Welcome back to this short course. So you've been asked to speak somewhere  last time, you know, we just did some introductory stuff. In fact, where do  messages come from? Well, today I want to introduce you to what I'm going to  call two different kinds of messages. And when we look at how to take a  message in the Bible, and again, that's my primary emphasis, as you've been  asked to preach somewhere. But this fits anywhere. But if you're looking at the  Bible, there are two different ways that you can approach the scriptures. One is  called exegesis, and the other would be called topical. Or I'm going to give you a couple of different words for that initially. So exegesis and topical. Now, the word exegesis means from out of In other words, the message is going to come from  out of the passage that you are looking at. And so you are going to do an in  depth study of a particular passage, and in that process, you're going to look at  those things that are on the screen. Now you're going to look at the historical  context. You're going to look at Bible issues. You're going to look at symbols,  you're going to look at rational thought, or in other words, you're going to think  through how all of this fits together. Now there are just to make a comment on  each of those for a few moments. First of all, Bible issues. Just want to make a  comment about that and that when you're doing a deep dive into a particular  passage, you have to keep in mind the whole of Scripture. So you want to have  in mind the fact that you are not in some way or another contradicting another  passage of scripture as you form your message. So you have those things in  mind, but then you want to look at the historical context. In other words, what did this Bible passage mean for those original hearers? What is the context of that  message? And just give you an example of how that might work. I was doing a  message recently on seven churches in Revelations, a series of messages on  those. And you may remember in Revelation chapter three, that there is a letter  to the church in Laodicea Revelation chapter three. And one of the things that  Jesus says there to that church in Laodicea, as he's speaking in the book of  Revelation, is you are neither hot nor cold, therefore I'm going to spew you up  out of my mouth. How I wish you were either hot or cold. Now, the traditional  interpretation of that passage, that doesn't look at the historical context, is  you've got to spend more time in Bible study. You've got to spend more time in  the Word. You've got to spend more time if you're faithfully coming to worship  and engaging in those kinds of things. But if we look at the context of how that  was said and where it was said, there's a different nuance to the message. For  instance, Colossae, a picture you see there in the Lycus River, was at the part  where partly way up a mountain, and so it was known for its cold water. Fact,  many years ago now, I had the privilege of standing on that hillside where  Colossae stood. At one point. It is now totally ruined. There's no nothing there to see. I even collect pottery shards and that sort of thing. But I was with a group,  and we had communion together, and one of the things we celebrated was the  cold water. There was a stream coming down there, and it was coming off the 

mountain. So, you know, snow melts and cold water comes down. And so  Colossae was known for its cold, refreshing water. Now Hieropolis, which is also in view of Laodicea and Colossae. Hieropolis was known for its hot water  springs. In fact, if you want to try something, you should look that up online and  just look for a picture of Hieropolis. And you'll see, you know, what often  happens in hot water springs is that you know sulfur is coming up, but there's  this forming of white, kind of layers of crystal, kind of stuff coming down the side  of the mountain as the water comes down there. But Hieropolis was known as  the place that people would go to find healing in the hot springs, and in fact, it  was particularly known for soldiers. Soldiers who had been injured would go to  Hieropolis, and they would spend a time recuperating there of their wounds, and felt like the hot water helped that process. So now you put that context, that  historical context, into that idea of Laodicea being told you are neither hot nor  cold. It doesn't mean just just do more in your Christian life. Just study more,  spend more time in prayer, etc. But it means, what are you identified as? Are  you somebody who's helping people? Are you a church that is engaging and  refreshing people, in healing people? How I wish you were. Are hot or cold in the lab, that you are refreshing people who need it or healing people who need it,  and because you're neither, I'm going to spew you out of my mouth. That's just  one example. But if we look up the historical context, we're going to get insight  into what God meant back then, so that we can have a better idea of what it  means now. Now, in addition to that, you know, you look at the historical context. We talked about Bible issues, you look at symbols. Now, there are a variety of  symbols in Scripture. You know, the lion can represent Jesus. He's known as the Lion of Judah. Now, that's an important symbol, right? And you can develop that  in a message as as, what are the characteristics of a lion, but a lion can also be  a symbol of Satan, our enemy, prowls around like a lion, seeking whom he may  devour. And so we look at that symbol in the context, what does that mean?  Sheep are often used as a scripture symbol, and they are a symbol of  waywardness, a tendency to wander. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We  have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity  of us all. That's prophecy of Isaiah. So it can be a symbol of something, bread  and wine become a symbol. They become a symbol of, you know, food and  nutrients going into our body, but Jesus takes them and empowers them with a  new symbol, and that symbol becomes the symbol of the life giving, presence of Jesus, the spiritual feeding that we get in communion. So when we're looking at  a deep dive into a particular passage, we want to look at what are the symbols  in this passage. There are symbols like snake. A snake is mostly in Scripture, a  symbol of Satan. And in fact, I have a marvelous time. Many, many years ago, I  was in a class that went up into the mountains of Georgia to a snake handlers  meeting. This is a small group that believes that, you know, the end of Mark  says that these signs shall follow those who believe they shall handle snakes 

and not be injured, etc, etc. And so they take this as a command that they've got to do this. So in their worship services, they're handling poisonous snakes,  rattlers that they caught in the mountains. And so we went there as a group of  doctoral students, unbelievably, sitting in there. But the preacher was an old  man in his 70s. At that time, I gotta watch how I say that now that I'm  approaching that but and he just followed that image of a snake all the way  through Scripture. And so most often it's a symbol of Satan, but sometimes it's a symbol of Jesus, where, you know, in the book of Numbers, when there's a  plague going through the camp, they have to look to this serpent that's raised on a pole for their healing and salvation. So we look at symbols, we look at all of  these sorts of things. Now, exegetical passage. This is Kevin Smith, who  teaches at South African Theological Seminary, and he put the idea of exegesis  pretty well, and so quoting from him here, the scriptures are the inspired Word of God. The primary goal of biblical interpretation is to discover the author intended meaning. Each text has one author intended meaning, meaning. So when you're doing this, you ask a couple of questions, what did this passage mean then, in  other words, back when this was written, whether it's an Old Testament passage or a New Testament passage. When this passage was written, what did those  original readers get from it? What do those original hearers get from it? What  was God trying to communicate to them and how it fit to their room? And then  you look at that scripture and say, what does it mean now, in today's world, how  can I make this applicable to today? Fact, one of the old, old preachers, it  doesn't quite fit anymore, but he said, you know, you should always prepare  your sermons with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Well,  today we'd say, you know that you have online resources that you're looking at  together. What did it mean then, and what does it mean now? The next kind of  preaching is topical preaching, or it's sometimes referred to as free text  preaching, or synthetic outlining. And that will become clear as I described, the  process that happens with this kind of topical preaching. Now, one word here,  before we go on, and that is most people who are not used to preaching, are not used to speaking in front of people, will begin with topical kind of messages, and that's okay. There are a variety of strengths to this as we're going to look at, but  the process is that you're looking at a variety of scriptures and how they impact  people's lives, and how can I present this positively to people? So the process is this, the preacher starts with a topic. You know, that topic can be marriage, it  could be divorce. It could be, you know, when you when somebody's hurting,  where is God, when it hurts. And then he finds Bible passages that deal with that topic, seeking key principles. In other words, what? What principles can we  learn from this? And then he arranges those key passages and principles to  exhort or encourage people. And then you find anecdotes and quotes that will  help people connect to that and then you will come to a conclusion to Apply that  truth. Now that's a process that you go through right instead of starting with one 

passage, you're looking at a bunch of them, and you look at everything you can  find on it, and then you say, what's going to help people? And you begin forming  into a message that you believe is going to be heard well by people. Now,  having said that, there are some real pros to this, you know, it allows an  exploration of a Bible truth beyond a single passage. It encourages seeing the  Bible as a whole, because not all truth is contained in one place. There's an  application of felt needs. It's one of the best ways to preach felt needs like anger management, etc, etc, and great Bible themes and doctrines are best explored  this way. You can't really explore things like omniscience or Omnipresence  without grabbing on to this idea of using many scripture passages. So there are  big positives to this. There are some negatives. One many times you can take a  verse out of context, out of that sense of the whole passage, and it can mean  something different. In fact, you can make the Bible say just about anything you  want it to say. If you take enough verses out of context. You know, one of those,  one of the great old sermon examples of that is the guy who wanted to find  God's will, and so he opened the Bible, and he popped it open and did one of  these things, of putting his finger down, and he looked and said, Judas went and hanged himself. Well, that can't be God's will for me. So he did it again. Give it  another shot, and did it. And then he reads, go and do likewise. That can't be  God's will. So he opens it again, flops it open, puts his finger down, and says,  what thou doest do quickly. Obviously, that's an old, old sermon illustration, but  the idea is, you can make the Bible say anything about slavery, about marriage,  about divorce, about racism. You could, you can make it say anything you want,  if you just take selected pictures. So one of the cons is sometimes you have to  be you have to be very, very careful that you don't take verses out of context.  Now second con is moral lessons, rather than the whole counsel of God.  Sometimes scripture, instead of looking at that passage becomes, you know,  just a little moral lesson. I was part of that in a Sunday School skit that we did a  skit on a passage, and the moral lesson was, you got to work hard. And I said,  but that's not the point of this passage. If you only do topical, centered  preaching, you'll become needs centered as the main way of preaching, and  that will be an overall weakness for you. And oftentimes the preacher then  focuses on his own agenda, rather than God. So those would be the cons to this kind of preaching. Now, just as an example, let me give you an example of an  outline of a topical sermon this person, you'll notice that this is compiled by  wwwq.online-sermon-for-busy-pastors.com this is available online, but this  person did a topical sermon insights into winning the spiritual battles of life. We  have three enemies, the devil, the word, the flesh. Each one has a different  proof text. We have two battlefronts, personal holiness, personal witness, two  proof text. We have two weapons, the armor of God, the Word of God, and proof text. That's an extreme example of a topical sermon. And I would look at this  and say, people are going to start tuning out. They have to keep flipping around 

in the Bible that much, etc. But this is an example of the outline that comes with  topical sermons. So you choose the kind of sermon you want, and next time,  we're going to look more carefully at okay, how do you approach putting this  message that you have in your heart at this point, if not your head? How do you  go about putting it together? We'll see you next time 



पिछ्ला सुधार: मंगलवार, 25 नवंबर 2025, 10:09 AM