The practice of exposing the scriptures is one of the most important tasks of pastoral ministry [i] and many times students and pastors of theology at the beginning of their ministerial careers have great difficulties in implementing this discipline. and the personal preferences of the pastor and the community he serves make the novice feel lost in the art of communicating God’s message. It is true that the aspects of the oratory of the exhibition are important and that the student must dedicate himself to improving it [ii], but the pastor who wants to proclaim God’s message to his community must first pay attention to the scriptures.
To make the scriptures the priority of preaching is to recognize that the authority of the proclaimed content is divine and not human; is to entrust the Lord with the responsibility to communicate his message to his community; is to understand that in the process of proclaiming the message, as preachers, we are only messengers eager not to distort what God has to communicate with his church. [iii] However, making the scriptures the priority of the exhibition is a challenge that must be known first in the preparation of the message. In fact, I dare say that it is in the preparation of the message that a sermon is defined as an explanatory preaching.
- That is why I like to call the practice of preaching that gives priority to the original text: public exegesis.
- It is a way of make clear that Scripture is not only the priority of the message to be presented.
- But the main source of the It is a way of associating two fundamentally important disciplines in the same activity: exegesis and homoletatics are belonged and their separation can interfere with the practice of explanatory preaching.
- [Iv].
Public exegesis is a philosophy of explanatory preaching that makes the original languages the center of study and preparation of homily; it is a philosophy that recognizes that abandoning the text in its original languages means risking abandoning the gospel [v] or departing from divine truth. [vi] Recognizing Scripture as a priority and making Scripture the priority of preaching are two different things, and Exegesis is dedicated to performing both activities both in the declaration of the philosophy of preaching and in its practice [vii].
Joel Crisstomo could be cited as a good example of someone who practiced public exegesis. [Viii] Known for his skillful oratory, he is one of those who have made the exegesis of the Greek text the starting point of his messages. The exhibition began with a thorough exegesis, which addressed the grammatical, literary and contextual aspects, and from this information presented the application of the text. [IX] So skilled in his homilical practice, he obtained the title of?golden mouth? (???????????? and has been recognized for combining the exegesis of the text, its presentation and its application with excellence. [X] His mastery of the realization of public exegesis has earned him the prize of the greatest of preachers [xi] about him, Everett Ferguson states: “Since the 6th century, it has been recognized as a “golden mouth” because it has mastered the art of preaching. What are your ideas about the meaning of the Greek Bible?and your ability to apply it in a practical way to your listeners, the perpetual contributions of your surviving messages?[Xii]
However, Chrysostome was not a kind of cold commentator in the pulpit; on the contrary, his homilies were specifically intended for community education and moral reform in a nominally Christian society. Due to his influence as a preacher, Chrysostomo ended up working as a reformer. in the city of Antioch, [xiii] with homilies denouncing abortion, prostitution, greed, theatre, the practice of curse and love of horse racing. Chrysostome was a public exegeta par excellence: with unparalleled attention to the Greek text and with its gaze. Becoming the stimulus of Christian practice, Chrysostome can be described as someone who has been able to associate exegesis and homiletics, his influence still feels today and his example encourages us to seek excellence.
In addition, Chrysostome serves as an example of life in exegesis, and that it is not an academic discipline that is practiced in the serenity of pastoral function; in truth, exegesis must be public for its end to come true. it is because we believe that “the Word of God is alive and more effective and sharper than any double-edged sword,” because we believe it penetrates to the point of dividing the soul and mind, joints, and marrow, and judges thoughts. And intentions of the heart? (He 4: 12) is that we strive to study it in detail. After all, in the exhibition, we are only communicators of the divine message; it is in the scriptures that the authority of the proclaimed message resides.
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[i] Mark Dever states that the display of scriptures in the Christian community is the most important of all brands of a healthy church (DEVER, Mark, Nine Brands of a Healthy Church, p. 40); making the scriptures the priority of the pulpit should be the preacher’s ongoing effort. Donald Miller goes so far as to say that “any true preaching is an explanatory preaching, and that any preaching that is not really a preaching” (MILLER, Donald, Road to Biblical Preaching, 22).
[ii] Haddon Robinson argues that there are two elements that make preaching effective: (1) what is said and (2) how is it said:?apart from the aspects related to life, with the biblical content, we have nothing worth communicating; but without a deft oratory, will we not be able to transmit this content to the congregation?(ROBINSON, Haddon, W. , Biblical Preaching, 201? Edited by Editions Vida Nova as Biblical Preaching).
[iii] Read Sidney Greidanus’s excellent introduction to explanatory preaching, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text, pp. 1-18 (published by Christian Culture as The Contemporary Preacher and the Ancient Text). For Greidanus, at the heart of Explanatory Preaching lies not only in one method, but in a commitment, the vision of the essence of preaching, a homilytic approach to scripture preaching?(p. 15). This commitment to expose God’s message to his community is the most important commitment of explanatory preaching.
[iv] One of the biggest problems in the pastoral formation of many of our seminaries is that exegesis is separated from homiletics from academic planning. Homiletics are generally found among pastoral subjects, while exegesis is distributed among academic subjects. Original language teachers defend the priority of the scriptures in preaching, but do not teach their students how to leave the text to the pulpit because their material is designed to help the student focus on the text; while homoletic teachers defend the priority of Scripture in preparing and delivering preaching, but do not teach students how to do so because they are more concerned with conveying the message than their preparation In this scenario, many students are unable to bridge the gap between exegesis and message presentation. As a result, very few pastors make recurrent use of exegesis in their pastoral ministry.
[v] Marinho Luther was the reformer advocate of this principle: “Make sure of this: we will not keep the gospel without the original languages. Languages are the sheath in which the sword of the Spirit is contained; the box in which this jewel is. “it is dedicated; The bottle in which this wine is stored; the pantry in which this food is stored (?) If, by negligence, we abandon the languages of origin (God forbid!), will we lose the gospel?(Luther, Martin, To councillors in all german cities to establish and maintain Christian schools, p. 31).
[i saw] Joo Calvin defended him rightly: “When we abandon biblical languages, do we turn a blind eye to the light and spontaneously turn away from the truth?(CALVIN, John, Selected Works by John Calvin, 3:75).
[vii] With this, we are not saying that those who do not use the original languages in the elaboration of their messages are not true exhibitors, nor are they wrong or abandon the truth, we simply propose a philosophy that makes the original text the starting point of the exhibition, and that such concern can help us defend and present the gospel and divine truth. Public exegesis is a form of explanatory preaching, not the only one.
[viii] The reader must, however, retain the urge to judge the practice of chrysostome exegesis by the criteria of current methods of contemporary exegesis, as this would be anachronistic. Chrysostome is an excellent representative of the exegenetic anti-Canaan school, and based on the criteria of this hermeneutic school, it must be evaluated.
[ix] THISELTON, Anthony C. ,? Chrysostome, John,? The Thiselton Companion of Christian Theology, p. 246.
[x] VENABLE, Edmund,? Chrysostom, Juan? A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines, 521 See also: GALLI, Mark, OLSEN, Ted Olsen ,? John Crysostom ,? 131 Christians that everyone should know, 83; LEID, K. ,? Chrysostom, John? That? S Who in Christian History, 159.
[xi] HUNTER, David G. , Chrysostome, John? The Encyclopedia of Christianity, 475.
[xii] FERGUSON, Everett ,? John Crysostom,? Eerdmans ?, Christian history manual, p. 191.
[xiii] CROSS, F. L. , LIVINGSTON, Elizabeth A. ,? John Crysostom, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, p. 345. Su series of messages entitled “About the Statutes” preached between March and April 387 EC is an excellent example of their participation and public influence.