We need more than mere explanation
by Stephen Kneale:
I wonder what aspect of sermon preparation and/or preaching you tend to find the hardest? I wonder what most preachers find the most difficult bit? Assuming you have prayed about it beforehand, you pick up your Bible to read the allotted passage – what is the hardest bit from there for you?
In my experience (and I think, based on conversations I’ve had with other ministers, many feel similarly), the hardest part is not really understanding what a passage means. After all, we believe in the perspicuity of scripture and reckon that there is an understandability to what is written there. I appreciate this isn’t absolutely always the case, but more often than not, even where we may have questions about the details, the broad brushstrokes aren’t so hard to discern. Give most pastors a passage to read and then ask them broadly what is going on, they could give you a reasonable stab at it fairly quickly. And, of course, we can all check our working with the plethora of commentaries available to us and see if someone, somewhere has recognised that what we think it’s saying is at least a potentially credible understanding.
Understanding what is going on in the text is not generally the most difficult issue. I think for many of us, there are two (related) things that are far harder. First, taking our understanding of the text and making our understanding understood by, and interesting to, those listening. Second, applying our understanding of the the text to the lives of those listening. We might lump both those things together as taking our understanding of the text and making it preachable; that is, understandable, cogently structured, interesting and well applied. That is what I think is hard. The main thrust of much of the Bible is clear enough, but taking what we understand it to be saying and turning it into something preachable – something that will be understood by our people and well applied to their lives – is much harder.
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