This is a series of articles on how to preach Christ in the Old Testament. Many have mistakenly preached using the Old Testament for moralistic preaching or self-help. Preacher, do you want to learn to preach on the basis of the Old Testament?Series of articles will give you a good introduction.
Greidanus in the book Sola Scriptura presents a series of objections to the use of the exemplary biographical sermon, here the four most striking: its anthropocentric character, the hermeneutic deviation and the banalization of the Scripture that favors and the establishment of false or erroneous parallels.
- Such sermons also promote.
- In the hermeneutic process.
- The displacement of the author’s purpose by recording the narrative for the preacher’s creativity during his performance.
- Ernest Best’s argument.
- Demonstrated by Greidanus.
- Is particularly interesting here:.
Most of the material about biblical characters was recorded for a different purpose than giving us information about the particular person?[?] “Incidents, showing Peter’s weaknesses, are not recorded primarily to tell us about Peter’s weaknesses. , but of God’s mercy, who forgave him. ” Therefore, Best argues: “The selection of incidents we gave about Peter was dominated by a different interest from Peter’s character in himself. Therefore, it makes no sense for us to use these interests to build an image of Peter’s character, and then proceed and apply it to men in general. Should we use the incidents of Peter’s weaknesses to defend God’s mercy and strength?
Greidanus argues that such a use, which he describes as a moralist, destroys the purpose of the Bible and replaces it with the preacher’s agenda. Kromminga argues that “moralism easily neglects the author’s intention and divine intent by recounting a given event or allows intent to play only a minor role in applying the message to life. “Schilder presents an astonishing example of how Easter sermons were heard in which the characters around Christ received primary attention. They spoke of the internal conflicts, comfort, and hardened hearts of Judas, Peter, Pilate, Mary, etc. , while what Christ did, why God brought His Son into this experience, and what Jesus experienced in and through the actions of these characters, has been forgotten. Hoekstra emphasized one of the most important issues of the controversy of his time: “Our preaching should not be the preaching of Peter or Mary, but the preaching of Christ. “Schilder’s example is pretty obvious, but Holwerda claims it’s true. throughout Scripture:
Doesn’t the Bible contain many stories, but only one? The unique story of God’s constant and continuous revelation, the unique story of God’s ever-progressive redemptive work. And the different people mentioned in the Bible have their own special place in this story and their special meaning to it. Therefore, we must try to understand all events in their relationship with each other, in their coherence with the center of redemptive history, Jesus Christ.
Greidanus recognizes that this is an ideal, a goal that remains to be achieved, but emphasizes that this is a discussion about how this goal can be achieved. The question also: is it not primarily whether the truths presented are biblical, but whether these truths are actually revealed in the text of preaching?It also notes that what is questioned is not the use of illustrations in the sermon, nor the ability to extract illustrations from the scriptures, but rather the use of the scriptures primarily as a source of illustrations.
In other words, if the purpose of biographical accounts is to illustrate Christian life and whether the practice of establishing a direct correlation between the biblical character and the congregation is consistent with the nature of the biblical text. Anglada raises the question as follows:
The reformed or Christocentric Christological principle of the interpretation of the scriptures states that Christ is the key to the interpretation of the Bible, because all this, including the Old Testament, refers to it, focuses on it, and bears witness to it. Acts of the same story written by God, who has Christ as the main protagonist. It is difficult to understand the meaning of a scene in this story or the place of other protagonists or antagonists, interpreting them regardless of their places and roles in the plot. and their relationship with the main protagonist. [?] The content of the Bible does not consist of accounts of facts fortuitous or selected according to political, economic, ideological or social criteria, but is the account of God’s actions for the fulfillment and realization of Christ’s plan of redemption.
Holwerda admits that a biblical character can be used as an illustration like any other character in the story, but once a text is chosen as the basic text of the sermon, it should be treated according to its own nature and no longer as an illustration.
Following the above theme, it should be noted that exemplary biographical preaching improperly fragments the biblical text and trivializes it. The texts of Holwerda and Anglada mentioned above are based on the concept that the history recorded in the Bible is a unique and coherent story. affirms that an exemplary approach dissolves the scriptures into a series of spiritual and uplifting fragments. Is God’s unique Word divided into several words about God, and God’s unique work divided into several separate words that are somehow related to God and religion?
By highlighting a certain biblical character, the text is taken out of context and an infinite number of stories emerge that can serve a multitude of purposes. Greidanus states that “extracts of fragmentary interpretation”, “Holy”. Biblical account of the global context of redemption history and so does a man?In other words, what makes these characters special and the events that concern them worthy of meditation is their relationship to the history of redemption and ultimately to Jesus Christ. Having lost this relationship, we can find there is little difference between them and the characters of other religious, classical or historical literatures. Chapell demonstrates that “although well-intentioned, these sermons present a faith that is not distinguished from that of morally conscious unites, Buddhists or Hindus. “Kuyper emphasized that no episode of the history of redemption can be seen off-set.
A fact in the lives of the patriarchs, an episode drawn from David’s conflicts, a fragment of the experiences of God’s prophets, cannot present an isolated scenario for the church with the addition of some practical commentary, because thus the general and national landscape. The story could provide several materials about people whose information we have much more detailed and whose activities and words are also available to add the same comments. In fact, all these facts and events of sacred history must be considered part of a great whole, as fragments. of the great work of God’s revelation, as distinct from all other stories because of what God has accomplished in and by these men. for the future of his church and the revelation of his work for free, for the glory of his name.
Consideration of the unity of Scripture and understanding of its redemptive value are reasons enough to deny the exemplary approach to Scripture. This model clearly attacks the intrinsic supremacy of Scripture and throws the Church into a vast sea of relative and subjective interpretations, however pious. Veer cautions that “the knowledge that this story is a unified structure should avoid this fragmented approach. Why should an understanding of this unity fill us with such respect that we will no longer treat a small subdivision as an independent entity? Biblical revelation will not be explained satisfactorily until the preachers have connected him with the redemptive work of God and, therefore, with Christ.
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