Understanding Scripture in Light of Christ

That's the theme of the most recent issue of Southern Seminary's magazine, The Tie. Articles and authors include:

• Scripture’s story centers on Christ
  Stephen J. Wellum
  

• Old Testament: Christ hidden
  Russell Fuller
  

• New Testament: Christ revealed
  James M. Hamilton Jr.
  

• Biblical counseling: Centering cure on Christ
  David Powlison
  

• Beyond a Veggie Tales gospel: Preaching Christ from every text
  Russell D. Moore
  

• Christ as Warrior-King: Preaching Christ from Judges
  David E. Prince
  

The complete issue is available for free here. (HT: Steve Weaver)

Apologetics From the Pulpit

Well, not so much apologetics as in the defense of the faith as apologizing. Peter Mead has a great post about the false though prevalent dichotomy between practical and doctrinal preaching (HT: Milton Stanley). Peter relates the lament of a well-known seminary professor over visiting speakers who introduce their messages with comments about leaving theology to the faculty and wanting to be practical.


This has been a pet peeve of mine for some time. I can't count the number of pastors I've heard on the radio and in person who've timidly prefaced doctrinal expositions with an apology to the congregation as though the explanation of biblical theology is, at best, bitter medicine and, at worst, a necessary evil. Preachers don't regularly apologize for telling jokes and stories. Why, then, do we frequently feel compelled to beg our hearers' pardon for fulfilling the God-given mandate to "give instruction in sound doctrine" (Titus 1:9)?


Peter closes with this much-needed counsel to his peers:

Don’t give the impression that some sermons are biblical, exegetical, theological, doctrinal, while others are practical, pastoral, relevant and helpful. Strive to demonstrate that both sides are really on the same side - there really is no contest.

Ten Indispensable Resources for Bible Study

Chad Knudson at The Road to Emmaus has assembled a helpul annotated list.

More Than Preaching: A Vision for Shepherding People

I trace my serious interest in counseling issues to the one required course in pastoral counseling I took for my Master of Divinity degree. I distinctly remember one class session in which the professor, a professional counselor, advised us that when we moved to a new congregation as pastors, we should try to make acquaintance with two professionals in the area to whom we could refer people - a Christian physician and a Christian psychologist. The physician I understood. However, I found the assumption that as pastors we would be capable of helping people with minor squabbles but in need of referring those with serious problems to psychological experts puzzling, to say the least. Here I was at a theological institution committed to equipping its students with the necessary skills for understanding and applying the Word of God so as to address people about the most important issue in their lives, their standing with respect to God. Yet, at least in this class, the impression was being given (unintentionally, I'm sure) that that same Word was largely irrelevant to significantly helping people resolve the lesser problems of life. Unfortunately, I have spoken with students who were majoring in counseling at evangelical seminaries who have expressed disappointment that they were not taught how to make substantive use of the Scriptures in the course of counseling.

My reminiscing was stirred two days ago while reading an article from a past issue of the Journal of Biblical Counseling. It's an interview with John Street conducted by David Powlison called "Exegete the Bible; Exegete the Person" (Volume 16, Number 2, Winter 1998). At the time of the interview Dr. Street was Senior Pastor of Clear Creek Chapel in Springboro, Ohio. He's now a member of the faculty at the Master's College.

Recalling the deficiency of his own seminary training Street says:

I was trained through seminary to be a pulpit-oriented pastor. By that I mean my primary role would be that of preaching. Occasionally I would make home and hospital visits and do evangelism, but I had very little to do with individual people and their problems. What problems I did handle as a pastor were minor disagreements or marriage struggles. Basically I was taught that a pastor was not capable of handling anything else.


After I completed seminary I took biblical counseling training, which was required of me as an associate pastor. The Lord humbled me and began to place within me a real burden for not just preaching but for shepherding people. My early biblical counseling training gave me a vision for shepherding people that I had not had. In one sense I had it, but it was very impersonal and from the pulpit, ministering the Word of God to a large crowd. A colleague and I joke about this now. He says, "As I look at it, it's easy to preach. You're not going to have somebody object to what you say. But when you get into a counseling situation where you're sitting across the table from somebody and trying to minister the Word of God, and the ugliness of their sinful nature raises its head and they argue and object and make excuses and blame-shift and run away from the problem, now you're in a struggle." Preaching is not the struggle. I think it's easy compared to working through problems with people.

When asked to select one passage that anchors the way he thought about counseling in the context of Christian life and pastoral ministry, Street cited Paul's farewell to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:

In that scene he is passing the baton to the leadership of the church, a non-apostolic generation like us. When he addresses them, he's addressing me. He's saying, "Here's what I want you to do in terms of ministry." He sets his own life up as an example. In Acts 20:20 he says, "I preached publicly and then went from house to house." He talked about the fact that for three years "I went to each of you, day and night with tears." I did not have that perspective at all coming out of seminary. My view of the ministry primarily was forty hours a week in the study, some occasional administration, making some evening calls on people, hospital visits, and preaching and teaching on Sunday. That was it. The rest of the time was preparation and isolation and reading all my books. Oh, my, ministry seemed so easy from that perspective! Who wouldn't want that?


I think a lot of guys escaped to that because they were scared to deal with counseling problems. I was.

I wonder how many seminary-trained pastors could share Dr. Street's testimony. Are our seminaries equipping men to be powerful preachers but impotent physicians of the soul?

A Surprising Source of Our Religious Malaise

While there are numerous factors contributing to rampant biblical illiteracy in the West, Ben Witherington claims that the lion's share of responsibility belongs to an unlikely suspect:

Reading the book of Acts together with reading the budget reports of most churches today is an exercise bound to cause depression. The "me" culture of the West, bent on radical individualism has been endorsed, even co-opted and taken over and baptized by the church. Rather than countering the narcissism of the culture, we cater to it, with all sorts of 'needs' based preaching and teaching that is long on 'how to's' and very thin on Biblical substance. But frankly 'how to' doesn't help if you don't first know 'what for' or even 'why bother'.

What's wrong with needs based preaching? First of all in a culture immersed in constant advertisements and sales pitches, most people in the West have no idea what their real needs are. They can identify their wants, and they mistake them for actual needs. All the while that most profound of all needs, the need for God and for actual knowledge of God leading to relationship with God goes begging.

In other words, I am laying a large share of the blame for religious illiteracy in the West on the Church which has failed in the prime mandate of making disciples of all nations, failed in the mandate to train up sufficient Spirit-filled, Biblically adept proclaimers of God's Word who will win some by being winsome, leading outsiders into a life long pilgrimage of learning in the school of Christ. We need look no further than in the mirror to find one of the sources of our religious malaise.

(HT: SmartChristian.com)

Twenty Years of Pastors' Conference Audio

The good folks at Desiring God Ministries have made the last twenty years of their annual pastors' conference messages (a total of 127) available online for free! Looking over the themes, I think I'll start with 2001. What a gift this is to the body of Christ. Many thanks to Dr. Piper and everyone at DGM!

Redeeming Conversation

Given the choice between a lectern (or even a really sturdy music stand) in a classroom and a pulpit in a sanctuary, I'll take the lectern every time. I'll also opt for the one-on-one ministry of the Word over sermonizing, too. I'm haunted by a comment made by one of my seminary professors years ago. "Consider," he counseled us, "where else during the week the people you're preaching to have had to sit for thirty minutes listening to someone talk." That was in the late '80's. Almost twenty years later, it's no more likely that those listening to sermons on Sunday morning are any more practiced to giving sustained attention to monologues throughout their week and attention spans certainly aren't any longer now than they were then.

For the last fourteen years I've served in an associate pastor role that has allowed me to concentrate on teaching in the contexts of adult education and one on one discipleship with minimal responsibilities in the area of preaching. I don't mean to disparage preaching at all. I recognize its importance and am grateful for those who devote themselves to it. In fact, I'm an auditory learner who enjoys listening to sermons and lectures. It's just that when I'm on the giving end, I prefer the dialogical nature of teaching. I like being able to stop and ask "Am I making sense?" or having someone stop me to ask a question. I realize that in part my reservations about preaching are due to my own shortcomings such as my prideful worry that I'm boring my hearers and my unbelief that the Holy Spirit will use the words he inspired (despite my inadequacies) to accomplish his gracious purposes through biblically-grounded preaching. Nevertheless, the fact remains that I still prefer speaking with people as opposed to merely speaking to them.

In his A Christian Directory, Richard Baxter includes a section on the importance of what he called "Christian conference, exhortation, and reproof." Essentially, it's about the necessity and benefit of believers conversing with each other about biblical truth. One of the advantages of such discourse, he says, is that it supplements the ministry of public preaching:

Your fruitful conference is a needful help to the ministerial work. When the preacher hath publicly delivered the word of God to the assembly, if you would so far second him, as in your daily converse to set it home on the hearts of those that you have opportunity to discourse with, how great an assistance would it be to his success! Though he must teach them publicly, and from house to house, Acts xx.20, yet it is not possible for him to be so frequent and familiar in daily conference with all the ignorant of the place, as those that are still with them may be. You are many, and he is but one, and can be but in one place at once. Your business bringeth you into their company, when he cannot be there. O happy is that minister who hath such a people, who will daily preach over the matter of his public sermons in their private conference with one another! (Part IV, Chapter XVI, Motive X).

Later, Baxter enumerates more advantages of spiritual conversation including the following which is the best articulation of why I prefer teaching that I've come across:

5. Interlocutory conference keepeth your auditors attentive, and carrieth them on along with you as you go. And it maketh the application much more easy, by their nearness and the familiarity of the discourse; when sermons are usually heard but as an insignificant sound, or words of course. 6. You may at your pleasure go back and repeat those things which the hearer doth not understand, or doth forget; which a preacher in the pulpit cannot do without the censure of the more curious auditors. 7. You may perceive by the answers of them whom you speak to, what particulars you need most to insist on, and what objections you should most carefully resolve; and when you have satisfied them, and may proceed. All which it is hard for a minister to do in public preaching; and is it not a great sin to neglect such an advantageous duty? (Part IV, Chapter XVI, Motive XII).

When I came across these thoughts from Baxter, I was reminded of an article by David Powlison called "What is Ministry of the Word?" (Journal of Biblical Counseling, Winter 2003, pp. 2-6) in which he distinguishes among three mutually supportive aspects of the communication of biblical truth. The first two, the public and private ministry of the Word, are those with which we are probably most familiar. The former refers to the proclamation, exposition, and application of Scripture that good sermons consist of. The latter refers to personal study of and meditation on Scripture in private devotions or "quiet times." While acknowledging the necessity of both for cultivating spiritual maturity, Powlison rejects the idea that they are sufficient:

Perhaps you've heard it said, "If people would only sit under good preaching and meet God regularly in private devotions, they wouldn't need counseling." That statement is well intended. It's even partly true. Lots of personal problems are transformed by public ministry of the Word and by private ministry of the Word. But the statement is completely untrue in its premises and its conclusions. A central purpose of good preaching and private devotions is to create mutual counseling and wise counselors! When any personal problem is in fact truly transformed, then a wise counselor of others has been produced. Fruitful interpersonal ministry of the Word is the main proof that sermons and devotions are worth the time and effort.

This calls to mind Paul's exhortation that we "Let the word of Christ dwell in [us] richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom..." (Col. 3:16). In today's church there is certainly a great deal of emphasis on preaching and devotions but are we neglecting the importance and necessity of believers learning how to skillfully bring biblical truth to bear on each other's lives?

Technorati Tags: Bible, Christianity, preaching, teaching, Richard Baxter, David Powlison, biblical counseling

Lee Eclov on the Dangers of Practical Preaching

Everyone who preaches or listens to sermons should check out an excellent two-part article by Lee Eclov recently posted at Out of Ur. Lee takes on two popular misconceptions about biblical preaching: The Bottom Line Fallacy and the Practical Fallacy. Both, he says, demonstrate misunderstanding not only about preaching but how Scripture works:

The Bible spends much more time on shaping the spiritual mind than commanding particular behavior. We need far more training in the ways of grace, of spiritual perceptions, and of what God is really like, than we do in how to communicate with our spouse. Understanding the glory of Christ is far more practical than our listeners imagine. Properly preached, every sermon based on a passage of Scripture is fundamentally practical. Every author of Scripture wrote to effect change in God's people. It is our job as preachers to find the persuasive logic of that author and put that clearly and persuasively before our people through biblical exposition.

Thank you, Lee!

Why Don't Preachers Preach?

Doug Groothuis asks that and other unsettling questions about the state of contemporary preaching. I suspect that the answer to many of his questions is, "They want to keep their jobs."

Related: So You Want to Be a Pastor? Be Something Else First by S. M. Hutchens

The Sermon, the Pitch, and the Cashbox

12/7/05 - updated with related posts below

I confess. I've been counting down the days until the release of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Friday evening I'll be joining a large group from my church to view the film. While at the theater I'll try to put all the marketing hype surrounding the production out of my mind so as not to ruin my enjoyment. As David Wayne notes in his musing about the promotional fervor, "Just as Aslan is on the move in Narnia, so the servants of Mammon are on the move in our world seeking to make us evangelicals their servants." Like David, I too thought back to Tim Challies' question of just how crassly the church is being used to market the new Narnia film as I've witnessed all the hype.


When I read at Reformation 21 that according to the Philadelphia Inquirer Walt Disney Pictures is sponsoring a promotional sermon contest whose winner will be given $1,000, I was shocked. I couldn't believe that Disney would go so far as to sponsor a contest designed to get pastors to give verbal trailers from the pulpit. It just didn't seem like good business sense. Such an offensive move could alienate members of the very audience Disney is banking on to make the film a success.

After a little searching I found what at first appeared to clear Disney of such crass publicity seeking. The "Narnia Sermon Sweepstakes" is sponsored by SermonCentral.com which claims to be the world's largest sermon research site. In addition to $1,000, the grand prize winner will receive a trip for two to London and Oxford, England to walk where Lewis walked and worshiped. All a pastor has to do to enter the competition is submit a qualifying Narnia-related sermon transcript or outline. Apparently it's not necessary that the sermon actually have been preached but the odds are good that if a pastor has expended the time and effort to compose such a message, it will get preached. And those entries that are eventually posted on SermonCentral's site will probably be preached in some form or another from numerous pulpits. The Inquirer claims that Disney is using hired agencies to promote The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in churches. Among them is Outreach Media Inc. which, according to the article, hosts the sermon contest. At first, I thought this was an error having read at SermonCentral.com that it was sponsoring the contest. However, when I visited SermonCentral's page for potential advertisers, I learned that it is an arm of Outreach Media and thus it appears that the sermon contest is indeed another Disney marketing strategy.


Outreach Media Inc. affirms Christian orthodoxy and states its vision as follows: "To create a network of churches and ministries working together to love and serve people with the goal of inviting every person in America to a local Bible believing church and, ultimately, into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." I'm sure there are sincere believers at Outreach who are eager to promote the Narnia film because they are persuaded that it has the potential to turn minds toward contemplation of the gospel. However, given their being in Disney's employ, the decision to run a sermon sweepstakes is a matter of very poor judgment. It may lead some to conclude that the folks at Outreach have succumbed to the craving for Turkish Delight.


RELATED:

Christianity Today asks, "Did Disney Pay for Your Sermon?" and likewise questions "the propriety of offering financial incentives for pastors to preach on a commercial product, even if it is Narnia."

Paul C. at Theospeak.net has a few questions of his own: "What's next, pastors wearing suits emblazoned with sponsor's logos like a NASCAR driver? Maybe cash strapped churches could sell commercial breaks during services to help raise funds?"

Preaching to Rational Creatures: A Lesson from the Puritans

Thanks to Peter Bogert at Stronger Church for posting this quote from Joel Beeke's chapter in the book Whatever Happened to the Reformation?. I thought readers of this blog would appreciate it as well.

First, Puritan preaching addressed the mind with clarity. It addressed man as a rational creature. The Puritans loved and worshiped God with their minds. They viewed the mind as the palace of faith. They refused to set mind and heart against each other, but taught that knowledge was the soil in which the Spirit planted the seed of regeneration. Puritans thus preached that we need to think in order to be holy. They challenged the idea that holiness is only a matter of emotions.

The Puritans preached that a flabby mind is no badge of honor. They understood that a mindless Christianity will foster a spineless Christianity. An anti-intellectual gospel will spawn an irrelevant gospel that does not get beyond "felt needs." That's what is happening in our churches today. We've lost our Christian mind, and for the most part we do not see the necessity of recovering it. We do not understand that where there is little difference between the Christian and non-Christian in what we think and believe, there will soon be little difference in how we live (245-246).

If that wasn't enough to make me want to read the book, I see that David Powlison contributed a chapter called "A Flourishing of Fresh Wisdoms: The Call of the Hour in the Ministry of the Word."

Joel Osteen Responds

Apparently a number of Joel Osteen's ministry supporters voiced concern about the ambiguity of his comments on Larry King Live (see yesterday's post), leading him to post this letter of clarification. He writes in part:

Jesus declared in John 14; I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father but by me.   I believe that Jesus Christ alone is the way to salvation.  However, it wasn’t until I had the opportunity to review the transcript of the interview that I realize I had not clearly stated that having a personal relationship with Jesus is the only way to heaven.  It’s about the individual’s choice to follow Him.

God has given me a platform to present the Gospel to a very diverse audience.  In my desire not to alienate the people that Jesus came to save, I did not clearly communicate the convictions that I hold so precious.

I still have major disagreements with the content and emphases of Osteen's ministry - enough that I do not commend it to others. Nevertheless, I admire the manner in which he dealt with this situation.

I've felt the desire to which Osteen refers - that of not wanting to alienate those I'm seeking to win to Christ. I'd like to think that the desire has always been pure but I know better. It's tainted by the fear of man - the dread of being thought a fool for the sake of Christ.
 
The gospel is intrinsically offensive in that it assaults self-righteousness. I have only to think back to how bitter I once found the gospel whose taste is now sweet. There's simply no way to state God's assessment of our condition in a positive, upbeat way that avoids offending those who hear. The preaching of the need for an alien righteousness will always alienate sinners. But by the sovereign grace of God that same preaching will draw men and women to saving faith in His Son.

Veith on Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

I know I said I wasn't going to be posting this week but I came across this during one of those increasingly more frequent study breaks and wanted to pass it on.

Gene Veith reflects on the study that gave rise to the book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. He suggests that the prevalence of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism among church-attending teens may not be due to their ignoring what's being taught. It may be an indicator that they're just obeying. Veith calls us to a three-fold consideration:

Consider how many Christian publications, sermons, and teachings are nothing but moralism. Sometimes morality is reduced to the simplistic MTD commandment "be nice," though often real morals are inculcated. But the common assumption is that being good is easy, just a matter of knowing what one should do and trying harder. The biblical truth that bad behavior is a manifestation of sin, a depravity that inheres in our fallen nature, is skimmed over. And so is the solution to sin: a life-changing faith in Jesus Christ.

Consider how many Christian publications, sermons, and teachings are primarily therapeutic. It is true that Christ can solve many of our problems. But much that passes for Christian teaching says nothing about Christ. Instead, it consists of pop psychology, self-help platitudes, and the power of positive thinking.

Consider how many Christian publications, sermons, and teachings talk about God in a generic way, but say nothing about the Father, who created and still sustains the world; the Son, who became Incarnate in this world to win our salvation; and the Holy Spirit, who works through the Word of God to bring us to faith.

The psychologizing of the faith is a topic never too distant from my mind. I intend to share some thoughts in the not too distant future. OK, back to the books.

Good Point. Wrong Text!

Peter Bogert at Stronger Church reminds preachers of the importance of attending to a biblical author's intent by paying close attention to a passage's literary context. Failure to do so results in sermons that lack textual authority and congregations who follow the poor example of biblical interpretation modeled from the pulpit. Read this even if you're not a preacher. [HT: Transforming Sermons]