Preaching Christmas: How Shall We Package The Gospel This Time?

 Suspend your disbelief, pastor. December is about to arrive on your pastoral doorstep. No, I am not “pulling your leg.” Snow will soon be falling. Advent sermons will soon need preparing. Ere long we will stand before the old and young, the believer and  skeptic, proclaiming the message that Angels once declared!

So how can we make the most of this opportunity?

1.  Be sure the incarnation is thrilling your soul.

The very repetitiveness of Christmas carries with it an obvious danger. Quite frankly, preachers can become bored with the subject matter. I have heard pastors talk of ‘advent sermons’ much as someone might speak of tax returns: a necessary chore that comes round once a year. Some of us may never have said as much, but God knows, we’ve thought it in our hearts.

Yet to groan about preaching the incarnation is to reveal darkened minds and cold hearts!  What could be more interesting, fascinating, and exciting than the Word becoming flesh?  “God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man” should fill our minds with wonder and our souls with praise!  If it doesn’t, we should get on our knees and open our bibles till our cold hearts melt and catch flame with worship.

2.  Do not get original with your content.

Since there are a limited number texts from which we can preach Christmas, there is a temptation to become ‘creative’ in our expositions. Eisegesis is never more of a temptation than when preaching nativity narratives.

But the Christmas narratives do not need to be “jazzed up.”  Even as our hearts burn with wonder, let us keep cool heads and exegete our passage with the same careful precision as we would any other. Let us not be speculative, but exegetical. Let us not be original, but conventional. Let us preach the Word, trusting that the old, old story continues to have fresh force and impact!  Continue at Unashamed

Seven Ways to Get to Christ in the Old Testament

Maybe some of you have had a similar experience to mine. I was born and raised in a Christian home where the Gospel was believed and the Bible was taught and God was revered and trusted.

All of that was great, and I am so thankful and blessed for my upbringing, but the Old Testament was always a disconnect for me to the Gospel and the New testament. I wasn’t ever taught false doctrine but I believe that the emphasis was put in the wrong place. As far as I knew, Jesus’ life was just another story of the Bible among others like Daniel, Abraham, David, Esther, etc. You get the idea.

My friend recently described it as if you were given a box full of parts and told to assemble them not knowing that you were supposed to be building a motorcycle.

I think that this comes from an over emphasis on “Bible Study.”  I am not saying that there is anything wrong with Bible study or having a good hermeneutical foundation. Obviously, these are important for context so we don’t miss the original meaning and message. We correctly exegete the word and do not perform the big no no of eisegesis.

When Paul the Apostle refers to the Gospel or sometimes even “the Mystery” he isn’t just talking about the “The Romans Road” or some easy steps to understanding salvation. When Paul uses these terms he is talking big picture; he is looking at the whole story of historical redemption. He is thinking of Creation to New Creation and everything in between. This is where a proper understanding of the Old testament fits in. All the stories, and historical events of the Old Testament are pointing forward to something greater – to some one greater! Jesus himself said to the religious leaders and students of his day:   Continue at Char Brodersen

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Your Theological System Should Tell You How to Exegete

Systematic theology looks at the whole Bible and tries to understand all that God says on a given subject (e.g., sin, heaven, angels, justification).

Exegesis is what you do when you look at a single text of Scripture and try to understand what the author–speaking in a specific culture, addressing to a specific audience, writing for a specific purpose–intended to communicate.

Good systematic theology will be anchored in good exegesis. The sum of the whole is only as true as the individual parts. No Christian should be interested in constructing a big theological system that grows out of a shallow and misinformed understanding of the smaller individual passages. I don’t know of any evangelical pastor or scholar who disagrees with these sentiments.

But what about the reverse? We all know exegesis should inform systematic theology, but should our theological systems also inform our exegesis? Some Christians, especially biblical scholars, have argued that the best exegesis is completely theologically unprejudiced. We can’t bring our theological concerns to the Bible, lest we gerrymander the Scriptures and impose anachronistic categories on the text. The unspoken (or spoken) assumption is that the traffic between exegesis and theology is one way. Biblical scholars do their work, and as long as theologians pay attention to professional exegesis they can go on and do their own work. But the task of exegesis, it is often implied and sometimes explicitly said, has little to gain from listening to the theologians.  Continue at Kevin DeYoung

A Look at Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11