Sunday at least one of my sermons has been “recycled” from previous efforts. This allows me to maintain quality and a manageable workload.)

Frankly, it shows. We can all tell when a sermon just skates the surface of a text, and usually it’s because the preacher has failed to truly grasp that text for himself. If you’ve been wondering, go ahead and ask your middle-aged (or older) pastor whether he built that sermon from the ground up all by himself.

That’s not to say that the middle-aged man can’t preach. Far from it: while I think my early work was solid, I am sure my current pulpit ministry is much better. It’s not simply that I’ve learned to use my tools better; with age and time, I’ve also learned how to get myself out of the way so the Spirit can minister. I find the work much more difficult, but the outcome more worth hearing. But does the one good sermon excuse its slipshod companion in the other service?

That choice, if you think about it, is the consequence of an earlier choice to have only one pastor in the congregation. Where there are two or more, the preaching load can be shared and high-quality sermons delivered at both the services on any given Sunday. If Presbyterians value preaching, it’s not enough to make sure the pastor has received a quality education. He has to have the time, and the collegial support, to write a good sermon.

When I look back at the volume of work I produced during my first decade in the pastorate, I am mightily impressed with young me. But I’m not so young anymore, nor are many of the gray-haired pastors who congregations find so reassuring when up in their pulpits. The OPC needs to figure out how to free up her older ministers to produce quality work, or just admit that the solo pastorate is a young man’s game.

5. The solo pastorate is spiritually unhealthy

If your pastor hasn’t told you that you need to faithfully attend worship services so you can be blessed by receiving the ordinary means of grace (Word, sacrament, prayer: Shorter Catechism #88), then you don’t go to a confessionally reformed Church. Participating in corporate worship, and especially sitting under faithful preaching, are necessary to grow in grace.

So when does the average OPC pastor sit under faithful preaching? Especially when he has to preach twice a Sunday, is he ever able to listen to a sermon which is not an audio file? Is he ever able to listen to a sermon without a critical ear which seeks out weaknesses or tips for improving his own preaching?

Perhaps I’m obtuse, but I can’t think of a passage of Scripture which tells us only pastors don’t need to regularly participate in (as opposed to lead) worship services. (In fact, Jesus draws a sharp distinction between what worship leaders and worshipers do, identifying the former as “work” in Matthew 12:5.) If Church members suffer when they don’t attend on the ordinary means of grace, then pastors suffer as well. I can’t say what difference this makes in the life of any given pastor, but I’m sure it does. Your pastor may be wonderful; imagine how much more spiritually mature he would be if he didn’t have to work both services on the Christian Sabbath. Imagine, in turn, how much more spiritually mature your entire congregation might then be.

There’s actually a very simple way to help pastors attain greater spiritual health: every congregation could hire two or three ministers so that the preaching burden can be shared between them and each can hear at least one sermon every Sunday. (Also imagine how much more careful a minister would have to be when preaching or during session meetings if another man with the same level of training were in the room.) The objection to this simple proposal is equally simple: small congregations, such as are common in the OPC, can barely afford one pastor, let alone a pastoral staff.

This suggests that the standard OPC congregational model, despite our best intentions, may foster poor spiritual health.

Maybe I can go back down South now

I am a Union man. The Kingsburys (at least our branch of the Kingsburys) were for the Union, and I am no different. Nonetheless, depending on how you reckon your geography, I have spent about half my life in the deep South (Houston occupying that liminal space which is both entirely the South and entirely the West), and have the very firm opinions about grits to prove it.

I love the South, and I love the Presbyterian Church in America, in which I was ordained a deacon and had the privilege to be licensed to preach the Gospel. But I am a Union man, and I am not naive about the South or the PCA. Racism, albeit of the soft sort, still exists in the deep South and in the PCA (especially amongst her revered old men), and I have a black daughter. It's hard enough to be black in the American West. It occurred to me a while back that I couldn't in good conscience make it any harder by placing her in a white Church, in the deep South, that merely winked at the racism held to and practiced by her revered fathers. I decided that, come what may, I wouldn't be taking my family back to Virginia, much less any place any further south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Then I read this post on a protest at the 43rd General Assembly of the PCA. God bless Ligon Duncan and Sean Lucas. Finally, Southern Presbyterianism is waking up to the original sin at the heart of the American experiment in representative democracy.

Let's be clear: no one has asked me to go back down south, and I don't expect any ever to do so (other than a brief visit to Virginia in the autumn of this year). But maybe now there is a place for a Union man and his black daughter.

And maybe I can find someone with whom to have a reasonable conversation about grits.

A text without a context

For Pentecost this last Lord's Day, I preached from John 15 and 16, in the course of which it occurred to me that many Christians might like to hear their long-winded pastors echo Jesus' words in John 16:12: "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now."

Why I Am a Catechetical Preacher (If “Catechesis” Is Defined Broadly Enough)

By the time I graduated from seminary, I was committed to consecutive expository preaching. I believed this was the method best suited to bring out the whole counsel of God’s Word and to guard both the congregation and preacher against unhealthy overemphasis on any  particualr doctrinal point. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, there are basically four ways in which the preacher can determine his text for the coming Sunday morning:

1) Choose his texts one by one as each Lord’s Day comes;

2) Preach through a book in a consecutive, expository manner;

3) Preach according to a catechism; or

4) Follow the Church calendar.

Method 1 poses certain dangers for the preacher, if not the congregation. If he chooses his texts each week, he runs the risk of avoiding exegetical, homiletical, and doctrinal challenges. Moreover, he may very well stick to a few tried and true topics, flattening out both his own and his congregation’s grasp of Scripture.

While catechetical preaching brings exposure to the full breadth of confessional doctrine, I must confess I was prejudiced against it by exposure only to its worst form. I had never heard a catechetical sermon before I took an elective course in preaching taught by a prominent minister in the Dutch Reformed tradition. One course requirement was to prepare a catechetical sermon outline; mine was graded down because I submitted an exposition of a Scripture text which illustrated the catechetical question’s doctrine rather than an exposition of the words of the catechism itself. 

I also had a presbyterian professor who encouraged the students to consider catechetical preaching. As an example of why this would be helpful, he pointed to a general ignorance amongst many of the assurance Christian parents may take that their children who die in infancy are in covenant with Christ. However, this is not a truth taught in the Shorter Catechism; it seemed to me, then, I would more likely have occasion to proclaim this doctrine if I preached through books of the Bible. And, in fact, this has been my experience: consecutive expository preaching does introduce a range of subjects much broader than found in our confessional standards, and for that reason ought be pursued.

Many, perhaps most, OP ministers have never considered following the Church calendar in their preaching, save for the occasional Easter or Christmas Eve message, but I grew up in mainline Churches where this is the rule, and some of my favorite reformed writers recommend it. Still, it struck me as unduly repetitive. Moreover, the annual returns to Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection struck me as at odds with the linearity of Biblical history. Christ’s Cross work was once and for all; a repetitive cycling back to it seemed to undermine this all-important truth.

I readily grant that choosing a book of the Bible to preach through is still a choice, one which pastors and sessions should make together with a weather eye toward the congregation’s needs in that season. Nonetheless, any given book of the Bible has “surprises” (I preached through 1 Corinthians in order to discuss Church unity, and found myself delivering sermons on sex and gender issues besides!) which will keep the preacher on his exegetical toes and, often, address previously unknown needs within the body. Entering the pastorate, I could think of no reason I would ever do anything other than consecutive expository preaching.

What changed me was a pastoral consideration of my congregation’s needs and how best to address them from the pulpit. Over the years, I discovered some fairly basic doctrines, such as the nature of the Spirit’s work in the present age, are not very well fixed in the minds of many (who often expressed a desire to understand it better). During state elections, congregants asked me why we should even care whether homosexual marriage is legal. It became clear to me that both sections of our Catechisms (what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man, WSC #3) need to be set before our people in a systematic way. Accordingly, our session agreed a number of years ago that I would preach a catechetical sermon once a month, after our fellowship meal.

From the beginning of my ministry, I had been beset by complaints that I did not preach an Easter sermon. Beside the fact that I was preaching on texts the session had chosen, I would usually respond, “Why Easter and not Pentecost?” The danger of such a question, of course, is that one may ask it of oneself. “Why not Pentecost?” What would happen if people heard a sermon about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the New Testament Church once a year? Might they begin to realize every Christian has Spiritual gifts? Likewise, four weeks of Advent each year may begin to help the believer ground all his expectations and hopes in our Lord’s Second Advent, when he will raise up our bodies in glory and make us perfectly blessed in body and soul forever.

That is, I came to realize that while we presbyterians have our Larger and Shorter Catechisms, the Church universal has a catechism in the Church year. In Hebrews 6:1-2, the Apostle reminds us of the basic catechetical doctrines of repentance and faith, baptism, ordination, the resurrection, and eternal judgment. These themes are visited in Advent (Christ’s Second Coming and baptism alongside John the Baptist’s ministry), Epiphany (the revelation of Christ to the world), and Eastertide with Pentecost (Christ’s and our resurrections), sometimes at greater length and in more detail than is found in the Shorter Catechism.

And so we have our current practice at Park Hill Presbyterian Church. From Advent through Pentecost, I preach texts in the morning which have been determined by the Revised Common Lectionary. People get Christmas and Easter, and Pentecost as well! The remainder of the calendar year, it’s consecutive preaching through some book of the Bible. In the evenings, I preach through another Bible book, with the exception of that monthly catechetical sermon. In this way, we are shored up in the essentials of our faith: not only our presbyterian faith, but our catholic and apostolic faith.

Sadly, but perhaps inevitably, recent seminary graduates get some things wrong. Thankfully, the ministry of Word and sacrament provides many learning opportunities, and sometimes both pastors and congregations learn from them.

Theses on preaching: remember the kids

Some free-associating this afternoon called to mind a candidate for ministry who was to fill our pulpit some years ago. He was interested in employing certain theological categories and asked whether he could simply refer to them by name, or would have to explain them. From my experience, he wasn't alone: any number of pastors, particularly in their home congregations, can get into fairly technical weeds, the understanding of which would require some advance study. It may be that these men have particularly well-trained members, but I wonder.

It seems to me that in any congregation, at least any congregation with hope of surviving many years, there will always be the ignorant and unlearned. I speak, of course, of children. The presence of children, if nothing else, should compel preachers to use as simple and vivid language as possible, and to explain theological terms and ideas even if they are extraordinarily common. How else will all those erudite and learned pastors get well-trained members who they can lead through the theological weeds?

Let Us Consider: a homily from Hebrews 10:23-25

(This homily was delivered at the opening of the April 3, 2012 stated meeting of the Presbytery of the Dakotas [OPC].)

Given the age in which we live, whether you’ve ever preached our text, you’ve almost certainly turned to it as you’ve exhorted a Church member to more faithful attendance at Sunday services. And well you should! Particularly when we understand the connection between the eschatological Day of Hebrews 10:25 and the Sabbath day of Hebrews 4, this text calls us to see the Church’s Lord’s Day services as the primary place to discharge our Christian duties of mutual edification and encouragement. Nonetheless, because the Apostle directs us to love and good deeds, a category broader than liturgical action, we are also called to dedicate ourselves to assembling together for encouragement, on the basis of our shared hope, on other occasions as well. If all our people understood and lived out these few verses, our congregations could all be more vital and uplifting places. A great many of our congregations’ problems would disappear if all our members considered how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.

In most sermons there comes what I like to think of as the “Nathan moment,” when the preacher turns the sermon back on the congregation and announces, as the prophet Nathan did to King David, “you are the man” (2 Samuel 12:7).

Brothers, you are the man.

We have neglected to stimulate one another to love and good deeds and have forsaken mutual encouragement. While we all get along quite nicely when forced together by our bylaws and Form of Government twice a year, only a crazy man would suggest the other 359 days of the year are filled with edification and comfort. Indeed, we are often blithely unaware of the most momentous events in one another’s lives and congregations until the spiritual reports are delivered on Tuesday morning. [Stated meetings of the Presbytery of the Dakotas are preceded by reports on the spiritual progress of the congregations, with prayer for each.] We sit together in council, but we are not as faithful as our Lord in our brotherly duties to one another. We worship together twice a year, but do not seek out other occasions to assemble together.

This being so, what are the works fitting to our corporate repentance?

While institutional reforms might do us some good, and I intend to make several suggestions along those lines, we must first acknowledge no reform will do us any good unless we first make a heart commitment to recognize one another as brethren to whom we not only are accountable, but to whom we each need to be accountable. A number of years ago this body considered charging its Sessional Oversight Committee to regularly visit the congregations of our Regional Church. During those debates, a brother confided to me that he feared such visitations not only would not be a help, but would become a hindrance due to unwise committee members. To this day, I rather suspect his sentiment is shared by others.

That, of course, is why we must commit ourselves to considering how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. We would be fools to think ourselves immune to the American diseases of individualism, congregationalism, and confident exceptionalism. We will each, I am sure, continue to believe that we are right and, on certain occasions, the body wrong; precisely because we believe that, we must begin seeking out each other’s counsel and offering prayer for one another. We must act as though we need mutual edification if we are ever to learn the true depths of that need.

To begin, then, ask not how the Presbytery of the Dakotas can encourage you, but how you can encourage the presbyters of the Regional Church of the Dakotas. What can you do to build relationships with the men in the congregations geographically closest to yours? How can you come to know the sister Churches throughout our region well enough to pray for them intelligently when the last presbytery meeting was five months ago? What can you do to bring together the members of our various congregations throughout the year?

Secondly, honesty should characterize our meetings: without any institutional changes at all, honesty and transparency would enable us to minister to one another, and care for the Churches under our supervision, much more effectively. An anecdote: a number of years ago, I e-mailed another pastor asking how our congregation could pray for his. This was one of those providentially orchestrated moments when he needed someone to talk to: as e-mails led to phone calls, I learned of divisions within the congregation and session, and serious questions as to his future in that call. At the next presbytery meeting, I listened with interest and surprise to the spiritual report from that congregation. Not only was there no mention of trouble, one got the impression of an active and Spiritually vital place. Of course, he wasn’t lying: even the most troubled Church is still a Church, and one can usually find enough good things to bring to presbytery that none need suspect some bad news is being omitted. Ever since, I’ve taken our Tuesday morning reports with a grain of salt.

This congregation’s problems could not be kept under wraps indefinitely, and eventually the pastor left and the presbytery got involved. By that point, it was too late for us to offer much help, and this Church went into a period of severe decline. Here we come to the really depressing part of my story: those of you who’ve been in the Regional Church of the Dakotas for the past 12 years, as I have, will have some trouble figuring out which congregation I’m talking about. Depending on how one judges these things, we’ve had about a half-dozen de facto Church splits or sudden pastoral resignations during my tenure here, and a large portion of those have come to a head shortly after a stated meeting of presbytery at which no mention was made of the brewing crisis. We cannot help sessions, congregations, or pastors who refuse to give an honest accounting of their congregational lives. Brothers, give us the opportunity to encourage you and counsel you toward more perfect love and a greater plenitude of good deeds. You owe it to this presbytery and to your congregations by virtue of your ordination vows, not to mention by virtue of our duty to Jesus Christ, the Lord and head of his Church.

Thirdly, let us consider our institutional life. Our bylaws were not delivered atop Pike’s Peak on tablets of stone, and could be much improved. Other presbyteries have found ways to address some of the problems which chronically plague our Regional Church, and we would do well to learn from the brethren. 

Less formal mechanisms are also open to us. I have used my time as moderator to promote gatherings before our stated meetings convene which create opportunity for discussion of issues of interest to our Regional Church and to the broader Church as well. (Such gatherings are held regularly by the Presbytery of Northern California and Nevada.) By design, we debate rather than discuss during presbytery meetings. Since this is how presbyteries are supposed to function, that is a good thing. However, those debates would be much improved if we had other occasions to engage in dialogue: the nuances of a man’s position can rarely be fully communicated in a floor speech. Thankfully, we are presbyterians, and when such a thing has been done three times, it has become an inviolate tradition.

Some further suggestions: perhaps our ministers and elders could gather together in geographically convenient groups for prayer and discussion every couple months. Perhaps similarly grouped meetings of deacons could gather to coordinate on local needs. Perhaps the  stated clerk could distribute communications a month before the presbytery convenes so those documents could be studied and men could meet to gain a better understanding of the issues we will be called upon to judge when we sit in formal assembly.

All this will take time and energy, commodities precious to each one of us. But brethren, what choice do we have? We have been called into the service of the Great High Priest, who offered himself as the once and for all sacrifice for our sins. Let us draw near to him with sincere hearts. Let us confess our hope by discharging our presbyterial office according to the cruciform standard of his own work on our behalf. Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, and all the more as we see the day drawing near. He is faithful; let us be found, by his grace and the power of his Spirit, faithful to our calling as well.

What preceded Jesus' silence

Peter Leithart's "Truncating the Politics of Jesus" puts me in mind, curiously enough, of a student-directed production of Godspell back in my university days. My directing professor nailed its failure eloquently: "This show was more about singing and dancing than it was about the Gospels." (This was a public university, by the way.) At this remove of years, I don't think the young, evangelically-minded director was to blame; instead, Godspell itself envisions Jesus as a likable fellow who enjoyed good times with his twelve best friends and others. The problem with this conception is that it makes the Crucifixion utterly inexplicable: what religious or civil authority would want to kill off someone whose most provocative action was to do little more than ask what's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

Sadly, this quietist version of the Gospel has come to dominate American evangelicalism, which continues its historical trend of affirming the interests of the broader culture in general and the agenda of those currently in power in particular. As Leithart helpfully observes, Jesus himself was neither meek nor mild: "What preceded Jesus’ silence in Pilate’s Praetorium were several years of inflammatory non-silence. ...If we don’t follow Jesus at the beginning, we’re unlikely to have an opportunity to follow him to the end." You have to take up your cross in order to submit to your crucifixion.

Contrary to expectation, age has not mellowed my preaching: more and more frequently, I find myself stridently declaiming against current public policy and mores, and against the silliness of too many of my co-religionists. To borrow a line from the evangelicals, it's what Jesus would do.

Man dies after cockroach-eating competition

Anecdotes and illustrations can sometimes threaten to overwhelm a sermon, but that's not why I use so few. The truth is, I can't come up with them. That's why I find preaching the Proverbs so delightful: real life provides more illustrations of folly than I could ever use in an entire homiletical career.

Incomparable Days

Peter Leithart shares a quote from Thomas Oden describing the pastor's great privilege in participating in signal events in the lives of believers. I'm glad to be reminded of these blessings, but a little disappointed the reminder came from a Methodist. Presbyterians and Reformed spill a great deal of ink on the importance of preaching, all of which I agree with, and all of which I'm pretty sure never needs be said again, it having been said over and over again. Just once, I'd like to hear someone from our team talk about the one event which, Mrs. Curmudgeon regularly notes, always gets me at least a little choked up during the liturgy: baptism.

To lead God's people in worship, Lord's Day in and Lord's Day out: incomparable indeed.

Theses on preaching: the very Word of God

My sermon on 2 Corinthians 5:20, in which I argue the thesis of the 2nd Helvetic Confession 1.4 (that the Word of God preached is the Word of God), is now available at Park Hill Presbyterian Church's SermonAudio site.

Reprobation & assurance of salvation

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

2 Corinthians 4:3-4 strike me as a good proof text for the doctrine of reprobation. Reprobation is the necessary reverse of election: if God has chosen some for everlasting life in Christ, he has not chosen others. These have been blinded and cannot understand the Gospel, no matter how clearly it is proclaimed to them.

At the same time, those who question their own salvation ought to take some comfort from these verses. Many have spiritually shipwrecked themselves on the rocky fact that only God knows his secret counsels, and thus only God knows who he has elected. Nonetheless, anyone can know whether he has understood the Gospel of the glory of Christ. If he has, he is not one of the perishing unbelievers; his sight is not veiled because he is not reprobate but elect.

Top Ten Signs Your Pastor Has Caught You Napping During His Sermon

From the Sacred Sandwich.

On not setting up the sheep for heresy

I recently received an e-mail from a reader of my 2008 essay in Modern Reformation, "Setting Up the Sheep for Heresy," asking me to explain when I thought it appropriate to bring the fruits of grammatico-historical exegesis into the pulpit. Here's my reply, slightly edited.

Dear Astute Pastor,

Thanks for writing. It's a great encouragement to know my writing is even being read, let alone provoking thought a couple years on!

I don't have much of a concrete answer for you, as I believe much of the act of preaching is a matter of wisdom. Exegesis is, by comparison, straightforward: one must determine what the text means. But when shaping the sermon, the preacher must determine how best to communicate this particular text's meaning to this particular group of people on this particular day. Thus, I might decide not to mention a particular text-critical issue to my congregation, but you know that raising it will help your congregation better grasp the point.

Having said that, the general rule is that preaching follows exegesis, and so the sermon should only contain whatever information is necessary to get the text's main point across. So to take your examples, do the Roman confession "Caesar is Lord" or the current understandings of 1st-century gnostic thought help to get that point across? And even if so, is there information gleaned directly from the Scriptures which will do the job equally well? While the tone of my essay was confrontational, I should say quite clearly that I don't believe every preacher who mentions archaeological findings is prideful. I do think, though, we must all get into the habit of presenting our congregations with arguments clearly derived from the Bible itself.

You might want to consider the role of commentaries in your preparation. For example, as I work with 1 & 2 Corinthians, I am struck by the quantity and variety of theories on who was opposing Paul and why, and am even more struck by how unimportant resolving that question is to conveying the implications of Paul's responses to his critics in the sermon. My rule is to exegete the text and sketch out the basic sermon outline before consulting any commentaries. It would be impossible to do the extensive research commentators do here in my study, so my exegesis depends on the Bible and perhaps a Bible dictionary &/or atlas, not the latest archaeological dig. I think most of us tend to bring whatever we needed to understand the text into our explanation of it from the pulpit; if that's right, then those who begin with commentaries and their extensive background information will be more likely to incorporate that information into sermons.

As I found when preaching Isaiah's prophecies against the nations (let alone against Israel), it's impossible to entirely avoid bringing background information into one's sermons; that's the nature of grammatico-historical exegesis. But I do believe that if we follow Jay Adams' rule and preach only the purpose of the text, we'll have much fewer occasions to dwell on that background information at any great length.

That was kind of rambling, but I hope helpful. Again, thanks for writing, and do feel free to write back. May the Spirit work through the preaching of the Word to convict and convert sinners!

grace & peace,
The Presbyterian Curmudgeon

On the Matter of Notes in Preaching

In his lead article for this month's Ordained Servant, Gregory Reynolds defines the essential nature of preaching, which sadly is often overlooked, in just one sentence.

The sermon is the Word proclaimed in the presence of the congregation.

Time to start preaching politics

According to the Denver Post, two competing bills have been submitted to the Colorado legislature for its next session. One, representing the forces of light, truth, and all that is good, would opt Colorado out of the national folly which is daylight savings time, leaving the clocks in this great state permanently in tune with the daily progress of the sun across the sky, in accordance with the natural creation order. The other, representing bolshevikism, oppression, and all that is vain and empty in this corrupted world, would require the citizens of Colorado to keep their clocks on daylight savings time year-round.

If ever there were a moment for a presbyterian pastor to preach on upcoming legislation...

In defense of pedantry

As do all right-thinking persons, I've got George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" in my web browser's main bookmark menu (just under Mapquest, actually). In this inspiring manifesto for clear writing, he does note brevity is not the same thing as clarity; nonetheless, I think one might be forgiven for confusing them. That's particularly the case when reading the works of many members of my guild, who often give the impression of being paid by the word. Very likely, they write like they preach, and they preach by going on and on, giving three examples when one will do and quoting two dead theologians when no quotation was necessary. This too-prevalent pedantry, this insistence on flogging dead oratories with word upon tedious work, has produced in me a paranoid obsession with brevity in my own writing and speaking.

I bring this up because I have just completed two essays which were so pedantic I actively detested the act of writing them. Again and again, I brought up points of only tangential relevance, and went to ridiculous lengths to clarify that which was already transparent. These may be (and this is saying something) the most boring pieces I've ever written.

And it's not my fault.

I've come to realize pedantry is sometimes dictated by one's subject, or, more precisely, one's audience. If said audience is impressed by an awesome flow of verbiage, if it tends to accept every example in support of an argument as entirely sound of itself, then the person addressing it must argue similarly. Leave a single illustration unanswered, and the audience, having never learned to think through the arguments for themselves, will think the defeated proposition still stands. In other words, sometimes the only way to fight erroneous pedantry is with informed pedantry.