On giving critique of sermons

Seems I've still got Marcus' keys so I'll keep writing:

Alfred Poirer helpfully observes that the cross helps us to receive criticism as beneficial

Giving critique is another thing.

Firstly, it's really easy to give critique to others. Spotting planks in other people is easy, while the dust in our own eyes is hard to see. When I want to critique someone elses sermon for not getting the point I need to remember that I have my blindspots - if I differ with the preacher I should at the least seriously consider that my prior understanding is wrong. I should assume this until further study says otherwise.

Secondly, pride loves to critique others and find their faults to elevate ourselves. A sermon should humble me as I encounter the grace of God - how tragic to allow my pride to seize upon it. How desperate to sin in the pew at the very point I'm being called back to the cross of Christ for grace.

Thirdly, the work of observing someone else and saying how they could do better is infinitely easier than the hard hours a preacher spends in the study seeking the Lord, wrestling with the text, under all the pressures that God has providentially arranged that week. 

Sermons are to be heard and applied. They present a tangible encounter with God as the preacher announces from the scriptures that Jesus Christ is Lord, constrained by a text, liberated by a text, empowered by the Holy Spirit and ruled by the word of God. The preacher might not say everything I would say. Thankfully he wont say most of the erroneous things I quickly glean from the text but which are rightly dismissed by hours in the study. Furthermore, that morning he is called to preach not me. He preaches what he has seen. He preaches what he has believed. He preaches what he is able to articulate. And, if through the word of God I am directed back to behold Jesus Christ then what complaint can I have?

Sermons are always imperfect, and every preacher wants to be faithful - no preacher wants to stand up and lie to God's people when they might speak the words of God. As Peter puts it "whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ"

Preachers need critique but they also need prayer, that as they labour over the text they might understand clearly, have soft-hearts to believe what they see and be changed by God, and then to speak from God - portraying publicly the Christ who was crucified.

God gave us truth-laden stories

We've been working through the book of Jonah at church recently. I'm loving it but it occurs to me that all the preachers are finding it hard to deal with the book being narrative. It's not easy, particularly when we're usually schooled more to deal with Romans and Galatians and want to cherish propositional truth. But, God has given us stories. And he delivers a lot of his self-revelation through them. To me, it is one of the greatest stories within the bigger story of salvation - along with Esther. These great stories are marked by the people involved and the things that happen to them.

Jonah's story particularly is a story of action and suspense. Of a man on the run from the God of everywhere. Time and again his actions defy our expectations - whether it disobedience or his occasional obedience. We're shocked when it runs from God. We're shocked when he confesses his fear of God. We're shocked at his suicidal tendancies to call death down upon himself.

We see Jonah thrown into the sea and the story leaves him behind because in chapter 1 the sailors are being saved.

We're shocked when God saves him, and more so when the vomit-soaked prophet finally obeys God. We're shocked when he preaches and the people believe God rather than killing him. We're shocked when they all repent. We're shocked when God saves them.

We're relieved when Jonah says that he knows God is gracious. We're shocked when Jonah is furious about this. We're shocked when it turns out that his problem was that he knew the LORD would be gracious.

When preaching Jonah we surely have to go down to the port, down into the ship, down to where Jonah sleeps and down in to the depths of the sea. We join Jonah as he's vomitted onto the land. We go with him to the mighty and evil city of Nineveh, where scary people do evil things. We watch them hear and respond in fasting and with sackcloth.

We join Jonah as he doesn't go back to Jerusalem but instead sits to the east of the city, looking down upon it waiting for God to smite them. We're to feel his anger and anguish, to feel the sun beat down upon him as he is graciously walked into repentance.

Doctrines delivered in stories like this capture the imagination, excite our emotions and get under our skin. Stories like these change the world.

Less Jesus Christ and more that Jesus is the Christ - whom Moses wrote about

When reading the New Testament its easy to assume that the story starts in Matthew 1 (half way through once you've skipped the genealogy). It's easy to think that salvation begins 2000 years ago rather than being planned before 'in the beginning'.

We need the Jesus who is the second Adam, the seed of Eve. The one in whom we take refuge like Noah in the Ark. Abraham's seed. The one and only son who was not just figuratively but actually resurrected. The one who will have a people for himself not in Egypt or in Canaan but in his rest. The one who will take his people back up the mountain, past the angels into the eternal garden. The one in whom the whole earth will be filled with disciples who will rule with him. The Jesus of Genesis.

We need the Jesus in whom the promises of God to Abraham are remembered. He who is God revealed to his people. The passover lamb. The one who spares us from the dark knight of God's wrath. The one who is the true mountain to which we come. The one to whom the pictures of the tabernacle point. The true priest and the true sacrifice. The one in whom God is gracious to whom he is gracious. The Jesus of Exodus. We need the Jesus whose death is the aroma pleasing to God. The one who is the sacrifice of the ultimate day of atonement. The priest who takes his people into the presence of God. The one who on the day of Jubilee will come out of the presence of God to sound the trumpet. The Jesus of Leviticus.

We need the Jesus who is God speaking to us. The one who takes us on into the promised land warning us not to harden our hearts. The Jesus of Numbers.

We need the Jesus who is the promised king for God's people. The one who brings us out of curse and into blessing. The one in whom we choose life. The Jesus of Deuteronomy. (And yes as you can tell I'm more familiar with Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus than I am with Numbers and Deuteronomy). We need the Jesus Moses wrote about in the Pentateuch.

Dave Bish, still guestblogging for Marcus. More whole bible thinking at BeginningWithMoses.org. And Grand Theft Narrative, by David Capener.

Darwins Rottweiller preaches again!

When I was a boy I looked to God. And then I was introduced to Charles Darwin. I realised that if such a simple theory could explain so much. I reasoned it could explain everything! I became an atheist.

In the third episode of The Genius of Darwin Richard Dawkins turns once more on the ranks of religious fundamentalists who disagree with him despite having made at least two big steps of faith in his extrapolation that evolution could explain everything and secondly to become an atheist. Dawkins is reasonable, we are unreasonable. End of story.Dawkins meets John Mackay who challenges him for having faith since evolution in unobservable in a human lifetime, or even the time since Darwin.

"The refusal to believe in anything you can't see is absurd" says Dawkins.

In America Dawkins enjoys being a rockstar and when asked if he's religious quips 'do I look religious?' before he descends to high-brow argument by reading his hate mail. His crusade against the condemnation of children to ignorance continues. He's accused of being a closed minded censor of arguments and differing views... to which he says they're blind to the beauty of the evolution of the reptile jaw! And then on to the evidence in DNA and scare tactics 'would you let this man teach your children science...' he says of Nick Cowan.

It's not that I mind Dawkins getting a hearing -  I find him quite entertaining really as he takes moral highground over everyone who differs from him repeating again and again 'Evolution is a fact.' and like a modernist Dinosaur in a supposed postmodern age...

'Somethings are just true. They're not a matter of opinion'
The leaps of Darwin and Dawkins from evolutionary thinking to anti-God determination reveal their presuppositions. He berates multicultural Britain for defending faith views and avoiding offence in the classroom by not forcing children to believe Darwinism. He says people should see evidence and evaluate it. I'd agree.  The teacher says we believe it because we're scientists and so evidentialists. But, Dawkins says - no it's not because you're a scientist it's because of the evidence. The prof is seriously blind to his presuppositions. A brief anti-Relativism rant helpful 'it's a pretentious cop-out'. before he cites his creed again: Evolution is the plain truth, you don't decide to accept it or not, it just is.

 

Dawkins is a preacher who sermonises his audiences with statement after statement, rather than putting together persuasives arguments. He does the same things that most of those he picks to argue with do, and shuts down debate.

In considering Darwin he reveals the original evolutionist's hatred of Christian doctrines, particularly of hell. A doctrine that one who isn't a Chritian has a vested interest in trying to demolish. It's hear that the underlying issues become clear (if they weren't already) - he can't settle for a God & Science combination because God must be eliminated and excluded not just science advanced. Moderation wont do for the professor.

Dawkins says the central doctrines of Darwinism declare of relatedness to everything and proudly boast that our ancestors were winners. This consoled Charles Darwin in suffering - though what comfort is it to know your children are being culled by evolution, dying young as failures...

The alternative is the Christian view that there is a God to whom we can relate who will accept the humble. Darwinism is the religion of the proud, Christianity of the humbled.