Session 10 - Robert Smith - "Hybrid Homiletics"

Robert Smith is the professor of preaching at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama.

Notes from this session:

- We live in a time of inspired intellectualism (from the neck up - big headed) and empty emotionalism (neck down - beheaded). This is an either / or thing that produces incomplete congregations and incomplete preachers.

- The Spirit never operates without or is separated from the Word and vice versa.

- The Spirit repeats, reaffirms, and reemphasizes what Jesus said.

- Both head and heart are absolutely necessary.

- We need to be like honeybees who gather from different flowers to produce their own honey - assimilation, not imitation or parroting

- We all stand on someone's shoulders - we take the best and mix it up in our own beehives.

- The preacher who brings the same form of sermon every time is like one who dusts plastic flowers instead of cultivating a garden - no surprises, no suspense

- Both John the Baptizer's message to Antipas and Nathan's message to David are appropriate and authentic - one is deductive and one is inductive - use both

- Fred Craddock "our preaching is not wrong, just too small - it doesn't cover enough ground. Head and heart need to be converted together."

- We want truth thought to be married to truth felt and then expressed in truth done.

- Our approach to preaching needs to be versatile and needs to vacillate.

- Didache is content oriented - designed for information; kerygma is intent oriented - designed for transformation

- Brooks "Find the place where truth touches down on life. Not just "what" but "so what" and "now what"

- What difference does this word mean on Monday?

- Exegetical escort - takes what is in the text out, and ushers people into God's promises - I cannot change them - only God can - like the Law - not intended to change us - couldn't - we needed a Messiah - the Law just showed us our mess

- We are exegetical escorts by the Spirit, and dancing is the metaphor

- Doxological dancer - my presentation is like John the Baptizer - I am just the voice, pointing to the one - as I lead them, I dance, I point in a way empowered by the Spirit

- E. K. Bailey - "exegetical preaching is a message taken from a portion of Scripture in order to render the precise meaning of a text through the power of the Holy Spirit."

- The message is taken from Scripture, not my presuppositions or self-interests - let the text say what it says - don't misuse or sanitize the text

- Allow the Holy Spirit to first apply the text to your life and then to those who listen to you

- The Old and New Testaments are a seamless robe - they speak with one voice

- "If I'm going to bleed Mon-Sat, the folks will not be spared on Sunday morning"

- Our job is to help people see what they cannot see in Scripture - we must open the text with such faithfulness to the text and such sensitivity to the people

- You cannot be prophetic without being pastoral

- Greidanus' 10 steps from text to sermon:
1. Take and give a text based on congregational spiritual needs (not felt needs)
2. Read and reread the text in its literary setting - read it 50 times - all five senses are clothed with the text (John 18:18 and 21:9 - charcoal fire - Peter was under conviction before Jesus asked him a question) - then you will see things you did not see before
3. Outline the structure of the text
4. Interpret the text in its literary context
5. Formulate the text's theme and goal - what does it want to accomplish? (Could be proclamation to initiate people into the faith - salvation, instruction of others about the faith - discipleship, etc) Theme - what is it all about?
6. Understand the text in its canonical and redemptive history - how does this look in light of the whole Bible?
7. Formulate the theme and goal of the sermon
8. Outline the structure of the sermon
9. Select a suitable form for the sermon
10. Write the sermon in oral style

- Prepare your sermon deductively - preach it inductively

- Don't have a Mercedes Benz title for a VW sermon