Thursday, August 4, 2011

Theological Dictum #37 - Bible Study and Preaching

Theological Dictum #37 - The More Bible Studies Taught, the Better the Preaching.

I will contend that this is true. Why? Because what happens when one teaches a Bible Study (and by this, I mean a Bible Study, I mean opening up the Word of God and diving through it with other people... not reading through the canned study in the latest Synodical publication that you just look over for 2 minutes before you plow through it)? A preacher is:

1. Thrown into the Word of God.
2. Forced to understand it.
3. Forced to explain it to people.
4. Forced to answer questions about the Word - seeing what his people are struggling with.

These are all things that are necessary for preaching.

Seriously - if you find that your preaching is a bit... stale... or lifeless, don't get a new book on preaching. Don't try a new style. Just this - do a new bible study. Not reading a bunch of commentaries written in some theological tower where pages are spent debating what sort of dative that one noun was. Not sloughing through the latest canned and prepped thing because you don't want to do the prep yourself. Not even doing a study on the pericope (because they should get that when you preach it).

Open up the text. Sit and read with people. And then talk about it -- explain it. Show them things in it.

As you do this, not only will you start talking about it better, but you will also see more deeply into the text.

If you work on teaching the text, you will be better prepared to preach the text.

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