By David A. Enyart
5Sidney Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text: Interpreting and Preaching Biblical Literature (Grand Rapids: Inter-Varsity Press, 1988), p. 19.
6Greidanus writes, "The point is that the form of a sermon can undercut the message of a text and thus distort it. Conversely, the form of a sermon, if appropriate, can help the message get across as originally intended .... Thus the form of the text provides clues for shaping the sermon so that it will do justice to the original formed content as it affected the original hearers" (Ibid., pp. 19,20).
7Thomas G. Long, Preaching and the Literary Forms of the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), p. 127.
8Greidanus, The Modern Preacher, pp. 19,20
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9And Jesus Said: A Handbook on the Parables of Jesus (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1970), p. 15.
10Leland Ryken, How to Read the Bible As Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing Co., 1984), p. 140.
11Tremper Longman, Reading the Bible With Heart & Mind (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NAVPRESS, 1997), p. 195.
12Luke 18:9.
13Bible As Literature, p. 144
14I am aware of the fact that Christians have not always been fair and objective in their critique of first century Judaism, including our assessment of the religious leaders. In Matthew 23:23-24, we have these words of Jesus: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices -- mint, dill, and cummin. But you have neglected matters of the law -- justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel." Obviously, there were some religious leaders who were accurately characterized by Jesus' words. However, the condemnation must not be viewed as universal; Judaism during this period had not deteriorated entirely into a religion of trivia and abuse. See, for example, a study of early Judaistic literature by E. P. Sanders: "The possibility cannot be completely excluded that there were Jews accurately hit by the polemic of Matt. 23, who attended only to trivia and neglected the weightier matters. Human nature being what it is, one supposes that there were some such. One must say, however, that the surviving Jewish literature does not reveal them." See E.P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), p. 426ff
15How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1993), p. 139.
16How to Preach a Parable: Designs for Narrative Sermons (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989), p.25.
17How To Be A Christian Without Being Religious, edited by Fritz Ridenour (Glendale, California: Regal Books, 1962), "Introduction."
18Ray Summers. Commentary on Luke (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1972), p. 208.