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Recently I have been reading and thinking about Homiletics. Specifically, I’ve been reading "I believe in Preaching" by John RW Stott and thinking about how to write a sermon that is on one hand authentically and consciously in line with Lutheran theology, and on the other hand authentically and consciously written with the modern parish in mind. Here are my initial thoughts on the subject, mainly, and arguably sadly, inspired by a ‘not yet even out of bed flash of insight’ that came to me this morning in the form of the diagram you see above.
First note the arms of the cross. Law, and Gospel. Familiar I hope to any dyed in the wool Lutheran. These should be the two main horizontal, linear, sections of a sermon. The preacher should take the congregation from Law to Gospel.
What are these two elements I speak of? Law is what convicts; it is "the doctrine that commands what is and what is not to be done." (Philip Melanchthon, Theses on Law, Gospel, and Faith) The function of Law is to point out our faults and sins, and knock out every plank of righteousness that we might stand on, every shred of self-justification we can throw up in our defense, be it circumcision, good works, going to church, or, I would argue, even Baptism. This leads into our next term, Gospel, which is the Good News that we are saved from the sins made obvious by the Law with a "promise of the grace of God." (IBID)
This sermon progression from Law to Gospel is to be supported by scripture, signified in the diagram as Father for the TaNaK and Son for the New Testament. Without scripture sermons become little more than a philosophical treatise at best, the unguided mumbling and musings of a moralist at worst.
You may ask why both TaNaK and NT should be included in a sermon? They are, as I once wrote in a poem "mirror dogs," in that they demonstrate the continuities of scripture, as well as the historical interplay between the traditional and the prophetic, each are filled with parallels of the other, the narrative of Moses is complemented and reworked in Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth, both Joseph and Jesus hide their identity from the twelve. Further, Law is found not only in the Old Testament, nor Gospel only in the New. Many of Paul’s community rules are Law, and the salvation history of the Jews is Gospel.
And lastly, but not leastly there is the final piece of the diagram, "Spirit" by that I of course mean the Holy kind. In this schema I am not referring to scripture about the Holy Spirit attested in the TaNaK and NT, but the "other Counselor," with the Church "always." (Acts 14:16) The Spirit does not settle with the Pastor re-convicting the Israelites worshiping the golden calf, or taking crucifying Christ ad nauseum. This element of the sermon is where the Pastor asks, to quote a good friend, "What do the people of God need to hear today?" It is through the Spirit that the Pastor builds a bridge over the temporal, cultural, as well as intellectual, gap between the text and today. F.W. Robertson, a influential Brighton preacher, did so because within his sermons there was "always the deliberate reference of his preaching to modern conditions of thought and life." (John R.W. Stott, I Believe in Preaching Both Karl Barth and C.H. Spurgeon prepared their sermons with "the Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other." (IBID)
And there you The Contemporary Lutheran Sermon, with diagram.
Peace,
Chris
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LAWGOSPEL
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Recently I have been reading and thinking about Homiletics. Specifically, I’ve been reading "I believe in Preaching" by John RW Stott and thinking about how to write a sermon that is on one hand authentically and consciously in line with Lutheran theology, and on the other hand authentically and consciously written with the modern parish in mind. Here are my initial thoughts on the subject, mainly, and arguably sadly, inspired by a ‘not yet even out of bed flash of insight’ that came to me this morning in the form of the diagram you see above.
First note the arms of the cross. Law, and Gospel. Familiar I hope to any dyed in the wool Lutheran. These should be the two main horizontal, linear, sections of a sermon. The preacher should take the congregation from Law to Gospel.
What are these two elements I speak of? Law is what convicts; it is "the doctrine that commands what is and what is not to be done." (Philip Melanchthon, Theses on Law, Gospel, and Faith) The function of Law is to point out our faults and sins, and knock out every plank of righteousness that we might stand on, every shred of self-justification we can throw up in our defense, be it circumcision, good works, going to church, or, I would argue, even Baptism. This leads into our next term, Gospel, which is the Good News that we are saved from the sins made obvious by the Law with a "promise of the grace of God." (IBID)
This sermon progression from Law to Gospel is to be supported by scripture, signified in the diagram as Father for the TaNaK and Son for the New Testament. Without scripture sermons become little more than a philosophical treatise at best, the unguided mumbling and musings of a moralist at worst.
You may ask why both TaNaK and NT should be included in a sermon? They are, as I once wrote in a poem "mirror dogs," in that they demonstrate the continuities of scripture, as well as the historical interplay between the traditional and the prophetic, each are filled with parallels of the other, the narrative of Moses is complemented and reworked in Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth, both Joseph and Jesus hide their identity from the twelve. Further, Law is found not only in the Old Testament, nor Gospel only in the New. Many of Paul’s community rules are Law, and the salvation history of the Jews is Gospel.
And lastly, but not leastly there is the final piece of the diagram, "Spirit" by that I of course mean the Holy kind. In this schema I am not referring to scripture about the Holy Spirit attested in the TaNaK and NT, but the "other Counselor," with the Church "always." (Acts 14:16) The Spirit does not settle with the Pastor re-convicting the Israelites worshiping the golden calf, or taking crucifying Christ ad nauseum. This element of the sermon is where the Pastor asks, to quote a good friend, "What do the people of God need to hear today?" It is through the Spirit that the Pastor builds a bridge over the temporal, cultural, as well as intellectual, gap between the text and today. F.W. Robertson, a influential Brighton preacher, did so because within his sermons there was "always the deliberate reference of his preaching to modern conditions of thought and life." (John R.W. Stott, I Believe in Preaching Both Karl Barth and C.H. Spurgeon prepared their sermons with "the Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other." (IBID)
And there you The Contemporary Lutheran Sermon, with diagram.
Peace,
Chris
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