Preaching Wisdom (Jonathan Storment)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 9:59 pm by Scot McKnight

Preaching Wisdom (Jonathan Storment) 2015-03-13T21:59:08-05:00 Scot McKnight

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This past Sunday I started preaching through the book of James for the first time ever. I have always appreciated James, but have never preached him, and in order to get ready for this series I tried to check out other series done by other pastors and stumbled upon something interesting.

James is a book about wisdom and how it looks for a community of wisdom to live where and when she is. It is filled with theology that is incredibly practical, and it is also incredibly neglected in today’s churches. Not only are not a lot of pastors talking about the book of James, but those who are tend to fall into certain categories. Outside of when the lectionary mentions it, most of the people I saw preaching or teaching through James were the pragmatic, relevant, life-application kind of preachers. And that got me thinking, “why aren’t we pastors preaching James more often?”

I gravitate toward a specific style of preaching. I like inductive, narrative preaching. But my preference has often led me to be critical of other ways of doing it. I have often found myself really condescending about preaching that wasn’t like mine.

The worst of all preaching (for me) was the practical, pragmatic kind. I didn’t like the kind of preaching (or preachers) that would put this grand story of God repairing the world on the bottom shelf. It seemed like they were dumbing it down.

A few years ago, I heard the preaching professor Tom Long speak about the evolution of his own opinion on this. He observed that the old approach to preaching had really taken a beating over the years. Tom Long said that the sermon with 3 points and a poem had died and he had danced on its grave.

And then….

Suddenly all of these churches started to pop up where the preacher had adopted this old preaching style. And these churches seemed to be blowing up with unchurched and de-churched people. They were being drawn to a kind of preaching that Tom Long said should have been as extinct as the dodo-bird.

And that is when Tom Long made this great observation. These preachers aren’t stupid. They aren’t just trying to re-live the past, they are trying to preach Wisdom…The art of knowing what God is calling us to do in the moment, and the practical ways that the Jesus life looks like today.

I think that is right. After all, some of our most ancient Christian texts, like the Didache, or sermons by John of Chrysostom (the Andy Stanley of his day), were practical real-life ways of living out the Jesus story for their time. They were specific to their culture, and they were important enough that churches preserved them for thousands of years.

During my first few years of ministry, I began to notice that there were lots of people coming from the Catholic, Episcopalian, or other High Church traditions. It would have been easy to just assume that meant our way of “doing church” was right. But I also saw a lot of my friends leave the tradition I belong to, heading the other direction. People who had been raised up in Churches of Christ or Baptist or Pentecostal churches started finding a home in higher churches with more liturgical traditions. It seemed like both high church and low church traditions had revolving doors on them. As I asked my incoming and outgoing friends why they were leaving or coming, they had an interesting response.

For the people coming from higher church traditions, they loved the story aspect of the sermons, and how accessible the sermons were. Many had been participating in rituals for most of their lives, but had often failed to understand the significance behind them.

For the people leaving these lower traditions, they were actually drawn to the ritual of it all. They loved the stained glass, the beauty, the smells, and the poignancy of moving through liturgy that had been going on for thousands of years.

It is as if, for both groups of people, they were finding the gospel all over again. Anthropologist and Missiologist Paul Hiebert makes a great observation about all of this. He said that in many areas of the world there are two types of religion: High religion and Low religion. As missionaries would go to places in the world that were known for being associated with a particular major world religion like Buddhism, Christianity or Islam, they would discover that while most people would say they belonged to the dominant religion of their area, they would be unable to tell the basic tenets of their religion’s story. And they were most often deeply involved with the practices of folk religion like magic, astrology, or spirit worship.

The draw of folk religions, according to Hiebert, is that it doesn’t concern itself with the big questions, like how was the world created, or where did we come from? Instead, low religion concerns itself with the “everyday.” And in the words of Hiebert:

“Given our Western view of things, we do not take folk religion seriously. Consequently, we do not provide biblical answers to the every day questions that people face….It should not surprise us that many young Christians continue to go to shamans and magicians to deal with such questions.”

My own bent is to preach High religion. I love to deal with the big questions, and this Cosmic story that we have inherited from the Christians who have gone before us. God is, after all, repairing every inch of every galaxy in His entire creation. It is hard to not get excited about that. And we need that. If churches forget how big their story is, they might begin to live small, petty, self-centered lives.

But the other side of that is true too. The job of a preacher is also to help their people find their place in the story, and what this big story looks like next Tuesday when they are put in a comprising situation at work, or when that single mother needs to know how to have the endurance to just make it one more day. They need Wisdom. Because sometimes preaching is about the Big Story, sometimes it is about something that can’t be reduced to principles or good advice.

Sometimes preaching is about High Religion. But we can’t forget the wisdom of preaching, is preaching of Wisdom.

I would like to hear from all the preachers out there…How do you balance this? What do you lean toward? Have you seen this in your own ministry?

James

Pastoring and Preaching

Previous Post

January 14, 2015

The Pastor's Calling

Next Post

January 14, 2015 Some Good News

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Acts of the Apostles Adam Advent Anabaptism Angels Anglican Apologetics Atonement Baptism BCP Prayers Bible Biblical Studies Birds Blogging Bloglossary Bonhoeffer Books Calvinism Christianity Church Church History Coffee Colossians Commentary Recs Conversion Creation Creeds Culture Death Ecclesiastes Economics Education Embracing Grace Emergent Emerging Movement Eschatology Essays Ethics Eucharist Evangelicalism Family Fasting Fathers Fellowship of Differents Footsteps Tour Fun and Whimsical Gospel Grace Happiness Heaven Hell Holy Spirit Irenaeus James Jesus Jesus Creed Job Justification Kingdom of God Law Lectures Lent Liberalism Love and Marriage Mabanteneni Manhood Mary Miracles Missio Alliance MissioLife Missional Missional Jesus Movies and Film New Perspective Northern Seminary OneLife Origins Project Orthodox Parables Pastor's Spouse Pastoring and Leading Pastoring and Preaching Patristics Paul Paul-John Tour Pharisees Pietism Political Theology Prayer and Formation Preaching Problems for Faith Psalm 119 Psalms Public Issues Purgatory Religions Resurrection Revelation Romans Rule of JCreed Science and Faith Sermon on the Mount Sports Ten Commandments Theology Third Way Top Ten Lists Translations Uncategorized Universalism University Ministry Way Out Weekly Meanderings Wisdom Women and Ministry Work Worship Writing & Blogging Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2021 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which queen visited Solomon to test his wisdom?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Queen Vashti Queen of Sheba Queen Jezebel Queen Esther