Video Transcript: Preparing to Preach - Sample Exegesis

Welcome back to this class on preacher preparation presentation, a class on  making and preaching sermons. Might even put on the adjective good sermons  there. This is session six. And we're continuing this theme of preparing to preach and today I want to look at, as I said, last time, an example of exegesis. But first  I want to introduce somebody to you. This is Ted Turner. Now in the United  States, he's a well known person, he owns the Atlanta Braves baseball club. He  owns TBS, the Turner Broadcasting System. He owns TMT. He's a billionaire.  He's an incredibly wealthy person. But he didn't start his life, at least in his  youth, wanting to be a billionaire. That was never his goal. In fact, when he was  a teenager, his father was kind of grooming him to take over the family business. But when he was a teenager, he stated that he wanted to become a missionary.  And that was his goal. He was passionate. He was somebody who was reading  the Bible, he was somebody who was going to church regularly. And that's what  he was, but then his sister got sick, his sister, Mary Jane, she had systemic  lupus erythematosus or something like that. It's a disease, which, where the, our system of to protect us, begins to attack us. And so rather than having our  immune system keep us immune from diseases, we are experiencing the attack  of our immune system, and it begins to tear us apart its a painful thing. Fact is  Ted Turner would tell the story about going home after school and just sitting  and trying to hold his sister's hand of hearing her screaming in pain at times of  the house. And that's the way it went for years. Now, Turner was praying for her  healing. During this time, he had been taught that God heals. And so he prayed  for a healing. And when she died, he said he couldn't quite figure it out. If God is  good, and He is all powerful. Why wouldn't he heal his sister? Now. Turner was  15 at the time. Not that long later, on March 5, 1963, his Father Ed Turner, had  breakfast with his wife. And then he went upstairs and he took a gun, put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger and committed suicide. And at that point, Turner  became what he said an avowed atheist. In fact for quite a long time in his life,  he battled Christianity. Thankfully, he was married to Jane Fonda for a period of  time. And she began attending a little Baptist Church and ended up becoming a  Christian, but didn't tell him about it because he was afraid how angry he would  be. And he's somebody who's just so far rejected the Christian faith. Now, I've  heard recently that he's made a turn in that regard. And now he's working as a,  as a benefactor to bless many church ministries that are making a difference in  the community, and in Atlanta, where he lives and in places around the world.  But I shared his story with you because somewhere, probably the result of bad  exegesis, he became convinced that God will always heal that if Jesus is all  powerful, and he's all loving, he will always heal. Now, Scripture doesn't indicate that. And in fact, there's some I believe, God heals. Let me say that starting out  the section, I believe that God heals, I have prayed for people for healing, and  been astounded at what God has done. I have worked with some people in my  church who had the spiritual gift of healing and to go with them on calls to sick 

people and see them raised up. God does heal. But there are some twist to that  within those who advocate this, and read the scriptures in a way that say God is  always heal. And one of them is, you know, you've got to have enough faith. And if you don't, God will not heal you. You know, that comes from Paul, looking at  

when he's on the island of Cyprus, and he sees this man, he said, he saw that  he has faith to be healed. And so one of the twisting of the teaching about  healing is that you got to drum up the faith somehow, or you've got to create the  faith. And if you don't, well, sorry. And so what do you do to drum up that faith?  And so there's some really twisted parts to this that are, are the result of bad  exegesis and cause grave damage in the life faith of so many people. And then  my church that I served in California, we had a couple there, who had a child  born and the child was born with severe disabilities. He was autistic. He couldn't  see he was almost blind. He could see just a little bit out of one eye. He couldn't  hear well and as a result, you know, he, he would just walk around and grunt  and try to say a few words that only they could understand and unfortunately, I  had heard of a church near me that I respected. And I said, you know, I know  they have a ministry of prayer for people. Why don't you try them. And so I, we  made the connection, I made the connection with this group of prayer partners,  and they came to our church, they met with him for evening. And it was  devastating to this couple. Because what they came back saying, well, he's not  healed, because you don't have the faith, and you have not dealt with your own  sins. And they named some specific sins that they thought were in this couple.  Now. I don't want to get into a discussion about healing right now, except to say  that some of that comes from bad exegesis of not looking at the canonical  issues, what does the whole Scriptures say? And so it's important that we get  this process down to try to say, how do we go about doing exegesis that is  faithful to the Scriptures. And so today, I want to look at one. You know  everybody needs a Christmas sermon, we're gonna look at passage and we'll  just do some of that background, historical, canonical, symbolic and reflective  kind of, kind of look at this passage. The passage is found in Matthew 2. It's a  story of the wisemen coming. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea,  during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and  asked, where's the one who has been born king of the Jews, we saw his star in  the east and have come to worship him. When King Herod heard this, he was  disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he called together all peoples, chief priests and teachers the law he asked them where the Christ was to be born, in  Bethlehem in Judea, they replied, for this is what the prophet has written. But  you Bethlehem and the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for all of you will come a ruler, who will be the shepherd of my people  Israel. Then Herod called the Magi secretly, and found out from them the exact  time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and make  a careful search for the child, as soon as you find him report to me, so that I too,

may go and worship him. After they had heard the king, they went on their way.  And the star they had seen in the East went ahead of them until it stopped over  the place where the child was. When they saw the star. They were overjoyed.  On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they  bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and  presented him with gifts of gold, and of incense, and myrrh. And having been  warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by  another route. So that's the passage. We are going to be looking at exegesis.  We're in that process of exegesis,eisegesis, topical preaching and  hermeneutics. Here's a picture of famous picture by a Middle Ages, artist, Jan  Gossaer, about the visit of the Magi. And paintings are is interesting how people  interpret these events. But you'll notice in this picture, they're obviously still in  the stable, and these kings are coming well dressed now. Okay, so we're gonna  look at this passage. First thing we're going to do is look at historical  considerations. And you look at the history of this passage, and you come first of all, in verse one, to King Herod, you know, where is the King Herod, they come  to saying, where's the one who's born King of the Jews? Now here's a picture of  it. Actually, it's a drawing of one of the heads of the busts of Herod that exists in  Rome. And in Jerusalem. Herod the Great is probably this Herod, if you look  there scripture, you're gonna find that there are a lot of people who go by the  name of Herod and Jesus, when he grows up and begins his ministry is  encountering Herod and John the Baptist, you know, criticizes one of the Herods that is, those are not this Herod. This is Herod, who is known as Herod the  Great. He reigned from 40 BCE that's before the Christian era, to 4 BCE before  the Christian era. Now, one of the things you look at in historical considerations  if that if this is the Herod that's referred to that Jesus was not born in the year  zero, that's just a sideline. We don't know exactly the day he was born, we can  guess some of the seasons and that sort of thing. But, okay, it's, it's Herod the  Great. Now all of a sudden, I have a historical context for the events here.  Because when you look at history, and you read about Herod the Great, you'll  find out some things about him. First of all, he was a builder. There are all kinds  of buildings that existed the temple was rebuilt during Herod the Great's rule. He put a great deal of money and effort and time into building that but he built on  the water aqueducts to bring water into Jerusalem. He built large buildings. He  built not only in Jerusalem, but he built all around his area of rule. You'll learn  about him that he was a ruler because he had gone to the the Caesars and he'd  gotten permission from them. In fact, Caesar Augustus kind of, you know,  adopted him, in fact, he lived in in Rome for a while. And so they knew each  other well. And Caesar Augustus was somebody who gave him the right to rule  in this area. So he's a builder. He's connected to the Caesars he's representing  Rome, he was popular with the Romans, not so popular with the Jews. You  learn about it when you read history that he was paranoid, especially as he got 

older, he was sure people were plotting to kill him and take over the rule of the  kingdom. And so he had his wife killed now the word is that he suspected that  she was plotting so that her son would become the next king. And so at one  time, you know, he was leaving to go on a trip for a period of time, and he told  his best advisors if I die on this trip, you know, know that she probably arranged  it so have her killed, and two times that happened. And then we came back from the second trip, he said, I just killed her anyway, more or less. And so somebody who killed anybody that was a threat to him in any way. He killed his son, he had a son, who was from all we know, is very loyal to him, but he was afraid was  Herod, that the son would, you know, try to take over the kingdom sooner than  necessary. And so he had that son killed, he had another son killed. And in fact,  Caesar at one point was quoted as saying, I would rather be Herod's pig than a  son. Remember, pigs are repugnant to Jews, I'd rather be a pig than his son.  Another example of his paranoia. It was the Hippodrome plan in Jerusalem is a  big model that stretches over quite a distance of the city of Jerusalem in Jesus  time. And so it shows the various buildings and this is a picture of the  Hippodrome that exists in that model. Now, the Hippodrome was like a big  stadium. It's where they had chariot races where they have some athletic  contests. If you've ever watched the movie, Ben Hur, there's a chariot contest  chariot race that takes place in this in the Hippodrome like this. It's a huge  stadium. Well, when Herod was sick, and he was dying, and doctors told him, he likely was dying. He knew that the Jews would not grieve a great deal at his  death. And so he wanted people to mourn. And so what he did is he directed  that all the leading Jews, the chief priests, the leaders in the Jewish nation, the  leaders in the city of Jerusalem, all be gathered together in the Hippodrome. So  they were locked in there. Guards and many archers stationed up on the top.  And he said, the moment that you hear that I'm dead, you know, I want all of  these people killed. And that would guarantee that there would be mourning in  that area at that time. And so this is the kind of guy we're dealing with. I mean,  paranoid Now, thankfully, he died and they withdrew the next people ruling  withdrew that command to kill all these people. So, so we learn a lot about  Herod as part of the historical context. And so we understand better, that when  Herod is afraid, and it says he, when he heard this, he was disturbed, and all  Jerusalem with him. In other words, the word disturbed means kind of shaken  up. And, and all Jerusalem probably means that you know, all the people who  are followers of Herod who have benefited from his rule, they're, they're  disturbed because the word is there's a king coming. Who was born King of the  Jews was the question the Magi asked. And so we understand now, why this  man could order the killing of all boys under two years old, when the when this.  when the Magi did not return and tell him where Jesus is. And so that's the kind  of person we're dealing with ruthless, paranoid. Then another thing we look at, if we're going to look at a piece of scripture and historical considerations, are the 

Magi. Now, in our country, we have the song, We Three Kings of Orient are  bearing gifts we traverse afar. Now, we don't know if there were three kings, we  don't know how many there were. We assumed there were three because there  were three gifts, gold, and frankincense and myrrh. And so we made the  assumption. In fact, tradition has even given them names like Caspar Melchior  and Balthazar. Tradition has given them names like ages like 40, 20, and 60  somehow. And then there have been people who have even said that tradition  has taught us that Thomas, the disciple was one who traveled to India to bring  the gospel there. And he found the Magi, and he baptized them. And so there's  those kinds of stories about the magi, but there's so much we don't know about  them. We, we make guesses about them. So who were these Magi? Were there three were there 10? We don't know. We only know they brought three gifts. And we know some other things about them that are important too. First of all, they  were most likely Persian. And we come to that conclusion, because in 614 of the Christian era, in other words, AD. The old way of putting that The whole area of  Israel was being conquered by by the Muslim expansion of that time. And in the  process of conquering that area, they were burning down churches when they  find them because they were going to be introducing Islam as the official religion of that entire empire, Suleiman was building. And so they came to a church in  Bethlehem, the Church of the Nativity, and they didn't burn it down. Why?  Because over the entrance, there was a mosaic of three men in Persian dress,  Persian turbans, who were bringing gifts to the baby Jesus. And that was a very  early, early kind of mosaic. And so they said, Hey, wait a minute, we belong  here. And they didn't burn it down. So they were from the East. They were from  Persia. another tradition. So they came from three different countries, but there's no evidence of that. And Persia was a place where as a inheritors of Babylon,  they, they were people who had Magi. They're not magicians so much as  scientists, people who were astronomers, and in some sense, astrologers, we  know also that they were pagan. In other words, they weren't Jews, most likely  they didn't have the history of Abraham as their father. And that's important,  because as you're looking at the historical considerations here, you recognize  now as we move into the canon, you know, the Bible, the Bible, interpreting the  Bible, we know that this was a prophecy of the Messiah, right from Isaiah 60.  Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising, I  remember when Jesus was told, some Greeks came in wanting to talk to Jesus,  and they came to Philip and Philip comes to Jesus and said, Hey, these Greeks  want to talk to you, Jesus is now the hour now is the Son of Man glorified,  there's something about these Greeks beyond Jews were seeking Jesus  wanting to know about Jesus, so now's the time. And so that's an important  consideration, you know, the history and some Bible interpreting this event in  some ways. And so that we put in the background of our notes, our  understanding of this passage for scripture, now we have the next thing is a star,

the star appears, What in the world was the star, we don't know. But of course,  it's been studied like crazy, there was a comet that came through in came was  visible in the skies from the Middle East, during that period of about 7 BCE. And  so some say it was this comet, I think it was comet number 54. Was it a  supernova. In other words, a star exploding, and some have traced some stars  back then, was it Another example would be a conjunction of Jupiter, and Saturn now in this, in this thing, here, you've got, here's the sky with all of the  constellations represented. And there's a time in the year or at least a time, right  around the time of birth of Jesus, when Jupiter and Saturn were very close, and  in fact, Mercury came so that you wouldn't see just one of them, you would see  a both of them together, and it would look especially bright. And then there were  some symbols and some suspicions about Jupiter being the planet of the kings  and that sort of thing. So they can come to that interpretation that a king had  been born. And so is that what it was, we don't know, some believe the star was  a combination of those things. That the, the wise men, the Magi saw something  that sent them on their journey. Now back then a journey from the East to  Jerusalem would be a long time, right? And so they started on this journey. And  it was later that they found another star because they say, Where's the king?  They get to Jerusalem, we've seen his star in the east, and then they see it  again. And so, okay, we know something about this star. It was leading people to Jesus. And so that brings us to another little piece that might become part of a  sermon on this passage. We look at the name Bethlehem, and we know that  that was very important. It was the name means house of bread, but we know  it's the home of David. And we know that David was anointed as the king. And  you know, the promise of the prophets was always that there was a Messiah  coming in, who would come out of the root of David. And so David's born lives in Bethlehem, and he Sebat He's anointed there to be king. He's always, you  know, looks back at Bethlehem. And finally, that that's where the king is just  another little piece of how this would work. And just just for your interest, here's  the Church of the Nativity, in, in Bethlehem, and today, it's in the Palestinian  section of that area, but you can go down and actually see where tradition says  Jesus was born, and put your hand on a hole in the rock there. That's tradition  again. Okay, so we've seen something about, you know, what, what's the  historical consideration? What are some of the Bible considerations of this,  interpreting this passage? Now we move on to symbolic. Now there are a lot of  symbols here, that could be a powerful part of our message, first of all, the light  of the world. The star leads people to Jesus. And Jesus says, I am the light of  the world. And Jesus said to His disciples, You are the light of the world, that  there's something about a light that attracts people. You know, one of the most  powerful services that we had as a church in California at one time was at  Christmas time. And, you know, we were doing a lot of acting out of stuff. But at  one point, we turned off all the lights, you know, even arranged to turn off the 

exit signs on the doors. And so it was pretty dark in there. And then a person up  front who was doing a reading lit, one candle, just one light. And it's amazing  thing that happens when there's darkness. All of a sudden, you're everybody's  attention is on that one candle. Now didn't throw a lot of light. But there's one  candle. And so all of a sudden, we have light. And so we could focus on that as  a theme. And Philippians. Again, if we look at the Bible, part of it says, you know, you are to shine like stars in this dark world. So light becomes a symbolic theme is the king of all nations, not just the Jews, that's an important thing. God  speaking to us, I hope how many times God spoke to us, Psalm 19, The  heavens declare the glory of God. And the firmament shows His handiwork, day  to day they pour forth speech, and God is trying to speak to us, we could talk  about God, reaching out to people. And so we do some reflection. And we could  say, well, you know, what seeking God begins with a hunger begins with  something that wants makes us want to connect with God, we could talk about  God always reaching out to people, and I'm reading a book right now on  intimacy and, and by John Ortberg. And he's, he refers to intimate invitations, or  invitations to intimacy, and how we interact with people, you invites them into  further intimacy with us or us to them. And one of the points he makes is God is  always doing this. And this passage is certainly an evidence of that, that God is  always reaching out to people. And then we could talk maybe about the finding  of Jesus, you know, the joy of finding Jesus in a in a sermon on that I might  include a statement, something about a story about somebody I know, I can  think of a good friend of mine who, you know, man, spent many years in fact, he  was homeless at one point. And yet when he found Jesus and His life was  turned around, thanks to a person working in a post office, I happen to be there.  And so long story and I'll tell you in another setting, but wow, the joy that he felt  in finding Jesus as much as these people are, are said, you know, they were  overjoyed when they came into the house and found Jesus. And we can focus  on that as well as part of the message. So next week, or next week, I keep  saying next week, I mean, the next class, I'm doing this three sessions per  week. But next class, I'm going to actually preach a sermon on this passage.  Now, you won't find all of this exegetical reflection in there because after you do  the exegesis, you have to pick and choose what you can use in a particular  sermon at a particular time. And so I'll preach part of the message and won't go  all in there because of time restrictions. But so I invite you to the next session,  where we look at this passage and we say, Okay, now how do we take that  exegesis and turn it into a sermon? So see you next time