The following is from William Zinsser’s classic On Writing Well. His comments can just as easily be applied to preaching.
[T]he secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what – these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to education and rank.
William Zinsser, On Writing Well (Collins, 2006), 6-7.
Google Wave is a new, collaborative environment poised to recast the way we think about online communication. It’s actually quite a difficult experience to describe. Think email plus instant messaging with a healthy dose of Wikipedia. It’s bizarre and surreal, but it’s cool. So as the hoards await their invitations to the popular new technology, let’s present a sarcastic emergent use case.
Google Wave provides the platform for the ultimate community worship service. Gone are the days when your pastor preaches to you. With Google Wave, you can contribute to his words! First, the congregation should be equipped with laptops or smartphones. Second, the worship service needs to be blanketed with WiFi so everyone can be equally connected – in spirit and in ethernet. Read the rest of this entry »
Numbers 14:1-20 presents a somewhat difficult problem for “closed theists” – those who are not open theists. Verse 20 has thrown more than a few interpreters for a loop. The people have come to the end of their wilderness wandering and are set to take possession of the promised land. But following a fearful report from a majority of the spies sent into the land, they grumble against the LORD and the nation’s leaders and decide to elect a new leader who will take them back to Egypt. The LORD descends to judge the people and tells Moses that He will disinherit this people, destroy them and start over with Moses’ seed. But Moses intercedes on behalf of the people and following Moses’ intercession for the nation of Israel, the LORD responds “I have pardoned according to your word.” Moses’ word spares the people from judgment.
But we might ask How does Moses’ word have any power? God says that he has pardoned the people according to Moses’ word. Does Moses have authority over the LORD? How is this possible? This is the difficulty that open theists relish in. Let me propose that to understand this passage we need to consider Moses’ relation to our ultimate intercessor Jesus Christ.
Though Moses’ work had a unique, historical significance, he ultimately points us to the work of Christ. Just as Moses led God’s people out of slavery from Egypt and then on a path through the wilderness to inhabit the promised land, Jesus Christ has led his people out of the slavery of sin, through the wilderness of our struggles in this world toward our ultimate rest in the new heavens and new earth.
1 Timothy 2:5 is very clear that there is one mediator between God and man and that is Jesus Christ. But insofar as Moses was a true mediator, his mediation was founded upon the true mediation of Jesus Christ. Moses was a mediator because Christ would be the mediator. So how does the LORD pardon his people according to Moses’ word? It’s because Moses was a priest who through God’s power spoke and mediated in the power of the coming Messiah.
In a somewhat Klinian sense, Moses’ office is sacramental of Christ’s office as our great high priest. Moses’ words and actions have authority insofar as they are congruent with and anticipate the words and actions of Jesus Christ. I’m inclined to think that this line of thinking could be developed toward a better understanding of the authority of the church’s ordained officers and particularly, the authority of the preached word. Granted, we no longer have [earthly] priests who intercede for us, but I do believe we could learn a lesson on the source of ministerial authority from Numbers 14.
The typical knock on redemptive-historical sermons is that they are all basically the same. They start in the garden, quickly move through whatever text is being addressed and then make a beeline to show how Christ fulfills the types, shadows and promises therein.
R. L. Dabney has something to say about this single-sermon phenomenon in his Evangelical Eloquence. In addressing a similar concern, Dabney discusses why sermons should not attempt to be complete syllabi in theology.
These two results would then be inevitable: that there could be but one sermon in substance, and that this one sermon must remain for ever a bare syllabus. The hearers would therefore never gain a full and impressive view of any one point of Christian theology; they could never receive more than a barren smattering of sacred knowledge (112).
If every sermon was a complete doctrinal syllabi then each sermon would be the same, bare treatment. Dabney argues that in order for the hearers to be taught the whole counsel of God in its manifold richness, each sermon must bear the text’s distinctive focus. I think Dabney is exactly right.
I also think that the perennial criticism of redemptive-historical preaching is not altogether accurate. Granted, RH preachers tend to start in the garden. RH preachers are also quick to show how Christ fulfilled the types and promises of the Old Testament. But is that such a bad thing? Shouldn’t Christ, his work and its organic relation to all of Scripture be proclaimed in every sermon?
I’m no advocate of lazy preaching. Younger RH preachers, especially, have the tendency to write each sermon as the same sweeping view of the entire Bible. RH preachers need to be careful to demonstrate each passage’s unique place in the history of special revelation. This, however, does not necessitate that RH preachers eschew Christological connections. All preachers are duty-bound to proclaim Christ in all of Scripture. I’m convinced that failure to do so is failure to honor God in preaching.
This is the first time these sermons from the great reformer have been translated and available. This volume is a nicely bound book.
As Paul writes a letter of encouragement and instruction to Titus, he describes the Christian life in chapter 2. Whenever redemptive-historical preachers arrive at passages like this, they often automatically begin thinking of the indicative/imperative relationship. The indicative aspect of a text is the foundation or necessary state of affairs that provides the context and ability for the imperative, which is comprised of the commands and requirements that flow from the text.
The relationship is a one-way relationship. We always begin with the indicative and only then do we move to the imperative. Reversing the order results in neo-nomianism and semi-Pelagian thinking. As a knee-jerk reaction against moralistic preaching, the tendency can be to overstress the indicative. But is this even possible? Can the person and work of Christ take too prominent a role in preaching? Perhaps it can if it leads to an exclusion of the imperative. But let me suggest a way of thing about the relation of the indicative and imperative elements of Scripture in preaching. Read the rest of this entry »
In his wonderful collection Evangelical Eloquence: A Course of Lectures on Preaching R. L. Dabney lays out a course in sacred rhetoric for preachers. This is an area our American public education system has long since forgotten. While our culture still places a premium on the skills of rhetoric, the emphases of classical education have since passed away. So much has been said and written of late regarding President Obama’s oratory skills and his ability to mesmerize a crowd (at least with a teleprompter!) that we should be reinvigorated for the much more important work of preaching.
In the introductory lecture, Dabney describes the art of preaching. First, he reminds us that the sacred calling of preaching is not above the study of rhetoric.
The assumption that the preacher’s sacred attitude is above rhetoric reveals ignorance of the nature of true art. Let us then, at the outset, seek a correct conception of it. And we may be led to this idea by considering the distinction between art and artifice. Art is but the rational adjustment of means to an end. Art is adaptation; it employs proper means for a worthy end; it is but wisdom in application (15-16).
He builds upon this definition by stating that because of the nature of the activity and message, preachers not only have a suggestion to study rhetoric, but a duty.
But I assert none the less that, since this duty is to convey gospel truth effectively to other souls, and since there are adapted means by which this end may be the better accomplished, there is a true art of preaching, which is not only lawful and honest, but sacredly obligatory… Art, I repeat, is but a well-adapted method, and the real option which we have is not between art and nature, but only between art wise and art foolish, art skilful [sic], or art clumsy (16-17).
Let all ministers of the gospel be concerned not only with the integrity and weight of their message, but with delivering that message well with the skill that honors it.
