What is the most important thing to do in our preaching?
What would you say is the single nearly important affair in preaching—either as the person preaching or as someone who listens? I gauge many people would suggest clarity of delivery, or humour, or connecting with the congregation, or being based in Scripture. All of these are of groovy importance, though of course all are open to a range of interpretations.
As I continue to preach myself, and sit and listen to the sermons of others, I keep coming back to something I offset learned more than 25 years ago, and feel I proceed on needing to learn:
Focus more on what God has done,
and less on what we 'ought' to practise.
Why is this important? I call up for several reasons.
First, it is what I need to hear. I recall I live in a world where at that place are lots of people telling me what I 'ought' to be doing, either implicitly or explicitly. It happens explicitly in a lot of Christian teaching—I ought to be praying more, reading my Bible more, telling others almost Jesus more, and and so on. But it likewise happens on the news and from science, wellness and lifestyles gurus—I ought to be eating an apple a mean solar day, taking more than practice, fasting to lose weight. I as well happen to be someone who takes seriously the lives of others, and so when I see a programme about how someone lives, I feel the force of their lifestyle choices, and find myself asking 'Should I be doing the things they exercise?' All this can lead to anxiety most all the things nosotros 'ought' to be doing—or, as a good friend of mine used to say, a 'hardening of the oughteries'!
In all this talk of oughts and duties, I need to hear the word of grace—this is what God has washed, and what he tin can do once again. And if I demand to hear that from preachers I listen to, and then I need to preach this for the sake of those listening to me.
Second, it is primarily what Scripture does. If the Bible is annihilation, and then it is the story of God's actions for and on behalf of its people. Of course, it includes lots of other stories, of individuals and groups and their successes and failures in responding and being faithful to God'due south call on their lives. Only their action are e'er in response to the action of God, which is ever prior to human activity chronologically and theologically. God calls the earth into being; God calls Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; God calls Moses to lead his people from slavery to freedom; God gives the gift of his law; the word of God 'comes to' the prophets—and and so on. Whoever the man actors are in the drama, the principal actor is God—fifty-fifty when (as with Esther and other parts of the OT narrative) this is not made explicit.
So if nosotros are preaching from Scripture, we must always be request, non so much 'What did the homo actors practise here?' but 'What is God doing hither? What did he practise then, and so what does he do now?' God is the bailiwick of the story of the Bible, so if we are non focussing in our preaching on what God has done, we are misreading the text.
(Information technology is worth noting, past the fashion, that this principle underpins the format of the archetype Anglican prayer, the Collect. These prayers commonly begin, 'God, who [did something in the past], exercise it now over again for your people in our day…' Yous could, therefore, write a collect as a closing prayer after every sermon.)
Third, nosotros observe this very hard. I have lost count of the number of times I had heard a sermon—often a good sermon, inspiring, engaging and well delivered—but focussing not on what God has washed but what nosotros 'ought' to do. Even in churches (some would sayespecially in churches) where the focus is supposed to be on the grace of God and the centrality of Scripture, we seem to notice it very difficult to focus on God'southward grace.
4th, this and then is a litmus examination of whether I am comfortable preaching the good news of God'south grace. As Tom Wright has argued in diverse places, a gospel is only a 'gospel' if information technology tells the story of what God haswashed for us. Collections of teachings of Jesus arenon 'gospels' because they give us more than things to do. It is no accident that the four canonical gospels do include Jesus' education—just as a prelude the most important thing of all, what God has done for us in the ministry, death and supremely the resurrection of Jesus. God has done something, and nosotros need to tell others—non so that they 'ought' to do more things, merely and so that they tin can meet God'southward gracious initiative in the past, and might receive this gracious initiative in the present, in their lives today.
Stanley Greidanus explores this in his 1978 volumeThe Modern Preacher and the Ancient Textin chapter 5. He distinguishes the two approaches to Scripture and preaching equally 'anthropocentric' (centred on the man actors) and 'theocentric' (centred on God as the primary actor).
When one asks about the purpose of the canon, the thrust of the Bible as a whole, the answer seems quite obvious: the catechism intends to tell us nigh God—not God in the abstruse, merely God in relationship to his creation and his people, God'southward actions in the earth, God'due south coming kingdom. The individual authors'…primary involvement is God's activeness in man events, non the events themselves.
These ii approaches have a radically dissimilar affect on our preaching:
| Anthropocentric | Theocentric |
| focusses on human examples | focusses on God'south plan of conservancy |
| tends to despair | tends to hope |
| tends to man endeavor | tends to trust in God |
| could be based on whatever human being | tends to base everything on the biblical text |
| speaks to the will & evokes endeavour | speaks to the heart & evokes worship |
| screws upwardly divine/relationship | (re)launches divine/human human relationship |
| expects hearers to act | expects God to act |
| prescribes outcomes | leaves outcomes open—God is too big! |
Last Epiphany I preached from Matt 2.1–12. It would take been very like shooting fish in a barrel to focus on the characters in the story, and draw morals from them. We should be strong and courageous similar Joseph; nosotros shouldn't exist defensive, ambitious and insecure like Herod; we should be audacious and chance-taking like the Magi. (All these good examples might also encourage us to ask: should we also be silent and compliant, as Matthew appears to depict Mary?) But this misses the primal player in the story—God. Within the narrative, every disquisitional turn depends on God'south intervention. And the point of the story seems to much more focus on who God is and what God does. God is 1 who reveals himself to those on the outside and draws them in. God is the one who speaks and guides, in ways that listeners tin empathize and relate to. God is true-blue to his purposes, fulfilling his promises from of old. And God turns the patterns and power structures of the world upside down. Is this the kind of God nosotros trust? And do we believe God is doing these things still?
The same is truthful of every passage we preach on. Last week in the lectionary we read about Peter's (healing of Aeneas and) raising of Tabitha. Is the story primarily most the different man agents, giving us an example to follow and a list of things we ought to do—like Tabitha, we ought to assist the poor, like the disciples, we should call on leaders in faith, like Peter, we should pray for healing and new life? Or is the story primarily about what God is doing—healing the sick, raising the expressionless, binding people together into a community of organized religion, and making his adept news known through his miraculous acts? The second list sounds a lot more similar good news than the first—and it is much more probable to grow religion in u.s. and our hearers also.
(Previously published in a slightly dissimilar form in 2016.)
If you enjoyed this, practice share it on social media, possibly using the buttons on the left. Follow me on Twitter @psephizo.Like my page on Facebook.
Much of my piece of work is done on a freelance basis. If you have valued this postal service, would you considerdonating £1.twenty a month to back up the production of this blog?
If you enjoyed this, do share it on social media (Facebook or Twitter) using the buttons on the left. Follow me on Twitter @psephizo. Like my page on Facebook.
Much of my piece of work is washed on a freelance basis. If you have valued this post, you tin can brand a unmarried or repeat donation through PayPal:
Comments policy: Good comments that appoint with the content of the post, and share in respectful fence, can add real value. Seek offset to empathise, then to be understood. Make the most charitable construal of the views of others and seek to larn from their perspectives. Don't view debate every bit a conflict to win; address the statement rather than tackling the person.
Source: https://www.psephizo.com/preaching-2/what-is-the-most-important-thing-to-do-in-our-preaching/
0 Response to "What is the most important thing to do in our preaching?"
Post a Comment