Preaching

In Lexington, KY

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We are in Lexington, KY in a Residence Inn.  Nice.  Our good buddy hooked us up with a sweet room for like $100 cheaper than if we got it ourselves.  We are headed tomorrow to Oneida, KY where I speak at the OBI commitment week.

Tonight we spent time with my good buddy and former pastor, Kyle McClellan and his family.  Then we had dinner at Ruby Tuesdays with Wes, Nick, Julie, Isaac and Kyle.  I've never had so many things go wrong at dinner, and may post more details on that soon (if I feel I need to vent).  But the company was great.  Van joined all of us for conversation after dinner with the guys hanging out first at Coffee Times (skim moka cap) and the ladies at the hotel with the kiddos.  Then we all merged at the Inn for conversation to about 1am with an Ale 8 chaser.  Yeah buddy.  It was a great time with good friends who we first met while they were studying at the University of Kentucky.  I haven't laughed that hard in some time, usually over some of Wes' hilarious comments about cardiologists.

Today we drove for 7+ hours, dropped a few bills at the SBTS bookstore (it's all about the Hamiltons, baby), spent some change at Ear-x-tacy in Louisville (which is a fantastic independent music store), ate at Stevens & Stevens Delicatessen (the Woody Allen and garlic roasted potatoes), and spent a ton of time hanging and talking with friends.

I may not be able to update much over the next few days, but if/when I get on for a minute I'll try to let you know how things are going.  My first talk at OBI is Sunday night at 7pm.  Then Monday through Wednesday I speak at morning chapel and then in the evening at 7pm (except I don't speak Wednesday chapel).  If you think about it, please pray for me and the students at OBI.

Keller: Preaching to Believers/Unbelievers

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Tim Keller gave a lecture at Covenant Seminary in 2004 on Preaching to Believers and Unbelievers.  He deals with a few very important points.  One of them is about the power of the preaching event over the moralistic application of the sermon (evidenced by taking notes).  I have quoted Keller on this issue recently.  He also deals with Deconstructing Defeater Beliefs in the lecture.  Give it a listen.

Keller: Informational vs Experiential Preaching

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The "informational" view of preaching conceives of preaching as changing people's lives afterthe sermon. They listen to the sermon, take notes, and then apply the Biblical principles during the week. But this assumes that our main problem is a lack of compliance to Biblical principles, when (as we saw above) all our problems are actually due to a lack of joy and belief in the gospel. Our real problem is that Jesus' salvation is not as real to our hearts as the significance and security our idols promise us. If that’s our real problem, then the purpose of preaching is to make Christ so real to the heart that in the sermon people have an experience of his grace, and the false saviors that drive us lose their power and grip on us on the spot. That’s the "experiential" view of preaching (Jonathan Edwards.)

Tim Keller in "Ministering in the New Global Culture of Major City-Centers, Part II"
Other Tim Keller Resources

Can of Peaches

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Mark Driscoll uses a great illustration that summarizes much of the book of Ecclesiastes. 

He says that people are living life with a big can of peaches and no can-opener.  We walk around wanting peaches but can't get to them.  We are frustrated!  God comes to us in our frustration and says, "I have a canopener."  Ecclesiastes, as a book to be read with Genesis 3 and the Fall in mind, is wonderfully redemptive.

Ecclesiastes

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I've started preaching through Ecclesiastes and expect to preach on it at least through Easter, maybe a few weeks more.  You can check out the commentaries and books I'm using on the left sidebar part way down.  Some are more helpful than others and I'm not "clicking" with any of them totally.  At least not yet.

Who wrote Ecclesiastes?  Ecclesiastes says it's "Qohelet" or the "assembler" probably pointing to 1 Kings 8 where Solomon gathers God's people at the Temple dedication.  It's a "Son of David" and a "King in Jerusalem" according to 1:1.  A lot of evidence points to Solomon, and most of the conservative, pastoral writers say it's Solomon.   

Many of the commentators say someone else borrowing the voice of Solomon.  I don't think we must say it's Solomonic since the writer of Ecclesiastes doesn't make that explicit claim, but I haven't read anyone who denies the fact that we are intended to have Solomon in mind.  And I wonder if Solomon would purposefully keep his name off the writing (though not his identity) because of how he lived his life as an idolater (1 Kings 11).

We need to keep our "solas" in place here and only demand what Scripture claims, but I don't see any problem with believing the writer is Solomon.  Sure there are internal reasons to wonder, like shifting from a "framers" perspective (Eccl 1:1-11, 12:8-14) to Qohelet's perspective.  But why must this mean dual authorship or the framing of someone else's writings?  As Peter Leithart writes on his blog about commentators who rejects Solomonic authorship: "The imagination of the commentator has not come near to reckoning with the imagination of the speaker."  In other words, it could very well be Solomon creatively writing for impact.  Why must we assume other authors/framers?

Solomon speaks much of life "under the sun."  To me it clearly points us to Genesis 3 where God is explaining what life is going to be like after the fall.  With Adam we hear there is going to be toil (hard work, even misery) and sweat.  Under the sun + toil = sweat.  Nice imagery in the linking of these writings. 

I think Ecclesiastes is about the best efforts of the best man with every privilege to make sense out of life under the sun (after the fall).  And last Sunday I told my people that the only hope we have "under the sun" is to know the One "beyond the sun."

Funny Preachers

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The concert the other night was at a local church.  And there was that moment, like at all church concerts, when the preacher comes out and makes some type of gospel presentation.  He didn't encourage walking the aisle or anything (thankfully), but he did have the crowd rolling as he tried to convey the truth.  Really funny guy.

But there was one little joke/story in the middle of what he said that made me realize that he was about to lose everyone.  He had us laughing and thinking, and then he didn't know when to stop.  I was distracted because he told one too many jokes.

Why do preachers strive to be funny?  The only thing I could think positively about humor is that it breaks down barriers and gets people to listen.  And the reason a preacher would need to use humor is because he is speaking to people he doesn't really know. 

The pastor at the concert was talking to many who were not members or attenders of his church, and for us the humor did work to get us to listen.  So his humor is understandable. 

But don't we know of preachers who are week-in and week-out funny?  Humor seems to be a huge part of their approach.  My thought: they must not know their people very well.  There must be a barrier that must be crossed to get them to listen.  Yeah, I know it can be other things, like people want to be entertained or whatever.  But I think my point is still true, humor in "the pulpit" is so popular because relationships are not, because love is not obvious enough.

Though it seems to "work," is humor really necessary and helpful to open ears?  Didn't Peter in Acts 2 use the crowd's questions about tongues and accusations about the sin of the crowd to break down barriers? 

I think we need a real discussion among pastors to see if humor isn't a bandaid on a bigger problem, because my dad doesn't need to tell me a joke before he gives me advice.  I'm always listening because I know he loves me.

The Letter of James

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Moo_jamesDoug_moo_2I'm finishing up the fourth chapter of James in my sermon this Sunday.  I've really enjoyed preaching through James, and have seen many important issues work through the life of my church. 

The main commentary I've been using is the Pillar New Testament Commentary on James by Douglas Moo (who is obviously the long, lost twin brother of Stephen King with different writing goals). 

I've also been using other commentaries.  Kent Hughes, Thomas Manton, Peter Davids, and the New Bible Commentary among others.  But none of them are as good as Moo.  I'm very happy with it and encourage you to pick it up if you need a fairly critical commentary on James.

Bible Exposition

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I'm almost finished with Brian McLaren's book, The Church on the Other Side.  I don't like everything inside, and I would only recommend it thoughtfully.  But I have tried to pull out quotes here and there that I thought properly challenged current church practice and thought.  Here's another one of those.

    What did our churches become in modernity but places of Bible exposition (aka objective textual analysis)?  What was the ticket to spiritual leadership if not Bible scholarship (that is, credentials certifying our competence at applying modern analytical tools to Bible study)?  If our churches leaned to the liberal side, we tended to reduce the Bible to nothing but myths, and if they leaned to the conservative, we tended to reduce it to nothing but propositions, principles, abstractions, doctrines.

    Can you see how for maybe four hundred years this could remain interesting and engaging, but after five hundred, our culture would be ready for a new approach...something less reductionistic, something more holistic and maybe even mysterious?

(Pages 193-194.)

I would love to hear some reaction to this, especially from people who are like me who think that expositional preaching is the heart of all good preaching (whether narrative, doctrinal, etc).