Marks of Good Preaching - Original Intent

To the Reader: If you have not already done so, please read the introduction to this series, ”Thoughts on Sermon Criticism”, before reading this article.

My endeavor is to bring out of Scripture what is there, and not to thrust in what I think might be there. I have a great jealousy on this head; never to speak more or less than I believe to be the mind of the Spirit in the passage I am expounding.
— Charles Simeon

God's Word is inspired. This means many things, but one specific thing it means is that God has a specific intent in any given passage you read. This is known as original or authorial intent.

The purpose of a passage of Scripture is not to be a medicine cabinet where I may find the pill I need for the day. The purpose is to know the mind and character of the God Who wrote it. Without authorial intent, it leads to God's people having different opinions of what passages mean based on whatever topic the preacher wanted to draw out of it on any given Sunday. They will mistake the voice of man for the voice of God. The people may learn some nice motivation principles that they believe came from the Bible, but they don't know God any better. They will think they know what a passage is about when they really do not. They will not see application as deriving from the interpretation. They will see the application AS the interpretation. Not properly emphasizing original intent is one of the main ways eisegesis (i.e. reading something into the text that is not there) takes place in typically good churches.

Even if it could be said that God has multiple intentions in a given passage, He ultimately has one supreme intent in a given passage that everything preached must derive from. And it can be known by reading the passage in its grammatical, historical, and literary context. Let's briefly examine those for just a moment.

Because languages differer from one another we must recognize that grammar in the English is not always reflective of the grammar in the original scriptural languages. Consider that number (singular vs plural) as well as grammatical gender are not always, or sometimes not at all, reflected in English (source)(source). As much as it pains me to admit it, this means that if we are disproportionately tied to the English alone we will miss some things. And they are not always inconsequential things.

I believe any Christian can grow and become all God wants them to be with their English Bible alone. They can obey the light they have. And that practice of obeying what you know to obey is what makes a mature believer. However, the onus is on teachers of Scripture to go beyond that to make certain the original intent is not missed. Thus, for the preacher, it is important to not view the English as the totality of inspiration. Knowing the original intent requires learning the original grammar on a given passage, and you don't always get that in English.

Next, historical context carries less authority than grammatical context, but it sheds immense amounts of light on authorial intent because it often answers why certain illustrations are used in passages, certain phrases and practices, and much more. There are some things in the Bible that just make little to no sense without knowing the historical context it was written in.

Literary context simply asks what genre of Scripture we are reading. The authors intent will vary between poetry, epistle, history, and so on.

This is all simply an overview for sake of brevity, but on a final note I want to offer a word of caution about particular study tools that have the potential to mislead your study. And it is best explained with a personal story.

When I first began preaching I was studying from a Thompson Chain Reference Bible. By no means do I wish to disparage it. However, something in my soul felt dissonant. I felt like utilizing the chain references for study was interesting in the way it led me to topics. And it felt safe because many preachers do the same. Cross references in general are of course designed to help your study.

I assumed that if I leaned into cross references, my preaching would be good because I was comparing Scripture with Scripture. Yet, I could not identify what it was that was wrong in my soul. I am the sort of person that feels significant unease when key aspects of my life are not in order. And when I get them in order, there is a great calm. Preaching from original intent is one of the first steps in having the absolute confidence that you got it right. And there was a hole in my confidence.

I knew that in my preaching I was saying true things. But something was still off. I didn’t know what it was. And I don’t remember how or by whose counsel I eventually discerned the problem. But it was astonishingly simple. And it was this basic principle: Application in preaching must be congruous with and rooted in the original intent of the writer. If I could say it this way, you must be able to draw a straight line from the intent of the passage to the application you are making. Because I was not always preaching from the foundation of original intent, I was missing the mind and heart of God in the passage, no matter how many good applications I could make from the passage. I could say good things about passages, but still didn't know what the passages were actually there for.

I had long known the phrase "Interpretation is one, application is many." And I still believe that is true. But I've had to modify that a little to "Interpretation is one, application is many... but there is a primary application." That's the application you can draw the straight line to. There is such thing in a passage as a primary application to which other applications must be subservient. There is an application that carries the most authoritative delivery because that application that carries the author's intent.

All of this is why chain references can either be a great blessing or incredibly misleading. These references often take the preacher on tangents that derive from a word in a given passage being found in other places too. It essentially becomes a concordance sermon. This method can end up giving the illusion that the passage where the chain began is primarily about that specific word or topic. The trail it can take you on can end up having nothing to do with the passage you claim to be preaching on. Thus, the listener leaves hearing good things, but still not knowing the original intent of the author. They ultimately miss the mind and heart of God revealed in that passage.

Chain references that do not guide you to the same intent as the original passage can mislead you. The result of this interpretive error is often, at best, gross spiritualizing of texts in preaching, which still is not good. And at worst is leads to the shallow Christendom of God's people suffering for lack of knowledge. Just know that only some, not all cross references actually reflect a relationship to the original intent of your passage. Many chain references and topics often exist to simply give a preacher things to say. But I don’t want to hear what the preacher says. I want to know what God says.

To preach a passage founded in the original intent of the writer not only gives the most respect to the words of God, but it also requires the greatest degree of faith in the Scriptures themselves to actually work. Preaching from original intent also is the most pure way of submitting oneself to the Bible as a preacher, and that is perhaps one of the most powerful examples you can be.

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