Appropriately preaching, teaching, and defending God's wrath

I am by inclination, believe it or not, much more enthusiastic about preaching God's love, mercy, and grace than I am about preaching hell-fire, brimstone, and wrath. I've seen churches and preachers who have overemphasized God's wrath and it's not only ugly it's a perversion of God and of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Today, however, I feel like the trend is not overemphasizing God's wrath but to completely ignore it. My inner being rejoices because I am so much more comfortable with this "tickle my ears" (pseudo-)Christian message, but, unfortunately for my "inner being", I know that my desire to preach and teach this truncated gospel is inspired by selfishness and out of a desire to please people and not from a love of God or, even, out of a love for people. The gospel without wrath is incomplete. The cross is pointless (even twisted) and the Scripture and gospel become simply inspirational messages but give us nothing of eternal value.

That is not to say that we don't need to be cautious when we preach God's wrath. I've heard preaching before that unintentionally made God look like a capricious three year old with occasional temper tantrums. We can't preach God's wrath without helping people understand why God's wrath is appropriate. Telling people that "God is angry at sin" is good, but needs meat. We need to help people see why God is angry at sin. I think people are willing to accept the assertion that they do wrong things, but what's the big deal? Why would God get so angry at sin? Why hell? Why the purging of the Canaanites and the subsequent punishment of Israel for not wiping them out when they are told to? Why doesn't God just forgive us?

It seems like those of us who remain committed to preaching a gospel which includes God's wrath, do a good job of telling people that God hates sin but do a very poor job of helping people understand why. If people don't understand how bad their sin is and how much they need forgiveness, then they will miss out on the depth and power and wonder of God's love. Believers who know that God is angry at sin but don't have a full understanding as to what is so bad about sin, may see God as harsh and unjust (even though they wouldn't verbalize this underlying doubt since that would make it look as though they are questioning God, and we can't have that!).

If any of you still remember my Apology of Hell novel thing from about a year ago, that's kind of what I'm trying to accomplish, defending the need and appropriateness of God's wrath in response to sin. I've recently begun to revive this stuff and will have another chapter finished pretty soon. But I would like your feedback before I share some of my thoughts in both fictional and nonfictional formats.

How do we help people understand the appropriateness of God's wrath towards sin?

P.S. I'm still getting to the baptist distinctive series, but those take work in the form of research! SO you have to wait until I get the time!

Quick thoughts and questions on Christian education in the church setting.

My credentials to addressing this topic are neither impressive nor overly deficient. I've been a youth pastor for the last 4 years at a relatively small (about 120) congregation, so I do have a good deal of first hand experience, but I've very little exposure to big churches or various denominations/traditions contexts. In other words, my resume is deep but not wide. I suspect that much of what I have to say will be relevant in a variety of settings, but some of it will be rather useless. Regardless I would very much like to hear your thoughts and feedback.

1) Is expository preaching really sufficient?

In the church contexts in which I grew up, asking this question amounts to heresy. I think I understand and can sympathize with the arguments for it. John MacArthur, one of it's most famous proponents, answers a question in regard to why he has has remained committed to expository preaching:

Well first, because it is a biblical mandate. It doesn’t fluctuate with culture, with expectations, with times or seasons. Expository preaching is the best way to preach the Bible. If every word of God is pure, if every word of God is true, then every word needs to be dealt with. And expository preaching is only way you actually come to grips with every word in the Scriptures.

Secondly, expository preaching familiarizes people with the Scripture itself instead of simply giving them a speech, as true and as reflective of biblical teaching as that speech may be. With expository preaching, people become familiar with the Scripture. They can go back to the passages that have been addressed, and they can be reminded by the text itself of what it means. So you give people the Word of God in a way that has long-term impact, because it makes them familiar with Scripture.

Thirdly, it makes the authority unequivocal, and that authority is the Scripture. That’s very clear no matter how powerful or gifted the preacher might be. In consistent, expository preaching, the people always know what the authority is. It’s not about homiletics. It’s not about personal viewpoints and insights. It’s about relentlessly affirming the true authority of Scripture, which is the most critical thing that anybody can ever learn. It isn’t about, “Wasn’t that a great sermon?” It isn’t about, “Wasn’t that a great outline? Wasn’t that clever?” It’s always about, “What did the Word of God say?” And that makes it truly authoritative, because the Word is from God. No other preaching paradigm does this.
Source

I respect John MacArthur, even though I may complain about him from time to time, because I think he really does try to be a faithful minister of the Word of God. I'm becoming more and more convinced, however, that expository preaching is not enough. I've been getting the distinct impression that people who sit exclusively under expository sermons have a very difficult time with synthesis and in understanding the meta-narrative of Scripture. This approach tends to chop the Bible up into pericopes, or in some cases smaller than that, which the preacher can preach as a unit. It fails, however to put it all together. Texts, even pericopes are meaningless outside of their context within the larger argument of the book at hand or even the whole of Scripture. I also think exclusive expository preaching tends to weaken people's ability to think theologically, but I won't go into that for now. I also feel as if the vast majority of Christians have no concept of our historical-theological context. Again, not now. I may post on this at some later time. I'm not sure I agree with any of Johnny Mac's above points, but I do, at least, respect them and I think I understand where he's coming from.

What do you think?

2) & 3) Do we tell people "what" too much? Do we tell them "how" enough?

We tell people to read their Bibles, but do people really know how? We tell people to share the gospel but are they really equipped to do so? We tell parents to raise their children for the Lord, but do they even have a clue what that means or how to go about it? We tell the laity that being a Christian on Sunday is not enough, but do we help them understand what it means to be a Christian in their workplace, in their home, in school?

4) We tell people that they need to use their spiritual gifts and/or contribute to the church's ministry, but how well do we facilitate this? I get the feeling that a lot of people would be willing to serve in some capacity but aren't sure how or feel like they aren't "good enough Christians." I've run into this attitude among mature Christians that certain people aren't really "qualified" to be involved in the church's ministry because they aren't mature enough spiritually. Although it is certainly true that some level of spiritual maturity is needed for certain roles, I have found that people often grow in spades when they become involved within their church's ministry. If they feel like they aren't good enough yet, they won't become involved, however.

5) Have we become too soft on our own sins and too hard on the sins of others? 99% of all church discipline that I've seen or heard of has been in regards to sexual sin. Is this appropriate? Is this the only sin Christians struggle with that can ever be confronted? What about greed? Or idolatry (depending upon how you define this)? How about not loving your wife? I'm not trying to be funny, it just seems as if we've singled out a certain sin area because it's easier to quantify, more "black and white" if you will. But if we single out this sin I'm afraid it's far too easy to become self-righteous if you've never committed adultery. I also feel like the way church discipline is applied is rather unfair to women, but I won't go into that right now.

5) How confidently should we preach difficult passages or theological concepts?

6) How guilty are we of syncretism? Is singing patriotic american songs idolatrous? I think so. Have we put our concept of "family" in too high a place (see Jesus' statements about the family...)? Have we become too republican? Have we idolized a culture in which we were comfortable instead of learning how to live in the culture in which we find ourselves?

7) Have we been tickling people's ears because we don't want to sound judgmental or legalistic?


Tackle or respond to whichever ones you feel like.

I'll have a Baptist Distinctive post up soon.

Back again, with thoughts on preaching and teaching with integrity.

My blog may begin to evolve into something more like a real blog. My previous blogs has been much more like mini-research papers than actual blogging. Hopefully they were beneficial for someone, but they were so very long that I suspect they took far longer to read than many of you had time for. My intention is to write shorter blogs and to write them more often. I'm not sure if I'll be any better. There is something within my nature to be long-winded and, quite frankly, in this format I don't care too much. I write for whoever wants to read and for myself. If I was preaching or writing for mass audiences I would have to care a lot more about being reader-friendly, but, alas, such is not the case.

My thought for today is about preaching and teaching with integrity. I was talking to my brother today (for the first time in about 7 months) and he was of the opinion that the Bible is not applicable to us, really at all. It was not written to us but to the Colossians, the Jews, the Ephesians, etc, etc.... He thinks preachers go off by even trying to apply the Bible to people it wasn't written to. I didn't really go much into answering him, not because I didn't have an answer but because I very much doubt he cares to hear what I think about it, but I understand and agree with some of his sentiments. It maddens me when preachers "rape" the Bible for the sake of finding suitable applications for their congregations. The more often I hear them abuse the Bible the more I feel the way my brother does. The sermon feels false and forced. It seems like the speaker is grasping to find some way to make it fit a contemporary context but you know that his application is really not legit.

When a pastor misuses the text for the sake of application, he is not only abusing the text of Scripture, he is substituting the Word of God for the words of Pastor "Fill-in-the-blank". I am sick of the words, "This isn't me saying it, but God, so if you have a problem take it up with him!" when it really isn't God's Word at all, just God's words twisted into someone's poorly constructed replica. Furthermore, if preaching really is going to be the center focus of our services, which it is in most cases, we are wasting a good chunk of time. I used to believe, because I HAD to in order to make it through some bad sermons, that I could get something out of any sermon, no matter how awful. I don't believe that anymore. If people are misrepresenting God's word, let's not try and twist it into something positive!

Why does this happen? Does it happen because it's impossible to apply 2000-4000 year old texts to the twenty-first century? No, it happens because we're either lazy or without integrity. It is much harder work to construct a good sermon than most people think. If it's easy, then you aren't doing it right. It's not easy to analyze the social and political context of the Ephesian church, the literary context of Ephesians 5-6, our own political and social context and apply properly and carefully discern principles relating to husbands, wives, children, slaves, and masters. Pastors often make it look easy, not because they're good, but because they're lazy.

Other times this happens because they lack integrity. They push their predetermined political or societal views on how they think things should be on the text. If they are republicans, they magically find anti-welfare, pro-gun, anti-big government, pro-capitalism, anti-Obama passages. If they are democrats, they somehow manage to find anti-capitalism, pro-labor, anti-gun, and pro-welfare passages. If a pastor doesn't like drinking or cussing, he will find ways to present the text as anti-drinking or cussing. You get the point. This is a lack of integrity. It doesn't deal honestly with the Word of God but uses, abuses, and rapes the text.

In defense of pastors and preachers and teachers, it is hard work. Pastors have a lot on their plate and it's hard to get everything just right. It will often be impossible to be sure on what exactly the text is saying and thus extract the right principles. I'm not asking for perfection, just integrity. If a text is difficult to understand and there are several possible views, BE HONEST and say so instead of pretending that you have it all figured out. If you demonstrate how much work you put into getting it right, perhaps that will help others to understand that they too need to read their bibles slowly and carefully. Perhaps it will show others how important it is to get the Word of God right. Expressing absolute confidence when you do not have absolute confidence is not rendering a service to people, it is an extreme disservice.

I'm sorry my first post back was so negative. Maybe next post will find me in a happier mood.