nce becoming a lead pastor I have been working on and developing my sermon preparation process. It’s important like anything to work on. Between having a family, working another job and other activities life is busy, so laying out my process has become an essential to keep on track, One thing that does aid my process is the use of the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL). Week over week, I am able to look at what scriptures are coming up, and in line with what is going on in the liturgical church calendar, it helps frame my preparation.
I do have a weekly schedule of my sermon preparation available on my website. Feel free to check it out, and I hope it is a blessing to you.
I love theology. The study of God has always captivated me. Looking at the variety of theological positions, discovering development throughout Church history, and how we got to where we are today is fascinating. But As I have come through my seminary studies, and through other reading I have been confronted with a reality. Just knowing theology is not enough, Why? Because at the end of the day, theology, or systematic theology is the end product of studying Scripture. This is where Biblical studies comes in.
When looking at God’s Word you must, must, must understand the context and background of what we are reading. Language is a hyper-contextual thing. In our day and age we know the difference between a butt-dial, and a botty-call (excuse the crass reference, but it makes the point). We know the difference, but archeologists in 300 years may be debating whether or not those two phrases mean the same thing. That’s what we are doing when we come to Scripture without knowing what is going on.
Our culture is very very different from that of the Bible authors, especially in the American west. When I lived in Africa on the mission field, a class about Leviticus was being taught. When asked how many students had butchered an animal in the past week, I would say every single hand went up (except mine). It’s apart of their every day life, and when a similar class was being taught in the US that I was apart of, not a single person other than the teacher and myself had every processed an animal. That’s a huge gulf of cultural difference, and that’s only in one small area of life.
When coming to the Bible, this means we need to approach with a lot of humility. We cannot just “read the plain meaning” most of the time because that presumption is charged with the hetty pride that we can understand everything. What I am not saying is that someone cannot read Scripture without extra tools and receive the core of the Gospel to be saved. What I am saying is that as we delve deeper without an understanding of what is going on contexually, it has, can, and does lead to problematic theological conclusions because of a wrong presumption of the text.
This doesn’t mean that every pastor, or person who studies Scripture (hopefully every Christian) needs to become an archeological expert. But what it does mean is we need to know WHAT to look for and HOW to look for it.
A prime example of this is looking at the Genesis creation account. We need to remember that Genesis, and especially the creation story is a theological work, describing work and character of God in contrast to the pagan deities of the surrounding nations. Yes, there are many similarities between the Genesis creation account, and creation accounts found in other Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) creation accounts (such as the Enuma Elish, or the Gilgamesh Epic). But it is in the differences that we see what is going on. The Genesis creation account stands apart on several key points. One of the most important is the idea that all humanity is created in the image of God. Human equality is something presumed in our modern world, was not the case in ancient times. In the other pagan nations, only the kings were in the image of God, and this origin came them the right to subjugate and rule as they saw fit. In these other creation accounts, across the board humanity was either an accident, or through deception.
In contrast to this, the Genesis creation account describes the intentional creation of ALL humanity in the image of God. A massive difference from every other creation story. But we can only see and appreciate this difference if we understand the context of what is going on in the world at the time of writing. This is just one example of many that demonstrate the importance of correctly grappling with the context of Scripture before making theological conclusions (such as strict 6-day creationism).
There are 2 primary resources that I have been using are a study bible, and a 2-set commentary set.
The first is the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. This study Bible is a fantastic resource. Everyone should have a good study Bible. I would recommend this one as a candidate. It is chalk full from beginning to end with notes, articles, illustrations & images of everything you need to get started in understanding the background context of Scripture. At around $30 for the basic hardcover, it is hard to go wrong for anyone. Here is a more in depth review of this resource from Disciple Dojo.
The commentary set is the IVP Bible Background Commentary. This two-volume commentary set provides deeper notes and context about what is going on. Actually, the two primary editors of each volume (Walton & Keener) are the primary contributors and editors of the NIV Background Study Bible. If you are a pastor, student, or someone who needs to get to that next level, this commentary set is invaluable. One of the best parts about each volume are the extensive references that can open up a world of deeper resources and writings and other scholars which aside from the fantastic commentary, make this set worth it. And, being only a two-volume set is very reasonable to acquire.
Theology is important. Don’t get me wrong, I will always love the study of God. But we musn’t forget that before we can do good theology, we must do good Bible study to understand the background and context of what is going on in the text that we receive the truth from.