Video Transcript: Session 11 Laleo
Welcome back. This is session 11, of preacher preparation presentation
preparing to preach. Now in our last couple of sessions, we have begun this
exploration of what it means to preach at least according to the New Testament.
And we've seen these first couple of words here that euangelizo , that
proclaiming of good news or proclaiming of the gospel and how this is giving an
evangelistic message basically. And then last time we looked at didasko is that
idea of teaching, that we have to be people who occasionally in our ministries of
preaching, teach, and that means convey a truth and contract the facts in such a
way that people will learn them. Now, today, we're going to take an interesting
word. The word is laleo in the New Testament, and it simply means to speak. In
fact, I'm giving it this definition for the for the sake of this particular lecture today,
to speak of important things. But there are times in our messages. As we plan
our sermon series. As we plan our year of preaching, however you do that
practice or that you speak of important things, what I mean here will become
clearer as we go on. Now, laleo can refer to just common speech in the New
Testament. In other words, it's not a presentation of something to people, it's not
a sermon that's coming to people, but it's just the fact that, you know, people
have spoken to each other. For instance, here's Jesus saying, I told you that
every one will have to give an account for every empty word they have spoken.
In other words, he's saying that there are some words that are empty words, but
every words all of our communication, somehow, we're going to be judged on at
least according to Jesus there. And you can do a study of that passage, if you
want to understand more deeply what it means. But then Ephesians 4:25, these
words of Paul, therefore, each of you must put off falsehood, and speak, laleo,
truthfully to your neighbor, so we are all members of one body. So they're not
necessarily speaking about spiritual things to each other. They're not exactly
telling great doctrinal truths to each other, it's just the talking to each other, don't
lie to each other, speak the truth. So that's just common language kind of
laleoing. And then this one from Ephesians 4. My dear brothers and sisters, take
note of this everyone, or this is actually from James 1, I missed the reference
there. So I'm sorry, James 1, my dear brothers and sisters, take note of this,
everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak slow to laleo and slow to
become angry. Now, speaking here, is not necessarily again, a sermon. It's not
necessarily conveying truth and facts and the teaching way, it's just speaking.
So we should be listening more than we are speaking in our lives. Because, you
know, we should take time to be intimate with other people in the sense of
understanding where they come from, and slow to become angry. So James is
talking there, and it and that's what he's saying to His people who sometimes
apparently, we're just talking over each other. And you probably know some
people like that. And so this is the direction here, it refers to common everyday
language, but the word laleo sometimes, just speaking, refers to preaching. In
fact, sometimes it is translated that way. You see it in the life of Jesus, while
Jesus was still talking to the crowd, and the word is laleo, so he's laleoing to the
crowd. He's speaking to the crowd. Now, that sounds a lot like sermon doesn't
it? Making a sermon speaking to the he's, he's making a presentation to the
crowd. And then his mother and brothers stood outside wanting to speak to him.
And then another place, the disciples came to him as Why do you speak to the
people in parables? Now, the ministry of Jesus, therefore can't be understood
without understanding the idea of laleoing that, again, here's a picture of him
with his disciples and some others, and they're reflecting on something together.
But But Jesus is speaking of important things to them. It's not just the common
everyday language, like, what do you think of the weather we're having, oh, this
is something that's not it's not that kind of conversation. It's a conversation that
goes deeper. It's a conversation that has a life to it because it's about important
stuff. Now we find the same thing when we look at Paul's ministry. He
sometimes refers to himself as someone who was speaking. And speaking what
he means is I was presenting some things to you, I was speaking not just about
the weather, not just about, you know how the local baseball or football team is
doing, but I was speaking to you about some important things about life. This is
how he puts it in II Corinthians 12:19, he said, Have you been thinking all along
that we have been defending ourselves to you, we have been speaking,
Laleoing in the sight of God as those in Christ. And everything we do, dear
friends, is for your strengthening. So he says, We're speaking where we've been
with you here in Corinth, and we're telling you about life. Now, if you look at the
letters of I and II Corinthians, you get an idea of what Paul was talking about,
because he talks about a lot of important things. And you can almost picture him
gathering with people and, and speaking to them about things like division in the
church, because very early on, he said, What I'm hearing some rumors about
you Corinthian people are some of you are identifying with Paul, and some with
Apollos, and some with Peter, and who am I who was crucified for you. We're
just workers in the vineyard. So he's talked to them about division in the church.
He talked to them about the way of salvation. He talked to them about spiritual
gifts, because they had some problems with how they were dealing with spiritual
gifts that each of them had gotten spiritual gifts. And some, like the gift of
tongues are being raised above others in importance. And so he teaches them
about spiritual gifts. In I Corinthians 13, he teaches them he talks to them about
love. It's a teaching in one sense, but it's talking about important stuff about how
the world in the Christian's life has to be engaged with loving people, a chapter
14, church service, he gave me some direction about that, but he's telling them
about important things. They're talking about important things about what it's like
to hold a church service, chapter 15, the great resurrection chapter about the
fact that you know, Christ has not been raised and then our our preaching's in
vain. Now, he's not preaching that he's talking to them. It's, it's a conversation.
So you find this with Jesus that laleoing sometimes it's just talking about
important subjects, subjects that these people need to know about. And the
same is true of Peter. Now, Peter, you know, we learn a lot about him in the
gospels as kind of this impetuous follower of Jesus Christ, but also not one
who's a failure in his ministry in that he denied Jesus Christ. And then we find
him recommissioned in John 21. That happens to be a passage I read this
morning, in my devotions, where Jesus comes to Peter after the resurrection,
and says three times do love me and recommissions Peter to feed his sheep to
take care of his flock. Peter became a passionate, passionate advocate for
Jesus Christ and passionate preacher. And, you know, tradition about him is that
when he came to the end of his life, he was going to be crucified. And he asked
to be crucified upside down. He says, I'm not worthy to die the same way my
Lord died. And so that Peter uses this word laleoing to describe a ministry of
spiritual gifts, even look at this passage. Each of you should use whatever gift
you have received, to serve others. If anyone speaks, they should do so as well
as speaks Laleo only the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do
so with the strength God provides. So that all things God may be praised for
Jesus Christ, to Him be the glory and power forever and ever. Amen. Now, what
he's talking about here, is not necessarily the preaching, but it could be the
preaching. It's that fact that this is a spiritual gift for some people to be able to
speak on a regular basis to be able to speak in such a way that important things
are, are understood and important things are discussed and important. Things
are decided because there's been this conversation, there's been this reality
check that is given by a speaker to listeners and then hopefully back and forth.
Now, when we're going to talk about laleoing here, then we're talking about this
kind of speaking, speaking about important things. Now, some people call this
therapeutic preaching. In other words, we're going to speak about things that
relate to the life and the heart of the people. Others talk about it in the sense of
preaching practical sermons, as opposed to doctrinal sermons. You know, it's it's
one of the great pains of a preachers life when, when the congregation gives
back the word that, you know, we want more down to earth sermons, in other
words, that sometimes theology is seen as something up there, and we want
something down here. Well, there, you know, it's a dichotomy that doesn't really
have to exist. But what they're talking about is, is the messages that are down
here that relate to my life, that are practical, but are, are about important things.
And I just made a brief list of some of the important things that can be and
should be talked about in the life and ministry of a preacher. And so
occasionally, you will schedule into your preaching plan for the year for the
month for the three months, however you do that you will schedule in sometimes
where you talk about important things, Scripture gives a lot of important
directives on how we should apply the Word of God to our lives, that the gospel,
the good news, as it infuses our life impacts every part of it. And so marriage
and family house, if there's anything that needs some insight from God's a word
of the kingdom in into us to tell us how to do this better. It's in the area of
marriage and family in the United States, you know, the divorce rate, as is
skyrocketed over decades, and has now reached a plateau. But, you know, the
general wisdom is that one out of every two marriages, ends in divorce. And so
Wow, let's talk about what it means. Let's have a conversation that we begin in
our church that talks about, what does it mean for wives to submit yourself to
your husbands and husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and
gave Himself up for her? What does that mean for people? Let's talk about that
important thing. I once did a series on scripture, in order to initiate conversation
about family life and talking about family life. I did a series on the the
dysfunctional families in the Bible. I mean, if you look early and Isaac's and
Rebecca's family, it was dysfunctional. Isaac had a favorite, and it was Esau.
And Rebecca had a favorite, and that was Jacob. And they played off each
other, they deceived each other all of these four people. And you know, Jacob
gets the birthright. And as a result, he cheats. His father lies to his father
deceives his father, and gets the blessing of the firstborn. And then Esau says
he's gonna kill him. And so Jacob runs for his life, at cetera, et cetera,
dysfunctional family. And, and we talked about dysfunctional families, where
parents show favoritism, where parents have tried to undercut the other one and
aren't on the same page. It was, it was just young. But now that story is part of
the redemption story, certainly. And that's an exciting thing to talk about. But it
also gives us some good lessons to talk about in family and life, or being a
better employee. There are things that we can learn from scripture, about doing
our work faithfully, about taking on the attitude of slaves in Ephesians 5, after
talking about family, Paul talks about slaves. He says, you know, you've got to
work for your earthly masters, not as if you're working for them, but you're
working for the Lord, everything we do is for the Lord. And so there are
directions there that we could take into our messages. And we can make
applicable to speak about these important subjects. There may be some
principles that should be applied from scripture that we talk about these things,
being a good citizen, you know, from Jeremiah, where God tells the exiles into
Babylon, settle down, build houses, have children, grow your life there, because
of the city where you are planted prospers, you will prosper. And I'm going to
bring you back. After seven years, I'm going to bring back people back to
Jerusalem. Spiritual Warfare, something we should talk about, here are some
other ones, depression. A lot of people experience depression, we could initiate
a conversation about that, how to handle it handle anger. One of the books I'm
reading now is overcoming emotions that divide and destroy. It's written by Chip
Ingram. And Becca Johnson. He is a pastor, a radio preacher, as well as the
pastor of the church. And she is a licensed marriage and family counselor, and
they talk about anger for the whole book, the kinds of anger, but related to
Scripture, because this is an important subject, because if we handle this poorly,
we're going to be setting things off badly. Now, how to evangelize sex and
dating, etc, etc. I like the way one man put it. I accessed his blog, and in fact, I
have some quotes from him in my blog, which is preachingacts.com and
Sherman Haywood Cox II, he said living as a member of God's Kingdom has
relevance to our life down here. In other words, we got to be aware that there is
an important part of life here that we should learn. And how do we get that we
talk about important things. Now, these messages that we create could be called
Teaching. Maybe not, maybe it's just the fact that we're trying to initiate a
conversation so that people begin to apply principles that they pull from
Scripture to their life down here. Now, if you're going to do this on a regular
basis, you've got to know there are some dangers to laleo preaching. One is
preaching to the crowd, or need versus need, you'll find that if you preach on
something that people love, they're, they're going to love you. And they're going
to be excited about it. And you might want to do that more and more and more.
And the reality is, people have felt needs, right, they have these needs, that they
feel they want a better control of their finances, they want a better marriage. And
all these are wonderful felt needs that Jesus can speak to in a variety of ways,
but there are other needs, that they may not feel so much, one that they come to
understand the Holy Spirit in their life, or they come to understand who God is,
and the various characteristics of God, or they understand Jesus and how the
Trinity operates together, and those kinds of things that that are the big needs.
And maybe that's the next part there that the dangerous, neglecting the big
themes. In fact, we can pull things out of Scripture that missed the big story.
Fact, I was part of a Vacation Bible School recently, and helped out there. And
you read the story of Joseph, what is the story of Joseph about? Well, you know,
it's about God's providence, about God, who took this young boy who had been
sold into slavery by his brothers and made him the second ruler in Egypt so that
he could save the promised people, the descendants of Jacob. And that's the
story is God is above this world. But that story was reduced to the fact that
Joseph was such a good employee. I mean, look at that, he goes to Potifer's
house. And he becomes a top slave there, because he's worked so hard and
faithfully, he's thrown into prison, after being accused of attempted rape of
Potifer's wife, and he becomes so faithful there that he rises to being second in
command in the prison, the only prisoner in charge there and etc. All of that's
true, and it's a good principle to call from there. But if you do that sort of thing
consistently, you will neglect the big themes. And then there's interpreting the
Bible. God's word versus your opinion. Now, that give you an example of
politics, when you say anything about politics, you've put yourself in a pretty
dangerous position, because you can pull some principles from scripture,
perhaps. But is that really what Scripture saying? Now in my world, you know,
we have a Republican saying why they are the they are the party that
represents the church and are protecting the church and Christians and
Christians place in the politics of this world, and cetera, et cetera. And there are
those who say, Well, you know, you can't be a Christian if you're not a
Democrat, because they look at the same stories and scripture, maybe some
different ones, and they come to a different conclusion. And so if you're going to
do laleo, preaching, speaking about these things, you got to be very, very careful
that you're speaking, not your opinion, but God's word, and not locking people
into a false understanding of what the Bible says. And then secondly,
interpreting the Bible, are you the person to preach on this particular subject?
Yeah, all of that is, is part of this word called laleo. And so occasionally, in your
preaching schedule, you should include some time, when you laleo, I pulled this
off a blog that I saw, I thought, this is wonderful that there are certain parts of
life, you know, that's the metaphor here of the iceberg, certain parts of life that
poke up above the surface. And so those are the needs that people feel, but
there's a Down down down deep, that is deeper, and more meaningful, and
more powerful to address. And so we don't want to stay just on the surface. We
want to go deep with people. So we're going to speak about important things,
but we're going to make sure that we relate it to the big theme of Jesus Christ
changing our lives. If we don't do that, we're stuck with the surface stuff. In fact, I
remember right near where I lived. As many years ago now, there was a
billboard that just said Jesus saves a Christian was riding with a fellow
employee who was not a Christian. And the not Christian person saw that
billboard and said, You know, Jesus saves, so do I. I'm gonna start setting apart
part of my check every week to have it be a wonderful stewardship of what God
has given you. And it might be a wonderful truth in using your finances in a way
that glorifies God as a steward of all that he's given you. But the deeper issue is,
Does Jesus own your heart and soul? And so when you laleo make sure you
connect it to the big themes, the deep themes, make sure you connect it to the
people's hearts and lives but you always connect it to Jesus as Lord and God
will bless you in your speaking ministry. See you next time as we continue this
subject