The Joy of Fellowship

This past weekend, Roberta and I had the great joy of being at Believers Fellowship. I had the privilege of pastoring Believers for over 10 years. This was our first time back since we moved to California. We enjoyed some of the things we can't do here in Cali like lunch at Salsalitos, Mrs. Mollenkopf's cinammon rolls, and friendly, efficient dental care.

But beyond those things, we enjoyed the fellowship with our friends, the saints at Believers Fellowship. We were there for the dedication of the completed FLC building. What a joy it was to see this buliding that we had prayed so much for to be completed. But far greater was our joy to see the people in the building.

For those of you from BF who check in on this blog, we just want you to know that we love all y'all. We had a great time there with you. For those of you not at Believers who check this blog, I hope that you are in a place where you can really enjoy the fellowship of the saints.

Explain the Text

Do you ever sit in church, listening to the sermon, and feel like standing up and saying, "Sir, please explain the text!" I know I have. Of course, you and I are too gracious to actually do this, but it brings up an important point. Expository preaching means that we expose the text, explain the text, and exhort for a proper application of the text. In my last post I covered giving exposure to the text. This time I will cover explaining the text.

Why do we need to give an explanation of the meaning of the text? That is a good question. We do so because we want people to understand what God meant by what He said. The meaning might not be readily apparent for several reasons. The Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. We have good translations but sometimes we need to give an explanation of the significance of the original words and grammar. Also, the culture of Bible times is quite a bit different from modern times. Since the Bible was written by real people living in real situations we need to explain the culture of that time and how what the writer says reflects cultural conditions of the time. Additionally, the Bible was written in a historical context and can only be understood in that context. So you can see that some work needs to be done in the study of the Bible. So the pastor/teacher must do their homework in order to present the correct meaning.

However, the pastor/teacher is not to present the information in a dry, technical manner. Having done the research, the pastor/teacher now is to communicate the meaning of the passage so that people can see the message truly coming from that text and that this is an important message for them. This explanation may include some technical information but it will be woven together so that the listener can truly grasp what God intended. So, the preacher/teacher has a number of tools that he can use to help explain the text. He can use an introduction to prepare people for the message that is coming. He can use a conclusion to wrap up what he has said and drive home the main point of the text. He can use illustrations to help explain. All the Bible teachers used illustrations to help explain what they were communicating. For example, Paul often used illustrations based on athletics or warfare. I like that . I find that helpful.

Also, the pastor/teacher must realize that he is part of the presentation. He must be a man of intregrity. He must demonstrate that he is a serious student of Scripture and that he has done his homework in preparing his message. He must also realize that his bodily movements, facial gestures, and even tone of voice can make a significant difference in delivering the message. There is a lot of work that goes into delivering a message so that what God said is clearly understood by what is presented and even how it is presented.

Sadly, many messages don't live up to these standards. Many times the pastor/teacher wanders through a text. Just because you taught from verses 1-10 doesn't mean you really gave the explanation of that passage. Just because you said some true things that might somehow be loosely related to things in the text, doesn't mean you taught that passage. And if you taught the passage without any passion or drive or commitment, why would anybody want to listen to you? And, at the same time, just speaking with emotion or just employing a natural speaking skill, doesn't mean you did justice to the text.

So in explaining the meaning of the text the pastor/teacher must give careful attention to both preparation and presentation. The goal is that people will leave knowing what God meant by what He said in the Scripture.

So, if you are a pastor/teacher in any context, I just have one thing to say to you. "Sir, please explain the text!"

Exposure to the Text

In my last post I stated that expository preaching involves three elements. We are to be exposing people to the text; explaining the meaning of the text; and exhorting people to a proper application of the text.

In this post I want to talk more about what we mean by exposing people to the text. We need for people see that the message is clearly coming straight from the text of Scripture. A simple way to do this is to first read the text which is to be taught. This helps set the context for the message. We will be looking at and examining this particular portion of Scripture. Then, through out the message, we are to continually point people back to the text. In one of my recent preaching labs one of the students did an excellent job of this. He kept saying, "Look back at the text." There was no doubt that his message was coming right out of the text. I liked that.

In our preaching we want to give full exposure to the text of Scripture. Keep in mind, that when we read the Bible, that is the only inspired part of the message. My comments are not inspired. Only the Word of God is.

Another aspect to this is to remember that we are preaching from translations. While we have good English translations of the Bible, they are still translations. To give exposure to the text we must go back to the original languages. That will mean that throughout our message we must refer to the original words. We might need to expand on the translation by suggesting other possible translations which might give a clearer understanding. We need to be careful to not do this in an overly technical way, nor in a way that brings doubt upon our translations. We are simply recognizing that in translation you have to chose a word but sometimes in exposing people to the text, as a part of teaching, we need to give full range to the meaning of a word or phrase.

When people leave a truly expository message there should be no doubt that they have been fully exposed to the words of the Bible. Next time we will talk about the important element of explaining the text.