Tools of the Trade, Part 14 (PROCLAIM! 41)

Gospel Light Society Podcasts

This podcast teaches every Bible-believing Christian how to preach the Gospel by any means necessary in many different settings, including using the internet and the new "podcast pulpit". Our Scripture passage on preaching is Acts 9:19-21 which reads: "Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus. And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. But all that heard him were amazed, and said; Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem, and came hither for that intent, that he might bring them bound unto the chief priests?" Our quote on preaching today is from Francois Fenelon. He said, "I would have every minister of the Gospel address his audience with the zeal of a friend, with the generous energy of a father, and with the exuberant affection of a mother." Today, our topic is titled “Tools of the Trade, Part 14” from “Biblical Preaching” by Haddon W. Robinson. A series of different questions must be raised when trying to understand a story. A sampling of those questions might be the following: - Who are the characters in the story and why did the author include them? - Do the characters contrast with one another? - How do these characters develop as the story develops? - What does the setting contribute to the story? - What structure holds the story together and provides its unity? - How do the individual episodes fit into the total framework? - What conflicts develop and how are they resolved? - Why did the writer bother telling the story? - What ideas lie behind the story that may be implied but not stated? - Can those ideas be stated through a subject and complement? Much of the Old Testament is poetic in form. In reading translations that print poetry as poetry and not as prose, we discover that poetry is the most-used literary form in Old Testament literature. Even sections we ordinarily think of as prose (history, prophecy, Wisdom literature) contain large amounts of poetry. Poets do not usually tell stories but instead express feelings and reflections about life. In Hebrew literature poets communicate through parallelism that repeats, contrasts, or adds to the previous thoughts, and they use figurative language that may not be true to fact but is true to feelings. Images and figures of speech give more life and force to speech because they join experience to fact. When farmers observe that “the land needs rain,” they are true to fact, but if they say that “the earth thirsts for rain,” they are true to both fact and feeling. Poets major in structures and language to add force and depth to what they are saying. ...