Christian Preaching from the Old Testament #3

[This is the second in a serialisation and slight revision of an old essay of mine, in the hope of getting some interaction from others and also making it more accessible. (Part 1 here, Part 2 here)]

Four Evangelical Approaches to Preaching from the Old Testament

John Bright rightly states, ‘as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so the proof of hermeneutical principles must be in the preaching.’[1]  The focus of this series is therefore not the cutting edge of academic debate but present homiletical practice.  I have chosen four works which are written by recognised evangelicals who teach in evangelical institutions and whose works on Old Testament Preaching are recommended by other evangelical homileticians.  I will briefly summarise each work before bringing them into conversation with each other on specific issues in the following posts.

Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture[2]

[T]he central thesis of this book: all texts in the whole Bible bear a discernible relationship to Christ and are primarily intended as a testimony to Christ.[3]

Goldsworthy lectures at Moore Theological College, Sydney, and has published a number of books on Biblical Theology.  His Biblical Theology is concerned with the unity of the Biblical message, the Christological focus of the whole Bible, and the progressive nature of Biblical revelation.  In this book, Goldsworthy argues powerfully that all Christian sermons should refer to Jesus, and that this can be done with any text in scripture.[4]  Goldsworthy’s understanding of Biblical revelation as progressive provides three hermeneutical devices: Typology, Promise-Fulfilment and Salvation History-Eschatological Goal.[5]  He then gives examples of this method at work from all the major literary forms of scripture (including the NT).

Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermenuetical Method [6]

In preaching any part of scripture, one must understand its message in the light of that centre, Jesus Christ.[7]

Sidney Greidanus is professor of preaching at Calvin Theological Seminary in Michigan and he has written three other books on preaching.  Like Goldsworthy, Greidanus first establishes why we should preach Christ from the OT.  Although he argues that the OT is Christian, the force of his argument is actually that Christianity is of the OT.[8]  The middle section of his book is a survey of the historical approaches to OT interpretation, which he critiques and then draws from to create his own hermeneutic.  The result is seven different hermeneutical devices including the three suggested by Goldsworthy and adding Analogy, Longitudinal Themes, Contrast and New Testament References.  Unfortunately his short final section demonstrating his hermeneutic on Biblical texts is restricted to OT Narrative which means his hermeneutic is not demonstrated within the spectrum of OT literature.[9]

Walter Kaiser, Preaching and Teaching from the Old Testament: a guide for the church[10]  

The tendency to interpret the Bible backward is a serious procedural problem, for it will leave a large vacuum in our teachings and provide seedbeds for tomorrow’s heresies.  It is reductionistic to level out the Bible to say only what the New Testament has said![11]

Walter Kaiser is an Old Testament Scholar and president of Gordon-Conwell Seminary.  Having written over thirty books he is the most prolific of our four authors.  The first part of the book argues for preaching the OT and includes a clear description of the Bridge Paradigm and argues for it to be the only acceptable method for expository preaching.[12]  Within his hermeneutic the only way the OT can speak of Christ is if in its ‘plain meaning’ it is messianic.  Although he refers to 1^st century Christian and Jewish exegesis to make his point he fails to wrestle with the fact that these interpreters were not themselves card-carrying Bridge paradigm users.[13]  Perhaps out of his desire to read the Bible ‘forward not backward’[14] he does not take into account the NT use of OT scripture or even how the OT interprets earlier passages and events.  This is a significant weakness of his book.  The second part moves through the different literary genres of the OT giving a full sermonic example of his method applied to each one.  Inexplicably, none of his sermon examples include the ‘call for decisive action’ which his method insists we must always end with.[15]

 

Steven D. Mathewson, The Art of Preaching Old testament Narrative, [16]

One of the most challenging stages in the interpretive process is identifying the story’s exegetical idea.  While you may find several ideas in a story, you must ask: What is the unifying centre? What message is the writer conveying through the story?[17]

Although Mathewson is less established, having not published other works, and although this book is not a general OT homiletic but specifically for OT narrative, it has been included here because it is often mentioned alongside the other three works[18]  Mathewson is a pastor and also instructor of preaching and Old testament at Montana Bible College.  Mathewson leans heavily on Haddon Robinson’s Biblical Preaching using his ten stages of sermon preparation as the outline for the two methodological sections of his book.[19]  Like Kaiser, Mathewson does not reflect on NT use of the OT.  Neither does he discuss Christological, or even messianic, readings of OT narrative.  The third section provides five sample sermons only the first of which is his.  Interestingly two of the five sermons are actually Christological in application, a fact which Mathewson notes with approval.[20]  It is strange therefore that he did not think this was significant methodologically.  However, Mathewson does rightly desire to train the preacher to treat OT narrative theologically and provides useful advice for doing this.[21]

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[1] Bright, The Authority of the Old Testament, 8

[2] Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000

[3] Goldsworthy, Preaching The Whole Bible as Christian Scripture,  113

[4] Goldsworthy, Preaching The Whole Bible as Christian Scripture,  115-134

[5] Goldsworthy, Preaching The Whole Bible as Christian Scripture,  77-80

[6] Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1999

[7] Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament 227

[8] Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament 44-6

[9] Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament 319-344.  With the possible exception of Numbers 19 (322-336) which is a ceremonial instruction about the sacrifice of a red heifer, but given its dramatic nature it functions more as a narrative than a legal stipulation and this is how Greidanus treats it. 

[10] Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003

[11] Kaiser, Preaching and teaching from the Old Testament, 28

[12] Kaiser, Preaching and teaching from the Old Testament, 49-62

[13] Kaiser, Preaching and teaching from the Old Testament, 22

[14] Kaiser, Preaching and teaching from the Old Testament, 51

[15] Kaiser, Preaching and teaching from the Old Testament, 58-9

[16] Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002

[17] Mathewson, The art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative,  81

[18] See for example Kenton C. Anderson’s endorsement on the inside front cover of Kaiser, preaching and Teaching from the Old Testament.

[19] Mathewson, The art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative,  26

[20] Donald Sunukjan ‘The Cripples Story (2 Samuel 9)’ 176-188, and Alice Mathews ‘What do you do when the roof caves in? (Isaiah 7:1-14) 215-226 in Mathewson, The art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative

[21] Mathewson, The art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative,  83-90