The Beauty and Power of Biblical Exposition E-Book

Douglas Sean O'Donnell

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The Sacred Duty and Delight of Handling the Word of God In order to understand, appreciate, and faithfully preach the word of God, pastors must discern the literary nature of the Bible. Instead of just acknowledging the various genres of Scripture, pastors and teachers should allow these genres to influence how the text is approached and communicated. In The Beauty and Power of Biblical Exposition, they will learn how to both read and preach the Bible as a literary anthology.  To accomplish this, Douglas Sean O'Donnell and Leland Ryken teach pastors how to faithfully preach while keeping the original authors' intentions in mind, helping them grow in their craft and love for God's word. They explain how to read six genres—including narratives, parables, epistles, poetry, proverbs, and visionary writings—for the purpose of captivating congregations with the richness of Scripture. - Written for Pastors: Especially young pastors or those just out of seminary  - Practical: Contains guides, tables, and examples to help develop sermons - Heartfelt: Written with the desire for pastors to learn and grow as communicators

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“This book is a sumptuous feast for preachers which, if savored and digested, will prepare a banquet of life for those who listen to it. It is a delight to read from beginning to end. Formed by a deep love of the Bible and for the God who gave it, O’Donnell and Ryken have given us a wonderful gift. Whether you are a novice preacher who wishes to have your mistakes corrected gently but wisely, a tired preacher who has lost the romance of the art form, a burdened preacher who is taking shortcuts because of the demands of ministry, or an experienced preacher for whom well-worn homiletical paths have become second nature, there is something here to edify you richly. This book will make you smile and provide fresh enchantment with the text of holy Scripture. Read and enjoy!”

David Gibson, Minister, Trinity Church, Aberdeen, Scotland; author, Living Life Backward and Radically Whole

“With masterful and inspirational challenges to preachers, O’Donnell combines his and Ryken’s years of biblical preaching insights into a descriptive and useful manual for biblical exposition. This work, with its relevant examples, encourages preachers to read the Bible through the lens of various literary genres of Scripture while faithfully preaching the word of God with authorial intent and transformative purpose.”

Robert Smith Jr., Charles T. Carter Baptist Chair of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

“As Virgil once stood before Dante, this volume now stands before you as a wise tour guide of the contours and depths and great beauty of the Bible’s literary genres. Preachers will benefit from numerous insights packed into each chapter (as will their congregations), and all readers will have their appreciation of the Scriptures enriched by the obvious affection that O’Donnell and Ryken have for God’s word. Let this book encourage you in your word work.”

Robert S. Kinney, Director of Ministries, Charles Simeon Trust; Priest, Christ Church, Vienna, Austria

“Preaching faithfully and well is the challenge of a lifetime. We need all the help we can get. There is much wisdom here, the fruit of long experience and careful study, all compiled with warmth and clarity. This book will be a helpful resource for preachers and for those who seek to train preachers.”

Christopher Ash, Writer in Residence, Tyndale House; author, The Priority of Preaching

“Leland Ryken has been perhaps the clearest and most helpful voice in understanding the literature of the Bible for our generation, and here Douglas O’Donnell ably brings Ryken’s insight and voice specifically to the preaching task. The strength of this book lies especially in its affirmation of the importance of paying attention to the function and beauty of literary form, but also in its setting forth of particular strategies for reading and for preaching, helpfully illustrated through particular examples. Clearly, literary form matters to God; and as preachers, it should matter to us, in both our preparation and our delivery. The Beauty and Power of Biblical Exposition will serve you well on both fronts. It is a compelling testimony to the power and profitability of God’s beautiful word.”

Mike Bullmore, Senior Pastor, CrossWay Community Church, Bristol, Wisconsin

“One of the great needs of our day is for pulpits to be manned by preachers who are committed to proclaiming the truth of Scripture and equipped to sound the beauty of the gospel. This work has drawn its bow toward a worthy and unmoving target. These two men have each been shaping voices in my life as a preacher and a hymnwriter, and I am expectant to see how the Lord will use this contribution to mold the next generation of expositors.”

Matt Boswell, Lead Pastor, The Trails Church, Celina, Texas; hymnwriter

The Beauty and Power of Biblical Exposition

The Beauty and Power of Biblical Exposition

Preaching the Literary Artistry and Genres of the Bible

Douglas Sean O’Donnell and Leland Ryken

The Beauty and Power of Biblical Exposition: Preaching the Literary Artistry and Genres of the Bible

Copyright © 2022 by Douglas Sean O’Donnell and Leland Ryken

Published by Crossway 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

First printing 2022

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language. 

The Scripture quotation marked AMP is from the Amplified® Bible, copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Scripture quotation marked NLT is taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

All emphases in quotations of Scripture have been added by the authors.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-7044-5 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-7047-6 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-7045-2 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-7046-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: O'Donnell, Douglas Sean, 1972– author. | Ryken, Leland, author.

Title: The beauty and power of biblical exposition : preaching the literary artistry and genres of the Bible / Douglas Sean O'Donnell and Leland Ryken.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. 

Identifiers: LCCN 2021044841 (print) | LCCN 2021044842 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433570445 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433570452 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433570469 (mobipocket) | ISBN 9781433570476 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Preaching. 

Classification: LCC BV4211.3 .O33 2022 (print) | LCC BV4211.3 (ebook) | DDC 251—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021044841

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021044842

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-06-17 04:42:49 PM

To R. Kent Hughes

Contents

Tables and Diagrams

Introduction

1  The Greatest Stories Ever Told

Preaching Narrative

2  Let Him Who Has Ears Hear

Preaching Parables

3  Love Letters

Preaching Epistles

4  The Beauty of the Simple

Preaching Poetry

5  Words of Wisdom

Preaching Proverbs

6  And I Saw

Preaching Visionary Writings

Conclusion

General Index

Scripture Index

Tables and Diagrams

Tables

1.1  Cornelis Bennema’s Chart of Character Descriptors

1.2  Five More Possible Ways to Organize Homiletical Outlines on Narratives

2.1  Examples of End Stress Summary Maxims

2.2  An Outline of Mark

3.1  Examples of Indicatives and Imperatives in the Epistles

4.1  A Simple Chiasm

4.2  A Complex Chiasm: Proverbs 31:10–31

5.1  Various Type of Proverbs

Diagrams

1.1  Story Arc

3.1  Diagram of Hebrews 4:12

3.2  A Visual Representation of the Gospel

Introduction

Nearly thirty years ago I took Dr. Leland Ryken’s Literature of the Bible course. It was the first time I was introduced to Lee’s wit, wisdom, and unfair grading policies. He gave me a B. It was also the first time I was introduced to literary genres and the way in which the teacher of God’s Word, if he desires to be a good and faithful (as well as insightful and interesting!) instructor, needs to understand how each genre works.

What I remember most about that class, besides the cute petite brunette who would become my wife, was Lee’s retelling of the story of the left-handed judge Ehud from the tribe of Benjamin, who assassinated the arrogant and obese Moabite King Eglon (Judg. 3:12–30). In their private meeting, Ehud grabbed his concealed double-edged sword from his right thigh and thrust it into the unsuspecting Eglon with his left hand. The sovereign’s stomach swallowed the sword, and he died as Ehud escaped. As Dr. Ryken retold the story, pointing out the important details, and how the genre of narrative worked and is to work on our intellects and emotions, I was captivated. “That will preach,” I thought to myself.

From that day until today, I have continued—in the form of his books and friendship—to sit under Dr. Ryken’s tutelage. I have learned a lot! I deserve an A, or some honorary acknowledgment from him that he approves of my development! Well, I suppose his offer to coauthor this tome is just that; or, at least I’ll take it as that, and I will notify the Wheaton College registrar posthaste to change my GPA!

When Lee approached me and asked if I would team up with him on writing a book on preaching the literary genres of the Bible, I was honored. When he told me that he would like me, as the preacher, to be “the voice” of the book,1 I was doubly honored. The deal was that he would write on the topic of each chapter, then I would have total freedom to use what I wanted, restate it in my own words, and add a preacher’s perspective. He said that he didn’t need to see anything I wrote. Trust. Freedom. Wings to write!

As I began to soar—sifting through his words with delight and as the air beneath my flight—an idea came to mind to honor him as he had honored me. Yes, what you have in hand is my personal festschrift to him. I have taken both the new material he has written for this particular project and some of the most applicable tidbits from some of his seventy-plus monographs, articles, and essays, to give voice to our thoughts on how to preach the genres of narrative, parable, epistle, poetry, proverbs, and visionary writing. The purpose of our shared endeavor is simple. We want to help you “bring the thunder,” as preachers often say to and pray for each other. In the process of determining this book’s title, at one point I suggested “Reversed Thunder” while reading Ryken’s perceptive commentary on George Herbert’s poem “Prayer.”2 One of Herbert’s images to describe prayer is reversed thunder, in the sense that, through prayer we fire up petitions to heaven like a thunderbolt.3 I’m borrowing that compelling metaphor, but using it in a different way. The idea is this: what is going on behind the powerful thunderbolt of the Sunday morning thunder? What happens, in other words, if we reverse the timeframe from Sunday’s strike from Scripture to the pastor’s calm study of Scripture in the days before? What is behind the heat and light? My point is plain, or I hope is plain. I will make it plain now: Understanding what happens in the pastor’s study, as he seeks to understand, and then explain, illustrate, and apply God’s Word, can help everyone who regularly teaches God’s Word tap into the surge behind the storm.

Seven Shared Convictions

Before we peer into that power source, it is important to say something of the shared convictions behind this collaborative endeavor, or “our book,” as we would so often title our many emails to each other. We have at least seven. First, a literary approach to the Bible is essential to good preaching because the Bible is literature. To rightly divide the word of truth requires an understanding of how the Bible is put together. Faithful biblical exposition necessitates careful literary analysis. As Martin Luther once stated, “I am persuaded that without knowledge of literature pure theology cannot at all endure.” The context of that quote is that Luther is expressing his “desire that there shall be as many poets and rhetoricians as possible” in the pulpit because he sees that “by these studies, as by no other means, people are wonderfully fitted for the grasping of sacred truth and for handling it skillfully and happily.”4 Likewise, we are convinced that, on the negative side, a handling of the Bible that ignores its literary nature is a sin of omission;5 and, on the positive side, a handling of the Bible that recognizes that the Bible is a literary anthology in which the individual parts belong to various literary genres and embraces “even a modicum of self-conscious literary analysis” will greatly enhance the proclamation of God’s Word.6

Second, a literary approach to the Bible helps avoid reductionistic preaching. Some pastors think that expository preaching is just the homiletical equivalent of expository writing, the sole aim of which is to convey facts and information. The point of preaching Psalm 23, it might be said, is to reduce all the images to ideas. But why would we take the poetry out of the poem? Psalm 23 is not a collection of ideas; it is a beautiful short poem that God inspired David to write so that we might understand the picture it paints, the emotions it expresses, and the timeless truths it propounds. Here’s another example, from a biblical story Ryken often uses to defend and illustrate the point, and for good reason. In his own words,

The sixth command tells us, “You shall not murder.” The story of Cain (Gen. 4:1–16) embodies that same truth by means of characters and events. The story of Cain does not use the abstract word murder, nor does it contain a command not to murder. It shows that we should not commit murder. The author of any story wants us to vicariously relive an experience in our imagination, and by that means encounter truth. That is how literature works. If the author of Genesis 4 had primarily wanted us to grasp an idea with our minds, he would have given us an idea. The fact that he gave us something else obligates us to take account of this “something else.” The biblical authors need to be allowed to set the agenda for how we are expected to assimilate what they wrote. What happens when we ignore the narrative form of the story of Cain? The most customary result is that the text is reduced to an idea. Reductionism in this form is the only thing left to do with the text if we ignore the story with its characters, settings, and events. If we ignore the narrative form, we are not dealing with the text in terms of its intended mode of operation, which is to get us to share an experience. Kenneth Bailey has correctly written that a story (and by extension any literary text) is “not a delivery system for an idea that can be discarded once the idea (the shell) is fired. Rather [it] is a house in which the reader or listener is invited to take up residence . . . and look out on the world from the point of view of the story.”7

Third, and closely related to the second, a literary approach to the Bible acknowledges that, throughout the Bible, meaning is communicated through various literary forms.8 There is more to the story of Cain’s murder of Abel than the application “don’t kill your brother.” Likewise, the nature of the Canaanite woman’s “great faith” in Matthew 15:21–28 is understood only through her dialogue with and response to Jesus.9 Faith is defined only once in the Bible (Heb. 11:1), but it is illustrated in narrative form hundreds of times. Think of the stories of Abraham, Job, and Habakkuk. Think also of the poems of the Sons of Korah. In Psalm 46:1–3, the sons sing of resilient faith:

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,

though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble at its swelling. 

It would be ridiculous to ignore or disregard this poem’s literary form and features, for the truths of the text come through the form and features. It is only as we imagine God like a mighty unshakable and secure fortress (the image used in the final line of the poem, “the God of Jacob is our fortress,” v. 11) when a sudden powerful earthquake causes the side of a mountain to crash into the sea, that we grasp the point of the poem. The images embody the idea. The poets could have simply said, “God is our security in times of calamity,” but instead they provide pictures that make the very point more memorable and tangible. The medium is not the message, but the message cannot be fully obtained without the medium. We cannot discard the form once we have deduced the idea. To merely preach an abstract idea is to fail to do justice to the authors’ intent (the Sons of Korah wrote a God-inspired poem!)10 and to pull the plug on the power of word pictures in preaching the Word.

Fourth, a literary approach to the Bible helps the preacher help his congregation to relive the text as fully as possible, so as to live out the message of the text. Years ago, Professor Richard Pratt wrote a book on interpreting Old Testament narratives called He Gave Us Stories. Yes, God gave us stories! He also gave us poems, parables, proverbs, laws, lists, letters, doxologies, debates, dialogues, lamentations, hymns, apocalyptic visions, chronicles, encomiums, treaties, and more. He gave us these various genres for various reasons, one of which is to re-experience in community the ideas, expressions, emotions, and applications of each unique text. For example, we cannot relive a story without encountering and analyzing the settings, characters, and plots; and, we cannot relive a poem without assimilating the structure and symbols of the poem. The Bible is not predominantly an ideational book—a book of randomly disassociated lists of theological propositions. Christians sometimes treat the Bible that way. What a shame. Christian preachers sometimes preach the Bible that way. A double portion of shame!

When a preacher and his congregation fail to relive a text, they fail to enter into the human experience so carefully and vividly expressed in Scripture. The Bible embodies human experience—the tears of death, the sadness of sickness, the sting of betrayal, the flush of sexual arousal. It is a book of human experience, not merely or mainly a book of religious and moral ideas. The nightly news might tell us what happened, whereas the Bible tells us what happens—what is true for all people in all places and times. Thus, “to gain relevance, all a preacher needs to do is explicate the human experience embedded in the literary parts of the Bible.”11 Indeed, he needs to “resist the impulse immediately to reduce every biblical passage to a set of theological ideas,”12 and use the human experience expressed in Scripture to bridge the gap from the ancient world of the text to today. As Ryken exhorts, “We need to hear the voice of human experience from the pulpit.” For to hear that voice is to deeply connect God’s breathed out word with God’s gasping people—to teach, reprove, correct, and train them in righteousness, to equip them for every good work (see 2 Tim. 3:16–17). “The test of whether an expository preacher has dealt adequately with a text,” Ryken continues, “is simple: if listeners have been led to see their own experiences in the text and exposition, the expositor has interacted with the subject matter in keeping with its literary nature.”13

Fifth, a literary approach to the Bible offers an awareness and appreciation of the artistry of God’s inspired Word. While the Bible is written in plain and common ancient languages, and much of the Bible uses plain talk to talk about profound realities, the beauty of expression and artistry of arrangement is everywhere. Just as we are called to worship the Lord “in the beauty of holiness” (Ps. 96:9 KJV), preachers should preach, and all Christians should delight in, the beauty of the holiness of God’s Holy Word. Beauty mattered to God when he created the world, and it mattered to him as he moved the authors of the Bible to compose. “The writer of Ecclesiastes states his philosophy of composition, portraying himself as a self-conscious stylist and wordsmith who arranged his material ‘with great care’ and who ‘sought to find words of delight’ (Eccles. 12:9–10). Surely other biblical writers did the same.”14 Every Bible preacher has the responsibility to do something with that beauty. To underscore, explain, illustrate, and apply the imagery, metaphors, similes, hyperboles, apostrophe, personification, paradox, and pun, and lots of other literary devices is a sacred duty and delight!15 If artistry is found on every page of the Bible, Bible preachers need to expound the Bible with that in mind.

Sixth, a literary approach to the Bible opens the entire canon of Scripture to exploration and exposition. Ryken recounts the time when a longtime minister confided that before he mastered literary analysis of the Bible, he would often read a psalm to patients in a hospital but would never consider preaching from a psalm because he “didn’t know what to do with it.” Mastering all the literary genres and understanding how various literary devices work gives the expositor the confidence and skill to cover all of the Bible. When he comes to the opening scene of the Song of Solomon, the Olivet Discourse, a parable of judgment, a paradoxical proverb, or John’s visions on Patmos, he doesn’t ask, “What do I do with this?” and “Oh, heavens, how on earth do I preach this?” The whole of Scripture is wide open and ready for exploration and exposition.

Seventh (we felt that a seventh conviction was numerologically necessary!), a literary approach to the Bible adds freshness and enjoyment to our reading and preaching, along with an antidote to misinterpretation of God’s Word. While that’s a sentence-full, the three points of this seventh conviction are straightforward. Freshness: if we have never viewed the Bible as literature and as a book that reveals its beauty and truth by literary means, a literary approach to preaching yields fresh insights. Enjoyment: if we can educate ourselves to see the literary qualities of the Bible, we will experience the same pleasure we have when we read Emily Dickinson, Charles Dickens, or J. R. R. Tolkien. Misinterpretation: if we can correctly identify the genre (the book of Jonah is a satire, not a hero story) and literary devices (Proverbs 3:11 is a synonymous parallelism—making the same point two ways, not making two points), we will rightly interpret God’s Word for God’s people. Which, as a final aside, always bring freshness and enjoyment to all.

The End of the Introduction

One of the most telling (and sadly accurate, in my opinion) statements Ryken makes in his excellent essay on “The Bible as Literature and Expository Preaching” is this: “Many Bible expositors would assent to . . . the literary nature of the Bible, only to ignore it when they stand in the pulpit. Mere assent to the idea that the Bible is a literary anthology has not produced a literary approach to the Bible.”16

The two main goals of this book are straightforward: First, we desire to inform and inspire pastors to understand that “attentiveness to the literary dimensions of the Bible should be foregrounded in expository sermons.”17 A literary analysis of the Bible is invaluable to faithful preaching. Stop ignoring the obvious; start embracing the important.18 Second, we seek to supply a foundation for preachers to move from sermons filled with merely abstract theological propositions and proof-texted moral applications to sermons that are fresh, relevant, interesting, and accurate-to-the-authorial-intention—words on God’s Word that relive the human experience and revive a love for God and others. So, embrace the arsenal of analytic tools offered. And take up the delightful task of preaching words of delight to God’s (usually) delightful people!

In what follows, we cover preaching narrative (ch. 1), parables (ch. 2), epistles (ch. 3), poetry (ch. 4), proverbs (ch. 5), and visionary writings (ch. 6). Our sequel on preaching discourse, satire, hero stories, law, gospel, prophecy, fables, riddles, maxims, monologues and dialogues, and the like will be out precisely 144,000 days after this book releases. (Let the reader understand.) For this present volume, each chapter will be divided into two parts: the first part will cover how to read a specific genre; the second will cover how to preach it. Basically, I have taken Lee’s material and translated it so that preachers get the full benefit from it. I have also added my own insights built on his tutelage and my years of pastoral experience. So, if you ever wanted to figure out how Dr. Leland Ryken’s lifetime of work on the Bible as literature can help you in your preaching, keep reading!

1  As a personal aside, Lee knows that English literature is his expertise. He is not a preacher. I believe he stepped back from having two voices to this book—half a chapter by him and half by me—because he has such a high respect for the pastor’s calling and he thought my voice, as a preacher, would be more directly relevant to our readers.

2  Leland Ryken, The Soul in Paraphrase: A Treasury of Classical Devotional Poems (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 88–89.

3  For further explication on the poem, see Leland Ryken, The Devotional Poetry of Donne, Herbert, and Milton, Christian Guides to the Classics (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014), 54–55.

4  Martin Luther, “Letter to Eoban Hess, 29 March 1523,” in Luthers Briefwechsel, in D. Martin Luthers Werke, 120 vols. (Weimar, Germany: Böhlhaus, 1883–2009), 3:50.

5  “There is a . . . sense in which the Bible, since it is after all literature, cannot properly be read except as literature; and the different parts of it as the different sorts of literature they are” (C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms [New York: Macmillan, 1958], 3).

6  Leland Ryken, “The Bible as Literature and Expository Preaching,” in Preach the Word: Essays on Preaching: In Honor of R. Kent Hughes, ed. Leland Ryken and Todd Wilson (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 39.

7  Leland Ryken, “Why We Need to Read and Interpret the Bible as Literature,” unpublished, quoting Kenneth Bailey, The Cross and the Prodigal (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 87. A number of ideas and expressions in this introduction come from Ryken’s unpublished article. Elsewhere, Ryken writes of Genesis 4, “A person listening to an expository sermon on the story of Cain should be aware from start to finish that the text being explicated is a narrative, not a theological treatise. The text exists to be relived in its fullness, not dipped into as a source of proof texts for moral and theological generalizations” (Ryken, “Bible as Literature and Expository Preaching,” 43).

8  “There is no content without the form in which it is expressed” (Leland Ryken, Literary Introductions to the Books of the Bible [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015], 10).

9  As Flannery O’Connor notes of narrative, “the whole story is the meaning, because it is an experience, not an abstraction” (Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose [New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1969], 73). For an example on how doctrine is taught in narrative form, see Douglas Sean O’Donnell, “O Woman, Great Is Your Faith!”: Faith in the Gospel of Matthew (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2021).

10  Here is where the doctrine of inspiration comes into view. Did God inspire the forms of the Bible, or only the content? Both! God led some biblical authors to write stories, others to write poems, others to write satire and proverbs and epistles. The Holy Spirit superintended the process of composition undertaken by biblical authors and also the resulting products of that composition (see 2 Pet. 1:21). Thus, whenever a biblical author expressed the content of a passage in a literary form, we can safely conclude that he intended that the preacher interpret the passage using ordinary literary methods of analysis. Put differently, whenever a biblical author embodies his message in a literary genre and by means of literary techniques, he intends that pastors engage in literary analysis.

11  Ryken, “Bible as Literature and Expository Preaching,” 42.

12  Leland Ryken, “Reading the Bible as Literature,” in TheESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 2570.

13  Ryken, “Bible as Literature and Expository Preaching,” 42, 44.

14  Ryken, “Reading the Bible as Literature,” 2570.

15  See Leland Ryken, A Complete Handbook of Literary Forms in the Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014); and “Glossary of Literary Terms and Genres,” in TheLiterary Study Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 1975–1988.

16  Ryken, “Bible as Literature and Expository Preaching,” 44.

17  Ryken, “Bible as Literature and Expository Preaching,” 44, 47.

18  “Everything that writers put into their composition is something they regarded as important, including the literary aspects of a text. If literary matters were important to the writers of the Bible, they need to be important to us as readers” and preachers (Ryken, Literary Introductions to the Books of the Bible, 10).

1

The Greatest Stories Ever Told

Preaching Narrative

Six questions. Answer honestly. First, have you ever heard a preacher use the Bible as a launching pad; that is, a text is read near the start of the sermon, and then, once the preacher gets into his message, the Bible recedes from view and rarely resurfaces? I have seen some preachers lift up the Bible, read a verse, and then say absolutely nothing about the Bible! I assume this doesn’t describe you.

Second, have you ever heard a preacher use the Bible as a road map that travels through as many parallel passages as possible; that is, a narrative is read (let’s say, from the Synoptics) and then its parallels in the other Gospels are quickly exegeted, then Paul is quoted at length, and finally you earn a gold star for flipping the fastest to everywhere in the Bible but the actual story that was read as the Scripture reading for the day? Instead of understanding a particular narrative within the context of the full narrative, and living in that text for the whole sermon and experiencing an in-depth experience of the story, you are whisked away to a thousand rabbit holes of exegetical curiosity. Been there? Heard that? Might have done that a time or two?

Third, have you ever heard a preacher use the Bible to moralize a text? For example, on a Men’s Retreat the story of Judah and Tamar is treated as an exposition on the importance of avoiding sexually immoral women on business trips, and the narrative of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife as the follow-up talk on how we can have victory, as Joseph did, over the sexually aggressive woman at work? That will preach. But it is not how those stories should be preached. The story of Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38) derives its meaning, as any biblical narrative does, from the literary whole, namely, the story of Joseph recorded in Genesis 37–50. The story of Judah and Tamar is more about God keeping his promises than about an immoral sex act, and it fits within the story of Joseph in that Joseph saves the lives of Judah’s offspring, an offspring from which the Christ came.

Fourth, have you ever heard a preacher use the Bible as a lecture on systematic theology; that is, he gives a doctrinal sermon that is divorced, not from verses in the narrative, but from the narrative itself? For example, the miracle of Jesus walking on water becomes merely a proof text for the doctrine of Jesus’s divinity. The story itself is stripped of its textual beauty so that one doctrine can be emphasized. That narrative does confirm that doctrine, but that is not the sole intent of the narrative. It misses the God-woven texture of a story that offers multifaceted truths about God, humanity, discipleship, sin, and salvation.

Fifth, have you ever heard a preacher use the Bible as a sideshow for the slideshow? That is, he uses a detailed PowerPoint presentation or video clips that dominate the sermon? Many churches today fail to recognize the power of a good story and storyteller. There is nothing more riveting than listening to a master teacher work through a masterfully written story about the Master! Artwork or graphics on a slide can help the listener (and looker) follow along and illustrate complex concepts visually, but tech-dominated “preaching” is dominated by the wrong medium. What happens is that most people delight in the interesting images and amusing clips, not the very Word of God.

Sixth, have you ever heard a preacher use the Bible as a starting point to his own imaginative narrative exposé; that is, he pretends to be a character in the story and adds a dozen details to the inspired narrative? For example, when he comes to the detail of Zacchaeus’s size, a quarter of the sermon “exegetes” its significance through actual actions. A tree is on stage. The preacher makes himself small by wearing a long robe, dropping to his knees, and scurrying across the stage. He comes to the tree, eyes it, then the congregation. They cheer him on. He climbs the tree. Okay, I’ll admit, I have never seen that, but nothing would surprise me today. The point, in question form, is this: why the need to expand in the extreme upon a God-inspired narrative? Is your dramatic interpretation really an improvement on the Spirit’s inspiration?

If you answered yes to any or all of the above questions, let me ask you a final question: Do you lament the current state of preaching within Bible-believing churches? I imagine so. Well, one sure remedy to such models of preaching is a serious commitment to the literary nature of the Bible. For think about it: One cannot preach “the-Bible-as-a-launching-pad” sermons, or any of the above examples, and faithfully preach any of the stories of Scripture. Envision a sermon on David and Goliath, the Gerasene demoniac, or the conversion of Saul that begins with a quote from the most popular verse from the text and off the preacher goes on a tangent, never to return to one of the greatest stories ever told.

In this chapter we will explore how to read and preach the most prevalent genre in the Bible.1 Narrative is not the most important genre just because it is the most prevalent (each genre is essential for a full-orbed preaching ministry), but if you do not understand the basics of this genre, you will be greatly limited. Completely limited! For even the non-narrative parts of the Bible take their place within the overarching metanarrative that unifies the Bible. The central character in the organizing story of the Bible is God, and the central literary (and theological!) concern of the Bible is the characterization (or depiction) of God. The acts of God constitute the plot of the master story of the Bible.2 And every creature interacts with this divine protagonist. So, of all the chapters in this short book, we invite you to eye and apply this most foundational one.

How to Read Biblical Narrative

In his MasterClass video on “Storytelling and Writing,” Salman Rushdie states, “We need stories to understand ourselves. We are the only creature that does this unusual thing—of telling each other stories in order to try to understand what kind of creature we are.” Later he says, “When a child is born, the first thing a child requires is safety and love. The next thing that the child asks for is ‘Tell me a story.’” That is where we start. Human experience. “Tell me a story” is perhaps the most universal human impulse. We live in a story-shaped world, and our lives themselves have a narrative quality about them. We universally resonate with stories! So, why wouldn’t we, as preachers, do everything in our power to understand how to handle (even master) this genre? Do you want to connect with your congregation? Of course. Then don’t underestimate the power of comprehending and communicating God’s uniquely designed stories to people made in his image. You will find no more promising sermon material than the stories God gave to his church and world.

The Components of a Story

If you have been to seminary, you will have learned that no principle of biblical hermeneutics is more important than that a written text needs to be approached in terms of the kind of writing that it is. Right? Maybe. And surely you had a whole class on preaching narrative. Right? Wrong. Or, likely wrong. Well, in this chapter, we offer no master class, but we do submit to you a short and hopefully inspirational tutorial. We hope we inspire you to learn more; to build your library, and to actually read what is in your library. But we know that pastors are busy, almost as busy as literary scholars and Bible publishers! So, our Concise Manual on Preaching Narrative (While Invigorating the Elect and Captivating Converts) awaits you. We begin with the two foundational steps that you need to take each time you come to a Bible story.

First, know that a story is a story. Be able to identify the genre. If the text in view starts, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” you need to turn off your television, computer, or app. But if it starts, “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered,” you need to know that a God-breathed story has started and that your congregation is soon to be thoroughly engaged by your skillful retelling. And, if needed, feel free to ask your in-house droid, that is programmed for both protocol and etiquette, “What genre is Luke 2:1?” Both C-3PO and Siri will give you the correct answer. But you are surely not so shallow. You likely listen to Bach as you translate Sunday’s text, and sip Intelligentsia Coffee when you turn to form your homiletical outline. Okay, maybe you don’t. But you read books like the one in hand because you want to improve your preaching. And you know a story when you see a story.

But are you committed to analyzing a biblical narrative in keeping with the traits of that genre? To do that is the second step. Stories consist of three components—setting, characters, and plot. Each of these needs to be acknowledged and analyzed in our treatment of a biblical narrative. I find such analysis extremely pleasurable, and I often share aspects of my delight in the story with God’s people from the pulpit. Because I delight not only in what God says to us in his Word but in how he has said it, both I and my hearers grow in our knowledge of God and appreciation of how he has chosen to communicate to us. Part of that growth is that together we use and understand terms like setting (“Notice that our passage is set in Jericho”), characters (“Look how Rachel is described”), and plot (“As we see this drama unfold, we come now to its climax—the point of no return”). The terms we all learned in high school English literature class are the right terms to use when reading and presenting the stories of the Bible. By the time I preached through the Gospel of Matthew at New Covenant Church (in Naperville, Illinois), and the Gospel of Mark at Westminster Presbyterian Church (in Elgin, Illinois), my congregation knew, understood, and used a plethora of literary terms associated with the genre of narrative. Such knowledge is not esoteric; it is immensely practical—as practical as learning what the word “gigabyte” means when buying a cell phone, “audible” when quarterbacking a football team, and “cinematography” when hosting the Oscars.

Setting

Setting is one of the most overlooked but essential aspects of proper exegesis of biblical narratives. But what does it matter that we take careful note of historical (“In the year that King Uzziah died,” Isa. 6:1), geographical (“Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king,” 2 Chron. 10:1), topological (“He went up on the mountain,” Matt. 5:1), physical (“Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome,” 1 Sam. 16:12), cultural (“And as Jesus reclined at table,” Matt. 9:10), chronological (“When the seven days were almost completed,” Acts 21:27), or descriptive (“On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne,” Acts 12:21) details? First and foremost, if it mattered to the biblical authors, it should matter to us. Put differently, if it mattered to the Holy Spirit, it should matter to the Spirit-filled preacher. If every jot and tittle matters (Matt. 5:18 KJV), surely each detail an inspired storyteller adds to his inspired story contributes to the story.

Second, the setting provides the necessary context to the characters’ actions within the narrative. It “enables the action that occurs within it.”3 The more we know about who is wherewhen and perhaps why, the better we will understand what is about to happen. Knowing something about the location, climate, nationality of the characters, time of day, season of the year, and so on, helps us make better sense of the story.

Third, the setting ignites and exercises our imaginations, making a story, with its vivid descriptions, come alive. When we read, “for a long time [he] had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs” (Luke 8:27), we see a terribly sad scene. We visualize the cold, naked man and his dark, eerie shelter. We want a solution to his problem. We want Jesus to step in to save—to clean up this unclean scene.

Fourth, the setting often takes on symbolic overtones and becomes a major part of the message or theme of a story. For example, the informed exegete grasps the intrabiblical allusions of Jesus in “the wilderness” at the start of his ministry, and the fourfold repetition of the word “Passover” when he served the twelve at the Last Supper; and he pieces together the themes that Jesus, as true Israel, succeeds where Israel of old failed, and that, as the Passover Lamb, he is sacrificed so that God might pass over his people, saving them from their sin.4

Fifth, the setting often creates the mood or builds an atmosphere. When we read, “And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land” (Mark 15:33), the author has already engaged and prepared his readers for Jesus’s dark cry of dereliction (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” v. 34).

Characters

Characters are a second component of stories. A character is simply a person in the story. There are major and minor characters, as well as the main character—the protagonist. All the unfolding action of the story spins around the axis of this “first” or “primary” (prōt-) “struggler” or “competitor” (agōnistēs), and one of the most useful strategies for mastering a story is to regard oneself as the observant traveling companion of the protagonist.5Like Christian in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, we follow him on his journey until the end.

We get to know the characters in a story by their abilities, traits, roles and relationships, stated or inferred attitudes and emotions, dialogue, actions, titles and names, physical description, gestures, authorial insider information, foils, and responses from other characters.

A good overriding premise is that we should get to know every character in a story as fully as the details in the text enable us to do. For example, in Matthew 15:21–28, the Evangelist gives the woman who approaches Jesus the archaic title “Canaanite” (v. 22). That label, along with the setting of “Tyre and Sidon” (v. 21), the impatient indignation of the apostles (“Send her away, for she is crying out after us,” v. 23), and the hesitancy of Christ (“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” v. 24), reveals to the reader her status. This character is an outsider to the people and privileges of Israel. And yet the storyteller so shapes the story that we grow both in sympathy and admiration as the story reaches its climax. As Jesus pronounces, “O woman, great is your faith” (v. 28), we gladly join in his high commendation. Despite her race (Gentile), gender (woman), and problem (a demon-possessed daughter), we admire her and want to emulate her. And through her movement, confessions, doggedness (!), and postures we get the theological points of the passage. We too should move toward Jesus (she “came” to him, vv. 22, 25), call him “Lord” (vv. 22, 25, 27) and “Son of David” (v. 22), beg him for mercy (“Have mercy on me,” v. 22), persist in prayer (“she came” to him again, saying, “Lord, help me,” v. 25), and worship him (“she . . . knelt before him,” v. 25). We should also be repulsed by her foil—the disciples. We don’t want to share in their religious impatience, lack of compassion, narrow view of the kingdom, bigotry, and likely chauvinism.

Plot

Plot is the third component. Aristotle’s ancient but still accurate statement that plot is the “soul” of a story in that the action moves the narrative, and that each story has a beginning (an action is introduced), a middle (it progresses toward the appointed goal), and an end (it reaches closure as the issues that have been introduced are resolved) suffices.6 And each plot is built around one or more conflicts that reach resolution at the conclusion. Conflict and Resolution is not only the name of my new 1980s flashback band (we do weddings and Bar mitzvahs), it is the core of grasping and explicating this genre. And the preacher who thinks that it is optional to name the conflicts and trace their progress is, to paraphrase an ’80s icon (Mr. T), to be pitied as a fool. The good reader, following Aristotle’s advice, needs to see how the individual parts of the plot relate to the whole. The good preacher needs to divide the story, no matter how brief, into its successive units, and name these units accurately. He needs to understand and implement in his study (and most subtly in his sermon) the arc of the story: setting, rising action (including the conflict), climax, and resolution (see diagram 1.1).

Diagram 1.1: Story Arc

“Exposition” could be called “background,” and it usually involves the setting being set: some character (Jesus) somewhere (in Cana of Galilee) on perhaps a certain day (someone’s wedding day) is about to act (turn water into wine). Take, for example, the story of Abraham’s (almost) sacrifice of his son. The background is, “After these things God tested Abraham” (Gen. 22:1). “These things” presumably refers to the birth of Isaac, God’s protection of Hagar and Ishmael, and Abraham’s treaty with Abimelech (Genesis 21). The fact that God tests the man he has called and with whom he has made a covenant introduces an imbalance, a disequilibrium that needs resolution. This pattern is typical of all plots in biblical narratives. So too are the next four stages:

Conflict

God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, a request surprisingly out of step with the promise of offspring.

Rising action

Father and son journey to the mountain of sacrifice, which includes Isaac carrying the wood to light the fire and asking about the animal for sacrifice, and Abraham constructing an altar, binding his son, and raising the blade for sacrifice.

Climax

The angel of the Lord stops the sacrifice. Abraham has passed the test!

Resolution

God provides an acceptable sacrifice (a ram) and reaffirms his covenant promises to Abraham.

Through this customary structural arrangement, biblical stories, like most stories told around the campfire and found in world literature, are voiced. We go back to the fact that God gave his people stories. And it is through these stories that he shows us the truth. For example, the accurate and important theological proposition that God is sovereign is sketched across the final fourteen chapters of the first book of the Bible. The preacher who ignores plot when he walks through the final narrative in Genesis, and then all of Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Jonah, is indeed the fool. If you want to invite your congregation’s “interest and emotional involvement, while at the same time imbuing the events with meaning,”7 you need to know how, and have a commitment to, “plodding” out the plot.8

How to Preach Biblical Narrative

The careful expositor understands that “good narrative is a complex interweaving of characters, plot, and setting presented by the narrator, who speaks from outside the plot, moving it forward by reporting activities, descriptions and dialogue.” He also grasps that the biblical narrator is often “omniscient, knowing the inner lives of the characters and selectively representing their thoughts, feelings and intentions . . . omnipresent, moving easily from one location to another, [and] omnipotent in the domain of the story,” in that he “conveys a moral and ethical tone, passing judgment on characters and events.”9 Indeed, it is that tone that the expositor eyes, picking up on “the author’s attitude toward his or her subject.” Is his tone “sentimental, optimistic, cynical, bitter, objective, compassionate, irreverent,” or a mixture of “sweet sadness, hopeful realism, or understated gratitude”?10 You decide. More than “you decide,” you need to form a sensible sermon. The advice of two doctors (Lee and I) follows, one an octogenarian who has published nearly as many books as there are skyscrapers in Chicago.

We transition from the study to the pulpit, seeking to answer the question, “How do we express in sermon form a biblical narrative’s literary features and message?” Put differently, “How does our exegesis of the text’s literary features help equip us to reproduce the text’s rhetorical impact in our sermons?”11 Below are eight suggestions for preaching a sermon on a biblical narrative.

Pick the Proper Pericope

Pick the proper pericope.12 This suggestion is obvious and usually easy to do, as most English Bible translations correctly divide the various narratives for you. For example, in the ESV the story of Samson is divided as such:

The Birth of Samson

Judges 13

Samson’s Marriage

Judges 14

Samson Defeats the Philistines

Judges 15

Samson and Delilah

Judges 16:1–22

The Death of Samson

Judges 16:23–31