Christians and the Old Testament

The Old Testament: Essential to Faith

When we become Christians the Old Testament becomes our personal history and the history of our people. Children raised in the church learn to sing, “Father Abraham has many sons, and I am one of them.” Girls as well as boys sing in celebration of their heritage because the word son in Christian faith does not exclude the full participation of all, just as being Gentile and not Jewish is no barrier to our identification with Abraham. Jesus was generous with those who did not qualify to walk with him by the usual standards (Mark 7:26; 9:40). Paul, following Jesus, made it clear that the Gospel excluded no one (Gal. 3:28). So, Christians embrace the Old Testament as their story, too. They, along with the Jews, are God’s chosen people.

The Old Testament history shows us how God the Creator of the universe has shaped us into his people. We learn that we are more than individual believers—we are certainly that, individual believers, but we are more—because we belong to one another as the body of Christ, and through the body of Christ we are made part of God’s chosen people. Paul used the metaphor of a wild shoot being grafted onto an olive tree. Gentiles have been grafted into the covenant people. Along with the Jews, all of us, have been called to believe and to receive a new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31). It is God’s grace that all people are called to join the covenant. Christians are not to take this gift for granted and are not to boast over their acceptance into the covenant (Romans 11:18). With gratitude and humility we accept our place as members of God’s chosen people.

We live in the wonder of our history, recounted in the Old Testament. We live with knowledge of its twists and turns, its glorious moments and its times of abysmal failure. With the prophets we acknowledge that we are a stubborn people; we acknowledge God’s righteousness and our sinful failure to keep covenant. The Old Testament teaches us that our personal relationship to God has a corporate, familial, national dimension that stretches back to Abraham and even further because all people are created in the image of God, and all people are called to live before their Creator, to be accountable for the life entrusted to them as individuals and the life they live in relationship to others.

The Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, is God’s word. Through these ancient writings God continues to speak to us, his people. We read. We listen. We respond. Although we can never exhaust the wonder and mystery of God’s revelation, with reverence and with joy we read the Bible and wait upon moments of divine guidance. Like Samuel we pray, “Speak, Lord, for your servant listens” (1 Samuel 3:10)

Listening to a Sermon-Part Three

Listening to a well prepared sermon delivered in an effective manner is not difficult, and such sermons can help people in their worship of God. What’s difficult is listening to a poorly prepared sermon. In the first and second essays of this series I suggested the importance of a listener taking responsibility for the worship experience, and I listed five practical strategies for listening to bad sermons with the idea that an active listener can benefit even from a bad sermon. However, there are sermons to which we do best not to listen.

For this third essay the most important matter to remember is the fact that a poor sermon is not limited to sermons that are boring or sermons that seem superficial. A gifted orator who seems profound can preach a bad sermon, and the worshiper is more likely to suffer harm from such gifted and attractive preachers than the ones we usually call poor preachers. Paul the Apostle warned against false teachers and warned that they can appear winsome and intelligent which is no surprise, since, as Paul wrote, “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is not strange if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds” (2 Corinthians 14-15).

Even if a sermon is a delight to the ears and the preacher is pleasant to watch as he or she delivers the message, the sermon is a bad one if it fails to be true. The repercussions from false teaching are serious for the life of the church and individual listeners, especially young people. Bad teaching has been a problem from the first century until the present. 

Here are some examples: legalism and its opposite, moral relativism (“do your own thing”). Whenever a preacher emphasizes rules and regulations the preacher has lost hold of the Bible’s message of salvation through faith and grace. Such legalism creates despair as people fail to meet the legalistic standards of the sermons. Then comes hypocrisy as some people pretend to meet those standards even though they cannot; in fact, the preacher cannot meet them either, and the church becomes filled with suspicion and accusation as people see their own hidden sins and suspect that others are hiding sins, too. One errant way to relieve the guilt of self accusation is to accuse others of the sin hidden in one’s own life. Such behavior in a church is, indeed, toxic.

The opposite approach is bad, too. Some preachers proclaim an easy or cheap grace (see Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship) and the result is a church in which people lose sight of the message of holiness and righteousness which are the qualities that arise from God’s grace. The message of grace and faith and hope and love bring a lifestyle filled with gratitude and joy. The bad teaching of relativism which holds that there is no absolute law is as bad as legalism. Both approaches misunderstand the Gospel and the power of spiritual transformation. 

Reliance on the Bible as the sole authority for faith and practice is an important sign of true preaching and will help the preacher avoid the failures of legalism and relativism. A good preacher will speak from the Bible and will shape his or her messages to conform to the teaching of the Bible. Doctrines taught in the sermon will arise from the preacher’s knowledge and continual study of the entire Bible.

Unhappily, bad preachers can quote Scripture. Even demons can quote Scripture. It is important that the preacher yields his or her own opinions to the clear teaching of Scripture. It is important that every sermon includes and depends upon the Bible’s message of God’s salvation in Christ.

Even if a sermon has truths in it, that sermon is a bad one if it fails the Gospel.  A sermon on prayer or social justice or Bible study is not a good sermon if it fails the Gospel. There is a place in the church for teaching, but the teaching ministry never replaces preaching of the Gospel.

The Gospel is the message of Jesus’ birth, the incarnation; God has come to us in person. The Gospel is the message of the cross, Jesus’ death. Through the cross Jesus defeated sin and death by giving himself up on behalf of the world and winning the victory over evil. The bodily resurrection of Jesus is essential to the Gospel; the resurrection illuminates the cross and shows us Jesus as Christus Victor (see Gustaf Aulen). The Gospel is the promise that Jesus will return to make all things right. In the end justice will prevail. The Gospel is the message of Jesus’ life which calls us to live with the power of the Holy Spirit, as disciples or learners. We are being saved or transformed day by day as we await our own resurrection to the next life which God the Father has prepared for us who believe. This message is the heart of true preaching. (See C. H. Dodd, Gospel and Law, for a review of Scripture on this subject.)

Another essential theological teaching is the Trinity. Christians are Trinitarians. Christians believe that God is one in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If a preacher fails to lay the foundation of the Trinity in his or her preaching then that preacher is giving a bad message. Usually, the error shows itself in a diminution of Jesus. In some way the preacher hints from time to time that Jesus is a good teacher, a good man, and a good prophet but not divine. When the preacher refuses to acknowledge and affirm in the clearest terms that Jesus is God in person, in flesh then the message is bad. In bad messages one will often hear how there are many wise religious teachers in history from Zoroaster to Buddha, Mohammed and Gandhi. Without, perhaps, saying it directly the preacher will imply that Jesus belongs in that list but is not divine. Such preachers have strayed from the Bible and strayed from the doctrines long established in the ecumenical church. A good preacher will give attention to the Trinitarian message that God is Father, Son and Spirit and will give the right emphasis to all three persons in preaching and teaching.

Another way that preaching goes wrong is the political sermon masquerading as prophecy. To use the pulpit to express political opinion is not prophecy, but it is bad preaching. The best way to address political issues is for the preacher to teach Biblical principles from the pulpit. The people in the congregation can take these principles into their personal lives, including their politics. Most congregations have Democrats and Republicans sitting side by side. The preacher does well to respect the faith of Christians who hold different political opinions. To attempt to think for the people or to demand that they think the same way the preacher does on political issues is bad preaching, not prophecy. 

Much attention has been rightly given by critics to the error of what is called the “Prosperity Gospel.” It is a popular message because it promises that God will always deliver material and emotional security to people who have the right faith practice. Any such message that teaches that a Christian can avoid suffering is bad preaching. In reality good and faithful Christians suffer. They may be persecuted. They may be caught in tragic circumstances. They may be materially poor. God’s grace sustains us in all these circumstances, and with God’s grace and with our trust in God’s providence we can make our suffering redemptive. We may not see the results of our witness in this life, but we live and are justified by our faith. It is bad preaching that downplays or ignores redemptive suffering which is, of course, most clearly seen in the cross of Christ.

Theology as expressed in preaching is a big subject. Although much more could be written, hopefully this essay raises some questions for the reader and will help listeners to evaluate sermons theologically as well as rhetorically. So, what can a listener do when the preacher does not speak the truth? My conclusion seems simplistic; however, if a preacher persists in teaching that fails the Gospel, the Trinitarian message, the call to grace, the authority of the Bible and offers false prophecy, then, simplistic as it is, the answer to bad teaching and preaching is, finally, “don’t listen!” 

Listening to a Sermon Part Two

As promised in my last entry I am writing in this essay about specific strategies we can take when listening to a sermon. Just as Jacob wrestled with God through the night to gain a blessing (Genesis 32:24), the worshiper will sometimes feel that he or she is in a wrestling match, too. It can happen because the sermon is poor or it can happen because the worshiper has come to the service with distractions from home or work or is simply tired and needing rest. For multiple reasons it can be hard to listen to a sermon. 

When struggling to listen to a sermon it is important to remember that the struggle is a spiritual one between the worshiper and God. The struggle is not between the worshiper and the preacher. For some reason God has brought the worshiper to this service at this time. The preacher has a responsibility to God as well, and the preacher will be required to answer to God for his or her work, but the worshiper’s main concern is not the preacher. The chief issue in worship is to encounter God and to make the effort to discover the purpose of the time ahead. 

If we give some thought to the matter we realize that thirty minutes is a short period of time. We can easily waste thirty minutes on a tasteless story in the newspaper or a magazine or waste thirty minutes watching a mindless situation comedy on television. We can spend thirty minutes playing a game of solitaire without complaint. Sometimes, many of us just sit for thirty minutes day dreaming. 

Our resistance to the sermon is a hint that something spiritual is happening. For some reason we resist this time in the pew. It bores us or makes us uncomfortable or it even can make us angry. All of these emotions we do not feel when we waste time elsewhere; so, what is happening? Why has God brought us into this difficult struggle?

We may not immediately discover the reason for the resistance in ourselves, but we can pray to have the grace to understand that our resistance is not primarily the preacher’s problem. We pray to accept our responsibility to make something good happen in the half hour ahead of us. We can pray that whatever kind of sermon we hear, good or bad, we will find a way to make an offering of worship to God. That prayer and commitment to take responsibility for the sermon is the first strategy of the listener.

Once we decide to take responsibility as a listener for the sermon then we can employ other strategies, and we will need them from time to time when we hear a bad sermon. Bad sermons are often opaque. We cannot see the purpose or the importance of them. The preacher does not make it clear why we should listen to this particular message, and he or she does not explain what help we should expect to receive in listening. It seems that we are looking at a dark cloud of words that communicate nothing of substance to us. When listening to such a sermon the good listener will not attempt to make sense of the whole sermon. It is likely, because of poor preparation, that even the preacher is not sure what the message is supposed to be. Bad preaching makes one feel lost in the dark. 

However, if one listens carefully one will hear a single sentence that makes sense. It will be like a flash of lightening in the dark night. It is brief but for a moment there is power and illumination. It is almost impossible to speak for thirty minutes and not say one productive, meaningful, applicable sentence. The listener will wait and watch for that sentence. When such a sentence flashes it will be worth the entire thirty minutes of sitting. An insight will be gained. A resolution will be made. Something good will have happened. The listener will have won the wrestling match. So, here are the first two strategies for listening to a sermon: first, take responsibility for the sermon’s impact on the listener; second, listen for one helpful sentence.

Here is a third strategy. Although it often happens in bad sermons, that the preacher does not really speak from the Bible, the listener can listen for some passing reference to the Scripture and turn to the reference in his or her Bible. A careful listener will identify questions that arise from reading the text that are not answered or even addressed by the preacher. Those questions can be a guide to the listener in the coming week to do more Bible study, to talk with friends about the questions or if the opportunity arises, to ask the preacher, “What about this?” In that way the sermon becomes useful to the listener and, perhaps, to others as well.

A fourth strategy is to enter into a mental dialogue with the preacher and with God. In some church traditions the people in the pews will speak aloud to the preacher. This back and forth or call and response practice is used in many African American churches (see The Hum by Crawford). When a member of the congregation says, “Amen,” aloud then the preacher is affirmed and encouraged to continue along the same line of thought. Occasionally, the preacher will hear someone in the congregation, praying aloud, “Help him, Lord!” The preacher in that situation will realize that he is floundering; the sermon is not working, and some change is needed in that very moment. I have had the experience of someone saying to me as I preached, “I can’t hear you!” or “Say it again!” Although disconcerting to preachers who have not been accustomed to such dialogue, the practice can be helpful. In a dynamic and vocal way the congregation that enters into this back and forth exchange is taking responsibility, along with the preacher, for the sermon and the worship experience.

For churches in which the congregation does not speak aloud to the preacher, the call and response can be a prayer to God, “Help her, Lord!” It can be an exclamation of silent praise, “That’s the sentence I’ve been waiting to hear!” It can be a prayer in which the congregant admits to the Lord, “I am finding it hard to get anything today; help me.”

Some people in the congregation will write notes in which they enter a dialogue with the preacher. It may not be possible to get a good outline from a bad sermon, but one can raise questions to write in the notes. One can record ideas that arise which may or may not be in reference to the sermon but simply come unsought as one sits and listens. Whatever form it takes the person in the pew is practicing active listening. It doesn’t depend entirely on the preacher. The listener is working to bring meaning to the worship experience.

A fifth strategy for listening to sermons is to manage our distractions. The preacher may create distractions, and the worshiper may bring distractions into the service. A brief prayer before worship helps. Whenever one feels a distraction arise one can say a prayer, too. In fact, God may send the distractions to help us pray. In the middle of the service we think of someone in the congregation who is ill or who is going through a divorce or has lost a job or is struggling with faith. Our minds go to that person and so can our prayers. Those distractions seem to be a movement of the Spirit in our hearts, and we ask the Lord to use the sermon to speak to that person.

Sometimes the distractions arise from our own health. We may be hurting and finding it difficult to sit on a pew or hard chair. If our bones are hurting so badly we can’t sit easily we may choose before the service to sit in the back where we can rise and stand without bothering others. Preachers and worshipers understand this need and if done thoughtfully it does not disturb worship for anyone. Those who notice will hopefully say a prayer for someone who is hurting.

Distractions can come because we have a challenging week ahead and find ourselves thinking of the work before us instead of listening to the sermon. Again, the best strategy is to pray. If we miss the sermon completely because we are distracted, but we spend the thirty minutes in prayer we will have made good use of the sermon time.

Some distractions come from the preacher or other worship leaders. The way someone dresses can distract us.  We find ourselves thinking about the clothing instead of the leader’s message or announcement or song or Scripture reading.

Preachers can distract people with their mannerisms. A person’s accent can distract us. If the preacher uses poor grammar it can distract. If a preacher licks his or her lips or paces or bobs the head or twists a ring or clenches or wrings his or her hands it can distract us. If the preacher is low energy or too high in energy it can distract. If the preacher talks too loudly or too softly it can distract us. Speaking too fast or speaking too slowly can distract us. This list doesn’t end.

Distractions will come. Sometimes they are sent by God to help us pray, but sometimes the distractions can be described as the work of the devil. They keep us from active listening and our spiritual responsibility. The strategy is to manage the distractions. They will come, but we can manage them. Sometimes we avoid them. Always, we can pray which will be our best strategy.

The reader can add to my five strategies: taking responsibility for one’s worship experience; listening for one helpful sentence; using the Bible for reflection whether the preacher does or not; joining a mental dialogue with God and with the preacher, if only to say, “Help him, Lord”; and finally, managing distractions in a way that makes them work for good, not bad, in one’s worship experience. 

When one begins to develop strategies for listening then it becomes a delightful challenge. It is an intellectual and spiritual exercise to be an active listener. You will grow in your ability and range of listening strategies. You will enrich your worship experience.

One final essay is coming on the listening experience. There are bad sermons that cannot be heard without damage to one’s life in Christ. These sermons are to be avoided. My final entry will give a description and warning. Sometimes, the best response is, “Don’t listen.”

Listening to a Sermon

Part One

Almost any preacher can be heard on the internet these days. The better speakers gather a following. They are not only interesting and colorful speakers, they are often insightful theologians. Some of my friends have become connoisseurs of this excellent, mass media preaching. It helps them in their Christian discipleship. I am glad such preachers are available and helpful to so many.

However, most preachers do not have a mass audience.  Many of them are good preachers who give sermons that are worthy of a wider distribution. However, for reasons of access or promotion or God’s providence their sermons remain locally heard and appreciated but never gain wide spread recognition.

Still, there are many preachers who are not scintillating speakers. They do not offer profound insights. People continue to gather and listen to these more modest preachers week after week. At times I have thought that the people have simply accepted with grace the limited ability of their preacher, and they have allowed their expectations of any improvement in preaching to sink. 

Recently, my thinking has changed. I’ve come to believe that many more people in our churches have developed a skill that all of us  who go to church need to develop: the ability to listen to a sermon, even a poor one and gain something of value. Mark Twain once said that he had never heard a sermon from which he did not gain something; he did add that there had been a few close calls. I’ve come to believe that more important than the skill of the preacher is the skill of the listener. I am writing this reflection on how to listen to a sermon because I believe we can improve our experience in worship if we develop listening skills that overcome the weaknesses of a preacher. 

One foundation for all good listening is the realization that our experience of preaching improves as we appreciate its context in worship. Unlike an internet sermon in which one listens to the preacher while jogging or commuting home from work or cleaning house the preachers we hear on Sunday morning are being heard in the context of a worship service in which the hearers are participating. People sing hymns, offer prayers for their friends by name. They listen to announcements for upcoming activities. They put their money in the offering plates as a part of their worship. They hear scriptures read. They spend time before and after the service talking with people they have come to know in the congregation. Many of these folks will have volunteered in Sunday school or volunteered as greeters or ushers, sung in the choir or stayed after service to count the collection. The sermon fits in the context of congregational life, particularly it is best understood as only one element in worship. So, people who have become good listeners to sermons are people who have thoughtfully realized or simply reached the understanding intuitively that the sermon is a part of worship and not the whole point of their participation. Certainly, the quality of the sermon alone does not determine the validity or power of their worship experience.

Because the preacher and the musicians are up front it is easy to think of preaching and worship leadership as a performance which we in the audience can judge to be good or bad. However, the people who manage to make the most of sermons have learned that the preacher is not performing for the congregation. These good listeners have learned that God is the audience, and the congregation members are the performers. The people are there to offer their worship to God. The preacher and the musicians are prompters who help the people remember their lines as they perform their worship for God. Worship is bigger than the preacher or anyone else who stands up front to sing or give announcements or pray or read. Worship rises to God from the people who are gathered together in the pews. A worshiper who is focused on God may become almost indifferent to the music or to the sermon. Just as a well prepared performer does not really need a prompter to feed him or her the lines in his or her part, so a person who becomes absorbed in worship may not need or even notice the people standing up front in worship leadership because the worship experience transcends the prompters. 

As a preacher I know that happens. I have on occasion received a compliment from someone about my sermon as the person was leaving the church after service. They repeated to me what they had heard from God through the sermon. However, I realized immediately I had never said or meant to say what they heard. They were engaged with God. He was speaking to them but not with the words that I had been using. 

The same phenomena happens with music. Particularly helpful to worship is congregational singing. People who join their voices with others in praise to God are often comforted, inspired, challenged and confirmed in their faith. The quality of the singing is not so important as the ease with which people can enter into the experience. Music is not meant for the people up front to be honored as performers. Applause in a worship service seems odd to the purpose of worship. Applause from the congregation for musicians reinforces the idea that the performers are the ones up front and it makes the people in the congregation an audience such as you would find at a concert. The music, especially congregational singing, helps the people to offer the performance of their praise to God. The only applause should be applause in heaven.

Applause is not a problem for sermon givers. Very few sermons offered in local congregations elicit applause. That’s just as well! In fact, limited ability preachers can serve God better than highly talented preachers. The limited preacher serves better if the congregation hearing a talented preacher thinks too much of the preacher and fails, thereby, to offer their thoughts and praise where it belongs, to God alone. The sign of a good preacher is his or her ability to help people turn their thoughts to God. Never does a preacher want the congregation to leave the service saying, “What a great preacher!” Always, the good preacher wants the people to leave saying, “What a great Savior is our Lord!” The same applies to music and to all of our leaders in worship. As John the Baptist said in reference to Jesus, he must increase, and I must decrease.

Congregations that listen regularly to good preaching will, hopefully, become accustomed to the preaching. They will not be surprised by good preaching. They will expect it week by week. Hopefully, the congregation will learn to listen for God through the good preaching. The encounter with God will be far more significant than the efforts of the hard working and talented preacher. In time people will no longer notice that their preacher is exceptionally good in his or her calling. They take good preaching for granted. Being taken for granted is probably good for the spiritual health of the preacher, and the reward for his or her efforts will not be applause, but it will be a congregation that worships with reverence and joy. 

Congregations that listen regularly to modest preachers with limited ability or even to preachers who could do better if they worked harder, can, also, learn in time to look past the preacher to God. It will be harder for these listeners, but there are ways to become a good listener even to preachers who offer poorly prepared sermons or sermons that seem on the surface to have little insight or challenge to offer. Even these sermons can become in the ears of a good listener the work of God. In my next entry I will give specifics.