Appendix A — Questions Preachers and Teachers Ask
Questions Preachers and Teachers Ask
1. Do you really think that anybody can develop the kind of imagination that can lead to creative preaching and teaching?
Of course! Otherwise, I wouldn’t have written this book!
You and I were made in the image of God to have dominion over His creation. In Adam, we lost that dominion; but in Christ, we can begin to experience a “renewing of the mind” that enables us to “reign in life” (Rom. 5:17). I believe this “renewing” includes the creative work of the imagination.
The important thing to remember is that creativity in Christian ministry isn’t especially the result of formulas or techniques. It’s the result of disciplined communion with the Lord that allows the Holy Spirit to work in our minds and hearts.
2. Where do I begin?
I suggest you take two or three of your favorite sermons and “imagineer” them by studying the texts again and looking for the pictures. Remember that sometimes the pictures are hidden in the words and not always stated in the text.
Recently I looked at an outhne I’d prepared on Hebrews 6 and was appalled by its dullness. As I read the chapter again, I realized that there was an emphasis in the text on patience (v. 11 —diligence; vv. 12, 15 —patience). Then I noted the pictures that help to convey the image of patience and diligence: a child maturing (v. 1), a harvest (vv. 7-8), an inheritance (vv. 12, 17), an anchor (v. 19). It takes time for a child to mature, for seed to produce a harvest, for an inheritance to be received. What keeps us diligently waiting? We’re anchored heavenward!
To be sure, there are some knotty theological problems to deal with in the text; but the main emphasis seems to be “Be patient and don’t quit!” Let people see the pictures, and they’ll have an easier time understanding your doctrinal explanations.
3. Must all of my main points always be pictures?
Not always. Point out the pictures, but be sure to explain what they signify. Going back to the example from Hebrews 6, my sermon proposition might be, “God encourages us to keep on trusting Him in spite of the trials of life.” How does He encourage us? Simply by showing us some everyday pictures of perseverance. Parents are patient as their children mature. Farmers are patient as they wait for the harvest. Relatives are patient as they wait for their promised inheritance. The fact that we are “anchored heavenward” gives us the stability we need. This is the only anchor that enables us to move forward! The essential doctrinal material can easily be worked into the various sections of the message. The pictures must never take the place of the major message of the passage. The pictures only help us make the doctrinal themes easier to understand and apply.
4. But won’t there be a sameness to our preaching if all we do is point out the pictures in the text?
Yes, there will be a sameness—if that’s the way you preach! But I don’t advise you to do it that way. In the Hebrews 6 example, you don’t have to major on the pictures. Your key word might be encouragements, and the message could be developed like this:
Many people avoid Hebrews 6 because they’ve heard it contains some frightening theology. But this chapter is right at the heart of the book and we can’t ignore it. In fact, the major theme of the chapter is encouragement, not fear; and if we understand what it teaches and put it into practice, it can bring stability and maturity to our Christian walk.
The writer gives us four encouragements to keep us trusting and obeying even when the going is tough.
1. You were born for maturity (the child)
Food and exercise (Heb. 5:11-14)
2. It takes time for maturity (the harvest)
3. The promise of maturity is sure (the heir)
We are written into His will
4. Christ holds you fast (the anchor)
Let your sanctified imagination “hover over” the images in the text and reveal the possibilities for homiletical development. If you do your homework, you won’t wander off into fanciful ideas, because the doctrines in the text will keep you steady.
As another example, you might want to build your message around verse 9, “things that accompany salvation.” The question isn’t so much “Will I lose my salvation?” as “Is there evidence of real salvation in my life?” What are the “things that accompany salvation”? Maturity (the child), fruitfulness (the farmer), spiritual wealth (the inheritance), stability (the anchor). Once you discover the images in the text, there are many ways you can develop them in your sermon.
5. It’s much easier to find pictures in a longer passage, such as a chapter; but what about individual verses?
Not every verse is a picture gallery, but you’d be surprised what you’d discover if you checked the original Hebrew and Greek. Colossians 2:5-7 contains the images of an army (v. 5, “how orderly you are”), a pilgrim (v. 6, “continue to live [walk] in him”), a tree (v. 7a, “rooted”), a building (v. 7b, “built up in him”), and a river (7c, “overflowing”). You ought to be able to make something out of that.
6. What about the left-brain people in the congregation? They may not want a diet of pictures.
Nobody wants a diet of pictures! Let me emphasize that your approach must be balanced. After you’ve fed their imagination with pictures, shift into the practical left-brain material that tells your people how to make the truth work in their lives. The left-brain people wait for the “firstly . . . secondly . . . thirdly” points because that’s the way they think. Both kinds of material are needed.
For instance, after you’ve presented the image of the child maturing, you might say, “But you’re probably wondering how we go about maturing in the Lord Jesus Christ. The biblical writer actually discusses that matter in the previous chapter, and it comes down to two essentials: spiritual food and spiritual exercise.” Even though “food” and “exercise” are still images, you can develop them in a concrete way as you apply the truth. What is the food? How do we digest it? What is the exercise? Why are both necessary?
7. You claim that the imagination plays a big part in personal morality and Christian obedience. Please explain further.
I fear that our “cerebral preaching” has created a church composed of people who have big heads but small hearts. The sanctuary has become a lecture hall and too many people are more concerned with filling their notebooks with outhnes than filling their hearts with God’s love. How many believers have said to me, “Our pastor preaches the truth, but his sermons lack something. There’s nothing in it for our hearts.”
As I hear the Word of God, unless a “connection” takes place between my mind and heart, I won’t grow in a balanced way. I can know the truth and yet not obey it! That’s the tragedy of ministry that leaves out the emotions and the imagination. What people love and delight in is what motivates their lives, so our job is to excite them with the Word so that they have new appetites and motivations.
All I’ m pleading for is a return to the biblical way of presenting God’s truth in a balanced way for both the mind and the imagination.
8. Are you crusading for a homiletical “Romantic Movement”?
The Romantic Movement was a reaction against the “scientism” of that day and called people back to imagination and emotions. However, in their zeal to restore the human element to fine arts and liberate life from the laboratory, some of the Romanticists went too far and jettisoned things intellectual.
I think we need to restore imagination and human emotions to preaching without neglecting the intellectual. Keep in mind the words of Sallie McFague: “Images without concepts are blind; concepts without images are sterile.” Pictures without exposition won’t teach very much, but exposition without pictures won’t be easy to listen to or obey. Again, the key word is balance.
9. You say that biblical preaching “preaches the Bible the way the Bible preaches it,” or words to that effect. You used the phrase “intrinsic to the text.” Please explain.
That phrase can be improved upon, but it’s the best I can do right now. Let me illustrate what I mean. One of the funniest plots for a comedy is to have a couple go to a masquerade party dressed in outlandish costumes, only to discover that they read the calendar wrong and have walked in on a formal dinner. Now, if I deal with Psalm 103 the same way as Ephesians 1, I’m wearing a costume to a formal dinner. It covers me up, but it just doesn’t seem to fit the occasion. What I say may be doctrinally sound and even helpful to my congregation, but the sermon won’t be “dressed right” and will not “fit” the worship situation.
Biblical poetry can’t always be analyzed and outhned as neatly as some of Paul’s doctrinal passages, nor should it be. There’s an “atmosphere” to each biblical text that helps to determine how we’re going to handle it. When you preach Romans, you lead your people into a law court where Paul’s invincible logic defends justification by faith. When you preach Psalm 103, however, you’re praising the Lord in the temple. The joys expressed in Psalm 24 would be out of place in a sermon on Genesis 22, yet in both passages people are seen going up a mountain.
In too many churches, the “atmosphere” is didactic Sunday after Sunday, and it gives people the impression that the Bible is primarily a textbook that the saints study so they can be smart. Certainly the saints need to study the Bible, but they also need to “feel” the Bible in their hearts and “see” the Bible in their imaginations. “Cerebral” Christianity can be proud, brittle, divisive, sterile, and cultic. “Heart” Christianity can be shallow, unstable, ignorant, and undependable. It’s not a case of either/or but both/and. Again, I’m pleading for balance.
10. You claim that preaching a sermon should be “an act of worship.” Please amplify that.
Our first obligation is to serve the Lord, not the Lord’s people, and to bring joy to His heart. If I’ve worked hard on a message and done the best I can, I want to present that message first of all to God as a “living sacrifice” to His glory. If I don’t present it to Him, then the message may bring glory to me instead of to the Lord, and it may not help His people. When preaching is an act of worship, we’ll do our best in both the preparation and the presentation of the message. I suppose I’m pleading for an attitude of heart on the part of the preacher that lifts preaching to a higher level.
11. Why are you so critical of our using sermon outhnes?
I’m not! I use outhnes all the time, but I try not to let the outhne get in the way of the sermon. When it comes to outhnes, there are two dangers that preachers must avoid: first, dissecting Scripture for the facts but ignoring the truths revealed in biblical images, and second, thinking that an outhne is a message. “When we murder to dissect,” then display the corpse and talk about it, preaching is not an act of worship; it’s an autopsy.
Not every preacher in church history outhned the passage and “walked” the congregation through it point by point. Some preachers, like Joseph Parker, took one luminous truth from a text and held it up as a jewel to be studied from all sides. Others, like F.W. Robertson, showed two sides of a truth and then applied the “higher truth” of both to human life. What we do depends on our own gifts, the nature of the text, and the way the Spirit leads us.
By all means organize the message so you know where you’re going and how to get there. But don’t preach the outhne. Use it as a means of conveying God’s truth to the minds and hearts of the listeners. The “points” of an outhne should be like “pegs” on which people can hang God’s truth, or, to change the analogy, like “picture frames” into which they can put the images that reveal God’s truth. An outhne lets us maintain order, progress, and purpose in the message; but an outhne isn’t a message.
I get the impression from hearing some preachers that they want me to notice the outhne rather than the message, the “package” rather than the contents of the package. They’re proud of the outhne and keep referring to it. “Look at my great outhne! Notice especially my clever alliteration!” But this only distracts from the message itself. Preaching isn’t reading a road map; it’s taking people on a journey.
12. Who is your favorite preacher and why?
I don’t know that I have a “favorite preacher,” because I read different preachers for different reasons. I suppose Charles Spurgeon, G. Campbell Morgan, and George H. Morrison have been my closest “homiletical friends” and have influenced me the most, but I read sermons by preachers as diverse as John Henry Newman and George W. Truett.
When I read a sermon, I first read it as a sinner who needs to hear God’s voice and receive God’s grace. I imagine myself seated in church, hearing the voice of the preacher. After I’ve gotten the blessing from the Word, then I read the sermon a second time as a preacher seeking to develop his skills. How does the sermon show imagination? Why did the preacher develop the text as he did? Was the message true to the text? These are some of the questions I ask. Most preachers have their “homiletical heroes,” and this is a good thing; but we must take care not to develop tunnel vision and see only our “favorite preacher.” If we do, we’ll get out of balance; because no preacher can teach us all we need to know.