Proclaimer Blog
Preaching God and example
Many preachers in conservative evangelical circles say that they find narrative the hardest parts of Scripture to preach. I think that is particularly true of the way in which we draw appropriate applications from biblical narratives. Here’s the issue for a preacher who already knows that what he ought to be is expounding the text: once I’ve got to the heart of what this passage is really about (what we call at Cornhill the Big Idea, but other names are available), in what particular direction and from which particular angle should I apply that truth? (in Cornhill parlance, what’s the Aim?).
Graham Goldsworthy’s book Gospel and Kingdom many years ago had, so it seems, a significant influence in rightly warning preachers away from simply mining biblical narratives for moral lessons (stuff like “which ‘Goliaths’ in your life should you be slaying?”). That is an extremely helpful corrective, but it can sometimes leave a question hanging. I’ve often heard that question expressed like this: if I’ve taken that kind of warning on board, how can I avoid having essentially the same application in every single sermon of a series I preach on, say, the book of Judges? Won’t that approach lead me to preach just the great theological themes of a passage (nothing wrong with that in itself), but to do so quite repetetively and without paying a great deal of attention to the details of character and plot in each particular text? (To be fair to Goldsworthy, he may deal with that. I ought to re-read Gospel and Kingdom.)
I recently came across this two-fold piece of advice in drawing application from narratives: ‘identify the central act of God in a narrative and observe the way the characters in the drama respond to him’ (Daniel Doriani, Putting the Truth to Work: the theory and practice of biblical application, p.181). The first instruction here is essentially in the Goldsworthy line: avoid moralism and preach what God is doing in this event. The second instruction, though, leads us to the details of the characters and plot in each particular narrative. Doriani is wanting the preacher to hold the characters up to his hearers as models and examples, whether good or bad, of different responses to the actions of God. Thus in 1 Samuel 17 (Doriani’s major example) we must certainly preach that believers now are first of all to identify ourselves with the Israelites cheering on the hillside while they watch God’s appointed champion defeat God’s enemy on their behalf. But in addition to that we can and should also preach David as an example to follow in caring deeply enough for the honour of God to act bravely, and also his brother Eliab and Saul as negative examples, in their own separate ways, of a response to the action of God narrated in the text.
This avoids moralism. It also helps avoid same-y expressions of good biblical theology that might pay too little attention to the details of each particular narrative.