What’s for Dinner?
It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word of God.
~ Luke 4:4
You’ve probably seen, or could imagine a scene where a starving man at last lays hold of food and he can’t shove food and drink in his mouth fast enough. What do you think would happen if you sat a starving man down to a feast of rich food? Reality is probably much different than what you imagine.
To Build a Bridge
In 1942, the Japanese captured Scotsman Ernest Gordon and others as they attempted to sail from Indonesia to Sri Lanka and took them back to Singapore. They were force marched to a prison camp in the jungles of Thailand. There Gordon was part of the labor crew forced to build the infamous bridge on the River Kwai. The bridge was a part of the Japanese railway to transport supplies and support their planned attack on India.
The conditions in that concentration camp were reportedly some of the worst known in World War II. Unlike many others, Gordon survived the prison camp for over three years until the Japanese surrender in 1945 and he was liberated. Gordon endured malnutrition and extended starvation among other unimaginable tortures and sufferings. They had been fed just enough to barely keep them alive. It was not enough for many. It was said that for every railroad tie laid there was one life lost among the prisoners. Gordon himself was even sent to the “death house” in the camp where they sent prisoners who were expected to die soon, and yet he still survived.
When Gordon was freed, he was taken to a British military hospital set up in Rangoon in Burma for treatment. Gordon described himself and the others as living skeletons and they did not fall on tables of food when they first arrived like hungry lions on a wildebeest. They did savor some fresh brewed tea and fresh baked white bread, but they couldn’t eat much of anything they did eat. What they could eat was nothing very solid and Gordon said it was quite a long time before he could eat any meat at all. These men had to be slowly brought back to life and relied on small portions of soft food and heavy doses of vitamin and mineral supplements. Most of us have never known starvation like that.
If you’re like me, you look forward to all the family gathered around the Thanksgiving table for the best meal of the year. You probably even skimp on breakfast and lunch in preparation. What if this Thanksgiving the family was all gathered around the table and Grandmother didn’t bring food to the table, but instead brought pictures of turkey and ham? What if instead of anyone eating anything, she read aloud some of her recipes for sweet potato pie and cranberry salad? Would you be pleased? Would you in any way be satisfied?
As Gordon and the other men survived extended starvation and malnutrition in the camp, they began to be more interested in pictures of food than pictures of calendar girls. They pinned up pictures of roast beef, apple pie, potatoes, and chocolate cake on the walls of the hut. They took great pleasure in listening to a recipe for angel food cake being read aloud, and were tantalized by the pronounced ingredients. Of course, they couldn’t have truly enjoyed what they most longed for if roast beef and potatoes along with hot apple pie were set in front of them. That’s the sad reality of their situation.
The Bible is Food
The Bible compared to food is a common metaphor in the Bible itself. The prophet Amos spoke the word of the Lord about a time coming when there would be a famine, not of bread and water, but a famine of “hearing the word of the LORD” (Amos 8:11). Job treasured God’s word more than his meal (Job 23:12). Jesus charged Peter to “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17). Paul charged the elders of the Ephesian church to “feed the church of God” (Acts 20:28). Peter echoed the charge he had received as he charged elders to “feed the flock of God” (1 Peter 5:2).
The food Christians need fed is the word of God. The primary job of preachers is to feed people the word of God. Bad preaching is bad food. A steady diet of bad preaching is like a steady diet of junk food. In twenty-one years of ministry I’ve been persistently dismayed by the amount of junk food preaching coming from pulpits. I’ve been even more dismayed by the number of people that prefer junk food preaching over wholesome and nourishing preaching. They pass by roast beef and potatoes preaching for potato chip and candy bar preaching.
Paul warned about people having itching ears and it shouldn’t surprise us when sugar-addicted children choose the line doling out sugar sticks as opposed to the line where real meat, fruit, and vegetables are well-prepared and served. It is sometimes the case that people prefer junk food preaching because they’re always chasing a sugar rush through light snacks that any grandma worthy of the matronly office would tell you will ruin your dinner.
Gordon and the bridge builders in the Valley of the Kwai would tell us it’s not always the case though. It is sometimes the case that people have been malnourished and starved for so long that they cannot tolerate hearty and substantial food. Their praise of bad preaching in churches and at conferences is more like Gordon’s men drooling over pictures of roast beef and potatoes while they were nowhere near ready to actually eat such a meal. Like POW’s, many Christians are so used to being fed only enough to barely sustain life that they are just not ready to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast.
A Prescribed Food Regiment
A preacher’s job is not to beat and berate such sick sheep who are ready to die, and to give them only a thick steak to eat would be cruel. Paul told Timothy that Christ’s servants must be gentle, patient, and meek to feed, or teach, God’s flock with the greatest care (2 Timothy 2:24-26). Being “right” doesn’t give you the right to be harsh, hot-headed, and rough instead. God’s flock needs to fed with the faithful word (Titus 1:9) in order to be healthy and mature properly (Ephesians 4:11-16).
Paul put it best when he charged Timothy, “Preach the word” (1 Timothy 4:1). That “word” means all the scripture, or the whole Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Faithful, persistent exposition of the Bible gives people God’s words and is like taking the best fresh ingredients and preparing a hearty meal. It is a proper balance of sweet and savory. It is a nourishing and satisfying blend of spices mixed with the raw ingredients.
You may have been suffering biblical starvation for so long that you’re more concerned with the idea of real food than you are actual food. For the good of your soul and the souls of your family, ditch the junk food and go to where you will be nourishingly fed God’s whole words (Proverbs 19:27).
Why Exposition is Unnecessary
Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things
~ Isaiah 30:10
His method, or process, will depend on what kind of sermon he intends to preach. How many kinds are there? Not as many as you might think. By referring to the kind of sermon, I’m not talking about style of delivery, which varies with every different preacher. I’m talking about the way the sermon is built, or what it is built around. Speaking in the broadest possible terms, there are few options.
Topical
A topical sermon is built around a topic or subject. It could be delivered in a variety of styles, but the content of the sermon is structured around a topic. If your pastor intends to preach a topical sermon from the text you selected, he will look at the text for key words, phrases, or suggested images. He would be looking for words or suggestions of topics like faith, love, grace, hope, sin, God’s word, or the church. Having identified a topic in the text, he will next think of three points he wants to make about that topic. Of course three points is a rule of thumb and not an inviolable law of preaching. He might have two points, or four. He could optionally make the points rhyme, have the same rhythm, or start with the same letter.
For each of his points, he will need some supporting verses. He will use a concordance, possibly Strong’s, to search for words related to his points and select a few verses to reinforce his points. If it’s a familiar topic, he may already have many verses to use so he looks those up to make sure he gets the reference right. Along with supporting verses he will need some illustrations. He can sift through his own experiences and come up with some. He can borrow some illustrations from other preachers. Depending on his personality, he may not give this too much thought ahead of time and rely on off the cuff illustrations.
He will need some introductory and concluding material. He has many options at this point. He can talk about why this topic is important, why it is needed, or even why it is neglected. He may include actionable steps of application so you will be prepared to pray more, sin less, have more faith, or be more forgiving.
Expositional
Exposition is a big word little used except in certain circumstances. It has an archaic meaning: to expose to view. Simply put, exposition is a comprehensive explanation of some source material. Exposition is not a sermon, but a sermon is considered expositional, or expository, when it is built around the explanation of the meaning of a text. Exposition is the structural core of a sermon that holds it all together. Whatever points of observation are made, whatever points of application are made to the saved or lost, they come from the explained meaning of the text.
If your pastor intends to preach an expositional sermon from the blindfold text, he will start with a big picture, then zoom in to minute details, and zoom back out to put the sermon together. Exposition means getting to the original, intended, and contextual meaning of a passage. He will start with the big picture. Where is this text? Is it in the Old Testament or New Testament? Is it in a wisdom book, historical book, a Gospel, or an epistle? Those questions may seem too obvious to ask, but they are vital to properly interpreting a passage.
Once he has the aerial photo, he needs to zoom in drastically. He has to focus on the text and its setting. He has to consider biblical backgrounds, biblical languages, grammar, logical structure and flow. He has to start zooming out slowly to the broader context of the passage, the book it is in, and what it contributes to the book as a whole. He has to keep zooming out to consider the text’s place in the storyline of scripture, intertextual connections with other books, quotes, references, and allusions outside the text.
Next, he has to zoom out so that today is in the picture. Once he has properly interpreted the passage for its intended meaning, he has to connect that to today to make application to his modern hearers. If his text is in the old covenant dietary laws or Sabbath laws, does that mean we have to follow those today? What relevance do they have? If his text is a miracle of Jesus, how does that apply? If the text involves John the Baptist, does that mean we should all move to the desert, wear camel hair girdles, and eat locusts?
His introductory material will likely consist of background and setting of the passage, so it can be understood. His points will be developed from the passage itself. His concluding applications will come from the exposition of the passage and understanding of its place in the progress of revelation. He then brings home the relevance of the passage for us today.
Tribal
The tribal sermon could come under the topical umbrella, but it is quite the specimen and deserves its own pin and info card in the display case. If you talk about tribal rhetoric today, you will most likely be understood to talk about blind, fanatical political allegiances and groupings, i.e., tribes. Tribalism is just that, blind allegiance and loyalty to one’s own group. Tribalists blindly adhere to the worldview of the group, the tribe’s body of dogma, and jargon. Tribalists are immediately skeptical of anyone or any ideas not within the group, and they immediately know who is in and who is out. Tribalists presuppose their own group and collective groupthink to be superior to all others.
What is a tribal sermon? Tribal sermons are generally topical, but stick to an approved and acceptable set of topics. Tribal sermons are immediately critical of everything outside the tribe and reinforces the superiority of the tribe by either directly affirming the group or indirectly affirming the group by censuring all the non-group. One evidential feature of tribal sermons is the preacher making statements and using key phrases, which are accepted and applauded without any explanation or actual expositional proof from the Bible.
If your pastor intends to preach a tribal sermon, he considers whether the text is one of the tribal prooftexts. He may recognize this text is where we go to prove X doctrine, or that text is where we go to prove Y principle. If the text is not one of the standard prooftexts, he will consider if it is equivalent or close to one of the prooftexts. If the text is not a standard prooftext, or it doesn’t intersect conveniently with a prooftext, he has more work to do. He must consider the tribe’s set of approved and acceptable topics and find some way to either preach that topic deliberately from the text, or bridge from the text to the topic.
He will need the appropriate introductory and concluding remarks. He will probably not try to get too creative and just stick with the tribal boilerplates. Regardless of the text or topic, tribal sermons tend to abide certain conventions at the bookends of the sermon. They start with some variation on how important the subject is that is about to be preached, how nobody today is preaching on this subject, how everybody else is wrong about it, or how nobody else knows or understands it. Advanced onset tribalism will even press these critical claims toward those “within the group” who are not sufficiently emphasizing the tribal talking points. Tribal sermons tend to be thin on application and more about what you know and who knows and don’t know. There’s always a looming threat of being “out” of the tribe and so loyalty is reinforced.
Summary
What sermon would your pastor preach from the selected text? What sermon does he preach from the texts he selects? One of the questions or debates about preaching is whether exposition is necessary or not. It may surprise you to hear this, but exposition is not necessary all the time. If your pastor intends to preach a topical sermon as described above, exposition is unnecessary. He can find inspiration for sermons all around him. He may even have a sermon he wants to preach and needs only find a text to preach it from. In that case, exposition is unnecessary.
If your pastor intends to preach a tribal sermon, exposition is unnecessary. The tribe already provides a set of topics and prooftexts that are acceptable. The Bible must always be filtered through these, so the real work involved is figuring out how to fit a text in when it doesn’t seem to fit naturally. He can make pre-approved statements and exposition is unnecessary.
Of course, exposition is always necessary if he intends to the preach the word as God gave it. Sorry, but I don’t know any way around that. So, who’s ready to play?
Speaking Non-Signs
… they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
~ Acts 17:11
How can you be sure the Bible is being preached when you go to church? That could be a big answer. The church is responsible for that, so it’s also an important answer. I suppose we could come up with numerous ways of confirming the biblicalness of a sermon. I want to approach this from the other direction. We mistakenly assign authority to a message by a number of trappings that have nothing to do with the actual content of the sermon. I am going to give you seven non-signs the Bible is being preached. The presence of any or all of these signs in no way ensures the Bible is actually being preached.
1. A six-pound, three inch thick, black leather bound Bible is laid open on the pulpit
Such a Bible makes an impressive visual, but is the Bible necessary? Is it being used? We’ve all heard sermons where the preacher read his springboard text and then never returned to the Bible at all. If he would have closed his Bible and laid it aside after reading the text, it wouldn’t have changed a thing about the sermon. Some preachers have said the same things repeatedly for so long, they don’t even need a Bible in the pulpit to preach from. If the Bible is not being read, explained, and applied from the pulpit, the Bible is not being preached.
2. The preacher told you God gave him the message
The more a preacher primes the congregation by telling them God gave him this message, laid it on his heart, or otherwise told him to preach it, the more wary you should be. The sermons I have heard most qualified with those kinds of statements were the most obviously not from God, because they were not preaching the Bible. God did such with Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Peter, and Paul. This is how he communicated his word through his prophets and apostles. That revelation is complete and we already have it. He is not giving new revelation today. God has given preachers a message. It’s called the Bible and has sixty-six books. There are thirty-nine Old Testament books and twenty-seven New Testament books. Your preacher should take a text and preach it, and then you can be sure it is a message from God because it’s on the page in front of you.
3. The preacher says things you agree with
Just because a preacher is saying what you want to hear or what you like to hear, that is no sign he’s actually preaching the Bible. He may cycle through your pet doctrines like a politician hitting the talking points at a political rally, but that doesn’t mean He’s preaching the Bible. Ear-tickling comes in many forms and one of those forms is the preacher regularly regaling the congregation with their favorite doctrines or topics. The Scripture Paul told Timothy to preach is profitable for doctrine, but also for reproof and correction (2 Timothy 3:16). He warned that itching ears abound that will not endure actual Bible preaching (2 Timothy 4:3). If God is holy and we are sinners, then God’s words will cross us sooner or later. If the Bible is being preached, you Christian church goer will be reproved and corrected.
4. The preacher says some things that are in the Bible somewhere
A preacher can make true statements from the pulpit, but still not be actually preaching the Bible. On the whole, making true statements is better than making false statements, but that still falls short of the command to preach the word. Bible preaching is when the text is explained and applied. The content of the sermon consists of what is explicitly stated in the text and the consequences properly deduced from the text. It isn’t enough that the sermon’s substance can be found in the sixty-six books somewhere. It must be found in the text, if he’s to preach the Bible.
5. The church has the “right” doctrinal statement
The church may have a statement of faith that hits all the right points in your mind, but that doesn’t mean the Bible is being preached from the pulpit. Because we are humans and fallible, we can be inconsistent. We can be orthodox in one area and heterodox in another. But even if all our doctrinal ducks quack on cue, that doesn’t mean Scripture is being explained and applied every week. If a church’s doctrinal statement is actually biblical, then preaching the Bible will affirm it again and again. If Bible preaching causes you to lose articles from your doctrinal statement, that is a good indication those articles weren’t biblical to begin with. The true orthodoxy of a church is not measured by it’s church documents, but by the Bible being regularly preached from the pulpit.
6. The church and/or the preacher has the “right” pedigree
The church’s particular bona fides in terms of their lineage or associations, does not mean the Bible is being preached. The fact that a church came from, recognizes, or otherwise fellowships with another particular church does not mean the Bible is being preached. Similarly, the fact that a preacher has a certain last name, certain family connections, or the endorsement of certain other preachers does not mean he is or will actually preach the Bible. Some churches are more concerned about a preacher’s connections when it comes to having him preach, or even in calling a pastor, than they are whether he will stand up, take a text, and preach it.
7. The preacher looks like a preacher
We put more stock in appearances today than perhaps any generation before us. Many have the idea of what a preacher should look like in their minds. A man may have a matching three-piece suit, french cuffs, shiny shoes, and coordinated necktie and pocket square, but that has nothing to do with whether or not he’s preaching the Bible. For some, facial hair for a preacher is an abomination, while the absence of it is unmanly for others. We are far too concerned about appearances and set up standards that are nowhere to be found in the pages of Scripture. A preacher may fit well your idea of what a preacher should look like, but that doesn’t mean he’s preaching the Bible.
Conclusion
I have given you seven non-signs the Bible is being preached. You may think I’m saying the things I listed don’t matter at all. I am not saying they don’t matter at all. I am saying they don’t matter more than the fact the Bible is not being preached from the pulpit. If you believe in the inspiration of Scripture, inerrancy of Scripture, authority of Scripture, and sufficiency of Scripture, then you must accept no less and nothing else than God’s Scripture being opened, read, expounded in its original context, and applied to the saved and unsaved today.
