AntiKJVOs, how do you prepare for teaching/preaching?

[FSSL]

Where do you start?
How do you progress?
How do you transition from exegesis to preaching/teaching?

 

[rsc2a]

Depends on if it's a topical or expository teaching. For topical messages, the first part would be selecting the topic. This is generally driven by one of the following factors:

- If something I've read, heard, or been asked that brings to mind a particular issue that I build upon
- If I see a point where I think that there is a lot of room for growth because the common understanding is very shallow and or simply incorrect.
- If I see where we can go deeper and cover a lot of ground by a series of related topics, topics that will reinforce each other and, thereby, have a larger impact that the single issue.
- Especially if I see a place where bias is causing people to follow a cultural-driven version of Jesus instead of living Son of God.

Ideally, the topic will be a combination of one or all of these. For example, I recently taught a three-part series on faith, hope and love. Although each one was discussed in different weeks, a major emphasis was how they are completely inter-dependent and reinforced each other: how they individually emphasizing past action, present action, and future action.

In the introduction which also included the teaching on faith, we read the 1 Cor 13 passage where these are listed together then discussed this inter-dependency. I taught about how faith looks back to what God has done ("We have been saved"), the hope looks to what God will do ("We will be saved"), and the love looks at what God is doing ("We are being saved"). I also showed how it was portrayed in the idea of the God who was (faith), is (love) and is to come (hope). I began by asking about why the OT matters. I pointed out that something like 12% of sermons a week are from the OT despite the fact that it makes up about 2/3 of our Scriptures. Then I did a bit of church history and explained about who Marcion of Sinope was and what heresies he was spreading and pointed out that a lot of churches today are functionally, if not ideologically, practicing Marcionism-lite. After this, we talked about what faith actually is, how context matters, and saving faith is properly understood as trust, not factual knowledge. (For this, we looked at how John and James seem to use the word "believe" differently and I pointed out how the demons are the only players in the gospels who seem to have the right theology.) The major thrust of the discussion ended up being how faith = trust which results when we look at how God has responded in history, beginning with the OT, following this with His grand display of power/justification in the Resurrection, and how we do this today by living in community and celebrating with each other as we are delivered from various things, thus showing the vitality of both community and openness with struggles and instances of redemption.

(I've lost my notes so don't have all the references and some numbers may be off as a result.)

 

[rsc2a]

The next time we talked about hope because I wanted to end the series on the present. It was more of an expository teaching on this topical message coming out of 1 Peter 1:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. (1 Peter 1:3-12 ESV)

We tackled this in reverse order beginning with the idea that our hope springs from having faith in God as He has moved in the lives of others, beginning with the protoevangelium through Abraham to the Exodus to the Judges to the Kingdom up to Jesus and the "not yet" that we hope for. (v 10-12) In this, I pointed to hope is for what will come based on what God has already done. (Rom 8:25-26 and Heb 11:1)

Then we reviewed faith (Though you do not see him you... v. 8) to emphasis how faith and hope are intertwined.

Onto that, we went into suffering as discussed in the earlier verses and what is accomplished by our suffering. (We grow in faith as we are brought out thereby our hope increases because faith and hope are so codependent.)

Then we got to the earliest part of the passage where we have a living hope because our hope (and faith) is ultimately in Jesus. We have faith because of the Resurrection, and we have hope because of the Resurrection.

I then concluded with these words from 1 Thess:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 ESV)

 

[rsc2a]

Finally, we ended with love. From the passage in 1 John:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. (1 John 4:7-18 ESV)

Began with "why does this matter" out of verse 7. Then taught that love is a Person (well, three Persons ) In this, I emphasized the deity of Jesus especially from Col 2:9 and Heb 1:3, how Jesus is the perfect expression of God.

Then the discussion was on how Love reconciles and Love restores...how these are the actions of Love. (v 10) Next was the call-to-action verses 11-12 expressed by God's gift that allows us to love (v 13).

Next "...the Father has sent his Son..." pushes us back into faith (past action) and results in hope ("...confidence for the day of judgment...").

The final point was the idea taught here that we are being perfected in love. I went through the Orthodox word for this, theosis, whereby we are becoming more and more like God. I went back to Genesis where man was created in the image of God and Jesus is the perfect image of God (as God incarnate); therefore, Jesus is the perfect man. (We also very briefly touched on the hypostatic union here since the idea of Jesus as God and Jesus as man is stressed at the beginning and middle of this passage, respectively.)

From here, the discussion was on the predominate idea in Scripture of sin as "missing the mark", and the mark we miss is full humanity. The end result is that sin is not breaking arbitrary rules but violating the very nature we were created to have, that with continuing sin we become less and less human. I also pointed out that this is why people who continue in sin find it easier and easier to commit sin and as people grow in righteousness, they find it easier to refuse the sin set before them.



And that is a (brief?) idea of how I go about preparing and presenting lessons when I am responsible for teaching.

 

[Ransom]

Since my university training is in rhetoric and writing, I tend to follow a classical approach to preparation. (Preaching, by the way, is one of the very few disciplines where a true classical rhetoric is still practiced.)

The five classical canons of rhetoric are inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and pronuntiato. The latter two (basically, memorization and delivery) are not really of concern when it comes to preparation, so that leaves the first three. I'm sure every preacher does something just like this, even if they didn't know how ancient the practice was or that these steps had names.

• Inventio is the discovery of arguments. For me, this involves reading a given text, both by itself and in the greater context of the chapter or book in which it occurs: finding out how it "fits" in the overall argument or narrative that the author is making. I make note of the overall themes and work out a direction that I want to go with the sermon. I then move on to a closer reading of the text to determine exactly what the author means. (I am assuming an expository rather than a topical presentation here, since that is what I generally do.) Since I am not knowledgeable of Greek or Hebrew, I rely on two or three translations to give me a fuller sense of the meaning.
  
  As I work, I take notes: not only of what the text clearly means, but also where I have questions that I can't answer on my own and would benefit from further research or study. I value the advice of my last senior pastor: you will learn more about the Scriptures if you try to discover as much as possible about the text on your own, before breaking into the commentaries. Nonetheless, the next round involves opening up a few trusted commentaries and finding out what they have to say. This serves to a) help me with my unanswered questions, b) fill in some background that might not have been obtainable through deduction; and c) as a check and balance against my own errors or false assumptions. I make use of whatever other helps will bring out the proper meaning of the text, as well: a lexicon (so far as I am able to use one properly), Bible encyclopedias and dictionaries, Wikipedia, other literature, whatever.
• Dispositio, or organization, comes next. I now have 3-4 sets of notes on the text that need to be combined into one unified presentation, and I also need to determine what argument I am trying to make and the best way to make it. This includes such things as working out how the immediate text fits into the grander scheme of redemptive history or the biblical metanarrative, the Christological implications, practical applications, and so forth.
• Elocutio refers to style. I tend to prefer speaking plainly over an affected grandiloquence, but there's still something to be said for memorable turns of phrase, good use of parallelism, discreet use of humour, apropos illustrations and analogies, and so forth.  Elocutio for me also means not using a three-point, alliterative sermon. Sorry, I think that shoehorning an argument into an awkward alliterative scheme is the very opposite of good style.

It goes without saying that all this is undertaken with prayer, reverence for the Scripture, and reliance on the Holy Spirit to enlighten my understanding as well as on providence to guide me to good arguments and resources. (I say it goes without saying, but virtually every time I explain my preparation methods--even when I do say it--some moron will accuse me of leaving God or the Holy Spirit out of it.)

 

[bibleprotector]

Where do you start?

Under the banner of Infidelity, we find Modernism, which seeks to lift up a new way against proper traditional standards; Liberalism emphasises the idea of freedom of human inquiry; Scepticism doubts that certain truth can be discovered; Higher criticism denies the inspiration of Scripture, but tries to give it a human origin. A variety of beliefs, from Deism to Atheism, thrive under the banner of Infidelity. This takes a rationalistic and empirical approach and has a naturalistic view of the Scripture itself.

Portions of these ideas have filtered through even to many conservative, evangelical and fundamentalist Christians.

The problem for the opposition in this debate is that they do not start from Scripture and the Holy Ghost, but from human reasoning. Thus, in the three areas of the lower Biblical textual criticism, the methodology of translation and interpretation (hermeneutics and exegesis), the influence of what is called Modernism (i.e. Infidelity) is apparent. The opposition in this debate accepts many of the same assumptions in regards to TRANSMISSION (particularly text), PRESERVATION (particularly translation or communication) and COUNSEL (particularly interpretation or comprehensibility) as underlie or are employed by the Rationalist-Modernist.

But to be clear, using or not exclusively using the KJB is not the issue here necessarily. The issue here is between a more consistently believing Christianity and those who are not, as among people who actually believe in a proper view of INSPIRATION and the truth of the supernatural. Thus, both sides here would reject Higher Criticism, Liberal Theology, etc. Both sides are not Roman Catholic or Ecumenical.

By beginning not with Scripture and Scripture doctrine is detrimental. Where human reasoning is used with human assumptions is exactly where errors will arise in doctrine, particularly because one of the prevailing beliefs of the other side is that error prevails and that perfection on earth today is impossible.

How do you progress?

Having now established the rudimentary approach and assumption of the other side, we observe that in regards to a whole range of their method comes through the leaven of Infidelity. This is what I personally call lower case "m" modernism.

In regards to TEXT, they say that there is no perfect text, that errors have come in since inspiration, and that the earliest (or majority) of manuscripts in Greek must be examined to minimise error. This results in the ongoing Critical Text, which assumes error and never is perfect.

So likewise with TRANSLATION, do they multiply translations. And so likewise INTERPRETATION, do they never come to any final truth, but by their modernistic grammatical-historical method uphold various wayward and absurd teachings.

Infidelity proper says there is no absolute truth, and makes each man the arbiter of his own self. The leavening effects of this come into many modern day Christian views.

For example, the opposing side may uphold the Trinity. From a textual point of view, they will reject 1 John 5:7. From a translation point of view, they will say that the word "JEHOVAH" is wrong, and that the Divine Name is for the whole Trinity, not just God the Father. They also may reference their beloved Granville Sharp rules. Their modernistic grammatical-historical method may not regard aspects of Genesis 11:5-8 as literally true regarding God having a body, etc. etc. What this means is that while the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity itself is not denied, however, numerous elements of doctrines are altered.

How do you transition from exegesis to preaching/teaching?

This means that error to some portion is present in their approach as is freely confessed by them. The end result is quite a difference between the other side and the believing approach.

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

Wow, do you get nosebleeds from making leaps of logic that high? 

Leaping from "there is no perfect translation" to mean "there is no absolute truth".  I bet there was no oxygen up there. 

 

[bibleprotector]

Leaping from "there is no perfect translation" to mean "there is no absolute truth".

So, are you saying that Infidels and Atheists believe there is perfect translation and believe there is absolute truth?

 

[FSSL]

But to be clear, using or not exclusively using the KJB is not the issue here necessarily.

It really doesn't take much for you to miss the point.

The title is "antiKJVO," NOT antiKJV.

You are stuck in the mode of negativity. So far, you are unable to post a positive declaration of how you interpret  the Bible.

When we discuss the topic, we are quick to declare our approach and find great thinking in well written concise posts.

Why does this happen? We love God's word and like to share how we study it.

 

[bibleprotector]

But to be clear, using or not exclusively using the KJB is not the issue here necessarily.

It really doesn't take much for you to miss the point.

The title is "antiKJVO," NOT antiKJV.

You are stuck in the mode of negativity. So far, you are unable to post a positive declaration of how you interpret  the Bible.

When we discuss the topic, we are quick to declare our approach and find great thinking in well written concise posts.

Why does this happen? We love God's word and like to share how we study it.

And here I was saying that nonKJBOs are able to get to right interpretation, since historically using or not exclusively using the KJB is not the issue here necessarily. There are plenty who have used the KJB alone and not been fully correct in their doctrine.

It is likely that the same misapprehension of Scripture as is manifest among a certain class of ardent anti-KJBOs is also the cause of their tendency to misinterpret or twist what a KJB perfectionist says ... it is hard to tell whether it is accidental or deliberate ... but the problem is spiritual.

 

[FSSL]

Could it possibly be that we are not unspiritual?

Could it even remotely be that we are rejecting your criticism while noticing your unwillingness to succintly and cogently explaining your interpretative method?

Your continued struggling excuses make for great amusement.... but hardly for honest discussions.

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

Leaping from "there is no perfect translation" to mean "there is no absolute truth".

So, are you saying that Infidels and Atheists believe there is perfect translation and believe there is absolute truth?

There's your leap of logic again (a whopping non-sequitur).  It does not follow that if one believes there is no perfect translation, that one also believes there is no absolute truth. 

 

[Ransom]

Under the banner of Infidelity, we find Modernism  . . .

For the love of Jack, do you ever give a straight answer to anything? Sheesh!

 

[bibleprotector]

There's your leap of logic again (a whopping non-sequitur).  It does not follow that if one believes there is no perfect translation, that one also believes there is no absolute truth.

There's that belligerent misinterpretation of what I said again. I was talking about Infidels and Atheists. There is no "sequitur" being presented. Why object, unless you are an Infidel Atheist?

 

[bibleprotector]

Under the banner of Infidelity, we find Modernism  . . .

For the love of Jack, do you ever give a straight answer to anything? Sheesh!

How is that not a simple, clear cut and straight statement? I don't know how I can make it any more clear. I repeat, Modernism is the influence of Infidelity (as manifest in the Enlightenment) on theology.

 

[Ransom]

How is that not a simple, clear cut and straight statement?

It was neither simple, clear-cut, nor straight. It certainly did not answer any of the questions posed by FSSL, which you quoted immediately before your non-answers.

 

[bibleprotector]

immediately before your non-answers.

Yes, this is a common tactic your side plays. You ask a question, and say in the question that it has to satisfy some criteria as defined by the questioner, e.g. by using words like "legitimate" in the question. Also, when any answers are given, they are branded as "non-answers" (see above). In other words, it is impossible to satisfy such questions as answers will always be deemed "evasive", "not answered", "missed the point", etc. etc. etc.

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

There's your leap of logic again (a whopping non-sequitur).  It does not follow that if one believes there is no perfect translation, that one also believes there is no absolute truth.

Why object, unless you are an Infidel Atheist?

You got me.  I'm an Infidel Atheist.  And I'm likely to ring your doorbell and run. 

 

[Ransom]

it is impossible to satisfy such questions as answers will always be deemed "evasive", "not answered", "missed the point", etc. etc. etc.

Rambling on about "infidelity" in response to the question, "Where do you start [preparing a sermon]?" without, in fact, explaining how one starts preparing a sermon, is the very definition of "missing the point."

You're not really sore about my "tactics." You're sore that we won't let your non-answers go unchallenged, as if you deserve to be above any sort of criticism.