The Problem of Modern Preaching—and Biblical Theology as a Solution

Diagnostics — The Problem of Modern Preaching (Part 1)

Within the body of churches to which I belong—the Southern Baptist Convention—the battle for the inerrancy of Scripture may have been won. But neither we nor other evangelical denominations or churches that have won similar victories should be too quick to be complacent. For conservative churches can accept the inerrancy of Scripture while in practice denying the sufficiency of God’s Word. We can claim that Scripture is the inerrancy of God’s Word and yet not proclaim it seriously from our pulpits.

There is a real hunger for God’s Word in many evangelical churches today. Sermon series have TV show titles like «Gilligan’s Island,» «Bonanza,» and «The Mary Tyler Moore Show.» Preaching often focuses on «steps to a successful marriage» or «how to raise children in today’s culture.» Sermons on family topics are certainly appropriate and necessary, but two problems often arise.

The first problem is that what Scripture actually says about these issues is often ignored. Very few sermons on marriage accurately and directly reveal what Paul actually says about the roles of men and women (Eph. 5:22-33). Are we perhaps ashamed of what Scripture says?

The second problem, and perhaps even more serious, is that such sermons are almost always delivered on a horizontal level. They become the staple food of the congregation week after week, while the theological worldview that permeates God’s Word and serves as the foundation for all life is ignored. Our pastors are becoming moralists like Dear Abbey, giving weekly advice on how to live a happy life.

Many communities don't even realize what's happening because the moral life these sermons preach is, to some extent, in line with Scripture. It meets the needs of both believers and unbelievers.

Pastors also believe that they should fill their sermons with stories and illustrations, or that anecdotes reinforce the moral truth being conveyed. Every good preacher will use illustrations. But sermons can become so full of stories that there is no room for theology at all.

I often hear from evangelicals that their churches are doing well theologically because the congregation doesn't complain about what we teach them. This is a very disturbing statement. As pastors, we have a responsibility to proclaim "all the will of God" (Acts 20:27). We cannot rely on a survey of the congregation to determine whether we are fulfilling our calling. We must rely on what Scripture requires. It may be that the congregation has never seriously studied God’s Word, so they do not realize where we as pastors are failing.

Paul warns of «ravenous wolves who will not spare the flock» (Acts 20:29), and warns of the danger that threatens the Church. Elsewhere he writes:

«For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned aside unto fables» (2 Tim. 4:3-4).

If we judge our sermons by what people want, we risk cooking «food» according to a heretical recipe. I am not saying that our congregations are heretical, but I am emphasizing that God’s Word alone, not the opinions of men, should be the measure of our faithful ministry. The task of pastors is to feed the sheep with God’s Word, not to satisfy their desires by offering them what they want to hear.

Too often our churches are left ill-prepared because of us who preach. Think of what happens when we constantly feed our congregations moralistic sermons. People can learn to be kind, to forgive, to love, to be good husbands or wives (and these are wonderful things, of course!). Their hearts can be warmed and even built up. But as long as we neglect the theological foundation, the wolf of heresy creeps ever closer. How? Not because the pastor himself is a heretic. He may be completely orthodox and faithful in his own theology. Yet he assumes that theology is already understood, and therefore does not preach the history and theology of the Bible to his congregation.

A generation or two later, the church may accidentally and unknowingly invite a more liberal pastor. This new pastor will also preach that people should be kind, loving, and kind. He will also emphasize the importance of strong marriages and dynamic relationships. The people in the church may not even notice the difference because the theology sounds the same as the theology of the conservative pastor who preceded him. And in a way, that is true, because the conservative pastor never preached or preached his theology. He believed in the inerrancy of Scripture, but not in its sufficiency, because he did not proclaim the whole will of God to his congregation.

Our ignorance of biblical theology is constantly making itself felt. In the last ten years, two incidents stand out to me. One of them was in a large stadium where a speaker, whose name I cannot recall, was inviting people to come forward for repentance. The sermon in the stadium was intended to be evangelistic, but I can honestly say that the Gospel was not preached at all. Nothing was said about Christ crucified and risen, or about the reason for His crucifixion and resurrection. Nothing was said about why faith saves and not works. Thousands came forward and were undoubtedly counted among the «saved.» But I could only wonder what was really happening. I prayed that at least some of them would actually be converted, perhaps because they had already heard the Gospel from other sermons.

The same thing happened in a church service I attended. The preacher gave a moving invitation to «come forward» and «be saved,» but he didn’t give a single explanation of the Gospel!

Such sermons can fill our churches with unregenerate people who are doubly dangerous: they have been assured by pastors that they are regenerate and cannot lose their salvation, but they are still lost. And from that day on, week after week, they are preached our «new Gospel» for these postmodern times: «Be good.».

Understanding — What is Biblical Theology? (Part 2)

The solution to the problem of superficial preaching described in Part 1 is actually quite simple: pastors must learn to use biblical theology in their sermons. However, to learn this, we must start with the question: What is biblical theology?

Biblical Theology vs. Systematic Theology

Biblical theology, unlike systematic theology, focuses on biblical history, that is, on the development of God's plan in the history of redemption.

Systematic theology, although biblically based, is timeless.

Don Carson argues that biblical theology is closer to the text than systematic theology, as it strives for sensitivity to the uniqueness of each biblical passage and attempts to connect different passages using their own concepts. Therefore, ideally, biblical theology is a kind of "bridge" between responsible exegesis and systematic theology, although all these disciplines inevitably influence each other.

In other words, biblical theology is more concerned with the message of the text or passage under consideration. It asks what themes were central to the biblical authors in their historical context and attempts to determine their coherence. The primary focus of biblical theology is the story of Scripture, the unfolding of God’s plan in redemptive history. As we will discuss in more detail in Part 3, this means that we must interpret and preach each text in the context of its relationship to the entire story of the Bible.

Systematic theology, on the other hand, asks questions of the text that reflect philosophical or contemporary issues. Systematic theologians may explore themes that are not entirely obvious in the biblical texts and do not receive much attention there. However, it should be clear that any systematic theology worthy of the name is based on biblical theology.

The particular emphasis of biblical theology, as Brian Rosner notes, is that it "allows the biblical text to set the agenda.".

Kevin Vangooser defines the specific role of biblical theology as follows:

«"Biblical theology is the name given to an approach to interpreting the Bible that assumes that God's Word is transmitted through the various literary and historically conditioned words of men.".

In other words, biblical theology responds to the interests of the texts themselves.

Carson aptly expresses the contribution of biblical theology:

«"Ideally, as its name suggests, biblical theology, working inductively with the various texts of the Bible, seeks to uncover and express the unity of all biblical texts, appealing first of all to the categories of these texts themselves. In this sense, it is a canonical biblical theology, a holistic biblical theology.".

Biblical theology can be limited to the theology of books such as Genesis, the Pentateuch, Matthew, Romans, or even all of Paul's letters. But it can also encompass the entire canon of Scripture, integrating its overall history. Too often preachers focus only on individual parts of Scripture, such as Leviticus, Matthew, or Revelation, without considering their place in the overall story of redemption. They isolate one part of Scripture from another, preaching in a nutshell rather than proclaiming the whole will of God.

Gerhard Gazel rightly observes that one must engage in biblical theology in such a way as to «do justice to all dimensions of reality to which the biblical texts attest.» This is not only the task of seminary professors, but also the duty of every preacher of the Word!

Let us reflect again on the distinction between systematic and biblical theology, which Carson clearly draws.

Systematic theology takes into account the contributions of historical theology and therefore draws on the works of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, and many others to shape the teaching of Scripture. Systematics seeks to directly proclaim the word of God in our cultural context and time. It is obvious that a good preacher must be deeply rooted in systematic theology in order to proclaim a powerful word to contemporaries.

Biblical theology is more inductive and fundamental. Carson rightly notes that biblical theology is a «mediating discipline,» while systematic theology is a «culminating discipline.» Biblical theology can be said to serve an intermediate function, serving as a bridge between the historical-literary study of Scripture and doctrinal theology.

So biblical theology works with the text in its historical context. However, this does not mean that biblical theology is a completely neutral or objective process. The idea that we can clearly separate "what it meant" from "what it means," as Christer Stendhal argued, is an illusion.

Scobie notes about biblical theology:

«"Its premises, based on faith in Christian doctrine, include the belief that the Bible conveys divine revelation, that the Word of God in Scripture is the norm of Christian faith and life, and that all the diversity of material in both the Old and New Testaments can be related to the plan and purpose of the one God of the whole Bible. Such a biblical theology stands somewhere between what the Bible 'meant' and what it 'means'.".

Thus, biblical theology is not limited to either the New Testament or the Old Testament, but considers both Testaments together as the Word of God. In fact, biblical theology proceeds from the assumption that the canon of Scripture serves as a norm, and therefore both Testaments are needed to reveal the theology of Scripture.

The Interaction of the Old and New Testaments

In biblical theology, there is a wonderful dialectic between the Old and New Testaments. The New Testament is the culmination of the history of salvation that began in the Old Testament, and so biblical theology is, by definition, a narrative theology. It reflects the history of God's redemptive work in history. The historical development of what God has done can be described as the history of salvation or redemption.

It is also helpful to view Scripture from the perspective of promise and fulfillment: what is promised in the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New Testament. We must be careful not to destroy the historical specificity of the Old Testament revelation, thereby displacing the historical context in which it arose. On the other hand, we must recognize the progression of revelation from the Old to the New Testament. Such a progression of revelation recognizes the preliminary character of the Old Testament and the final word that comes in the New Testament. To say that the Old Testament is preliminary is not to deny its critical role, for we can understand the New Testament only if we also grasp the meaning of the Old Testament, and vice versa.

Some hesitate to accept typology, but this approach is fundamental to biblical theology because it is a category that the biblical authors themselves use. What is typology? Typology is the divinely determined correspondences between events, persons, and institutions in the Old Testament and their fulfillment in Christ in the New Testament.

For example, when Matthew in his Gospel mentions the return of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus from Egypt, he uses the language of Israel’s exodus from Egypt (Matt. 2:15; Ex. 4:22, 23; Hos. 11:1). Of course, it is not only the New Testament writers who notice these «divinely appointed correspondences.» The Old Testament writers do the same. For example, both Isaiah and Hosea predict a new exodus that will be similar to the first exodus. Similarly, the Old Testament anticipates a new David that will be even greater than the first David. Thus, we see in the Old Testament itself an escalation of typology, so that the fulfillment of the type always surpasses the type itself. Jesus is not only the new David but also the greater David.

Typology recognizes divine order and purpose in history. God is the ultimate Author of Scripture—this history is a divine drama. And God knows the end from the beginning, so we as readers can see foreshadowings of the ultimate fulfillment in the Old Testament.

Direction — How to Use Biblical Theology in Preaching (Part 3)

When preaching Scripture, it is important to understand where the book we are studying is in the historical timeline of redemptive history. To put it simply, good biblical theology in preaching consists of two basic steps: looking back and looking at the whole.

Looking Back — Previous Theology

Walter Kaiser reminds us that when preaching Scripture, we must consider the prior theology of each book.

For example, when we preach from the book of Exodus, we almost certainly will not be able to interpret its meaning correctly if we read it in isolation from its previous context. And the previous context for the book of Exodus is the message found in the book of Genesis. In the book of Genesis we learn that God is the Creator of all things, and that He created man in His image and likeness to extend God’s dominion throughout the world. However, Adam and Eve failed to trust God and obey His command. After creation came the Fall, which brought death and suffering into the world. However, the Lord promised that the ultimate victory would come through the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15). A fierce struggle would ensue between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. But the former would ultimately prevail.

In the following chapters of Genesis we see the struggle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, and we learn that the seed of the serpent is exceedingly powerful: Cain kills Abel; the wicked prevail over the righteous until only Noah and his family remain; the people unite to glorify their name by building the tower at Babel. Yet the Lord remains sovereign. He punishes Cain. He destroys everyone except Noah and his family in a flood. And He destroys the plans of men at Babel.

The Lord makes a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, promising that the victory spoken of in Gen. 3:15 will be accomplished through their seed. The Lord promises to give them offspring, a land, and a universal blessing. The promise of offspring is especially emphasized in Genesis. That is, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob do not possess the promised land, and they do not bless the entire world in their descendants. However, Genesis concludes with the account of the twelve children whom the Lord gave to Jacob.

So why is the «pre-theology» of Genesis so crucial to reading Exodus? It is fundamental because as Exodus begins with Israel rapidly increasing in numbers, we immediately understand that the Abrahamic promise of a large seed in Genesis is beginning to be fulfilled. Moreover, when we return to Genesis 3, we realize that Pharaoh is the seed of the serpent, while Israel represents the seed of the woman. Pharaoh’s attempt to kill all newborn boys is the embodiment of the designs of the seed of the serpent, for the struggle between the seeds that Genesis foretold continues.

As we move through the book of Exodus and on through the Pentateuch, it becomes clear that Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and the promise of the conquest of Canaan are also the fulfillment of the Lord’s covenant with Abraham. The promise of the land is now beginning to be realized. Furthermore, Israel is in a sense fulfilling the role of the new Adam in the new earth. Like Adam, they are to live in faith and obedience in the land that the Lord has given them.

If we were to read Exodus without considering the preceding message of Genesis, we would not understand the importance of this story. We would be taking the text out of its context and risking random interpretation.

The importance of prior theology is evident throughout the canon of Scripture, and here are just a few examples:

• The conquest under Joshua must be interpreted in light of the covenant with Abraham, so that the possession of Canaan is understood as the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that he would inherit this land.
• On the other hand, the exile of the northern (722 BC) and southern kingdoms (586 BC), foretold by the prophets and recorded in several books, is a fulfillment of the covenant curses spoken of in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 27–28. If preachers and churches are unaware of the prior theology of the Mosaic covenant and the curses foreseen in that covenant, they will have little chance of understanding the significance of Israel and Judah being sent into exile.
• The promise of a new David in various texts is a reflection of the covenant made earlier with David that his dynasty would last forever.
• The Day of the Lord, so often mentioned in the prophets, must be interpreted in light of the promise given to Abraham.

And the same applies to the New Testament, of course.

• We are unlikely to understand the importance of the Kingdom of God in the Synoptic Gospels if we do not know the course of Old Testament history and ignore God's covenants and promises to Israel.
• The significance of Jesus being the Messiah, the Son of Man, and the Son of God is based on previous revelation.
• The book of Acts, as Luke points out in his introduction, is a continuation of what Jesus began to do and teach. It is therefore enriched by both the Old Testament and the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
• The epistles are also based on the great work of salvation accomplished by Jesus Christ, and explain and apply this saving message and the fulfillment of God's promises for the established churches.
• Finally, the book of Revelation makes sense as the conclusion of this story. It is not simply an appendix to reinforce the final events. The many references to the Old Testament show that Revelation is written against the backdrop of Old Testament prophecies. The book would make no sense unless it is understood as the conclusion of all that Jesus Christ taught and did.

This does not mean that the theme of redemption is equally central to all the books of the canon. One might think of the wisdom books, such as the Song of Songs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Psalms. But even in these cases, the biblical authors proceed from the fundamental truths of creation and the fall mentioned in Genesis, as well as the special role of Israel as God’s covenant people. Sometimes they even articulate this role, as in the case of the Psalms, which describe the history of Israel. However, we are again reminded of the diversity of the canon, and we recognize that not every literary work serves the same function.

The main truth for preachers here is that they must preach in such a way that their sermons are integrated into the broad biblical story of redemption. Those sitting in the meetings must see the big picture of what God has been doing and how each part of Scripture contributes to that picture.

And this brings us to…

Look at the Whole — Canonical Sermon

As preachers, we must not limit ourselves to just previous theology. We must also consider the entire Bible, the canonical testimony we now have of the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If we preach only previous theology, we will not be able to rightly divide the Word of truth and bring the Lord's message to the people of today.

Therefore, when we preach the first chapters of Genesis, we must also proclaim that the seed of the woman is Jesus Christ, and that the fall of creation into futility will be overcome through the work of Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:18-25). Our hearers must see that the old creation is not the last word, but that there is a new creation in Christ Jesus. We must show them from the book of Revelation that the end will be better than the beginning, and that the blessings of the original creation will be greatly multiplied in the new creation.

The same is true of Leviticus. How can we preach from Leviticus if we do not view it in light of the fulfillment that came in Jesus Christ? We must surely proclaim that the sacrifices of the Old Testament were fulfilled in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Likewise, the laws about food and purity must be interpreted canonically so that we understand that the Lord is not calling us to keep these laws. They point to something more: the holiness and new life that we are to lead as believers (1 Cor. 5:6-8; 1 Pet. 1:15-16).

Also, as the New Testament clearly teaches, believers are no longer under the Mosaic Law (Gal. 3:15–4:7; 2 Cor. 3:7-18). The Old Covenant was only meant to be in effect during a specific period of salvation history.

Now that all is fulfilled in Christ, we are no longer under the covenant that the Lord made with Israel. Therefore, it is a mistake to assume that the laws that bound Israel as a nation should be the model for nation-states today, as theonomists claim in our day.

In our preaching, we must recognize the difference between Israel as the people of God and the church of Jesus Christ. Israel was the theocratic people of God, representing both the covenant people of God and a political community. But the church of Jesus Christ is not a political community with a charter of laws for the nations. The church is made up of people of all nations, tongues, tribes, and nations. Failure to appreciate this difference between the Old and New Covenants can cause chaos in our churches.

Thus, preachers must show how each text of Scripture fits into the overall canonical picture, revealing how God has gradually revealed His plans through redemptive history.

If we do not understand the difference between the Old and New Testaments, we will have difficulty, for example, in proclaiming the possession of the land in the book of Joshua. Of course, the promise to the church of Jesus Christ is not that we will one day possess the land of Canaan! Instead, as we read the New Testament, we learn that the promise of the land is taken typologically and carried forward to its final fulfillment in the New Testament. The book of Hebrews explains that the promise of peace given during the ministry of Joshua was never intended for the final rest of God’s people (Heb. 3:7-4:13). Paul clarifies that the promise of the land to Abraham could not be limited to Canaan, but was universalized to include the entire world (Rom. 4:13). We learn in Hebrews that we, as believers, are not waiting for an earthly city but for a heavenly city (Heb. 11:10, 14-16; 13:14), a city that is yet to come. Or, as John points out in Revelation chapters 21 and 22, we are waiting for the heavenly Jerusalem, which is nothing less than the new creation. In other words, if we preach from the book of Joshua and do not emphasize our inheritance in Christ and the new creation, we are catastrophically failing to convey the theme of Scripture to our listeners in interpreting that book. We have simplified the message so that our people do not see how all Scripture is fulfilled in Christ and how all the promises of God are «yes» and «amen» in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 1:20).

If we preach the Scriptures canonically, using biblical theology, then we will proclaim Christ from both the Old and New Testaments. Of course, we must avoid the dangers of simplistic allegorization or forced connections between the covenants. We will not fall into such errors if we do the work of biblical theology properly and follow the hermeneutics of the apostolic writers themselves. After all, the apostolic writers believed that the Old Testament pointed to and was fulfilled in Christ. They received their hermeneutics from Jesus Christ himself, as he opened the Scriptures to Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24).

In this regard, some have argued that the apostolic hermeneutics were inspired but should not be copied today. This view is erroneous because it assumes that the fulfillment the apostles saw in the Old Testament does not correspond to the true meaning of the texts. If this is so, then the connections between the covenants are arbitrary, and the apostles (and Christ himself!) do not serve as models for interpreting the Old Testament today.

If, however, we believe that the apostles were inspired and wise readers of the Old Testament, then we have a pattern for reading the entire Old Testament in light of the fulfillment accomplished in Jesus Christ. The plot and structures of the Old Testament all point to Him and culminate in Him. When we read of the promise to Abraham in the Old Testament, we realize that it is fulfilled in Christ Jesus. The shadows of the Old Testament sacrifices find their substance in Christ.

For example:

• Feasts such as Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles point to Christ as the Passover sacrifice, the gift of the Spirit, and Jesus as the Light of the world.
• Believers are no longer obligated to keep the Sabbath, since it is a shadow of the old covenant (Col. 2:16-17; cf. Rom. 14:5) and belongs to the Sinai covenant, which is no longer in force for believers (Gal. 3:15-4:7; 2 Cor. 3:4-18; Heb. 7:11-10:18). The Sabbath points to the rest that has already begun for us in Christ and that will be completed in the heavenly rest on the last day (Heb. 3:12-4:11).
• The temple presupposes Christ as the true temple, while circumcision finds its completion in the circumcision of the heart, anchored in the cross of Christ and secured by the action of the Spirit.
• David, as king of Israel and a man after God's own heart, does not represent the pinnacle of kingship; he is a type of Jesus Christ. Christ, the greater David, was sinless. He is the Messianic king who, through his ministry, death, and resurrection, revealed the promises made by God to his people.

If we do not preach the Old Testament in the context of the entire canon, we will either be limited to moral lessons from the Old Testament or, just as likely, we will rarely preach from the Old Testament.

As Christians, we know that much of what is found in the Old Testament no longer speaks directly to our situation today.

For example, God did not promise to deliver us from political slavery as he delivered Israel from Egypt. The land of Israel today is politically unstable, but Christians do not believe that their joy will come from living in Israel, nor do they believe that worship consists of going to the temple to offer sacrifices. However, if we do not preach the Old Testament canonically, in the light of biblical theology, it will too often be ignored in Christian preaching. In doing so, we not only deprive ourselves of the wonderful treasures of the Word of God, but we also fail to see the depth and multifaceted nature of biblical revelation. We put ourselves in a position where we do not read the Old Testament as Jesus and the apostles read it, and therefore fail to see that the promises of God are «yes» and «amen» in Jesus Christ.

Reading the Old Testament canonically does not mean that the Old Testament is not read in its historical cultural context. The first task of every interpreter is to read the Old Testament for itself, discerning the meaning that the biblical author intended when he wrote it. Furthermore, as we have argued above, each book of the Old Testament must be read in light of its prior theology in order to understand the plot of Scripture. But we must also read all Scripture canonically so that the Old Testament is read in light of the whole of history—the fulfillment that took place in Jesus Christ.

In short, we must always consider the perspective of the whole—the divine Author—in the process of biblical theology and in the preaching of the Word of God. We must read Scripture both from beginning to end and from end to beginning. We must always consider the unfolding story as well as the end of the story.

Conclusion

Our task as ministers is to proclaim the whole will of God. We will not fulfill our calling unless, as ministers, we engage in biblical theology. We may receive many compliments from our people for our moral lessons and illustrations, but we are not serving our churches faithfully if they do not see how all Scripture points to Christ, and if they do not gain a better understanding of the Bible story from us. May God help us to be faithful teachers and preachers, that every person under our care may be presented perfect in Christ.