Helpful Luther resources

There is a nice summary of online Luther resources over at "Glosses from an Old Manse": http://acroamaticus.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/a-very-helpful-resource-for-luther.html

Bridge Builders — How adults become Christians

How Adults become Christians is the result of the work of Dave Bennett, National Director of Bridge Builders (A UK Evangelical organisation).

Lazy preachers

Luther wrote in the introduction to John Spangenberg's Postil in 1542 [quoted in Fred Meusner, Luther the Preacher, 40–41]:

Some pastors and preachers are lazy and no good. They do not pray; they do not study; they do not read; they do not search the Scripture ... as if there were no need to read the Bible for this purpose .... The call is: watch, study, attend to reading. In truth you cannot read too much in Scripture and what you read you cannot read too carefully, and what you read carefully you cannot understand too well, and what you understand well you cannot teach too well, and what you teach well you cannot live too well. .. the devil. .. the world ... [and] our flesh are raging and raving against us. Therefore dear sirs and brothers, pastors and preacher, pray, read, study, be diligent. .. this evil, shameful time is not the season for being lazy, for sleeping and snoring.

Surrender reason at the foot of the cross

“[A]nyone who has surrendered their reason at the foot of the cross will discover that Christ hands it back again to be used more appropriately and insightfully in the search for truth” (David Crump, Encountering Jesus, Encountering Scripture, Eerdmans, 2013)

Come to the pulpit as if "wooing a bride"

Walther encouraged his students to:

“make a vow to God … that you will not stand in your pulpits sad-faced, as if you were bidding men to come to a funeral, but like men that go wooing a bride or announcing a wedding” (p. 406).

(Walther, Carl F W, 1884–85. The proper distinction between law and gospel: 39 evening lectures, translated 1929 by William H T Dau, published 2000 by Concordia Publishing House, Saint Louis, MO.)

Book outline: What is narrative criticism? by Mark Allan Powell

Differences between literary and historical criticism:

1. Literary criticism focuses on the finished form of the text.
2. Literary criticism emphasises the unity of the text as a whole.
3. Literary criticism views the text as an end in itself.
4. Literary criticism is based on communication models of speech-act theory.

"Literary criticism is concerned with the question: Who is the reader? Rhetorical criticism is interested in the original readers to whom the work was first addressed (intended readers). Structuralism wants to define the responses of a competent reader who understands a work's codes. Narrative critics generally speak of an implied reader who is presupposed by the narrative itself.

Story and discourse: point of view, narration, symbolism and irony, narrative patterns (repetition, contrast, comparison, causation, climax, pivot, particularization/generalization, statements of purpose, preparation, summarization, interrogation, inclusio, interchange, chiasm, intercalation)

Events: order (story time vs discourse time is called anachronies), duration (summary, scene, stretch, ellipsis, pause), frequency (singular narration, repetitive narration, multiple-singular narration, iterative narration), causation (possibility, probability, contingency), conflict.

Characters: point-of-view, character traits, empathy/sympathy/antipathy.

Settings: spatial, temporal, social.

Benefits of narrative criticism:

1. Focuses on the text of Scripture itself.
2. Provides some insight into biblical texts for which historical backgrounds are uncertain.
3. Provides for checks and balances on traditional methods.
4. Tends to bring the scholars and non-professional Bible readers closer together.
5. Stands in a close relationship to the believing community.
6. Offers potential for bringing believing communities together.
7. Offers fresh interpretation of biblical material.
8. Unleashes the power of biblical stories for personal and social transformation.

Objections to narrative criticism:

1. Treats the Gospels as coherent narratives when they are actually collections of disparate material.
2. Imposes on ancient literature concepts drawn from the study of modern literature.
3. Seeks to interpret the Gospels through methods that were devised from the study of fiction.
4. Lacks objective criteria for the analysis of texts.
5. Rejects or ignores the historical witness of the Gospels.

How long does it take to prepare a sermon?

• "The question has always flummoxed me, because it is impossible to give a simple reply. Probably the best answer is 'your whole lifetime', because every sermon is, in a way, a distillation of everything one has learned hitherto; over the years. ... I think that beginners will need ten to twelve hours. 'Twelve hours' work on a sermon is a good general rule', said Bonhoeffer." (John Stott, Between Two Worlds, Eerdmans, 1982, pp 258)

Stott on sermon preparation

Stott's method for sermon preparation:

1. Choose your text. How? Liturgical (based on church season, lectionary), external factors (e.g. significant public event), pastoral reasons, and/or personal factors.
2. Meditate on it. Subconscious incubation, maturation, percolation. What does it mean? What does it say today?
3. Isolate the dominate thought. Find the main theme, concentrate on one theme (differentiates sermon from lecture).
4. Arrange your material to serve the dominant thought. Knock the material into shape so as to best serve the dominant thought. Many different ways of structuring a sermon: exposition, argument, faceting, categorizing, and analogy. Or ladder sermon ("takes one from point to point like the rungs of a ladder"), jewel sermon ("consists of turning one idea around as one might turn a jewel in his fingers allowing different facets to catch the light"), sky rocket sermon ("begins on the ground, rises to a height, the breaks into pieces and comes down to earth again").
5. Add the introduction and conclusion. Start with the body, then add intro and conclusion. A good introduction: arouses interest, and introduces the hearers to the theme. Conclusions are more difficult than introductions, more than mere recapitulation (stimulating people's memory, 'dinning it into their heads continually' (Luther)); it also involves personal application.
6. Write down and pray over your message. No fixed rule for writing out (each to their own), but a general consensus to do so.

(John Stott, Between Two Worlds, Eerdmans, 1982, pp 211-258)

Stott on sermon preparation

"There was a young American Presbyterian minister, whose besetting sin was not laziness, but conceit. He frequently boasted in public that all the time he needed to prepare his Sunday sermon was the few minutes it took him to walk to church from his manse next door. Perhaps you can guess what his elders did: they brought him a new manse five miles away!" (John Stott, Between Two Worlds, Eerdmans, 1982, pp 211)

Theology vs methodology

"The essential secret [to preaching] is not mastering certain techniques, but being mastered by certain convictions. In other words, theology is more important than methodology. ... To be sure, there are principles of preaching to be learned, and a practice to be developed, but it is easy to put too much confidence in these. Technique can only make us orators; if we want to be preachers, theology is what we need." (John Stott, Between Two Worlds, Eerdmans, 1982, pp 92)

Engage in conversation

"A preacher should be motivated to 'get up from his desk, leave behind interpretative reading, and go in search of real bodies to engage in conversation about the text'. Listening to the range of responses to a biblical text reveals that there are many ways of knowing, and these different ways will play a decisive role in how a sermon is received." Different ways of knowing: feeling, thinking, imagining, doing.
Multiple intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic. (Troeger and Everding, So that all might know, Abdingdon Press, 2008, pg3)

Preaching as conversation

If greater attention is to be given to the sound of the sermon by preachers and trainee preachers, then students will need to be alerted to the different 'languages' they are learning during theological study, and the particular purpose of each. Furthermore, students should be encouraged, in the great Reformed tradition, to speak in the vernacular to their audiences, or perhaps more appropriately, in a style sometimes termed 'high conversataion'. The goal is for 'natural, honest, enlivened speech'.

(Keith Weller ed, Please no more boring sermons, Acorn Press, 2007, pp 57)

Paul Scott Wilson, Preaching and Homiletical Theory

"I assume that while preaching is a gift of the Holy Spirit, it nonetheless requires knowledge and skills that can be taught. ... Preaching need not be learned only by doing. ... The standard homiletical approach, at least until recently, has been to state a thesis. This homiletical or rhetorical theory dates back to a least two centuries before Christ [e.g. Cicero]. ... Such as statement helps to ensure unity in the final speech."

Grady Davis: The sermon was to be an idea that grows.

Fred Craddock: "Where a deductive sermon begins with its premise and then proves it, Craddick's inductive sermon tests several possibilities and narrows to a conclusion. "What is the text saying? In one sentence, and as simply as possible, state the message of the text"."

[Paul Scott Wilson's approach] "is to break the text down into many short complete sentence statements and concerns. Then they select one main statement from these. This is called the major concern of the text (i.e. the theme statement), not because it is only one possible but because it is the major one that the preacher chooses. ... Most important in [Wilson's] understanding is that the thesis sentence focus on God in one of the persons of the Trinity."

"[Wilson] affirms four key beliefs [concerning the authority of Scripture]: (1) God's authority in the Word, (2) the necessity of the Holy Spirit to illuminate the Word, (3) the authority of the church in affirming scripture as the book by which it measures and guides its life, (4) Christ's commandment that we preach the Gospel."

Theology of preaching:

1. Preaching as Event: God's word is an event of God's encounter. Threefold form: (a) the written word of God, (b) the preached word of God, (c) the revealed word of God. Modern responses to Barth: "Barth in some ways all by destroyed preaching in the name of of the Bible. His stress on the objective nature of the event of God's self-disclosure implied that preacher and contemporary experience have no role in preaching. For Barth, preaching is 'from above'."
2. Performative Word: Not just an event, but performative: it did what it said. e.g. "I promise", "I pronounce you husband and wife". Therefore "the effectiveness of preaching cannot rest in the number of people who hear it, or the a preacher's ability to perform it, but in God's ability to bring about what is spoken. See Isa 55:11.
3. Preaching as transformation: see Richard A Jensen, Lucy Rose, David Brown. Also called narrative/imaginative/existential preaching. "Sermons should be an experience that transforms the worshippers" (Rose). Criticism: sees the congregation as backsliders who need a radical change each week. Wilson uses the term to mean "what is effected through preaching, lives are transformed and confirmed to the image of Christ."
4. Preaching as poetic language and structure: a shift away from logic/arguments/points/illustrations to poetry/imagination/metaphor/story. Introduced by Grady Davis. "Davis believed that a mechanical approach to sermon form left much to be desired because content and form affected each other."

(Paul Scott Wilson, Preaching and Homiletical Theory, Chalice Press, 2004)

Karl Barth on preaching

"Homiletical theory largely followed Augustine's lead until Karl Barth. ... Barth's homiletical starting point is God: 'Preaching is the Word of God which he himself has spoken'. God chooses to use human words but is never bound by human words. ... The preacher must not, however, become arrogant, for preaching depends always on God and is possible only by God's power. 'Revelation is a closed system in which God is the subject, the object, and the middle term'. In preaching, 'God alone must speak'. Preaching is not a forum for human thoughts, ideas, reflections, or the propagation of ideologies."

(Andre Resner, Preacher and the Cross, Eerdmans, 1999, pp58-59)

Dependant on God

"Augustine's ideal Christian orator is dependant upon God. God is the source of the preacher's "ability" to teach, delight, and persuade. One should both do all one can in interpretation and articulation, and should be expectant that God will bring the message God chooses. ... Preachers fret over how best to understand Scripture and then express it, and that is as it should be. But when is all said and done, Augustine urges the preacher to allow God to fulfill his promise to say and do what needs saying and doing. For Augustine, prayer is the most crucial aspect of the preacher's ministry."

(Andre Resner, Preacher and the Cross, Eerdmans, 1999, p52)

Augustine, eloquence, and appropriation of classical rhetoric

Augustine writes, "Therefore a certain eloquent man [Cicero] said, and said truly, that he who is eloquent should speak in such a way that he teaches, delights, and moves. Then he added, 'To teach is a necessity, to please is sweatness, to persuade is victory.'" It can be said that Augustine takes these classical rhetorical virtues of eloquence and "puts them to Christian use" (Doyle, "Augustine's Sermonic Method", Westminister Theological Journal, 39, 1976-77, 213).

(Andre Resner, Preacher and the Cross, Eerdmans, 1999, pp49-50)

Augustine on preaching

"There are two things on which all interpretation of Scripture depends: the mode of ascertaining the proper meaning, and the mode of making known the meaning when it is ascertained." (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book 1, Chapter 1, para 1).

"The author divides his work into two parts, one relating to the discovery, the other to the expression, of the true sense of Scripture. He shows that to discover the meaning we must attend both to things and to signs, as it is necessary to know what things we ought to teach to the Christian people, and also the signs of these things, that is, where the knowledge of these things is to be sought." (Preface to Augustine's On Christian Doctrine)