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we're thinking about when when the sermon originated and and you know some people will
jump to you know the early church some people jump to the new testament but really we can
go all the way back to the old testament and see a foundation for what we call modern day
preaching can't we yeah i was thinking when does a sermon originate or from where does
it originate in church history in one sense you could say it originates in the mind of
god um he determined not just through the creative act of his own word like at creation
let there be light and there was light but he determined that mediating relationship
between him and his people would be through that word explained i'm thinking of deuteronomy
18. so deuteronomy 18 you hear the word of god given in the law but because we couldn't
hear god's voice too terrifying it was he puts it in the mouth of moses and so early
in israel's history from the first moment of revealed word it's already in the hands
of someone who's mediating that relationship between god and his people through his word
explained yeah and we see that even earlier right it's kind of formalized or instantiated
there in deuteronomy but all the way back noah we see preaching to the unrighteous generation
around him he's somehow proclaiming the will of god he's proclaiming coming judgment to
them so in a way we could we could even call that a form of preaching or at least proclamation
of god's will god's salvation and god's judgment yeah and so then the evolution of it is it
becomes unscripturated so post-moses you know you've got the kings were to keep that unscripturated
word near them the prophetic office which was to call god's people to it i'm thinking
of ezra nehemiah in the book of nehemiah chapter 8 where they recover text and spend their
whole community gatherings around hearing it and having it parceled out bit by bit for
understanding so when nehemiah says that they gave the sense of the passage what do you
think that means well i mean you you probably know better than i do um but there's it's
it's debated in regard to were they reading it or were they interpreting it sure um and
i don't know that at a lexical level we'll be able to solve that issue but at a practical
level what happens is god's word gets explained yeah to god's people that's yeah and i i agree
with that and nehemiah ate there whether you know some people say it's being read in hebrew
and then they're kind of interpreting it or translating it into aramaic but i think you're
exactly right the outcome is that here's somebody explaining the word of god in a way that people
can understand and actually begin to apply and let it kind of soak into their thinking
and their their living and if you push it forward so the ministry of jesus he decides
to launch out his ministry of preaching preaching is his priority mark one but luke four he
comes out of an isaianic prophetic text so he reads the word and then he explains it
in the sense of today you've heard this fulfilled in your hearing and therefore we're now wrestling
with this man jesus as the full final interpretive explication of god's word yeah i mean probably
the most famous of jesus teaching is what the sermon on the mount right so oh yeah that's
good jesus himself sets this pattern or continues this pattern of preaching so he's what's he
doing in the sermon on the mount well he's doing a lot of things but i think one of the
things he's doing is helping people understand what the true meaning and intent of the law
is so he's proclaiming god's word to people and you see this all throughout his ministry
he goes throughout the different cities in galilee and judea and what's he do he goes
to the synagogue and he's preaching he's proclaiming god's word and this pattern continues with
the apostles right i mean this is what paul's doing as well and he's actually indicating
that the church begins to drift when they drift from that word proclaimed so there are
all kinds of examples in the new testament that you're to give yourself to this sound
teaching this this body of material and and people are called out as they move away from
that into other expressions in regard to how we actually relate to god yeah i think that's
that's it because they're receiving the teaching from the apostles well from jesus himself
and the mediated through the apostles all throughout acts we see that repeated peter
stephen paul others they're preaching the word and people are getting into trouble when
they deviate from the the preached word uh that that's how god's truth is given to his
people all throughout scripture yeah and it seems to me then that you get beyond scripture
yeah you can do what you want with the early church fathers i'd love to hear you on that
but by augustine you've got a full-blown hermeneutic his little work on christian doctrine he really
frames it by saying there are two things you need to do one is the process of discovering
the preacher what you need to learn from the bible and then the the process of presenting
that which you have learned so by the fourth century you have a full blown hermeneutic
set for worship around god's people gathering together under his word in order that they
might listen to him and live well under that yeah and i don't think what augustine was
doing was you know anything different than what he had received over the previous couple
of centuries you know i was looking at this quote from justin martyr who explains you
know how the scriptures are read when the reader is finished the president is how my
translation has it here in a discourse instructs and exhorts the imitation of these good things
so it's always been a part of christian worship it's really always been a part of the worship
of god's people that somebody stands up and proclaims god's word explains it uh so whether
we go to moses nehemiah ezra paul justin martyr early church the reformers they're well here's
a question for you now there recently uh francis chan who uh we know and love uh said uh for
1500 years they were and i'm just grabbing this quote so forgive me if i'm misquoting
him but i think this is accurate for 1500 years there was never one guy in his pulpit
being the center of the church it was the body and blood of christ and even the leaders
just saw themselves as partakers that's interesting what do you think of that well okay i'm not
aware of that i haven't read that and i don't want to cherry-pick sure a quotation that
i'm not quite familiar with so i'd love to hear i'd love to hear him um kind of ferret
that out right and i'm not sure what he's reacting to it seems like there's an element
of reaction there to the preacher as much as the word being preached on this centrality
of an individual but let's at least say this that is a conversation worth having if you
begin to move away from the notion that god has seen fit to mediate his relationship with
us through word rather than through strictly a sacramental understanding or a spirit charismatic
understanding the further you move away from the word as that mediating relationship i
think you've got to think about some things because there'll be some unintended consequences
with that kind of a statement yeah i think i tend to agree and well i i we probably don't
think enough about the lord's supper and what's going on there in many uh evangelical churches
i i think there's a real danger of throwing the baby out with the bath in that in that
approach right so that the preached word becomes secondary or just unimportant and then you
just have the sacrament and that that will raise all kinds of questions about okay what
what is this uh uninterpreted unmediated symbol it's it will be unclear to folks i think word
and sacrament must always go together and there's an order to them yeah the word must
explain the symbol i think calvin talked about that yeah well this is a discussion for another
time because are you going to be low church high church sure i guess in this sense when
did the sermon originate and what is its role in worship if we just limit ourselves to that
which we probably should it it's got to be central yeah that's right god's people gather
around god's word where they hear his voice and live under the word of christ yeah i think
that's exactly it uh to deviate from that pattern i think would be a significant departure
from both the evidence of scripture and then what we've learned in church history from
others have gone before us yeah to close it out think of romans 15 4. he actually says
already in the new testament that it is through the encouragement of the scriptures that we
are given hope or think of first peter 1 peter himself did not want the post-apostolic world
looking back with longing on his experience subjective experience or even sacramental
experience you could say with the mount transfiguration and all that goes on no what he does is he
places it in something more sure which is in scripturated text which holds us for the
future amen amen [Music]
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