Think about …

If, for a day, you were transported back into Isaiah’s era, what would you tell your friends about it on your return to the 21st Century?

Transcript

Hello and welcome back

My name is Ian White and in this session of our masterclass I’m going to begin our journey into the art of preaching by sharing with you the direction of travel over the next few sessions.

This is the number 164 red London bus. It’s the bus I used to catch every day to get from my home in Banstead, to school in Sutton.

On the front you can see a list of the places it will visit along the way – finishing up in Sutton Garage. Get on the wrong bus and you’d end up in the wrong place.

It’s those journey points I want to describe in this film. What are the paces to visit in the journey from a blank piece of paper (or an empty screen) to a finished message?

And how can we do it in a way that carries God’s word to the people in front of us?

Of course, for us as preachers, the journey to any given talk is going to be slightly different, but there are some common landing points along the way that will help us get the our goal.

That’s what we’ll identify in this session.

assumptions

I’m going to assume that you will be preaching from a passage in the Bible.

We all know that expounding a passage is not the only type of preaching.

• You may want to preach on a particular topic and trace it through the Bible.

• You may be asked to preach at a special occasion (a wedding or funeral) and choose a Bible passage that’s appropriate to that occasion

I’ve been preaching for over half a century (yikes!)

And in my 50+ years of preaching, the bread-and-butter of communicating God’s word has always been to start with a passage from the Bible and expound it, expose it’s message and reveal its wonder and apply its message.

• And point people in Jesus Christ’s direction whenever possible.

This is the back-bone of preaching which changes lives.

Master this art, and the rest will be plain sailing!

 

So let’s assume we have a passage.

• Old Testament or New testament, long or short straightforward or tricky, and we’re going to ‘preach’ on it.

In other words we’re going to do our best to take God’s Word (his message) and translate it into our words (your talk or your sermon)

Then trust that God’s voice will be the one people hear when they listen to us.

I believe that if we take God’s word and make it clear and relevant then it often speaks for itself.

I don’t have to embellish it or enhance it, I just need to tell it like it is, telling it in a clear and compelling way that lets God’s Holy Spirit do the rest.

 

The bridge

One of the fundamental ideas we’re going to be using throughout this masterclass is the concept of a bridge.

A bridge connects two places which might otherwise remain disjoint without a long journey.

As a preacher you are a bridge-builder

• And your sermon exists to connect two things that would otherwise remain separated.

• The world of the Bible and the world of today

Bridges are often magnificent pieces of architecture which take years to design and build.

We’re going to use tower bridge in London, England, as our model.

• It’s a marvel of civil engineering.

• If I had to choose a favourite bridge, it would be this one

I was born in Hackney, just up the road from Tower Bridge

Interestingly, when I drive across it I hardly notice the bridge itself, the road just carries on!= from South London to North.

• Writing your sermon may sometimes feel like constructing a complex piece of word-architecture.

• But the aim should never be to draw attention to the construction,

the aim is to be help people cross from one side to the other so the same God who inspired the Bible will be speaking to the hearts and minds of people as they listen to you!

• And they may not even notice they’re crossing a bridge as they do it.

So let’s reflect on the two sides of this bridge.

 

The world of the Bible

On one side we have the times of the Bible

By any estimate the Bible’s text is 2000 to 4000 years old, and most of it was written to societies which no longer exist – at least not as they did then.

I know numerous people (it might even be you) who have said to themselves “I’m going to read the Bible – it’s a project for this year”

They’ve started reading Genesis enthusiastically and in good faith, but run aground by the time they’ve get into Leviticus.

Why might that happen?

There are people who will say “Well this happens because, to quote St Paul, (2 Corinthians 4:4) ‘The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel’” – and get that, but I’m not comfortable with it.

• It seems to load the reader with blame for not persevering enough.

• I feel it’s a somewhat dismissive explanation for something that, in reality, is much more down-to-earth.

Parts of the Bible are a tough read. The Bible is a library of books and they are not all equally accessible.

It was written in ancient cultures we find hard to fathom.

It was written to people whose laws and customs and attitudes leave us mystified.

So when we read the Bible today we don’t easily find messages which connect with the twenty-first century.

 

The world of the 21st century

So if, on one side of the chasm we have the era of the Bible, on the other side we have the society of today. Which, of course, is much more familiar.

At some level we understand our own culture – or at least we understand what it’s like to live today much better than grasping what it was like to live in Iron Age Israel, (for example)

As preachers, this is our challenge. To build a bridge from the Bible’s day – and what God was saying then, into our contemporary era – to proclaim what God is saying now.

And the differences are huge.

Consider lighting

In Biblical times nobody could flick a switch to flood a room with light. So when the sun went down most people could do very little; and most work couldn’t be done at all.

So when Jesus said (John 9:4) “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.” he wasn’t just talking metaphorically – he was being very literal – When the sun goes down, that’s it for the day. And everyone listening to him would know that.

communication

Or take communication as another example. In Biblical times, the only two ways to get a message from one person to another was to speak to them face to face or have the message written down and delivered by hand.

So when Moses calls down God’s blessing using words like (Numbers 6:25-26) “the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;”

and “the Lord turn his face towards you, and give you peace.’”

The image he’s conjuring up is of God being right there with you, in-yer-face!

cosmology

Furthermore, their cosmology was different. By and large they thought the earth was flat and you could perish if you got near the edge of it.

The ancient world had a wide variety of different understandings of what lay deep beneath the earth.

In Old Testament times the conventional understanding was that the earth was supported by foundations, that everything (including the sky) was enveloped in water and the place of the dead lay just beneath the known terrain.

technology

Their technology was different too. When king David began smelting iron for his war machine, he was using the very best technology available

He was an Iron Age king bringing into play the very latest iron age innovations.

And so we could go on.

Here’s a question for you to ponder. What would Paul have made of a photograph?

What would David have made of music played on a pair of ear-buds?

What would Moses have made of a car?

Questions like this are not as trivial as they sound because they help us to grasp the magnitude of the differences between the two worlds that we, as preachers, are seeking to connect.

 

So when we preach we’re crafting a bridge between the Bible’s world, its culture and its assumptions, into our own world where we live by a vastly different set of rules.

Two dangers for preachers

I think this creates two equal and opposite dangers for us preachers.

If we are to build these bridges into the contemporary world, we cannot afford to just explain the Bible. That would make our preaching little more than a history lesson.

Nor can we just make observations about today’s society – however wise they may be.

It’s vital that we take seriously both the biblical text (with all its complexity) and the contemporary scene. (with all its complexity).

It is our responsibility, under God, to explore the territories on both sides of the river so we become familiar with them.

When we’ve done some of that we will be more able to spot the connections between them and be able to speak God’s Word to human situations

… and to do this with sensitivity and power.

 

One of my spiritual heroes was a man called John Stott, a prolific author and profound preacher from the UK.

He advised preachers to “have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other”

I want to contemporise his concept and say that in our browsers we need to have the Bible and a commentary open in two tabs and our news feed and social media open in two more.

Our task, under God, is to bring them together in the minds of our hearers.

 

So how are we going to go about this? What are the stops on the journey?

I want to break down the task of crafting a sermon into several stages and consider each in turn.

There are some things we do that relate to the Bible’s text and the world it was written for.

There are other things we do that relate to our world and the things that are going on today.

 

Working in the Bible’s world

Read and pray

Firstly we’re going to read the passage and pray it into our souls. Soak our minds in the text.

context

context of the text. How did it fit into the Bible when it was originally written.

• We’re going to look at different type of context because they can each give us complimentary insights

content

Then we’re going to look at the content of the text. What does it actually say – and try to put aside pre-conceived ideas and theological biases … which is harder than it sounds . One way is to put ourselves (as best we can) in the shoes (or sandals) of the person who heard that text first.

framework

Then we’ll seek to identify a framework within the text. Does it have a structure that will help me understand God’s message?

• Again we’ll consider some of the different types of framework we find in the Bible

heartbeat

Then I’m going to ask “What’s heartbeat of the text?”

What is our Father God saying through this portion of scripture?

• What moved the people who heard it first?

• What might have caused them to go ‘wow’ or ‘Oh no!’ or feel love, or empathy or shame or anger.

 

When we’ve got a handle on those things we can move more confidently to the contemporary side of the bridge and begin crafting our sermon.

heartbeat

Here we start by asking, what is the heartbeat of your sermon – what’s its big idea going to be? And try to encapsulate it in a sentence.

framework

Then we’ll move into expressing that idea cogently and look at the structure of your sermon – what will be the way-points which define the listener’s journey?

context

The chances are you’ll already have some idea of the people you will be speaking to and what they expect.

We’ll give some thought to how to prepare for different audiences.

This is the context into which your sermon will be preached. Every congregation is different and aiming your message to these particular people on that particular occasion will help you get God’s word across

content

Then we’ll look at the content of your sermon. What are you actually going to say?

What should you write down and what should be left to the prompting of the Holy Spirit at the time?

Crafting your sermon well is (as I’ve already hinted) an art-form and you will (I hope) develop a method that is uniquely you.

There’s not a right or wrong way of achieving this – but there are things that will help and others that will hinder

Read and pray

I then read and pray through my sermon before I stand up to open my mouth. I want to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to me in that moment to set the message alight in my own soul.

After that, there’s only one thing left to do – and that’s preach it!