When Andy Cheung asked me about the extent to which biblical theology should influence preaching, I mentioned my essay, “Biblical Theology and Preaching,” which has just appeared in a new book from Broadman and Holman.
Text Driven Preaching: God’s Word at the Heart of Every Sermon, edited by Daniel L. Akin, David L. Allen, and Ned L. Matthews.
Broadman and Holman has granted me permission to link my essay here: “Biblical Theology and Preaching,” pages 193–218 in Text Driven Preaching: God’s Word at the Heart of Every Sermon, ed. Daniel L. Akin, David L. Allen, and Ned L. Mathews. Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2010.
Join me in an expression of gratitude to them: buy the book!
Here’s the outline of my essay:
1. Introduction
2. Do I Need This to Preach?
2.1 Preaching the Whole Counsel of God
2.2 All Scripture God Breathed and Profitable
3. What Is Biblical Theology?
3.1 Structural Features
3.2 Intertextual Connections
3.3 Placement in the Big Story
3.4 Encouragement
4. How Do I Do Biblical Theology?
5. How Do I Preach Biblical Theology?
6. Can God’s People Handle This?
7. How Do I Get Started?
I posted a short interview with David Allen concerning this book on my blog sometime back. You can access it here: http://www.bibleexposition.net/2010/03/interview-with-david-allen-on-text.html
Dr. Hamilton,
I read, and greatly enjoyed, your essay on biblical theology and preaching. I just graduated from Southern, and I must confess that, even before I graduated, most professors outside of the biblical studies department indicated that it is unrealistic, even unnecessary, for the average local pastor to try and retain an in-depth knowledge of the languages. “Just read and master the English Bible,” was exhortation I most often received. “Greek and Hebrew are just tools.” And to be quite honest, those exhortation resonated with me because, as a novice in the languages, I often was more aware of the struggle than the pay-off. In fact, I think that the first few years of language study can feel psychologically like a vain effort. You struggle through a few verses, parsing and translating, and then when you’re done you realize that you’ve spent all of your time thinking about the parsing of verbs and none of your time asking, “What does this mean?”
So here’s my question. How do you balance it all? How do you balance in your own life devotional practices, reading through the breadth of scripture, memorizing scripture, reading Greek and Hebrew, reading important theological works, etc? I want to do these things, but I’ve often been overwhelmed and unable to come up with a practical plan for accomplishing them all.
I write this because your essay stressed the great importance of the languages. But I think most pastors feel the weight of all of these other things and the languages are the first thing to go.
God Bless and thanks for the wonderful essay.
Andy Barlow
Andy,
Thanks for your encouraging note. As for balance, I don’t claim to be a master . . . I’m a plodder. And I try to prioritize the Bible in the original languages. So I try to read Greek and Hebrew every day, and it doesn’t always happen. Then I binge on the English OT by reading (or trying to read) whole books at one sitting. Even if I don’t finish all of Genesis at one sitting, reading half at one sitting is better than that 4 chapter a day approach . . .
Here’s more on plodding: http://www.dougwils.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5592:The-Fruitfulness-of-Plodding&catid=66:autobiographical-fragments&Itemid=1
Blessings!
JMH
Jim, I’ll be ordering the book shortly.
As an aside, I do think that the model of making a book available free as a pdf while selling a hard copy should become the norm in Christian circles. It shows a commitment to seeing the books as a ministry and not solely as a business.
When I read John 2 and see what the church does for financial benefit in the name of ministry, it does concern me.
@Andy Barlow:
D.A. Carson speaks of the importance of not separating the devotional and the academic, but rather making the academic devotional. I concur.
Recently I was reading Con Campbell’s “Verbal aspect, the indicative mood, and narrative”, which is about as academic as I can go, and in the midst of concentrating on the complex I was delighting in the simplicity in the mass of biblical examples given: I made sure those examples did not merely illustrate his point, but were also food to my soul.
I think that if I separated the academic and the devotional I’d either drop reading anything complex or my soul would wither. I am not prepared to make that choice – nor do I have to!
Thanks so much for posting this!