Preaching Like the Prophets

The Hebrew Prophets as Examples for the Practice of Pastoral Preaching

Carlson

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781532613357
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Old Testament prophets are a neglected treasury of biblical examples for pastoral preaching. Too often the prophets are misunderstood as focusing on future or social justice issues. This book shows that the prophets are essentially preachers--very good ones--whom we must learn from. By comparing recent rhetorical analysis of the prophets to some of the best of current preaching literature, this book shows that the prophets preached the way that we ought to preach. It will help you to hear the prophets the same way that a pastor benefits from listening to a seasoned and exceptionally gifted preacher. We can benefit not only from what the prophets say but how they say it. By seeing how the prophets grab and keep their listeners, how they enhance clarity and relevancy, how they make truth come alive and how they persevere in their ministry, you too can learn to preach like the prophets.

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Hear the Prophets Preach

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

1 Corinthians 14:24–25

As a preacher, the apostle Paul’s words to the Corinthians haunt me. I want them to be true when I preach. I want them to be true in our church. When those who do not know Christ visit us, I want the word of God to come so near that it’s as if the preacher knows them, that I somehow know what they are thinking. I want what I say as I preach to be so aimed at their heart, that it must be God. I want them to hear God himself imploring them through my message. I want them to tell others they heard from God here, and although it was both assuring and unsettling, they have to come back—regardless of the style of the music!

I want believers to have this experience as well. I want those who come hungry and expectant of a word from God, to hear it. I want them to feel the press of Nathan’s finger on David’s chest. I do not want it to be for that same terrible reason as David’s guilt, although there will be times when it is. But I want God to speak so clearly through his messenger that it seems that I must have read their email or text messages. I want it to feel like the sermon has singled them out, so they cannot escape God’s powerful and transforming message. I want them to know unmistakably that today, through the preacher, God spoke his word to them. I want my congregation to experience the truth of Calvin’s words, “that if we come to church we shall not only hear a mortal man speaking but we shall feel (even by his secret power) that God is speaking to our souls.”1

On any given Sunday a portion of the congregation will come to church discouraged. Life has been hard and their burden is heavy; the pressures threaten to overwhelm. They need to hear again from God through the preacher. They need to be reminded that God knows their hardship and his grace is sufficient. They need to see again the glory that is set before them as God himself would describe it to them, so that for the joy set before them they can endure their present cross. They need to hear the Spirit tell of the glory he is working in them through all of the stuff they may presently be enduring.

People coming to church desperately need to hear from God, not just hear from a preacher. I wish that this were their experience more often than it is. I cannot do what only God can do, but am I the messenger that I need to be? Or, have I let preaching become something less than it is supposed to be? How can I know what faithful pastoral preaching looks like? In 1 Corinthians 14:24–25 the apostle suggests that this dynamic experience of God’s word ought to be the normal experience of the church gathered when the word of God is prophetically proclaimed. Normal that is, except for that awkward bit about prophesying.

It is not my purpose in this book to dive into the debate about the exact definition and nature of New Testament prophecy. That is an important topic, but it has already been written on extensively.2 Instead, I will focus on the continuities and discontinuities between Old Testament prophets and New Testament preachers. There are clear parallels, as well as distinctions, between the Old Testament writing prophets and present era preaching pastors.

I will not attempt to prove that preachers are prophets. Rather, I will focus on the fact that the prophets were preachers. This is an important distinction. If we were to assert that preaching pastors are prophets, that would raise many issues for pastoral ministry including the inerrancy of preachers and the role of prediction in preaching. Greg’s Scharf’s recent clarification is helpful:

In the sub-apostolic New Testament era, preachers claim neither the sort of inspiration the Old Testament prophets had nor the authority of an eyewitness on a par with the apostles and therefore, their words from God for the good of the church are to be tested by apostolic doctrine already received (1 Cor 14:36–40; 1 Thess. 5:20–21). This does not mean that such words lack authority (Titus 2:15), only that the authority derives not from the fact that those words come immediately from God—for they do not—but from the fact that they come from God through the writings of the prophets and apostles (Acts 2:42; Eph 3:20). What prophets, apostles, and pastor-teachers have in common is that they speak for God, in his name, and on his behalf.3

However, focusing on the fact that the Old Testament prophets were essentially preachers opens the way to benefit from any parallels which exist between the preaching prophets and preaching pastors. This book will explore some of those salient parallels between prophets and preachers because I am convinced that the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament are an under-utilized, yet profitable paradigm for pastoral preaching,

The prophets are important examples because there are not very many examples of pastoral preaching in the New Testament. Aside from Jesus’s discourses,4 there are few examples of a man called by God, preaching to those who are God’s people and applying God’s revelation to their lives. There are several examples of evangelistic preaching in the book of Acts. However, other than perhaps the book of Hebrews, most of the New Testament is composed of written epistles rather than oral preaching.5

On the other hand, the Old Testament prophets are rich with preaching prose. They are a treasure of neglected examples of spirit-inspired preaching.6 This is not to suggest the study of the prophets’ preaching has been completely neglected. In fact, the following chapters will rely on a considerable body of rhetorical analysis of the prophets. However, the main thrust of current rhetorical analysis has focused on understanding the message and purpose of the prophets, rather than applying the prophets’ rhetoric to pastoral preaching. This is the gap which this book explores: parallels which exist between the preaching of the prophets and the preaching of pastors.

The prophets were men of God; some were called to preach in a place far from their own home and some where called to preach to people they had lived among all their lives. In either case, they preached to those whom God had chosen to be his unique people, from among all the nations of the earth. Under the divine supervision of the Spirit of God these preachers apply the word of God given hundreds of years earlier through Moses to the present circumstances in which God’s people now live. They remind people of what God has done for them. They confront sin that is contrary to God’s revealed word and urge God’s people to walk in God’s ways in light of his mercy toward them and their standing as his chosen people. They give hope as they speak of what God had promised he would do, even though the people had not yet seen that promise fulfilled and needed to live toward it by faith. Most of all, they continually point to Christ and his coming.

“Called to preach . . . applying the word of God . . . recalling God’s promised future . . .”—am I describing the prophets preaching to Israel or pastors preaching to the church? As you can see, the essence of what the Old Testament prophets were doing in their era has much in common with the essence of pastoral preaching today.

The New Testament provides another example of the parallels between Old Testament prophets and pastoral preachers. That example is the book of Hebrews. Many expositors have suggested that the book of Hebrews was originally written as a sermon to be preached.7 It is clearly written to an audience in the church era, under the New Covenant; however, it has a definite Old Testament resonance. The author (or preacher) reminds them from the Law of Moses of what God has done for them. He reminds them of who they are as God’s people and gives several prophetic warnings. In technique similar to the prophets, Hebrews uses the assurance of God’s redemptive work in the past and the hope of a glorious future to exhort God’s people to live faithfully during a present difficult time of opposition and hardships. Most importantly, the message continually focuses on Jesus as the fullness of God’s previous promises. The book of Hebrews has the tone and timbre of an Old Testament prophet, but is clearly a sermon preached to the church, proclaiming the risen Christ.

The same general elements of content can also be found in the apostles’ New Testament epistles. They build on previous special revelation, often quoting the Old Testament. The epistles remind God’s people who they are in Christ and therefore how they should live in light of their redemption. The gospel of Jesus is, to the authors of the epistles, what the redemptive exodus event was to the writing prophets. The epistles not only look back; they, like the prophets, look forward. They bring light to the present by remembering and anticipating. They call us to remember what ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Hear the Prophets Preach
• Part One
• Part Two
• Epilogue
• Bibliography