Sooner or later one learns that the most fruitful approach to good pulpit work is "keeping first things first," working forthrightly and faithfully to reach those immediate goals which make ascending the pulpit stairs meaningful and promising. One of those immediate goals one must reach is an engaging acquaintance with the Bible, the sourcebook of our faith, and the ground-plan for our recital; and a second immediate goal is gaining a sound understanding of primary texts from which preaching should issue. The "mysteries of God" entrusted to our handling have come to us by special revelation, and they are inscripturated in that book we know as The Holy Bible.5
As stewards of The Word, "The Story," we are expected to study the Scriptures in order to know them, and to understand the Scriptures in order to utilize them properly, mindful of the apostolic injunction: "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth" (II Tim. 2:15).
When we are indeed serious in our study, and helped in that task by a hermeneutic that honors the biblical texts as a medium of special revelation, we can be stewards who are biblically informed in our approach and deeply committed in faith as we preach, seeking to share our witness with aptness and appeal under the approval of God who sends us forth. These are some immediate goals that we should seek, and they are goals that we can indeed reach. We need only commit ourselves to reach them.
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From Stewards of the Story: The Task of Preaching by James Earl Massey. Copyright (c) 2006 James Earl Massey. Used by permission of Westminster John Knox Press.
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James Earl Massey is Dean Emeritus of Anderson School of Theology. Now retired, he lives in Greensboro, AL. He is a Contributing Editor of Preaching.
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NOTES
1. See Garbriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being, vol. 2, Reflection and Mystery, ed. G.S. Fraser (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1960), esp. 260-61.
2. Gardner C. Taylor, sermon “Jesus Christ” in The Words of Gardner Taylor, comp. Edward Taylor (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2002), esp. 6:120-21.
3. On this passage see Ralph P. Martin, Carmen Christi: Philippians 2:5-11 in Recent Interpretation and in the Setting of Early Christian Worship, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Do., 1983). See also the discussion of Phil. 2:6-11 in Fred Craddock, Philippians, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1985).
4. On this, see William F. Orr and James Arthur Walther, 1 Corinthians, A New Translation, Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1976), 177; Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000), 335f.
5. Augustine, De catechizandis rudibus 2:3, trans. as The First Catechetical Instruction by the Rev. Joseph P. Christopher (Westminster, MD: Newman Bookshop, 1946), 15. On Augustine as a preacher, see The Preaching of Augustine, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, trans. Francine Cardman (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973); Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, rev. ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000).