05 Read and pray

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this session of our preaching masterclass.

My name is Ian White and right now we’re going to make a start and take the first step towards crafting a sermon.

We’re likening the crafting of a sermon to creating a bridge

(here’s our bridge)

On one side we have between the world of the Bible and on the other we have the world of today

and our aim is to allow the inspiration for God which flowed through the Bible to reach the hearts and minds of people today as we preach to them.

 

So in this segment we’re going to take a passage from the Bible, read it and pray it through.

You might like to try this with a passage of scripture that’s familiar to you (otherwise Psalm 19)

Reading and praying is where I always start. At my desk, Bible open or on the screen

A large (preferably huge) sheet of paper in front of me

and a fountain pen – or three – all in different colours!

When I write a message to preach I begin my journey by carving out precious time just to read the passage and meditate on it in my own soul.

Reading your passage

I want to soak in it for a bit.

I hope, like me, you’ll find this a creative time of exploration. It’s just me and the Bible.

I can let my mind wander around the words of the passage.

I can allow my emotions feel its impact,

I can allow my intellect begin digesting its message.

And I let my imagination run riot with God’s word.

I allow my heart to feel its beauty as I use this passage of the Bible like a play-thing. Tossing it around like a carefree 5 year-old.

But I approach this time with some factors I’m confident about in the back of my mind

I’m confident God wants to speak.

In Christ I am a child of God, adopted into his family. So, as any loving father wants to spend time with the son or daughter he’s nurturing, God wants to speak to me. Face to face.

Take Moses, for example, while he was leading the CofI through the wilderness

Moses used to take a tent and pitch it some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.”

Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to this tent of meeting outside the camp.

Here’s the aspect I find so moving:

Whenever Moses went out to the tent, … 11 The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. (Exodus 33:11)

Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.

(As if Joshua just wanted to remain for a bit longer in God’s presence.)

We are entirely justified in approaching the Bible with that in mind.

I’m confident God has something to say.

It was never His intention that his Word should be locked away in an obscure book, only to be accessed by a chosen few who are either holy enough or clever enough to grasp it.

We take a multiplicity of English versions of the Bible for granted

This wasn’t always the case

In the 14^th century England John Wycliffe as a fierce critic of the privilege and power in the Church.

At that time the only way the Bible could be accessed was with the Vulgate version – written in Latin.

And how many Latin speakers were there in the 14^th Century?

His passion for ordinary people to have access the the scriptures was realised when he translated the Scriptures from the Latin Vulgate into Middle English. You’d think the church would celebrate him – but no!

After his death Wycliffe was excommunicated, his body exhumed and burnt.

He wasn’t the only one. Jan Hus and others in Prague produced Scriptures in Hungarian and Bohemian. Hus was declared a heretic and promptly burnt at the stake.

And this for producing the Bible in a form you and I could understand.

He believed, as I do, that God had something to say through his word.

I’m confident that He is all-knowing

and is therefore well aware of my imperfections and foibles.

I know only too well that my interpretation of his word, my feelings about it and the ideas that percolate in my soul will need refining.

The stuff that gets scribbled or doodled on my paper is less than perfect, less than accurate – and sometimes less than holy!

But my heavenly Father knows that, and we go along the rest of this journey to a preachable sermon, I just have to trust He’ll weed out some of those flaws.

Pray through your passage

OK, A few things I’ve discovered about this moment:

Personally I don’t ‘read’ and then ‘pray’ as separate activities. I find the two happen simultaneously and I often, almost imperceptibly, glide from one into the other and back again.

All, the time, however I have a pen in my hand to jot down (pretty much) anything that comes to mind.

Meditate on it

1. I do my best to meditate on the passage in several different versions if I can, but not too many. Because I can get end up spending too much time comparing versions

I would say, however, there is an important difference between a paraphrase and a translation.

And I would focus on using a translations or two at this point.

I’ll say more about that in our next segment.

Recognise your lens

When we read the scriptures we each come to them with a completely different set of experiences. You can only look at the scriptures through your encyclopedia of your own past events and the attitudes you’ve developed.

In the lens through which you view the Bible there is a niche for every moment you’ve known and every idea you’ve had.

So when the Bible describes a triumph or victory of some kind, the memory of your latest victory may be triggered.

When the Bible carries sadness, it may bring to mind a time when you felt the abject pain of grief or the agony of loneliness.

These are the stories which make us who we are and in which we’ve had a front row seat as we’ve seen them unfold.

Furthermore, in your personal theatre you’ve also had a back-stage pass which reveals the attitudes and feelings attached to each life event.

These things make up the emotional and spiritual library we carry into every meditation on God’s word.

And into which the scriptures speak.

So as best you can, let the Bible talk to you and about you as you scribble your ideas on your piece of paper.

This is the moment to be reflecting on the word. My father used to talk about ‘chewing the cud’ like a cow and ruminating on the scriptures.

 

You see, at this first step (read-and-pray step), we are more concerned with the impact this passage of the Bible has in our hearts than with the precise meaning of the text (that will come later)

I sometimes imagine Jesus sitting next to me and the two of us having a conversation.

I might say to him: “Lord, that’s amazing!” when I find something which inspires me. (and write it down)

Every now and then he leans over, points at the text and says “Ian – have you spotted that one yet?” (and write it down)

And I try to imagine I’m the first person who ever read this, what would it say to me? (and write it down)

And just keep writing! Write down all the thoughts and ideas which come to mind. They may be disordered or disconnected, they may seem unpredictable and random, but write them down anyway. (you can sort them out later)

Write down whatever God has prompted you with.

Promptings of God’s Holy Spirit have been the way God has communicated with his people since the dawn of time and as you read the text, this is the time to listen out for them.

You probably won’t use everything you jot down, but write it anyway.

 

Isn’t this all subjective?

I was talking about this area with a friend who came back at me, saying “Isn’t this all rather subjective?”

… yes it is

However

God created us with emotions (the capacity to feel) as well as intellects (the capacity to analyse).

It’s in the balancing of these two that I often find the anointing of God rests in my preaching.

I want my heart to feel God’s word (and I want you as a hearer to feel it too).

At the same time I want my mind to understand God’s word (and I want you as a hearer to understand it as well).

 

Along with that, I think we need to be kind to ourselves and live with the fact that none of us is perfect!

• I find my intellect can be just as unreliable as my emotions. But that shouldn’t stop me using either.

I know some of us are rather nervous about allowing our emotions free rein to engage with the Bible.

• We want to hear the Holy Spirit’s prompting, but we’re not sure quite what that looks like –

• And we rather nervously ask “Am I hearing my own ideas or picking up God’s still small voice?”

At this point some of us will back off.

• We don’t want to go off the deep end, so we avoid the water all together.

But listen to what Jesus said about hearing God’s prompting at the right moment:

(John 14:26) Now, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

We are now in the position Jesus was describing then. He is no longer with us in bodily form, but his holy Spirit is.

Here is John talking about this later on:

1 John 2:27

As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him

Listen out for the prompting of God as you read and pray your passage.

 

Summary

So let’s summarise

How should I read and pray?

Rather than praying an intercessory prayer ‘God tell me what this means’ I try to tune my heart and mind into what my loving heavenly Father might say to me if He was in the room.

I often find myself using King David’s words from Psalm 19 – (Psalm 19:14) “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer”

and I try to slow my mind down, quieten my heart enough to hear His still small voice.

After Jesus first visit to Jerusalem as a boy Mary, his mother “treasured all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51)

This is the essence of meditation – it’s slowing down long enough to contemplate – to wonder – at God and his word.

Then to treasure these thing as gifts from our heavenly father as we write them or doodle them.

After the resurrection John came to the empty tomb and contemplated the mystery of what had just happened.

He got there after Peter and in his gospel he says he “saw and believed”

“saw” is the word for a longer, almost lingering, look

he contemplated the scene – and that’s what sparked his faith.

I want to encourage you to do exactly this.

Allow yourself long enough to look at your passage of God’s word so your heart can beat in time with His.