SermonStudio

The preacher who would work without a net, like all preachers, will need to pay attention to the acts of classical rhetoric: study (Cicero's invention), composition (arrangement and style), and speaking (memory and delivery). Like all preachers, we must consider the final act, delivery, to be the goal and culmination of the process -- our purpose is to speak, and so delivery is the light at the end of the tunnel. But if we wish to preach in a more spontaneous style, then it is not just delivery but memory that sheds light on the other acts of sermon creation. Or to mix the metaphor, everything that goes through the sieve of delivery must first go through the funnel of memory. That which cannot be remembered cannot be delivered.

Mind you, we are not talking about the dry, dusty process of rote memory. Our goal is to develop a spontaneous, conversational style of sermon, not to memorize words that are neither spontaneous nor conversational. I am not suggesting that you write up your sermon manuscript in the usual way, then spend hours committing every last dry morsel to memory. That will not turn your manuscript sermon into a vital piece of spontaneous communication. It will probably make it even drier, and may subject your congregation to what one homiletician has described as the painful experience of watching you "read your manuscript off the backs of your eyeballs," perhaps stumbling, perhaps apologizing, perhaps twitching in forgetful agony. This is the exact opposite of the preaching style we wish to learn!

To understand the role of memory in the sermon process is to realize that what cannot be remembered should not be delivered. The old manuscript cannot be preached from memory, because it was not memorable to begin with. It was meant not for memory, but for reading. At best, it is a first draft for the sermon without a net. If we are truly going to preach without a net, we must from the beginning take memory into account. The entire sermon process is guided by delivery, and delivery is governed by memory, therefore everything must first pass the test of memory. We begin, continue, and end with memory in mind.

This is perhaps the time for reassurance: what I will be asking you to do is far from impossible -- quite the opposite, for by the time you have finished this book and implemented its procedures, this kind of preaching will seem the most natural way of doing things. Let me repeat: you will not be required to memorize your present written manuscripts by rote. Our goal rather is to rethink the entire sermon process with memory in mind; the sermon manuscripts you will begin to write will be of another order entirely, because they will be written to be said rather than read. What you put down on the page will be meant to be remembered from the beginning, and this is what makes preaching without a net possible -- and desirable, for after all, if you can't remember it, how can you expect anyone else to remember it?

Another note of reassurance for the manuscript preacher who wishes to begin working without a net: we don't take the net away immediately. We are talking about a process of weaning ourselves away from paper in the pulpit, which begins by looking at paper in a whole new way. We do not simply abandon our manuscripts and walk into the pulpit unprepared -- a sure prescription for disaster. We aren't even going to ban paper from the pulpit, as if not having notes or outlines or manuscripts would magically make us eloquent where we were not before. There is nothing magical in the process, nor anything wrong with having in the pulpit whatever you need to help you preach. The paperless pulpit is a method, a way of working. Our goal is simply to develop a style that relies less on paper in the pulpit, because it is geared to speaking, not reading. It will not happen overnight, and there may be baby steps as we move along -- one day we will take a manuscript into the pulpit and turn the pages but rarely refer to it, another day we may take only an outline or notes or a listing of the first lines of each section, until the day when we take no paper with us and truly preach without a net. I don't expect you to do the high-wire act on your first day of training; it took me seven years of preaching before I figured out how to do it, and was able to stand and speak confidently without a manuscript, and then only after sitting for some time under a preacher who was a skilled model of the spontaneous, conversational-sounding style.

The usual objection to an expanded role for memory in preaching is that it takes too much time. "We're busy pastors," we say. "We don't have time to memorize things!" Again, the objection is based on the false supposition of rote memory -- we are not talking about merely memorizing the same old sermon manuscripts, but of coming with a new kind of manuscript that lends itself to memory. It is much easier to learn something that was meant to be learned (thus a novel must be put into the form of a screenplay before the actors tackle it). And if it was not meant to be learned, why would we inflict it on our congregations? The time required for the additional step of memory is not as great as one might think, because the road we will travel is not the steep one that goes directly up the face of the mountain before us, but the easier one off to the side -- the mountain is conquered in more manageable steps. The objection is on target only for those looking for a shortcut -- a way of avoiding work on the sermon. Some people may be fooled by the seeming ease of the actor into believing that there is no script to be learned, that it is all improvisation. I have nothing to offer such preachers here, for the simple reason that there is no shortcut. The method I am proposing is intended as a way of improving the quality of your preaching, which simply cannot be done without practice. A good sermon takes more time in preparation than a bad one. I subscribe to the old rule of thumb, that the sermon requires an hour of preparation for every minute of preaching; following this method, the preacher should expect to spend ten to fifteen hours during the week preparing for the typical ten-to-fifteen minute Sunday sermon (about half of that time will be spent in study, the other half in composition and revision/rehearsal). Of course, some weeks the sermon comes more easily than others, and we will look at ways experienced preachers can lessen their load by working smarter. But preaching successfully without a net is not a time-saver; we do not go into the pulpit less prepared but more prepared than the old-fashioned manuscript preacher. As someone once put it, the speeches that require the most rehearsal are the extemporaneous ones!

So we begin at the beginning, with study. But in every act of study, we realize that the ultimate goal is delivery, and that the kind of spontaneous, off-the-cuff preaching style we are seeking requires a delivery funneled through memory. Our study from the beginning will seek that which is memorable, simply because it must.

Life


The preacher who rushes to the commentaries and sermon helps in anticipation of Sunday has started in the wrong place. Scripture study is indeed essential to the sermon; the Bible is the source of the good news and the basic bibliography of the Christian faith. But every act of communication begins with a purpose: we intend to communicate such-and-such. And every purpose requires an audience: we will communicate such-and-such to so-and-so. There can be no act of communication without an audience, and thus no content stands independent of its hearers. Much has been written about the influence of audiences upon meaning, some of it hyperbole, but there is no doubt that the picture one has in mind while doing things with words affects how those words come out in the end.

Let me give you one example. The story goes that an Oxford don was called to fill in one Sunday at an old country church. The Old Testament reading was a long and dry passage from one of the historical works concerning a king of Israel. The aged professor got into the pulpit, looked out over the congregation of farmers, laborers, and assorted rustics, and said, "You may think that we are speaking of Jeroboam I, but actually, it's Jeroboam II." What sort of act of communication is that? It is perfectly comprehensible in the Oxford seminar room, but here it leaves the assorted rustics, laborers, and farmers scratching their heads -- they did not even know there was more than one Jeroboam. It is tempting to say that no act of communication has taken place, but that would be incorrect, for the scholar has communicated much more than he intended -- his misunderstanding of his congregation. He made the mistake of starting his study with the Scriptures, which he never left long enough to consider his intended audience.

As we shall see, it is quite a mistake to assume even the basics of Scriptural knowledge among our listeners -- even those who know the story will need to be prodded and reminded on occasion -- and an even greater mistake to use the technical language of biblical studies in our sermons. It is not that technical terms are bad -- they are simply technical. Everyone has a language that they use in work; lawyers speak legalese, doctors use medical jargon, computer programmers speak C++ or Java. We use technical language because it is a shortcut -- it communicates quickly and concisely to others who know the language. But think of how long it takes to learn a technical language -- years of seminary, law school, medical school. It is not our intention to teach our congregations to be professional biblical scholars (and even if it were, we could not accomplish much in an hour per week). We seek rather to proclaim the good news about God's grace in Jesus Christ. Since our audience is not a technical one, we will not speak in technical terms. We have learned the technical terms ourselves in order to do the greatest justice to our study: we can easily handle commentaries, concordances, and other tools. We have been trained to do it, so that others do not have to -- just as we rely on lawyers to do legal work, doctors to do medical work, and computer programmers to keep our machines running, so we preachers study the Bible in ways the average member of our congregations cannot. This is not elitism, but a simple recognition of our function; it would be elitism to assume that everyone should communicate on our level of expertise, simply because we can.

So our audience determines what we say and how we say it. This is as it should be. We don't expect our lawyer to lecture the jury on case precedents; the jury is not the judge, and requires persuasion, not legalese. We want our doctor to give us an explanation of why it hurts; we don't appreciate an explanation shrouded in medical terms we do not understand. We turn on our computers and expect the software to work; if the screen turns blue and gives us a series of incomprehensible numbers, we do not thank the programmer, but turn the machine off and start again, hoping we won't have to call technical support today. If we do call technical support, we expect to be told how to get the thing to work; we don't want to hear about object-oriented programming in an enterprise environment, whatever that may be.

In our case, we wish to proclaim good news to a people in need of hearing that news, and so our study will begin not with the good news itself, but the lives of those who would hear that news. Who are these people whose lives we study? To some extent we know, because we see many of them week after week, sitting in the same pews. To some extent we do not know, however, because we see them only for that hour and perhaps a few more -- they have 167 more hours to live each week, where we see only dimly -- and besides, they are not the only ones who sit in our pews and need to hear the news. Sometimes strangers disrupt the orderly predictability of this or that pew for a week or two -- what will we say to them? Our study must take the broadest focus possible. We must study Life.

The first step in studying Life is simply to live it. Grow up, go to school, get a job, have a family. Be a person. Wake up and smell the media. Books, film, radio, television, magazines, web pages, music. Have a conversation with a small child every now and then. Have a confrontation with a teenager. Visit the elderly in a nursing home. Travel. When in doubt, talk to people. No hermit can preach. To convey the good news effectively into a particular situation requires that one be immersed in that particular situation; you cannot be cut off from humanity and speak to that same humanity -- thus God became human. Preachers, too, must be human. One who would study Life must first be engaged fully with it.

The next step in studying Life is to observe it. How many times have you been introduced to someone and five minutes later realize that you have no idea what that person's name is? It happens to me all the time -- at first I thought it was simply because I had a bad memory for names, but then I realized that most times, I was not paying enough attention at the time I heard the name, and so I never really heard it at all. Life so easily slips by, and the preacher will take care not only to live it but also to observe it. What is that person opposite you on the train wearing? Color of hair, eyes, shape of ear? I take this walk every day -- could I go home and write a detailed description of the path and the sights along the way? To observe is not merely to pay attention, but to use the imagination to reconstruct Life. The same applies to all our pursuits; to study Life is to observe it keenly, not merely thumbing through the pages, noting the headlines and ads, but to stop every now and then and engage the story wholly.

Most of all, to study Life is to cultivate a genuine interest in other people. Being interested in people is the secret to success in preaching as well as pastoring. I remember a colleague in my early days of ministry speaking of a man in his church: "I'd like to get him to consider ordination. He'd make a great pastor. He loves people. That's the main thing you need. You have to love people." The study of Life that springs from the love of people will make all the difference in how you are heard on Sunday. People are not interested in how clever you are, how well you string words together, or how much you know about the Bible. They are interested in themselves. That is the first shell you have to crack on Sunday morning. You can't do it without genuine interest in people. You can't do it without the study of Life. To be technically proficient in the acts of rhetoric, but to hate people, is as if the musician were technically perfect but tone deaf. The music is accurate, but lifeless.

We do not study Life merely to cultivate our common humanity. Life also embodies our message. Life is the gospel, worked out over and over again. This is the message of the Incarnation, that God's work is embedded in this world: life imitates gospel. As human beings are created in the image of God, so our encounters with each other can be to some small degree a reflection of that God. The mother scrimps and saves from two jobs to send her son to college. A father takes an errant and disobedient daughter into his arms. A stranger stops to give a hand to someone who has fallen in the street. Are not all these parables of the kingdom, instances of God's good news in miniature? Every time the church acts as if it were the Church, the gospel is proclaimed. The gospel is not mere words in a dusty old scroll -- it lives, breathes, pulsates in our midst. If we open our eyes, we can see the myriad ways God's story is recapitulated in this world. At such a moment, our study may turn into prayer. The Holy Spirit is among us; hush, for this is holy ground.

In observing Life, we are not necessarily looking for sermon examples and illustrations, but we will keep an eye out for that which is memorable. Those things that are directly useful in our sermon composition are limited to material that is easily remembered, and worth remembering. We are going to be preaching without a net, and thus relying on our own memories; it is easier to start with material that is itself memorable. Moreover, because it is memorable, it is more appropriate to the sermon, because our hearers will be able to remember it as well. There is the story about the old preacher who counted up the sermons he had preached to his congregation -- umpteen thousand some-hundred, he discovered, and nobody could remember a single one of them! But if the preacher had started with material that was memorable to begin with, the story would have been different. If we use examples and illustrations from Life that are easily remembered and worth remembering, people will in fact remember. Memory is a two-edged sword: the preacher remembers, which empowers the hearers to remember as well.

The study of Life is, however, more than a search for memorable sermon material, and should never be reduced to that. I have often assigned fiction reading to preaching classes, telling them to read short stories, in order to cultivate a taste for the great communicators. One time a student told me that she had given up the stories and started reading Kahlil Gibran instead, because "I wasn't getting any sermon illustrations from the short stories." My answer was that reading fiction was assigned for its own sake, not for its value for deriving sermons. There is nothing more crass than the preacher skimming through books and magazines on Saturday afternoon in search of something to put in Sunday's sermon. That preacher might as well subscribe to one or more of the various sermon help publications -- if you want canned sermon material, it doesn't make any difference who canned it. We do not read John Updike or Salman Rushdie or Barbara Kingsolver -- not to mention Shakespeare, Tolstoy, or Conrad -- to find sermon illustrations; we read because the books are worth reading in themselves; they have literary merit and tell us something about Life apart from any value they may have as fodder for Sunday. Yes, on occasion our living and observing may yield something that is easily remembered and to the point -- then by all means, use it. But the study of Life is mostly background work, which goes not so much to the preacher's material needs but the preacher's character and credibility. Who would you rather listen to, someone who knows Life deeply, or someone who learns Life only in soundbites?

Life being what it is, and we being preachers, we will every now and then come across something in the living and observing of Life that cries out to be put in a sermon. When we do, we will then evaluate it: is it really appropriate for a sermon, and does it belong in this Sunday's sermon? Some material we will judge to be inappropriate, even though it might be otherwise worthy. Pastoral confidences are never appropriate for pulpit publication; they should forever be kept in confidence (you may be tempted to think you can get away with telling the story from past pastoral encounters at your next church, but apart from the possibility that word may somehow slink back to the old church that we have betrayed a trust, think of the effect on pastoral ministry in your present church, now that they know you are a blabbermouth). Personal stories, whether about yourself or your family, should also raise red flags; telling stories about yourself may send the wrong message -- that the sermon is about the preacher and not about the gospel -- and if you embarrass your family in public, they may have something to say later! Further judgments about the appropriateness of material can be made in light of the congregation and its situation -- sometimes the seemingly perfect sermon illustration is too dark, too light-hearted, or otherwise something that people cannot readily hear at this place and time. There is no substitute for the preacher's taste and familiarity with the people in evaluating such material.

Assuming the material is appropriate, does it belong in this particular sermon? The answer may be no; sometimes the answer is found only after the sermon is written, revised, and rehearsed, and something seems dreadfully wrong -- the sermon is overlong, perhaps, or seems overdone. If the sermon sounds and works better with the material cut, then cut. Save the illustration or example for later.

In order to save the material, the preacher must have some means of storage and retrieval. There are many different filing systems available to preachers; you can actually go out and buy one designed just for sermon composition. My own approach is simple, because I believe that the more complex the system, the less likely I'll be able to find it when I need it. My filing system consists of a computer file and a clippings file. The computer file is one word processing document (naturally called "File"), in which I occasionally write down short quotes and the like, along with the date. The advantage of keeping the file on a computer is that it is easily searched (the preacher cannot always rely purely on memory). In dealing with computer files, a word to the wise: backup. The clippings file is a standard hanging file in which I deposit articles from magazines and newspapers that are too long to be typed or scanned into the computer File. I lump them all together in one file, because it is easier to search through one file when I am looking for something, than to search in several places. Again, you will have to consider your own work habits as a preacher, and the media of your material; for example, those who surf the Web for a great deal of material may find it helpful to keep a disk directory devoted to downloaded pages (again: backup!). The important thing is to find a way to keep material at hand, using a system that works for you.

Our study of Life has not prepared us for the Sunday sermon until we have narrowed it to the congregation at hand. Your congregation is to be considered only after a study of general humanity, lest you and your sermon become parochial. I used to tell preaching students to gear their sermons to the congregation at hand, i.e., the preaching class. What I got was a lot of, "We've left our homes and jobs to spend three years in this place" -- sermons that were so narrowly focused that they were bad practice. It's too easy to preach to yourself and your friends, and no way to prepare for the real job facing one who must go into the pulpit week after week, year after year. To speak the word "we" without accuracy is to lose that part of the audience that does not see itself as part of the "we." I started telling my students to consider their congregation to be the class, the teacher, and one stranger who just came in off the street for a listen. Keeping the stranger in mind helped the students -- as it will help any of us -- keep the sermon from becoming too self-centered, self-indulgent, and yes, too parochial.

Yet it is essential to consider the actual congregation as the preacher knows it. There are specific exercises that will help the preacher study the congregation in preparation for Sunday. One simple exercise is to begin sermon composition with a list of concerns -- the thoughts and issues that come to mind, be they personal, communal, or congregational. Simply list what is going on in your heart and mind. This will help clear the cobwebs, particularly of any personal issues that may get in the way of the sermon. It will also help you focus on what the situation is in your community, the world, and your congregation in particular. Once you are done with your list, set it aside; you can come back to it after composing your first draft of the sermon. Another way to study the congregation before composing the sermon is to do a thought exercise: picture the congregation before you on a Sunday morning -- the people who usually sit to the left, center, right, front, back. Go through the pews in your mind, see the faces, name the names. Often this exercise will help the preacher be specific as well as sensitive: you will not be tempted to offer glib advice to Ethel who is undergoing radiation therapy, nor will you rant on about the problem with corporate capitalism and "business today" before Joe, who has been downsized and long ago ran out of unemployment benefits and most of his hope. If preachers need to study Life as a whole in order to keep themselves and their congregations from becoming ingrown, they also need to study the faces that commonly sit in the pew, in order to keep from being so general that they become vague, irrelevant, and insensitive.

Scripture


Once we have studied Life, examined our lives, and gotten in touch with the lives of our communities and congregations, we are ready to open our Bibles. In studying Scripture, however, we are not turning our backs on the study of Life. Far from it. We merely shift our gaze. Scripture never stands in and of itself, but always finds its life in the life of the Christian community. Even in the solitude of the study, the preacher reads with the community looking over the shoulder. The preacher's reading of Scripture is embedded not only in the preacher's personal inclinations and predilections, but in theological and denominational tradition, as well as the customs and history of a particular congregation.

Scripture is always read in community; there is no interpretation without presuppositions. Not only is pure objectivity in scriptural interpretation impossible, it is far from desirable. The preacher's job is to speak not only to but for a particular people. Preaching is a dialogue, in which Scripture speaks in interaction with a tradition, a congregation, and the preacher's own theological perceptions. None of these exist apart from the other -- there would be no denominational or theological tradition apart from Scripture, no congregation apart from Scripture understood within that tradition, and no preacher, were there not a congregation to recognize and commission the preaching ministry. Scripture itself would not exist as Scripture apart from the believing community; without the Church, the Bible would be scrolls mentioned by religion textbooks in passing, nothing more -- no more significant than the documents of ancient Egyptian or Aztec religion, and no more studied.

The communal embedding of scriptural interpretation is of crucial concern for those who would preach without a net. Since our sermon delivery must be funneled through our memory, our sermon study looks in particular for content that is memorable. Tradition is the firm post that memory leans on. Where would Lutherans be without law/gospel duality, Presbyterians without the sovereignty of God, Methodists without John Wesley, Episcopalians without the Prayer Book, Baptists without the independent congregation, Roman Catholics without seven sacraments? These traditions can be evoked concisely, because they are so ingrained. The familiar is a memory aid. People rarely remember the outlandishly unfamiliar, because they have no reference point, no common denominator that lends a friendly hand to the mind. If I give a lecture and bombard you with new facts, new terminology, and new ways of looking at things, how much are you likely to remember the next day? However, if in my lecture I use terminology you already know, and show how a quite common idea can be expanded or changed in light of new evidence, I will gain a greater hearing, simply because I have moved from the familiar to the innovative. I cannot move in the other direction, nor can I expect you to take in more than a smidgen of totally unfamiliar material -- I might as well be speaking in a language you do not understand. Our theological, denominational, and congregational histories can be of great help to us when we rely on them to provide familiar and memorable springboards to our preaching.

I am assuming that the preacher has received formal training in his or her theological tradition, as well as the broader contours of Christian tradition. Preaching has not been and never will be the exclusive domain of the seminary-educated, but the enthusiasm of youth is no substitute for the wisdom of the ages. Formal training allows the preacher the time and means to become grounded in the myriad disciplines that enhance one's preaching (including, under the best of circumstances, the study of biblical languages). There is no substitute for those years spent in library stacks and seminar rooms. Nor is there a better context in which to struggle with the great theological questions, the complexities of Christian history, and the multifaceted nature of the Scriptures. To deal honestly with the difficult issues of the faith requires time, and it requires a supportive place with sympathetic colleagues and teachers. Not that the preacher will ever tell the congregation everything learned in seminary -- keep in mind the years spent mastering the theological disciplines, in contrast to the few minutes available for the sermon on Sunday. A full theological education cannot be delivered in sermons; that's why you went to seminary. Besides, as I have already noted, the technical language learned in seminary is unsuited to communication from the pulpit. You cannot mouth Greek or Hebrew words and expect people to hear more than "Abracadabra." The point of a theological education is to give the preacher tools with which to think. How else can this one person speak not only to but for the entire community? The preacher knows much more than is said on Sunday; he or she is in that sense over-prepared, the better to speak with authority. Over-preparation also helps us to speak wisely and deliberately, for we are able to pick and choose from a storehouse of knowledge, a large rather than piddling selection of facts. A liberal arts college education, followed by seminary training, best prepares one who would preach without a net.

Scriptural study for the preacher is of two types. The first is background -- the broader study of Scripture as a whole that takes place as part of the preacher's wider continuing education. Learning does not stop with formal training, and most churches have wisely built in time and incentives for their pastors to participate in continuing education, whether from books, seminars, retreats, or distance learning. Part of that continuing education time will be spent with Scripture. The preacher may decide to learn more about a particular book of the Bible -- perhaps this year's gospel, if he or she is following the lectionary. Topical study -- of a biblical theme, or of a line of history -- can also prove helpful. Again, the purpose here is not to come up with sermon material per se (though it may result in a pulpit gem or two). This is merely a part of the preacher's over-training. We know more than we say, in order to speak wisely and with authority.

Continuing education can also save preachers from mistakes. Biblical studies is not a static field; there is always movement, and as with all the humanities, always influence from the broader culture. It is easy to spot a preacher who stopped studying at a certain point. Unfortunately for homiletics, there are certain misconceptions about the Bible that have a regrettably long shelf life (perhaps because they are particularly appealing). Not long ago I heard a sermon centered on the notion of God as "Abba," an ancient Aramaic term which was taken by the preacher to mean "Daddy" -- the warm address of a helpless child to a kind and familiar face. This notion, launched decades ago by a famous biblical scholar, has been shown to have no linguistic basis, but the preacher was distressed when I sent him a copy of an article whose title said it all, " 'Abba' Isn't 'Daddy.' " "How was I supposed to know?" said the preacher. Continuing education, my friend. Another popular misconception is that there is a special biblical word that signifies the love of God (agape, or as a verb, agapao). Again, this is bad linguistics: words do not have inherent meanings -- they mean things only when put into sentences. Plus, the basic thesis can be disproved quickly with a concordance. While agape and agapao are often used to refer to the love of God, they are not the only Greek words used for divine love in the Bible, and they are not used exclusively for that kind of love. In John 21, for example, Jesus uses agapao with its synonym phileo to explore Peter's love for him; there is no apparent difference in meaning between the two verbs. In Luke 11:43, the Pharisees are said to "love (agapao) to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces" -- hardly a divine love. Believe it or not, in the Greek Old Testament, agape and agapao are used in the context of rape (2 Samuel 13:1-19).

There is something to be said for basic legwork in Scripture study. A good many questions about the Bible can be answered with that most basic of tools, the analytical concordance. This is more than merely a list of all the English words in the Bible, since being "analytical" it also lists all the Greek and Hebrew words that underlie the English; thus it is a tool that will help the preacher understand the linguistic issues of biblical translation. A number of common misconceptions about biblical language can be cured with an analytical concordance. For example, are there really three root words in the Greek New Testament that mean "love," as we so often hear? No -- the word eros is never used in the New Testament. Does agape ever refer to something other than the attitude of "love"? Yes -- it refers to Christian table fellowship (2 Peter 2:13; Jude 12). Are there different Hebrew words that correspond to the various Greek words for love? Not really -- the usual word for "love" in the Old Testament is ahav, though "love" is sometimes used to translate a few other words. All this information can be found quickly using a standard analytical concordance. It is accessible to the English-only reader through transliteration (the Greek and Hebrew words are spelled out in the English alphabet), though its use is enhanced by some familiarity with Greek and Hebrew.

This is why, despite the lowering of seminary standards over the years, as "practical" courses have crowded their way into the traditional theological curriculum, there is still an argument for an early and thorough education in Greek and Hebrew -- it is not a matter of pinning a student's pastoral potential to linguistic ability, but of preparing the preacher as thoroughly as possible to be the best preacher possible. The study of biblical languages, preferably in college, is primarily helpful to the preacher in this sort of background work; few of us are linguistically gifted to the point that we will regularly pick up and read Greek or Hebrew during the preaching work week, but this sort of training opens up avenues of study that are simply not available to those who have not studied the languages. It also usually cures us of those simplistic notions about the language of the Bible -- sometimes bordering on magic -- that too many preachers and their hearers seem to share. In one of my all-time favorite sermons, the preacher declared that in a certain passage, "the word 'all' means all" -- those of you who have been treated to more than one of those "this word really means ..." sermons will chuckle. Knowing biblical languages usually does not pin God down -- quite the opposite, since it opens us up to possibilities of meaning we cannot see in translation.

Before we leave the topic of the preacher's ongoing education, it might be helpful to address the issue of books. The working preacher is apt to echo the writer of Ecclesiastes, "Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh" (Ecclesiastes 12:12); we may well be tempted to look at our stacks and shelves of unread books and cry, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" As with many areas of the preaching life, there is a certain discipline that can help the preacher keep order. Resist the temptation to go hog wild at conference book displays; do not attempt to put every new commentary on one's shelf. Look before you leap into the bookstore -- particularly at reviews in periodicals; try to find out what are the best books on a subject, and what books educated people are talking about. Many periodicals now have their reviews online, so informed opinion is more easily accessible -- but this is a two-edged sword, since there are many more online sites that are totally democratic and allow any crackpot (and there are many crackpots online when it comes to the Bible) to recommend (or pan) anything.

When it comes to choosing books for preaching preparation, the preacher should begin with the basics and move out from there. By "the basics," I mean a good study Bible with notes and cross-references, an analytical concordance, a one-volume Bible commentary, and a Bible dictionary or encyclopedia. Beyond these, the preacher will naturally begin to accumulate Bible commentaries. I do not recommend buying complete sets of commentaries, but individual volumes as needed. In particular, I would advise the preacher to find those one or two volumes that have set the agenda for the study of a particular book; these are the books that come along once every decade or two, which the others debate or imitate. A careful selection here, aided by competent reviewers, will put years of profitable study possibilities on the preacher's shelf, and lessen or eliminate the times when the preacher looks around the study and says, "Oh, why did I ever buy that?" When in doubt, try borrowing a particular commentary from a friend, or from a library; test it to see if it works for you. Careful attention to a good commentary may enable the preacher to scratch some of those prefab sermon help booklets from the budget (much as I hate to say it, as an author in one such series!) -- while these publications can be helpful at certain points in the sermon process (particularly later in the week as the preacher moves closer to the actual sermon), much of the biblical background material in them is redundant if one is using a good commentary.

The second type of Scripture study for the preacher is weekly sermon preparation. I am assuming that the preacher is going to deal with specific passages of Scripture in the sermon, even if a topical approach is taken. The topical sermon is not an excuse to cruise willy-nilly through the concordance, alighting gently on dozens of scriptural texts without ever boring deeply into one. The people of God are not nourished by glancing superficial blows from the sword of the Spirit -- they are probably not even wounded by them, because nothing cuts deeply enough. Concordance preaching seems biblical enough -- the preacher certainly quotes the Bible often enough -- but lacks the depth of coverage that would make it truly biblical. This is by no means exclusively the fault of a topical approach -- the preacher who deals with the Bible in course, and the preacher who uses the lectionary, may both be tempted to stay in the shallow end of Scripture. But they cannot expect their congregations to swim, if they merely wade.

The first task for the preacher in weekly scriptural study is to narrow the task to manageable proportions. The lectionary preacher has the task in part already decided, since lectionaries divide the Scriptures into bite-size chunks; there remains only to decide if the sermon will focus on Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle, or Gospel readings, or a combination -- and whether the lectionary authors have sensibly chosen the starting and ending points of the passage (more on this later). Those who preach the Bible in course (whether verse-by-verse, paragraph-by-paragraph, or chapter-by-chapter) also have it fairly easy, simply taking the next section -- though it might be sensible on occasion to evaluate the chosen divisions, to see whether they truly express the shape and contours of the biblical book, since verses, paragraphs, and chapters are all later accretions from various translators and editors, not part of the canonical text. The topical preacher may well have the hardest job at the point of selection of text, depending on the topic -- there may be either an overabundance of texts to choose from (if the topic is, say, "love"), or an almost total dearth of direct references (if the topic is contemporary). In either case, the topical preacher needs to find and delimit those sections of Scripture that have the greatest bearing on the issue at hand.

It should be noted that there is no inherent reason for the Christian preacher to favor any one sort of method -- lectionary, in-course, or topical -- of selecting texts for preaching, since there are arguments pro and con for each, and each draws on a rich tradition. Much of the decision will depend on denominational and theological preferences. Liturgical churches use lectionaries, which are specifically designed to fit with the various seasons. What lectionaries cannot provide is the sense of continuity within the biblical books that preaching in-course gives; plus, there are certain large parts of the Bible that lectionaries skip entirely. However, in-course preachers can be equally guilty of favoring certain sections of the Bible. Topical preachers may sacrifice both liturgical relevance and biblical continuity, but if the topic is pressing enough, topical selection can focus the congregation more clearly than the other methods. There is a long history of effective preaching in all the different methods, and perhaps the best suggestion is for the preacher to adhere to the one best fitting the congregation, while keeping the others as options when the occasion demands. The illustrations that follow draw on the lectionary preaching tradition, since they come from my own preaching work; those of you from other traditions can make appropriate adjustments as needed.

Beginning preachers may wonder how much time they will be spending in Scripture study each week, and how that time is to be divided. I have already mentioned my general rule of thumb -- approximately one-half of our sermon preparation time is to be spent in study. How that breaks down during the week is up to the preacher, but I would suggest that several smaller blocks throughout the week are better than cramming all our work into one day (especially if that day is at the end of the week!). Smaller blocks of study are beneficial for several reasons: they allow us to concentrate on a single task for a short while, and then take a break, thus reducing fatigue, and they allow our unconscious minds to take over in the intervals between study blocks. Preaching is often as much intuition as sweat, and so the process works best when it is given the maximum amount of space. I always start my preaching study on Monday, and spread it out over the week in chunks, usually of no more than an hour-and-a-half, in order to let my mind wander over the subject at the greatest possible length, but without overload.

The key to developing successful study habits is to make it manageable. The beginner should be realistic about what can be accomplished in one week. Perhaps one cannot do in-depth study of all four lectionary readings for one week; instead, work through the notes in your study Bible for all the passages, but choose one to be the focus of your sermon and the object of more intense study. In three years, the lectionary will come around again, and you will have the chance to work through those other passages (and the study Bible notes will have given you a head start). Perhaps it will be too much to consult two or three major commentaries on a passage; again, in three years you will have another crack at these passages, so it might be best to focus on one commentary this year, and save the other for next time.

It is also appropriate to consider our study habits in light of how close we are to actually preaching the sermon; the tome that is manageable on Monday may seem far too heavy on Thursday. Generally, I reserve commentaries that are thick and technical for the early part of the week, thinner and more popular commentaries for the middle of the week, and sermon helps and preaching publications for the end of the week. As I move closer to sermon time, I want my resources to reflect more and more the modern world that the sermon will address.

As with the study of Life, the study of Scripture calls for the keeping of files. It makes no sense for the preacher to spend hours with head in book, but have nothing to show for it later but a sermon manuscript. The working-smarter preacher will keep notes on what is studied during the week, knowing that the lectionary will come around to this same passage again in three years, that the next section of the Bible preached in-course may well refer back to this passage, or that the topics covered in this passage will come up in the future. There is simply no good reason not to keep and file study notes. In fact, I believe that the preacher should make note file creation the primary act of study. The weekly study of Scripture becomes largely a matter of keeping one's files.

I am going to suggest that the preacher keep very specific sorts of files. These should be computer files for all but the most Luddite among us; we are going to be using and reusing these files over the years, and the computer offers the most flexibility for adding to and changing these files (need I say again: backup). The confirmed Luddite need not feel excluded, however, since the same system may be followed using a loose-leaf notebook, and a separate sheet of paper for each major section. The preacher will keep files of two sorts: text files, and index/reference files.

Index/reference files deal with individual biblical books. They are "reference" files of material dealing with the individual books in a general way. This is the place to keep notes from your study Bible or Bible dictionary -- outlines, background material, historical context, information about the original author and community. Reference files enable the preacher to get back on board with a particular biblical book in a quick and concise manner -- you might not immediately remember what the Book of Joel is about, but a glance at the Joel reference file will remind you that Joel is a response to a devastating locust plague. This is not the same as simply looking up "Joel" once more in your Bible dictionary -- the reference file format allows the preacher to gather together and synthesize background material from many sources -- for example, is there a debate on where Paul's letter to the Philippians was written? Your reference file will know. The reference file is also used as an "index" file, because you use it to index your text files; all the text files that refer to this particular book of the Bible are listed here -- again, so that the preacher never has to duplicate study that has already been done (Fig. 1).

Text files deal with specific texts from the biblical books. My text files are arranged according to the lectionary (thus they have names like Lent01NoYrA, for "Lent 1 Notes, Year A"). Each file has the same format, which follows the method I use to study the text (Fig. 2). In other words, the file format helps me move through all the steps necessary to successfully engage the text for preaching: the passage itself, its context, form, source, text, verse-by-verse content, comments, and summing-up statements (I'll deal with each of these in what follows). The file repeats this format for each reading: Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle, Gospel, plus leaves room for general notes and concerns. I set up a basic template for all my preaching notes; once I have the template set up for a particular Sunday, I can reuse the same file every time that lectionary selection reoccurs. Since I have the index files, I can also copy and paste individual passages that occur more than once in the lectionary to other text files as needed. I set aside some time once every few months to prepare templates for a couple of months ahead of time -- if I have preached on that Sunday before, it is merely a matter of changing the date and making sure the file format is up-to-date; for a new template, I will copy the scriptural texts into the template and format them for use (electronic lectionary texts and Bibles are widely available -- you don't have to type it in yourself). I've found that actually having the complete lectionary text (in bold print) in the text file is a great aid to the sermon study process; I am easily reminded of the entire biblical text I will be preaching. I copy the text twice -- once in a block at the head of the notes, for easy reading, and again with verse numbers in the "Content" section, for verse-by-verse notes. I use an informal outline style (with no letters or numbers) rather than paragraphs for notes; each section uses hanging indentation, with subsections further indented -- I find this style makes it easy to find a particular piece of information and anything related to it (see the sample sermon text file included at the end of this chapter).

Over the years, I've learned to make notes that are complete rather than sketchy, i.e., full sentences rather than suggestive phrases, because I don't want to puzzle over cryptic communication three years later when I reopen the file. As with all my note files, I try to make it as useful and transparent as possible for repeated use. There are no footnotes or bulky scholarly apparatus, but I do keep track of sources, both so I know what I have already looked at, and so that I might refer to it again if necessary. I usually cite the source by author's name and page number for commentaries, or by simple abbreviations for common reference works (if there is any doubt about the abbreviation, I cite the title in full the first time I use it). It simply has to be clear enough that I know later where it came from. Sometimes I will even include complete quotations from commentaries and secondary sources, if they are particularly well-phrased and memorable. The point is, make the notes usable and helpful for you, thinking not only of this week but of future use. Recognize that you don't have to put everything in there right now; your notes will accumulate over the course of years, as you come back to these passages again and again.

Once this Sunday's text file has been set up, the preacher is ready to begin the weekly study process -- we are now ready to work on our files. I suggest that the next step be a direct encounter with the chosen biblical text. This is as much a meditative exercise as an academic one -- of course we will want to familiarize ourselves with the basic content of the text, but we also want to approach it in a spirit of prayer and openness to God, keeping our ultimate purpose in mind. We are here to discover a word from God; we must find it for ourselves before we can present it to our people. Later will come a time to bury ourselves in the minutiae of exegetical studies, but at some time we must reemerge from the ancient world to speak to people who have dragged themselves out of the work week and into the pew -- our final task will be that much easier if we begin with the end, knowing before we start that we seek something not just for our minds but for our souls.

The first reading is quiet, prayerful, and explorative. It begins with the translation we will read in church on Sunday morning, then perhaps moves to the original languages (if such is our facility) or other translations. Our notes at this point go in the "Comment" section of our file (or perhaps "Content," if they are connected to a particular verse). Any musings and/or exploratory ideas for the sermon go into our notes. Perhaps nothing we note at this first step in the process will make it into the sermon -- but who knows, something memorable may occur to us by God's grace, and we had best set it down before we forget it! More likely, these early notes will contain questions: What don't we know that we need to know to understand this passage? What doesn't make sense at first glance? What needs more puzzling? Chances are, if the preacher has such questions on first reading, the congregation will have similar questions -- thus our initial questions may provide the basis for a sermon. Only time will tell, but since we will need our memory for more crucial work, we had best jot down those initial questions (if we're working on a computer and it seems silly later, we can always press delete!). There are many possibilities that may occur during the first reading, and many ways of doing it. The beginner will want to be very deliberate about the first reading, noting all the possibilities; with repeated practice, a natural and instinctive approach will soon develop.

Once our first reading is complete, and our notes in the file, it is time to save the file and take a break before we launch into the main section of our file work. The break is not just a chance to relax mind and body, but allows our subconscious to take over the sermon process -- who knows what will pop out when next we open our files? (Whatever pops out, it goes into the file; it may not make it into this Sunday's sermon, but there are other Sundays, and we will be using this file again.)

Our template will guide us into the work needed to complete our file this week: we will want to observe the passage's context, source, form, text, and content; then we will make comments and sum up what we have learned about the passage. I will explain each task in order.

Context. While there are various theological conceptions of the inspiration of Scripture, no thinking Christian believes that the Bible was dropped into our laps directly from heaven. Every biblical passage has a context. It is more accurate to say that it has contexts -- a literary context, as it exists not in isolation but as part of a larger written work; a theological context, as that larger writing has a particular theological perspective, else it would not have been read and preserved by the Church; a historical context, because the writing arose from a specific person who lived in a specific place and time and wrote for a specific audience; and an anthropological and a sociological context, because that writer was a human being and immersed inextricably in and among a particular group of other human beings. These contexts are distinguishable for analysis yet in actual practice are bound together -- we are, after all, dealing with a piece of literature, from which we must deduce the historical, theological, anthropological, and sociological contexts. Really, all we have are words. We've got to figure out the rest. Fortunately, smart people have been thinking about these issues for a long time, so we don't have to go it alone.

It is best, however, to start with the words themselves. To determine the literary context, read what comes before and what comes after the passage selected for Sunday. How does this day's reading fit into the whole? Does it advance the story or argument? Does it introduce something new? If we are using a lectionary selection, does the selection contain an entire and complete unit, or has it cut off something crucial at the beginning or end (or even cut something important out of the middle)? My general observation is that lectionaries can do very poor jobs of choosing where to start and end a particular reading, often chopping off a hand or a foot or even the head of a particular passage (especially when the material in question has been deemed too confusing for sensitive modern congregations). I frequently find myself appending verses (in small but bold print) to the beginning and ending of my "Content" section, as well as making notes under "Context," so that I might have the broadest possible view of the literary context as I look over my notes (I also routinely include in my text files verses that have been omitted by the lectionary in the middle of a passage, again in small bold type). In many cases, however, the literary context involves a section too large to be read aloud on a Sunday, and so the preacher will begin to consider ways to help the congregation place the reading within its larger literary context -- who can preach on a passage from Jonah without telling the whole story? Who can make sense of the conversion of Cornelius without recounting the entire movement in the Book of Acts from a Jewish to a Gentile Church? Romans 9-11 cannot be truly understood unless it is seen as the climax of the argument made in chapters 1-8. Even at this early point in the sermon process, it may become clear that certain material will have to appear in the sermon, if the congregation is going to understand how the biblical story or argument holds together as a whole.

The preacher can learn much from the words of Scripture, and even more from those who have read them with care, so it is now time to open the reference books. We need the books to tell us not only if we have done a good job of discerning the literary context of our passage, but to tell us things that require a broader knowledge of the text and its time and place -- the theological, historical, anthropological, and sociological context. Again, there is no magic here -- knowledge about these matters does not drop out of the sky, but is the result of attentive reading of biblical and other texts, along with relevant material from other disciplines, such as archaeology. We rely on the writings of scholars not to supplant but to supplement our own reading of the biblical texts -- our reference books enhance what we have gleaned from our own observations. This is to say that every reference book is read critically, because every scholar writes in his or her own literary, theological, historical, anthropological, and sociological context, and every argument must be evaluated against the evidence of the text, and against other likely suppositions. Since the basis of any argument about Scripture is the text itself -- to which we preachers have the same access as any scholar, particularly if we read the original languages -- we each have not only the ability but the necessity to evaluate our references. A particular scholar may have incorrect information, incomplete information, draw faulty conclusions, or make tenuous applications of the facts. On many issues, there is more than one plausible way of looking at things. This is why we do not rely on only one scholar or group of scholars for our reference files, but seek opinions from a broad point of view. This we accomplish over time -- we cannot cover everything about this one passage this one week, so we will begin with basic information that can be expanded and enhanced as time goes by. Our weekly study is simply one extension of our lifelong continuing education.

A good place to begin working on the theological, historical, anthropological, and sociological contexts is your own reference file on the particular book of the Bible being read this week -- and if you don't have one, it is time to create one! The reference file contains general information that can be gleaned from study Bibles, dictionaries, and encyclopedias, and the introductions to commentaries. Things like authorship, date, place, possible audiences, and book outlines -- material that deals with the various contexts of the book in general -- go into the reference file. Then material that is relevant to the passage in question can be copied and pasted into your text file. (Don't forget to enter this week's passage and filename into the index before you close your reference file!) Attention to details at this stage pays dividends later. Even the seemingly obvious should be noted, lest one be caught flat-footed when a parishioner asks a question like, "Where exactly was Philippi?" -- notes from our study Bible or dictionary will tell us not only the location, but what the city and its Christian community were like.

While we are not looking for specific sermon content at this stage of the study process (remember, this is part of our overeducation, so that we can speak authoritatively without a net), there may be a sermon gem that comes from studying the contexts. Often there is one particular piece of contextual information that the congregation will need in order to understand exactly what is going on in a particular part of the Bible. Joel's locust plague is but one example -- Joel's vision of the Day of the Lord is couched in imagery derived from the biology of hungry grasshoppers, whose swarms block out the sun and cover houses and fields, consuming every bite of food that is not sealed airtight. Who can understand Paul's words against idols in 1 Corinthians 8-10 without understanding the ancient meat-markets, which sold food that had been offered to idols in the pagan temples? Often this was the only meat one could find, and since meat itself was an expensive luxury, Christians in Corinth were faced with the possibility that a host's extravagant hospitality may pose a spiritual danger -- if not to oneself, then maybe to a weaker brother or sister. Recent studies into the social dynamics of the Corinthian church suggest that a good deal of the problem at Corinth had to do with the varied social composition of the community; perhaps the battles at Corinth were not so much about theology but about class and money, and thus their disputes over food, clothes, and status spilled over into liturgy, ethics, and doctrine. These are only a few examples of how understanding the contexts can open up an entire text. Sometimes that one literary, theological, historical, anthropological, or sociological gem may be the pivot on which the sermon will turn.

It will become obvious to anyone who has worked in this way for a few weeks that our division of the various tasks of interpretation will not always correspond to the ordering of the material we find in our reference works -- here we are working on the historical context, when the book goes off and says something about source or form, or makes a crystal observation that needs to be attached to a particular verse! Needless to say, at such times we move to the appropriate section in our file and make the note there. The advantage of using the computer or loose-leaf folder is that we can leave a bookmark, add or change something elsewhere, and come back to where we were. We can make the material work in our way, for us rather than against us.

Source. Just as the Bible did not drop overnight into our laps, neither did the words simply drop from heaven into the pens of its authors. The diversity of Scripture lies not only in its many books that stem from different places and times, but also in the many sources that went into the making of those books. Behind a great number of biblical books lies a complex history of composition, which may include oral transmission of material, written sources, and various stages of editing. Some of the biblical sources are explicitly cited: "Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?" (1 Kings 14:29; cf. 11:41; 14:19; 15:7, 23, 31; 16:5, 14; 22:45). Others have been plausibly reconstructed by scholars. It is clear, for example, that Matthew, Mark, and Luke share one or more common written sources, since their wording and order is often identical. The dominant thesis is that Matthew and Luke used Mark and a common sayings source, but a vocal minority of scholars argue for a different configuration -- and none of the various hypotheses is without problems.

Source analysis is where we sometimes find the greatest differences among scholars, and where the theological leanings of those scholars are most influential. This is because sources are not patently obvious, and easily become a template for what one would like to believe. Theological conservatives sometimes argue against source theories or pseudonymous authorship of biblical writings, because their theories of biblical inspiration and authority require them to. Similarly, theological liberals sometimes divide biblical books into various sources in order to prove that the canonical writings distorted the essence of the original faith, which must be replaced with something else. In both cases, it may be difficult to tell the chicken from the egg -- did the theology inspire the source theory, or vice versa? Both extremes may be recorded in our notes, but we will look for more moderate voices to evaluate them. In particular, we will look for literary rather than theological arguments to justify source theories -- a source theory must enable us to make more sense out of the final form of an ancient document, not less. We will also look for consensus views on these issues, on the theory that great agreement indicates the more compelling theses, while widespread disagreement means that we are looking at something that could go either way.

In recent years many source theories have come under fire from sophisticated literary analyses. Features of texts that older scholars had taken as source seams can now be seen as indicators of the literary shape of the book. For example, it has long been held that chapter 21 of the Gospel of John is a later appendix to the original book that concluded with 20:30-31. Scholars argued that the narrator's voice in 20:30-31 gave a distinct note of finality, that the "many other signs" mentioned referred to the whole of Jesus' ministry, and that chapter 21 is anticlimactic, contains non-Johannine language, and is entirely too ecclesiastic in focus. But a minority of scholars have argued that there are good literary reasons to see chapter 21 as a piece with the rest. On this view, 20:30-31 is a conclusion to that chapter, not the Gospel as a whole; it is one of many such intrusions of authorial commentary (cf. 2:22; 11:51-52; 12:16; 19:34-35). The "signs" referred to are the signs of chapter 20, those Jesus performed after his resurrection in order to compel faith. The difference in language in chapter 21 is explained by the subject matter (it's the only fishing scene in the Gospel), and the chapter is no more ecclesiastical in focus than the rest of the Gospel (cf. 14:12; 15:12-27; 17:17-18, 20; 19:26-27). As for chapter 21 being anticlimactic, that is in the eye of the beholder; we could argue that the chapter provides a necessary conclusion to themes introduced earlier in the Gospel concerning the future of the community founded by Jesus. The real question here is whether a source theory or an argument for literary unity best explains the text before us -- what helps us make most sense of the Gospel of John as a whole? Note that even if we decide that John 21 is of a piece with the rest of the Gospel, we are not able from this to make any claims about who wrote it -- we are not endorsing the ancient tradition that John the son of Zebedee was the author, which must be decided on other grounds. Similarly, scholars may argue over Wellhausen's division of the Pentateuch into J, E, P, and D sources, but outside of certain theological conservatives, none of them is claiming that there were no sources, or that Moses wrote it all.

Commentaries may or may not emphasize source theories, depending on their depth, theological leanings, and audience. The fatter, more technical commentaries generally have more discussion of sources than more popular volumes. Some books, such as the Pentateuch, some of the Prophets, and the Gospels, lend themselves to discussion of sources, because there is a wealth of comparative material, while with other books any discussion of sources is entirely hypothetical (did Paul quote early Christian hymns in his letters? If only we had an early Christian hymnbook!). Sometimes the issue of sources is bound up with the broader issue of authorship; if, as most scholars believe, many of the Pauline letters were written by later disciples, how much of Paul's own writing did they incorporate? Again, we are not looking for certainty here, which we will not find; we are looking for consensus among scholars, and for the most convincing arguments.

As always, preachers will do well to approach the issue of sources for themselves. This is not as daunting as it may seem -- there is no magic here, but simply the same skills applied in other areas of biblical interpretation: the careful reading, comparison, and evaluation of texts. The preacher could, for example, open a synopsis of the Gospels, which sets the various books in parallel columns, in order to compare this Sunday's Luke with Matthew and Mark. Where are they the same, where are they different? How might we account for the similarities and differences? This is not merely an academic exercise, but can yield homiletical fruit. For example, in the resurrection narratives in Mark and Matthew, the message to the women at the tomb is "Go, tell": "Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you" (Mark 16:7); "Go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has been risen from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you" (Matthew 28:7). But in Luke, there is no "Go, tell"; instead, the women are told, "Remember": "Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again" (Luke 24:6-7). The entire thrust of the message is different in Luke. The resurrection is not new information that requires speedy communication. It is simply a matter of remembering what Jesus has already taught them. This verse links to Luke's theme of the fulfillment of Scripture in Jesus and the early church. For Luke, God's plan was foretold long ago and needs only to be disseminated by faithful teaching. The preacher who is not inspired along these lines may find another tack in the command to "Remember": it was given to women, not the male disciples, which indicates that they were present during Jesus' teaching sessions. In other words, Luke pictures the women as disciples in their own right, not just as messengers for the males.

Why is knowing the sources important to the sermon? As I have already noted, sometimes source theory gives a clue to the sermon. But even if source theory does not directly contribute to Sunday morning, it is necessary background work, because it helps us understand the distinctiveness of each biblical book, how it was put together, and how it hangs together. Most of all, source theory helps keep preachers honest. It would have been easier if the Bible were obviously dropped from heaven, unambiguously a divine and not a human production. But this is not the Bible we are dealing with, nor has our God chosen to work this way. God speaks through frail and imperfect human beings, using every facet of our humanity. The Word is made flesh. So we read the Bible for what it is, not for what we want it to be.

Form. Sometimes it's not what we say that counts, but how we say it. We've all had experiences in which how something is said actually determines the content of what is said. If you say, "I'll love you forever," and I respond by saying, "I love you, too," while whipping out a prenuptial agreement and a pen, I've said it all. The confession transcript may read, "Yeah, I did it," but it makes all the difference to the jury whether I said those words weeping hysterically or with a sarcastic grin on my face. The distinction we are making is between form and content, between what we say and the way we say it. We are able to make the distinction for purposes of analysis, but in actual practice, the two are indistinguishable. You cannot have form without content. You cannot have content without form. Form specifies content.

Form is a matter of function. It has to do with the how of communication, what a speech or a piece of writing does as opposed to what it actually says. Ideally, there is a harmony of form and content, because we choose forms that fit the content -- what we say fits in with what we intend to accomplish with those words. If I want to send you a letter, I choose the appropriate form, and begin, "Dear John." If I want you to sign a contract, I write, "The party of the first part...." If I want to amuse you, I begin with, "Did you hear the one about...." I miscommunicate if I choose a form that is inappropriate for the content; I don't tell the joke during the opera, or at a funeral. If I want to proclaim my undying love, I do not send a contract, but if I intend to do business with you, yet mail you a love letter, I may not only lose your business but run afoul of the law.

Unfortunately for those who study the Bible, written communication lacks many of the formal clues that make face-to-face and verbal communication clear. We can't look Paul in the face to see if he's being serious or playful. We can't hear the inflection of his voice, in order to understand whether he is asking a question or making a statement (this is no small matter, since Paul's Greek included no punctuation marks). Written communication is of a completely different order for this reason: we are limited to the writing itself for any formal clues that may help us determine its meaning.

Nevertheless, readers are not left at sea when it comes to form and function. There are certain formal features in writing that help us understand function. I've already mentioned some of them. "Dear John" indicates a letter. "The party of the first part" indicates a contract. Writing is a social convention; we have to follow certain ways of putting words on paper in order for other people to understand fully what we have written.

The biblical books themselves take on particular forms of all sorts. Even a cursory glance at the Bible shows the variety of forms found there: history, poetry, prophecy, narrative, apocalypse, letters, and possibly even fiction (I've always wondered about Job and Jonah). Each of these different forms communicates in different ways. Genesis tells us a story; the Psalms generally do not. Psalms evoke our emotions; the Proverbs, our minds. Where the Gospels communicate their theology by means of narrative, the letters of Paul give us theology embedded in the lives of particular Christian churches. Each form does something different to us; each communicates according to its own function.

Within individual biblical books there are various forms of smaller scope. For example, scholars have long noticed that Gospels are made up primarily of short stories strung together like pearls on a string, interspersed with blocks of teaching material. The various stories are of different formal types, according to their purpose, and we can categorize those types. The "pronouncement story" is based on an ancient form called the chreia; it is a brief story, similar in form to a joke, in which there is a setting, action, and a concluding saying of significance (the "pronouncement"). Miracle, healing, and exorcism stories in the Gospels seem to follow set patterns every time they appear. The sayings of Jesus are also variously categorized according to form and function as logia or wisdom sayings, prophetic and apocalyptic sayings, community rules, "I"-sayings, and parables.

As we shall see, form is a matter of both structure and language, arrangement and style. We begin a letter with particular words, "Dear John." But we expect the letter to follow a certain arrangement: address, greeting, body, salutation. Ancient letters followed similar conventions both in terms of structure and language. Thus Paul's letters always begin with a variation on the standard Greco-Roman epistolary opening, "Paul to Philemon, greetings." But Paul has transformed the standard form in order to effect his theological purpose, so the greeting is expanded to, "Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to Philemon our dear friend and co-worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Philemon 1-3). Not only is the wording of Paul's greeting predictable, but the structure of the entire letter will follow a standard format. The greeting is typically followed by a "thanksgiving period" which recounts the main themes of the letter (cf. Philemon 4-7). Then follows the body of the letter, which sets forth the main lines of what Paul has to say (Philemon 8-16). Paul will conclude with an exhortation (Philemon 17-22), convey further greetings (Philemon 23), and a final blessing (Philemon 25). Once we determine the structural features of each Pauline letter, we will have a better idea of how our particular passage for this Sunday fits in with the whole.

Attention to ancient formal conventions can spare us from a number of mistakes in biblical interpretation. In New Testament studies, there is a tendency to fall back on "mirror interpretations," that is, to assume that whatever is said in the text holds a mirror up to the author's original situation -- whatever is said, someone else must have been saying the opposite. If I say "A," then my opponents must have been saying "Not-A." This is particularly true in Pauline studies, where we are hampered by having only one part of a multi-voice conversation. To some extent, the "mirror interpretation" reflects a sound method: if Paul tells us that his opponents have said such-and-such, we should take him seriously. At other times, however, this method can disguise a laziness in the examination of form. For example, Paul begins chapter 6 of Romans with, "What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?" It might be tempting to believe that Paul was speaking against certain people who claimed that sin was a conduit to grace. However, if we read Romans for its larger formal features, we will find unmistakable traces of an ancient rhetorical form called the diatribe. One of the formal features of the ancient diatribe was the use of questions posed by an imaginary opponent that provide a springboard for the next point of the author's argument. A quick glance over the text of Romans will find many such questions (cf. 3:1, 5, 9, 27; 4:1, 9, 10; 6:1, 15; 7:7, 13). They are not a feature of Paul's human opposition, but of his chosen rhetorical form.

Why is form important? As we have already noted, it can make all the difference in how the content is perceived. Knowledge of the larger form helps put a particular passage in the proper literary context. And form can clue us in to the writing's larger purpose. There is no way to separate form and content, so we ignore formal features to our peril.

Biblical forms can also help the preacher form the sermon itself. We are going to face the same task of communication as the original biblical author: here is some content about the nature of God that has to be conveyed to the community. Why cannot we preachers learn from how the biblical authors themselves set forth the message? Their form could be our form. This is not to say that a sermon on a Psalm would take the exact form of a Psalm, or that Paul's diatribe would become our diatribe. We must choose forms that are appropriate to our time and place. The thing to consider with each form is, what does it do? What is the function of this form? In the case of the Psalm, we might conclude that the function is to express our deepest thoughts and emotions to God. The sermon on the Psalm that takes the Psalm's form seriously would be a worshipful expression of thoughts and emotions. If we were to preach on Paul, we would ask about the function of the diatribe form. Well, obviously Paul chose the form because he wished to make a logical argument. The sermon that takes Paul's form seriously would appeal to the mind and make the connections between ideas clear. What we would not do is try to make an argument out of a Psalm, or get mushy with Paul. Paul's content did not lend itself to the Psalm form. What the Psalmist had to say about God and humanity could not be expressed as an argument. We ignore the form to our peril, both as biblical interpreters and as preachers.

Text. We now turn to the process of determining the original text, or textual criticism. Many biblical scholars place this step closer to the beginning of the process, as it is logically prior to some of the issues we have already discussed. And in fact, I often move directly to this step after my first meditative reading, because I find that it gets the juices flowing. I place it here, however, because it is a highly technical issue that is not readily accessible to those who read the Bible in translation. Of primary importance to scholars and translators, it is a lesser yet sometimes necessary step for Sunday's preacher.

Textual criticism is commonly misunderstood by beginners. It has nothing to do with translation. It is the process by which scholars determine what the original biblical authors wrote -- the actual Greek or Hebrew words that were first penned on a scroll. In the age of the printing press, it may be hard to remember that books were once copied by hand. In the age of acid-free paper and temperature-controlled libraries, it may be hard to believe that scrolls wore out quickly. None of the biblical writings survive in their original forms; we do not have the scrolls that contain the handwriting of Paul or Luke. The only way to publish a book in the ancient world was to make copies by hand. These copies did not last long, unless they were kept dry (this is why those famous manuscript discoveries always happen in the desert); we do not have any copies of the New Testament that go back to the first century, and the earliest copies of the Hebrew Bible date centuries after composition. Many of our earliest copies of the biblical books are merely fragments.

When you copy by hand, mistakes inevitably creep in. Fortunately, we have a great many handwritten copies of the New Testament books (fewer for the Hebrew Bible). We can compare these manuscripts, and take into account the various ages of the materials, according to handwriting styles and scientific tests. Scholars have come up with a variety of rules for judging how close a particular manuscript comes to the original, and how many mistakes have crept in over the years. The rules work quite well. For example, we have all had the experience of typing something from a book or from handwriting, and accidentally skipping a line or two because of an identical word or phrase. Handcopyists were prone to the same kinds of error. (We don't have time or space to cover all the rules of textual criticism here, but there are a number of good introductions to the subject.)

By careful examination and comparison of the available manuscripts, scholars have determined the most probably original text of the Bible; the resulting "critical text" is the foundation of all reputable modern translations. While there are a great number of textual variants among the various manuscripts, the good news is that the great majority of them are a matter of Greek syntax and linguistic variants that have little bearing on meaning or translation. All the variants are important to scholars and translators, but only a relatively few make a difference between translating a sentence this way or that. It is with that minority of significant variants that the preacher must be concerned.

Beginners who read in translation often have trouble differentiating textual variants from translation variants. Textual variants have to do with differences in wording in the original language; translation variants have to do with different possibilities for translating the same Greek or Hebrew word. In this step, we are concerned only with textual variants -- only with the process of determining as best we can the original Greek or Hebrew text. This is because the criteria for evaluating textual variants are different from evaluating translation variants. With a textual variant, the only question is which word the author more likely put down (and he could have written only one word), and we will have to decide the question based on the rules of textual criticism. But a translation variant gives us an instance of one word that could mean one thing, another, or possibly both things at once -- and our decision will be a purely interpretive one. Thus textual variants are noted differently from translation variants in modern Bibles. Typically, the footnote for a textual variant will say something like, "Some ancient authorities read...." A translation variant is indicated simply by "Or...." In other words, if the footnote does not mention an ancient authority or manuscript, it is talking about a translation variant, which will concern us when we deal with the verse-by-verse content, but not here. Translation variants have nothing to do with textual criticism.

Obviously, textual criticism is difficult for those who have no facility in the original languages; even the reference books on the subject may be difficult. The thicker and more technical commentaries often deal extensively with textual variants, but they assume a certain familiarity with the process. Again, most textual variants involve minor matters, and so are not noted in the average translation; the preacher can be satisfied that only those textual variants that are worth a footnote in the translation are worth the preacher's attention. These significant variants will receive attention in the commentaries, so the preacher who works only in translation will not lack for a reliable authority. Often there will be no textual variants in this week's scriptural passage that are significant enough to merit a translator's footnote, so the preacher will be able to complete this section quickly by writing "No major variants cited in translation."

Why then should a preacher bother with this highly technical process of textual criticism, especially when most of the variants are relatively insignificant? The answer is that sometimes it makes all the difference in the world. The most obvious example is the ending of the Gospel of Mark. Most Bible translations include a "Shorter Ending of Mark" and a "Longer Ending of Mark" at the end of chapter 16; the longer ending actually has verse numbers (vv. 9-20) and may not even be set apart from the previous section in some translations. The overwhelming consensus of biblical scholars, however, is that Mark ended at chapter 16, verse 8, and that both of these endings are later additions, added by another editor. This is not speculation, but a result of careful textual criticism. The oldest and most accurate biblical manuscripts of Mark end with 16:8. Many manuscripts include 16:9-20, the "Longer Ending." Some also include the "Shorter Ending," placed in various positions. Some have only the "Shorter Ending." The differing positions of the various endings indicates that they are a result of later fiddling with the text -- some of the ancient manuscripts even have marginal notes that say the endings are doubtful! Thus when the preacher rises to preach Easter morning on Mark 16:1-8, textual criticism will make a great deal of difference to that sermon -- the preacher is dealing with the end of Mark's story, not a chapter to be continued.

It must also be said that while preachers tend to use modern translations, in many churches there are Bible readers in the pews who prefer the King James Version. What they do not realize is that the King James Version is based on pre-critical Greek and Hebrew texts, and so contains many errors. In the King James, Mark 16:9-20 is included as part of the text, no footnotes. The preacher who deals with Mark 16:1-8 as the end of Mark's story on Easter morning needs to acknowledge that the traditional text contains this extra material, and explain why. Otherwise, the preacher may lose credibility -- "I can see for myself that it doesn't end there. What's wrong with that preacher?"

In the end, the preacher must pay attention to textual criticism, however technical and difficult it may be at times, because this is the nature of the biblical text given to us. It is necessary for us to know about it when the question comes up, but most of all, it is necessary for us to be honest about the kind of Bible with which we have to do.

Content. The "Content" section is where I keep notes on a verse-by-verse basis. Here is where I put items that do not fit the above categories, as well as things that are particularly tied to one section of the text. The bulk of what the preacher gleans from the commentaries goes here -- commentaries, after all, are usually arranged verse-by-verse. I tend to think of this section of the text file as a place that gradually gathers data, and thus expands as knowledge increases. If the template is blank, I begin with the notes from my study Bible, and items from Bible dictionaries. Next I will take up one commentary and work through my notes using it. If I have time this week, I may take up a second commentary for comparison and contrast. If not, I can always return to the file with a new commentary three years hence, when the lectionary cycle returns to this passage.

Comments. This is a section for general comments that do not fit any of the above categories. It may contain the questions and musings that came with the first meditative reading, as well as thoughts that may have accumulated during or at the end of the process. Here is also where I will take down memorable quotes from commentaries and secondary sources, particularly those that have to do with how to preach the passage. Once we have gotten to the "Comments" portion of the text file, we have moved close to the turning point in our study; it is almost time to return to the modern world.

Lectionary preachers may want to add an additional "Comments" section to the very end of their text files, after all the readings for the day have been dealt with in turn, in order to record thoughts about how the different readings interact. Here is also the place to record memorable quotations from lectionary resources that deal with all the lections. This section can be very valuable for those sermons that deal with more than one passage of Scripture. Again, what you write here may or may not make it into Sunday's sermon, but you will have the chance to come back to it in years to come.

Says/Does Sentences. Before we leave the biblical world to return to our own, we need to sum up what we have learned. This is a necessary final step that we may often be tempted to skip. We have learned so much in our week of study, how could we possibly reduce it to a sentence? Yet it is precisely because we have learned so much that we need to give it focus. Without this final step, our scriptural study remains a conglomeration of facts, figures, and suppositions grouped around a certain scriptural passage. By writing down a summation, we integrate all this material under a single heading -- or in this case, two headings.

We write two summary sentences at this point in our study. These are short, simple, positive declarative statements. The first summary sentence concerns content -- what the text says (thus I call it the "Says" statement). The second sentence concerns form -- what the text does (the "Does" statement). We need both, because as we have already seen, form and content are inseparable, and both help us with the sermon. Content has its obvious bearing on the pulpit -- we are going to defend, expand, debate, clarify, and/or argue with what the biblical text has to say. But the biblical form -- what the text does -- will also help us frame the sermon; we will make an argument, bestow a blessing, or tell a parable, depending on what form and function the biblical text itself has used to weave its web of meaning.

Another way of looking at the Says/Does statements is simply to ask, when all is said and done and the Scripture is read and re-read, the fundamental question: What does God have to say here, and how does God say it? We are looking for the central thrust of the passage, not a tangent, not some peripheral item that somewhere along the way looked like it might preach. Most of all, we are looking for something that speaks to us as preachers, and as human beings under God. Chances are, if it does not speak in some way to us, it will not speak to our people. Our study has not been merely an academic exercise, but our own search for that Word which touches us deeply enough to form the basis of the sermon. If it does not preach to us, how could we possibly preach it to others? Ultimately, what we are summing up in the Says/Does statements is our own encounter with God through the text. As with the study of Life, there may be moments in our study of Scripture when study turns into prayer. There is no need to quench the Spirit at such a time; this is the reason we came into this place.

Once we have composed our Says and Does statements, it is time again to take a break, and let our subconscious feed the sermon process.

From Study To Composition


The next major step after study is composition. We have learned all we can learn for this week; we have explored what we will say. The next step is to consider how to say it. Our content will take on a certain form, which is the sermon itself. Composition will be the subject of the next chapter; here we will consider how we manage the transition between study and composition.

The movement between study and composition may not be obvious. Our study has immersed us deeply in an ancient world. The concerns of Corinthians may not be transparent to modern people (who buys meat at pagan temples these days?), and the preacher dare not make the mistake of assuming that the congregation has been in the same careful attendance to the Scripture as the preacher has this week -- I dare say that when they walk into the church on Sunday, most of the congregation is only barely aware that there is such a thing as Scripture -- their week has been absorbed elsewhere. The preacher is going to have to lead them gently by the hand into the world of Scripture. Thus we began our study with the study of Life, because we are going to have to start in the congregation's world, in order to bring them into God's world.

In some sense, the move from study to composition is simply a change in audience. In Scripture study, the audience was ourselves and those like us -- the preacher, a trained observer of Life and Scripture, in conversation with like-minded scholars. In composition, the audience is non-specialized -- simply people who have walked in off the street, who don't necessarily know anything about the Bible, or Greek or Hebrew or source theory or textual criticism. The preacher speaks the vocabulary of the specialist, while the people, if they know that language at all, do not use it on a regular basis. The preacher goes into study hungry for a sermon; the people go into church hungry for a word from God. The movement from study to composition is a change from a community of scholars, an audience of biblical specialists, to a general audience of those who have come hoping to hear something that might change their lives.

So the preacher cannot move directly from Says/Does statements to the pulpit. There needs to be some rearranging of the mental furniture. We have struggled hard to get inside the mind of Paul; now we must get back inside the mind of Ethel and Joe and the others -- some of whom we may never know, not even their names -- who will be sitting in the pew, waiting for our words. By now it will become apparent why we began our study with Life and not with Scripture; the study of Life overshadowed our entire voyage back into the world of Scripture, and now will enable our return to the present. Now is the time to think back over the reflections and concerns with which we began this whole process.

The movement between study and composition is enhanced by various brainstorming processes. These are throwaway exercises that help get the juices flowing. I usually do these in a comfortable chair, away from my computer and bookshelves, with pen and paper -- I may come up with something that should go into my text file later, but for now I simply want my mind to roam over the territory. One brainstorming exercise involves the Says/Does statements: these are statements about the ancient world of the biblical text -- how might I rephrase these in modern terms? The same could be done with the successive sentences of the biblical text itself -- the Bible says this, what are some modern analogies? Another brainstorming exercise is to circle a word or phrase in the biblical text, and consider the modern images it evokes. I usually keep a list before me of areas I might consider in relation to the word or phrase: music, theology, literature, film, history, current events, personal experience, or congregational experience. I am simply looking for analogies, illustrations, examples, or even structures that will help me move from the specialized audience of biblical studies to the audience I will actually face from the pulpit. Anything that occurs to me, I will write down -- this is brainstorming, not yet composition -- and I may or may not find that material useable in the end.

As I consider the movement towards composition, I will remember my ultimate purpose. I am here to proclaim a word from God. Scripture is the basis of that word, but God speaks in many ways and in many places. My hearers are not theologians but ordinary people who hunger for the divine. Like any good rhetorician, I wish to touch the heart, head, and will of my audience; I will present them with the facts, but I want their emotions and desires as well. Nevertheless, I am not required to be clever or witty on Sunday; clever and witty will serve my purpose if I have the opportunity to call on them, but my job is to be a faithful proclaimer of God's good news. In the end, all I have at my disposal for this task are the words conveyed by my body, one person to a roomful of others. Like a trapeze artist, I will be working without a net -- which is to say, I have nothing to fall back on but God. Preaching is an act of worship, in that it relies on our total dependence on God.

Thus even at this stage, I need to consider not only the congregation's profit and delight, but my own. The congruence of the sermon with the preacher's emotions is essential for a spontaneous delivery, and it begins at the beginning. I simply cannot preach what I do not believe; I cannot proclaim as good news that which makes me yawn. Here is another thing that separates the preacher from the actor: the actor utters another's words, while the preacher speaks his or her own, but the actor is acting -- the preacher must be the real thing. One of the keys to preaching without a net is to re-experience the sermon as it is preached. The sermon in some sense reenacts the word delivered to the preacher. This requires a genuine encounter with God. You cannot re-experience that which you never felt at all. We have already seen that there may be moments during our study of Life and of Scripture when study dissolves into prayer. The preacher may also experience such moments during the brainstorming process, as study moves toward composition. As before, these moments fuel not only our preaching, but also our souls.

The movement between study and composition will conclude with the first act of composition, the theme sentence. This is a short, simple, declarative statement of what the sermon will be about. Once we have written this statement, we know the content -- we know what the sermon is going to be about. Before we proceed to form -- how we are going to say it -- it is time for another break in order to rest the body and let our subconscious mind go to work. If we are lucky, and God is gracious, our minds will present us with a sermon form when next we sit down to continue our work. The sermon is always a gift from God, but there are those special weeks when we give thanks because the gift comes both brightly wrapped and easily opened.

Appendix to Chapter 2:
Sample Text File

Luke 21:25-31 (Advent 1, Year C)
Jesus said, "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near."

Context:

Luke's Gospel is first volume of two-volume work including Acts. Traditionally thought to be authored by Dr. Luke (Colossians 4:14; 2 Timothy 4:11; Philemon 24), but this is impossible to prove or disprove. Generally the book is dated to the last third of the first century; there are definite allusions to the destruction of Jerusalem (70 C.E.). While there is some debate, Luke-Acts seems to be written for a largely Gentile church.

Literary context: this passage is part of Lukan apocalypse in chap. 21

Luke gives audience as "some," sets speech in Temple (21:5-7, 37-38)

Jerusalem to be surrounded by armies, v. 20

People flee, vv. 21-23

Dead and Captives, Jerusalem trampled by Gentiles until time of Gentiles fulfilled, v. 24

vv. 25-31 today's lection

v. 32 This generation will not pass away

v. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but not my words

v. 34-36 Exhortation to be alert

NRSV paragraphs vv. 25-28, 29-33, 34-36

Headings in HSB (HarperCollins Study Bible):

Destruction of Temple Foretold 21:5-19

Destruction of Jerusalem Foretold 21:20-24

Coming of the Son of Man 21:25-38

Fitzmyer [Luke, 1334] sees discourse in two parts:

a) vv. 8-24: What will precede the end of Jerusalem


(i) vv. 8-11, The Signs before the End


(ii) vv. 12-19, Admonitions for the Coming Persecution


(iii) vv. 20-24, The Desolation of Jerusalem

b) vv. 25-36: What will precede the end of the world


(i) vv. 25-28, The Coming of the Son of Man


(ii) vv. 29-33, The Parable of the Fig Tree


(iii) vv. 34-36, Concluding Exhortation to Vigilance

Johnson [Luke, 324] sees threefold temporal division:

Times of Persecution (21:12-19)

Times of Destruction of City (21:5-11, 20-24)

Times of Son of Man (21:25-38)

Broader literary context takes us to second volume of Luke-Acts

Luke's signs are fulfilled in Acts: a time of witnessing (vv. 12-19; cf. Acts 4-5; 24-26) [Craddock in HBC (Harper's Bible Commentary) 1039; cf. Johnson 326]

Luke's account of destruction of Temple reflects a historical event, rather than the more eschatological setting of Mark. Luke then puts the eschaton after "the times of the Gentiles" (v. 24), which may refer to Gentile mission. [Craddock in HBC 1039]. But NB that Luke still sees the parousia within his generation (v. 33) [though Johnson, 328, notes the figurative dimension of the evil "generation" in Luke 7:31; 9:41; 11:29, 30, 31, 32, 50, 51; 16:8; 17:25]

Questions: does Luke really write with the expectation of imminent parousia (a controversy that goes back to Conzelmann)? What does the answer tell us about Luke the person, the community he lived in, and the historical situation underlying the Gospel?
Source:

Markan, with editing, and some relation to Q material in 17:20-37, and some L material

Sometimes the original version of this material has been considered to be from a Jewish or Christian apocalypse

Luke's account of destruction of Temple reflects clearly a historical event, in contrast to the more eschatological setting that Mark gives this discourse

Most significant Lukan changes (in 21:5-19): [Culpepper in NIB 9:398 (New Interpreter's Bible)]

1.
Omitted reference to disciples as audience

2.
Structure of three imperatives, vv. 8-9

3.
Change from "but the end is still to come" (Mark 13:7) to "but the end will not follow immediately" (21:9)

4.
List of signs in v. 11 expanded to include apocalyptic signs of parousia (21:25-36)

5.
Reference to prisons foreshadows Acts

6.
Luke omits "good news must first be proclaimed to all nations" (Mark 13:10)

7.
Luke omits reference to Holy Spirit (Mark 13:11); Jesus will give them words

8.
Luke adds assurance that not a hair will be lost from their heads (21:18; cf. 12:7)

Parallels are Matthew 24:29-33; Mark 13:24-29

v. 25 Luke reads "signs in sun and moon and stars" for sun and moon darkened, stars falling


Luke adds "on the earth distress ... waves"

v. 26 Luke adds "men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world"

v. 27 Luke and Matt have single "cloud" for Mark's "clouds"; "power and great glory" rather than Mark's "great power and glory"


Luke omits gathering of elect by angels

v. 28 Lukan addition: "Now when these things begin to take place, look up ..." Luke omits description of angels gathering the elect in Mark 13:27

v. 29 Only Luke cites fig tree as "a parable"


Adds "and all the trees"

v. 30 Lukan variation in saying, "as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know...."

v. 31 Luke alone reads "kingdom of God is near" for Mark/Matt "he is near, at the very gates"

Fitzmyer [1323-30] sees discourse as composite of isolated sayings; Luke based his work on Markan redaction, edited greatly, and added some L material
Form:

Apocalyptic sayings about Second Coming and its cosmic consequences

Parable embedded and cited as such
Text:

No major variants in NRSV or Metzger's Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament
Content:
v. 25 "There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.

Signs in the sun, moon, stars: Luke changes Matt/Mark wording. Luke omits Mark's "in those days," thus separating the destruction of Jerusalem from the parousia. Luke "lacks any temporal reference or time-table.... The time of final judgment is left completely undetermined and unattached to any tumultuous events in Palestine." [Johnson 330; cf. Fitzmyer, contra Culpepper]

signs, semeion, in heaven were common in apocalyptic, cf. Joel 2:30-32; Isaiah 13:10; 34:4; Ezekiel 32:7 [HSB]. Cf. Luke 21:10-11. Jesus' enemies (11:16) and disciples (v. 7) had asked for a "sign"

on the earth distress among nations: vv. 25b-26b are Lukan addition. Possible allusion to Isaiah 24:19; cf. Psalm 65:8

Terrestrial problems added to cosmic signs. "By shifting attention to cosmic signs and the panic 'among nations,' Luke introduces a larger end-time drama than that involving Jerusalem" [Johnson 327]

confused by roaring, waves: "The entire cosmos will be disturbed, radically affecting human life everywhere" [Craddock in HBC 1039]. Possible allusion to Ps 46:4; cf. 89:10
v. 26 People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

People will faint with fear ... More of Lukan addition; cf. Isaiah 24:17-20; Josephus Antiquities 19.1.5

faint, apopsucho, "stop breathing," "collapse," or even "die" [Fitzmyer 1349; Johnson 327]. Cf. 4 Maccabees 15:18

things coming on the earth, oikoumene, cf. Acts 11:28. Further distinguishes destruction of world from destruction of Jerusalem [Fitzmyer 1350; cf. Johnson 328]

powers of heaven shaken: Here Luke agrees again with Matt/Mark. Possible allusion to Isaiah 34:4; Haggai 2:6, 21; cf. Acts 17:26
v. 27 Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory.

Then they will see the 'Son of Man coming in a cloud': cf. Daniel 7:13-14; Acts 1:11; Luke 9:26; 11:30; 12:8, 40; 17:22, 24, 26, 30; 18:8

with power and great glory: Luke follows Matt rather than Mark here
v. 28 Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

Now when you see these things: cf. v. 27; Acts 1:11. Luke omits Mark's description of angels gathering the elect (Mark 13:27)

stand up and raise your heads: "Jesus' followers are not to share the fear and foreboding mentioned in v. 26; in contrast, their attitude will be one of rising and upright, joyful expectation. They will stand to welcome their deliverance." [Fitzmyer 1350]

"Those who endure, who bear witness, who remain alert in prayer, have nothing to fear from the coming of the Son of Man. For them there is not distress or confusion or dread. For them it is the time of 'liberation.' And they can therefore stand up straight, hold their heads high in happy anticipation before the Son of Man." [Johnson 330-31]

stand up, anakypto, echoes description of crippled woman bound by Satan (13:11) [Johnson 328]

because your redemption is drawing near: cf. 1:68; 2:38; 24:21

redemption, apolutrosis, "Redemption here is in the sense of rescue and not in its usual meaning of salvation by repentance and forgiveness." [Craddock in HBC 1039]. Cf. Rom 8:18-25. "Release," not "ransom" [Fitzmyer 1350]. NB that deliverance associated with parousia, not death and resurrection.
v. 29 Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees;

Then he told them a parable: Luke calls it a "parable," while Matt/Mark have Jesus refer to a "lesson"

Luke's short parables: 4:23; 5:36; 6:39

Look at the fig tree: Draw a lesson from leaves and blossoms

Cf. parable of barren fig tree (13:6-9)

Fig tree often used as metaphor for peace and prosperity of Israel (Deuteronomy 8:7-8; Hosea 9:10; Micah 4:4)

and all the trees: Lukan addition, in recognition that example is not limited to figs -- "a rhetorical extension" [Fitzmyer 1352]

Or may be reference to Gentiles (fig tree = "Israel") [Culpepper in NIB 9:408]
v. 30 as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near.

as soon as the leaves sprout: or "when they put forth," no object in Gk

you can see for yourselves: Lukan addition, stresses that no further extension needed [Fitzmyer 1353]. "The visible emergence of the leaves makes it possible for anyone to draw the proper conclusion about the coming of summer" [Johnson 328]

and know that summer is already near: Returns to Markan form; young leaves are the sign of summer and its fruit; cf. "summer fruit" in Amos 8:1-2
v. 31 So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near."

so also... Draws the conclusion of the parable -- "As surely as one can discern the approach of summer by the leafing of a fig tree, so these signs announce the nearness of the kingdom" [Craddock in HBC 1039]

the kingdom of God is near: Matt/Mark read "he is near, at the very gates"

kingdom of God: cf. 21:31; 10:9, 11

Luke allegorizes the parable: the kingdom is as near as summer, and comes as surely as the leaves [Fitzmyer 1353]. Cf. 10:8, 11; 19:11

Lukan tension: Kingdom is present in words, works of Jesus, but not fully realized (10:9, 11; 22:16-18) [Johnson 328]
Comments:

Luke wrote for an age when apocalyptic thought reigned -- but is our age any different?

Note for further study: what do we mean by "apocalyptic" in the Lukan context, and how is that the same or different from our own?
Says: The coming of the Son of Man brings redemption.
Does: Foretells, promises, terrifies, teaches, shows signs.