I did check to see if someone had posted on this before posting my thread. I'm reading a book, Total Church, by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. in Chapter 7, Discipleship and Training, they write the following:
Now, I'm a firm believer in the regulative principle. I don't think that ends the question of what should be done in worship, because the question becomes, "What has God commanded us to do in Scripture?" And that's something people can get pretty worked up about, particularly in the case of music.
This question, however, I think, is considerably more important. What has God commanded us to do, in Scripture, with respect to preaching? Are forty-five-minute monologue sermons what God has commanded us to do? If so, where's the precedent? If that precedent is in the Old Testament, then how does it get filtered through the Christ event?
Since authors Tim Chester and Steve Timmis use the word "dialogue" with apparent gusto, how suspicious of them should I be?
Now I'm going to ask the world of my readers: if I could get a closely reasoned, biblical, scholarly response before 6pm EST today, that would be absolutely terrific! Thanks!
In Christ.
(pp. 114-5, emphasis original)The reality is that there is little New Testament evidence for the sermon as we understand it today. Jesus taught primarily through dialogue, sayings, and stories. He occasionally taught in synagogues, but more often he taught in homes, along the road, and in the open air. The so-called "Sermon on the Mount" is probably a summary of a whole day of teaching, giving us little clue about the nature of interaction that went on. The sermons in Acts are for the most part unprepared defense speeches. They are not delivered from a pulpit on a Sunday morning but before a court or before a mob. When Paul does address Christians on a Sunday (and Eutychus falls asleep!), the word used to describe his teaching is the Greek word from which we get our English word dialogue (Acts 20:7). The word commonly translated "preach" means to proclaim the gospel to unbelievers. It covers any verbal communication including discussion, dialogue, or debate. It actually conveys what we mean when we speak today of evangelism rather than simply a forty-five-minute monologue delivered from a pulpit. Historically the sermon as monologue arose after the "conversion" of Constantine, and imperial backing for Christianity brought large numbers of nominal Christians into the church. As a result, it was no longer possible for a group of genuine followers of Christ to discuss God's word with a Bible teacher.
It should come as no surprise that Jesus taught through dialogue and questions. Studies by IBM and the UK Post Office show that people who lean by hearing alone retain just 10 percent of what they have learned after three months. People who learn by hearing, being shown, and experience retain 65 percent. This means the only person experiencing good learning in a sermon is the preacher!
Now, I'm a firm believer in the regulative principle. I don't think that ends the question of what should be done in worship, because the question becomes, "What has God commanded us to do in Scripture?" And that's something people can get pretty worked up about, particularly in the case of music.
This question, however, I think, is considerably more important. What has God commanded us to do, in Scripture, with respect to preaching? Are forty-five-minute monologue sermons what God has commanded us to do? If so, where's the precedent? If that precedent is in the Old Testament, then how does it get filtered through the Christ event?
Since authors Tim Chester and Steve Timmis use the word "dialogue" with apparent gusto, how suspicious of them should I be?
Now I'm going to ask the world of my readers: if I could get a closely reasoned, biblical, scholarly response before 6pm EST today, that would be absolutely terrific! Thanks!
In Christ.