Bowling Green Covenant Church

Friday 9 February 2007

“…I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” — Paul the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 2.3-5

Preachers are like golfers. We are always looking for ways to improve how we communicate the Gospel. Much of the recent literature about preaching focuses on meeting the felt needs of the audience. Additionally, there is the added pressure to learn how to communicate the meta-narrative of Truth to a post-modern generation dubious of meta-narrative, as well as any attempt to use definite language regarding Truth.

Helpful as such books are, they place the erstwhile preacher in a querulous double bind. On the one hand, we exegete the ancient text responsibly as we attempt, literally, “to get into the head” of the author even as we attempt to understand the sitz im leben (the situation in life) of his audience. On the other hand, once we have accomplished this task we must “walk the ancient text across the hermeneutical bridge” into the 21^st century. Whereas purchasing car insurance may be so easy a caveman can do it, (as one insurance company suggests), walking the ancient text across that bridge requires considerably more skill. When done well there is illumination “in demonstration of the Spirit and power.” When done poorly, the result is best captured by this quote from Haddon Robinson, “A mist in the pulpit becomes a fog in the pew.”

So you can imagine my joy in discovering a book recently that defines the exegetical task in a manner both refreshing and challenging. The book is Listening to the Spirit in the Text by Gordon D. Fee (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI © 2000). Here is the statement that caught my attention:

“I want to say with great vigor that even though the first task of the exegete is the historical one (= to determine the biblical author’s intended meaning), this is not the ultimate one. The ultimate task…is the Spiritual one, to hear the text in such a way that it leads the reader/hearer into the worship of God and into conformity to God and his ways … My point is that true exegesis attempts to engage in the author’s Spirituality, not just in his words,” (p. 11; italics his, bold my emphasis).

True exegesis should lead to true preaching. True preaching attempts to communicate the biblical author’s Spirituality so as to engage the hearer’s Spirituality. It is Spirituality with a capital “S” since Fee defines Spirituality as “nothing less than life by the (Holy) Spirit,” (p. 6). Fee asserts:

“Hence the aim of exegesis: to produce in our lives and the lives of others true Spirituality, in which God’s people live in fellowship with the eternal and living God, and thus in keeping with God’s own purposes in the world. But in order to do that effectively, true “Spirituality” must precede exegesis as well as flow from it,” (p.6).

So here is my challenge to us all. Let us who preach do our best to have our Spirituality, our life by the Spirit, “precede exegesis as well as flow from it.” Let our preaching be Spiritual as our exegesis is Spiritual. Let us who hear the word preached do our best to have our Spirituality, our life by the Spirit, precede the hearing of the word, knowing that the speech and the message proclaimed “is not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

Let us together be Spiritual, let us live by the Spirit so that we might more closely follow Jesus with a faith resting in the power of God the Father.

You think about that.

MM