Theocentric Preaching

The two presuppositions we looked at last week lead to two practices.

The first practice is exegetical. Exegesis involves studying the text: examining the context and structure, and examining the passage using literary, grammatical, and historic-cultural interpretation. In exegesis, we try to understand the meaning of the text, and the author’s intent in writing it.

As we prepare God-centered sermons, our exegesis must ask two questions of the text. First, “What is the vision of God in this passage?” What does it reveal about God’s character, acts, grace, and will? God is present in every text, even if the text does not explicitly mention him.

Second, what “aspect of our fallen condition [in the text]…requires and displays God’s provision?” Haddon Robinson writes:

This human factor is the condition that men and women have in common with the characters in the Bible. The human factor may show up in sins such as rebellion, unbelief, adultery, greed, laziness, selfishness, or gossip. It may also show up in people puzzling about the human condition as a result of sickness, grief, anxiety, doubt, trials, or the sense that God has misplaced their names and addresses. It is this human factor that usually prompted the prophets and apostles to speak or write what they did.

If we are to preach a biblical message that is both God-centered and relevant, then we must answer these two questions at the exegesis stage of preparation. The preacher must discover the God-centered message and its application during exegesis.

Tomorrow: a second practice

continued from yesterday

I have observed three approaches to preaching that lead to human-centered sermons.

The first approach is therapeutic preaching. This preaching focuses on people’s felt needs such as how to build relationships, handle stress, manage money, raise children, and resolve conflicts. In a therapeutic culture, the pressure to preach this way is intense.

Therapeutic preaching, however, comes at a cost. It is often not based on a vision of God and the gospel. It can lead to a self-help approach and narcissism. At its worst, it can resemble a Christian version of pop-psychology, or what one person calls “chicken soup for the Christian life.” This type of preaching brings to mind “the image of Jesus calling Lazarus from the grave”, write Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk. “Most preaching is about how to cope with a life wrapped in grave clothing that is never removed.”

Haddon Robinson, author of Biblical Preaching, recounts hearing a sermon on how to overcome procrastination. He knew they were in trouble, he says, when the first point was to buy a DayTimer. “The Bible is a book about God,” Robinson writes. “It is not a religious book of advice about the ‘answers’ we need about a happy marriage, sex, work, or losing weight. Although the Scriptures reflect on many of those issues, they are above all about who God is and what God thinks and wills. I understand reality only if I have an appreciation for who he is and what he desires for his creation and from his creation.”

tomorrow: a second human-centered approach

The final version of my thesis includes this paragraph:

Theocentric preaching does not begin with the inexhaustible demands of the human condition; it begins with the sufficiency of God. Rather than dwelling in the depth of human need, it lives within the realm of God’s richness. The preacher is not pressured to only provide answers; instead, the preacher brings the congregation into the presence of God, who is on a mission to re-create the cosmos and to redeem all things. Discouragement is part of the assignment of preaching, but a theocentric approach reminds us that our sufficiency is not found in ourselves. God, not the preacher, is the only source of eternal satisfaction and joy.

This is not the paragraph I had originally written. I had originally argued that theocentric preaching can help prevent against discouragement. Haddon Robinson challenged me during my thesis defense. There is no way, he said, to avoid being discouraged as a preacher. I forget his exact words, but the phrase in the paragraph above comes pretty close: “Discouragement is part of the assignment of preaching.”

There probably aren’t many preachers who don’t get discouraged at least part of the time. The main character in the novel Gilead wrote, “So often I have known, right here in the pulpit, even as I read these words, how far they fell short of any hopes I had for them.” In Lectures to My Students, Spurgeon wrote:

Be not dismayed by soul-trouble. Count it no strange thing, but part of ordinary ministerial experiences. Should the power of depression be more than ordinary, think not that all is over with your usefulness. Cast not away your confidence, for it hath great recompense of reward…Cast the burden of the present, along with the sin of the past and the fear of the future, upon the Lord, who forsaketh not His saints. Live by the day - ay, but the hour. Put no trust in frames and feelings…Trust in God alone, and lean not on the needs of human help…When your own emptiness is painfully forced upon your consciousness, chide yourself that you ever dreamed of being full, except in the Lord…In nothing let us be turned aside from the path which the divine call has urged us to pursue.

Discouragement is part of the assignment of preaching, but it’s also a reminder to us that our hope doesn’t lie within ourselves or the people around us. As i wrote in my thesis, “Our sufficiency is not found in ourselves. God, not the preacher, is the only source of eternal satisfaction and joy.”