Preaching - Lesson 15

Dr. Bryan Chapell

Preaching

PR600-15

Why to Illustrate

Lesson Transcript

[00:00:00] This recording is provided courtesy of Covenant Theological Seminary. Three stages of preparing. Explanation. Well, do you remember that I. I've guys here. Observation, Interrogation Restatement. Observation, Interrogation, restatement. That is in preparing the explanation. Those are stages that we typically go through. Observation. Just saying what's here? Interrogation. What's it mean? So what's here? What's it mean? And then restatement. How can I best communicate it? Observation interrogation restatement. Now that's somewhat different than the next question. What are three stages of presenting explanation in a typical main point, that is as you're actually presenting that material? How do you typically work? And this is real simple. Again, I'm hoping you're starting to listen to pastors do it. It is state what comes next. State police prove. State plates prove. And for us, I will tell you what usually happens is it's the place that gets forgotten. We state of truth, and then we begin explaining things out of the text or out of our doctrinal background. But we don't say, Let me show you where it is in the text. So state police prove is kind of that presentation pattern that's very familiar. Now, for the third time, this is really the key that it's going to be on the midterm. In it, complete the following. You owe no more to explanation than what is necessary to make the point clear. You owe no more to explanation than what's necessary to make the point clear, and you owe no less know what's necessary to what? Prove the point. You owe no more than what's necessary to make it clear you owe no less than what's necessary to prove it. And that's where that pastoral prudence takes over again. Is it clear? It may be clear, but have I proven it yet? Well, I may have to prove it then.

[00:01:52] But if I've proven it and it's clear, move on. And typically we take the easiest course rather than the most difficult course in that proof category. Let's pray before we move forward here. Heavenly Father, we on this day. Do not know for certain who our next president will be. We remember that righteousness exalts a nation. We remember those who turn their eyes to you are those who are led to their security. And so we, as a people father, would continue to pray for your will to rule that those who are in authority over us would be those who rule with justice, with biblical righteousness. We pray, Father, that if there are those who are by your will, ruling over us with whom we disagree, that nonetheless we would count the privileges of being a people who can elect their leaders. And even if we cannot elect our leaders, we are still the people of God who believe that you sit upon your throne and rule over the affairs of men so that your will is done. There are those who, in the next days will be very frustrated. They will be the people who, even if we would not see our way. Nonetheless, trust your way. Grant us to see eternally Father what you are doing. A plan beyond our own. A hand beyond our own, and a God who rules for the purposes of Jesus Christ. We pray, Father, knowing that sometimes the word is spread. In times of persecution better than it is in times of ease. We do not know what the day holds tomorrow. But we know that you know. And in that we take great confidence. We ask Father for you to give us the faith that is necessary to be the citizens and the people of God that you require for Christ glory.

[00:03:49] We make this prayer in Jesus name. Amen. We're going to talk about illustration today and if we could kind of reverse return to our sermon skeleton here and think of the taxonomy of where we are. We have looked at the introductory material into the body of the sermon. The Scripture intro Scripture reading the introduction itself proposition. And then as we begin thinking about main points, we recognize they had their own skeletal structure. There was explanation, illustration, application in this double helix form you now know very well. And the explanation we recognize had its own structure. Typically, if it was longer than a paragraph, it had some points. Now you and your last assignment turned in some points and conclusions, and as always is the case, by doing them, you learn far more about them. Here's what always happens when you turn in that sub point and conclusion assignment. Typically, for many of you, it's the first time you get check minuses. And the reason is, even though I said it three times in the last class period, that not just the statements of main points are parallel, but the answers to the questions are worded in parallel. Nonetheless, about 35% of you did not do that. You did not put your answers in parallel. Now, that's just fine. Remember, it doesn't affect your grade hardly at all. And Dr. Harris, when I did real poorly in an Old Testament exam when I was a student here, comforted my by saying, Brian, you know, long term, the only answers that you remember on tests are the ones that you missed. If you didn't do well on parallel sub point statements, you know what? You probably won't do it again. You're going to say, Oh yeah, three times I was told that the answers are to be parallel.

[00:05:46] Even in that quiz that I handed out to you that we didn't take. But I said some of the questions are on the quiz. We will take after lecture 14. Even on those quiz questions, it was reminding you the answers are in parallel. Now, why are we doing that? Why are we making such an emphasis and grading so hard on something so simple as some points? Not only the statements but the answers worded in parallel? It is because the sub points statements have key terms in them. Remember those words that change Everything is worded in parallel, but something changes. That's drawing the attention of the ear. And the explanation is going to be about the key word changes. What is the illustration going to be about? The keyword changes. So if you didn't have some points worded in parallel, you don't have the tools to form the illustration. After all, the illustration is illustrating the point. So if the if the sub points are holding the the main conceptual point and they don't have keywords, we just don't even know what the illustration is going to be about. So the necessity of sub points worded in parallel statements is so that you will have the key terms. The ears now pay. Oh, that's what this is about. The ear has heard it by the keyword changes so you automatically know that's what the illustration is going to be about. Your key terms of the sub points are giving you the raw material that will be necessary to form the illustration. Now, if you think about illustrations, you must know I've alerted you before. In the history of preaching, almost every component of exposition is debated at times. Remember, the Huguenots didn't like explanation. Many in reform circles don't like illustration.

[00:07:34] Fair enough. I mean, we just know there are people who think this is this is just kind of pandering to the ignorant that we have to use illustrations. There are some for good theological reasons, we think we shouldn't do application. The solar spirits of people should be the sphere to learn. You shouldn't be doing application. But I'm going to try in the first part of this lecture today as we pretty much cover the material on lecture 13 and then move somewhat into lecture 14. Try to give you some of the reasons why. Why do we do illustration? In fact, why in the history of preaching has great preaching always in crude included illustration. We've just come out of preaching lectures here this past ten days or so. And I can remember when I was a student and we had academic lectures that came here and I was invited to the President's residence after the academic lectures to kind of meet and talk to the man who had lectured to us. And I can still remember him. He was Dutch. And so he sat in the breezeway smoking his cigar, and as he kind of blew the smoke into the air and the circles kind of moved away, he actually was complaining and he was talking about the state of preaching. And he said, you know, television has ruined us all. I will use illustrations, but how? I hate it. Little Tales. Four Little Minds. Now being a student and very academically oriented, I kind of knot in my head. That is right. Isn't it a shame the way that television has ruined us all and that we have to use illustrations for all the people with little minds out there. Now. At that time, I was also pastoring a little church, a little church over in Illinois in the cornfields there.

[00:09:26] And to my horror now, I remember some of what I did is I was priest. Sometimes I would actually take my systematics notes into the pulpit with me, and I would preach right out of my class lecture notes. And I was giving them solid, good information. And it probably was solid good information. But I can remember one particular time in which I was preaching out of Philippians two, and you all know that the key phrasing there is where Christ emptied himself and the word there is gnosis. And theologians throughout the centuries have made the point that when Christ emptied himself of heavenly glory, he still remained divine. And that word emptying does not mean giving away. It means putting away without in any way taking away the authority of Christ glory. So I can remember kind of standing on the pulpit and banging away and saying to these farm and mine folk, minor folk, the word is kenosis Kenosis. The word is it means that he is still God, even though he put aside his glory. I'm sure they said Amen. A few weeks later, I had a missionary come. His name was Paul London. And Paul London had been a missionary to Africa for many years before his wife's health brought him to New York City, where he still ministered to international Africans in the United States. But he had a lot of African experience. And when he came and ministered to our church, you know what text he asked the congregation to turn to. Philippians two, I thought, Oh, no, I just did this two weeks ago. They're going to be so bored because I already explained it to them. Now, as Paul London went through that kenosis passage, he said to the people, You know, the way I like to think about this is in this way.

[00:11:13] When my wife and I, Carolyn, were were in Africa, we ministered in a part of Africa that was very, very dry, almost a desert region, and people would dig wells, but they're not the kind of wells that you're thinking about where you lower a bucket into the well and that sort of thing. Actually, what they do is they sink deep shafts into the ground and the water actually condenses on the sidewalls and seeps in and in very little amounts. And what they actually do is not put a bucket down there, but they send people down into the well to wipe the walls and sop up the floor with rags and squeeze the water into buckets. You've actually got to go down into the well. And the way that they do that is these well shafts are very narrow and they put slits on the sides so that a man actually walks down into the well to get the water. You know, one day in our village. There was a man who went down into the well, but he only got a little ways down and he fell and he broke his leg at the bottom of the well. Now somebody had to go down and get him. He was a big man, though, and nobody was able to go get it. Nobody wanted to go down and help him out until the chief came. The chief at that time was the largest and the strongest man in the tribe. And what he did was this. He actually took off his robe and his headdress, and he put them aside, and then he went down, down into the well and he picked up the other man and brought him back up. Then Paul London said, Now, folks, I have a question for you.

[00:12:52] When the chief took off his headdress and his robe, did he stop being the chief? People said no. He said, You know, that's what Jesus did. He took off his heavenly glory, but he did not stop being divine. Now, at the end of the service, I stood beside Paul London as the people left and they shook his hand and mine. And I can still remember them saying, Why Reverend London? That was the most wonderful sermon. Well, I never understood that passage until. And I thought to myself, it's not just little tales for little minds. Even I understood it better. I understood it better. Something deeper than just clarification is going on. Illustrations rightly used do something fundamental of uniting the intellect with experience so that our very will is affected according to the Word of God. And the reason that good preachers in all times have used illustration is not so that they will just have little tales for little mice, not just a little entertain or spoon feed or spoon feed the ignorant. They know something more fundamental is going on that when experience is hooked to the intellect, profound understanding occurs in a way that mere logical explanation does not encompass. As you think about illustrations, what I want you to do today as we move through Lecture 13 is not be concerned about all the details of what I'm going to say, but catch catch the gist. And when we get to 14 lecture 14, then I'll really push you on the details. Okay. But for now, I want you just to think about why we illustrate. Why do we do this in the history of preaching and in our preaching today. First, before we go into the whys, why not? Because I want to kind of cut off at the pass what I recognize are legitimate objections.

[00:14:50] Why should we not illustrate? The first reason I do not think we should illustrate is to entertain. We do not illustrate, just to entertain. Some time ago I put on the board for you that chart of what speech communicators call sway, civility or persuasion. Do you remember what happens when speakers at the beginning of their speech start with an antic anecdote, just a humorous little story. We know that interest goes up very rapidly. What happens to credibility? It goes down almost as rapidly, particularly if it is not apparent that the story or the anecdote related to the concept at hand. So sway similarly, persuasion falls. If all we are doing is entertaining and actually people know that's all we're doing. So the very thing we think we're accomplishing, that we're taking people along with us. So that will be more persuasive. Actually, the opposite occurs if all we're doing is entertaining. And it's not just that our persuasion falls, it's that the effect of the preaching itself is damaged. If people begin to think, you know, good preaching is the preaching that entertains me. Think what shallow expectations we have created. If it's not entertaining, it's not good. If I don't find it funny, then it's not valuable. I mean, talk about mis communicating what the Word of God is about. If the goal of our illustration is to entertain, we have seriously damaged ourselves. And the Word of God and the people who listen to it. Now, a second reason that we should not illustrate is to spoon feed the ignorant, to spoon feed the ignorant. That is the condescending notion. They're just too dumb to understand. So I have to illustrate. Listen, people are not too dumb to understand. They're just as smart as we are.

[00:16:49] They haven't got our seminary lingo down, but they're just as smart as we are. And so to say what I'm doing is not dumbing down. That's not why I'm illustrating something else needs to be going on. I'm not illustrating because they're too dumb to understand, by the way. Neither am I illustrating because I am too dumb to do good explanation. Hear that sometimes you think, you know, I just can't explain this very well. My explanation is not logical or weight enough. So I'll throw in an illustration because I just can't explain very well. You know, if you can't explain very well, the illustration is not going to help you. And the reason is for something I've mentioned to you before, the primary purpose of illustration is not to clarify what is it to remember. The primary purpose is to motivate the primary purpose. An illustration is not to collect. Does it clarify? Sure, it clarifies something, but that's not its primary purpose. Otherwise you'll think, Oh, that was very clear. Therefore, I don't need to illustrate. No, it's actually the opposite. Once it's very clear, you still need illustration because the primary purpose of illustration is not to clarify. It is to motivate. Some of you have had teacher training, you know, these different distinctions. When we do explanation, we are primarily dealing with the intellect, right? When I do explanation, I'm primarily dealing with information that you need, with the intellect to properly process information out of the text. Remember what my goal is, though? My goal is not just to inform the intellect. My goal is to transform the will application. So I've got explanation. I'm moving toward application, which is to transform the will. Now, all of you in education training, what is between will and intellect? It is affect.

[00:18:48] It is affect. It is the combination of intellect and my experience with that which needs change. That aspect is what illustration is dealing with. I'm trying to point toward what transformation is needed, but bring in to experience that aspect of understanding that explanation as dealt with. So explanation deals with intellect, application deals with the will. Illustration is trying to deal with affect the motivation factors that bring this truth to that aspect of life that the will will be addressing. That that takes us to thinking about why we actually do illustration. Why do we actually do this. The first reason just on your list and you could multiply these or even do them in different orders. But the reason I think we do illustrations is because of the way that we live, the way that we live and interact in our world. It's been said not by me but by many other people. We live in the age of visual literacy. We are in the age of visual literacy. We are habituated to picture thinking. If you thought of what that means, just just consider some of the following statistics. And obviously these can be debated in different terms, but you'll get the gist. The average adult parishioner, that is the average person that you will be talking to on a Sunday morning will spend roughly 50 hours a year in church. Average adult parishioner will spend 50 hours a year in church. How many hours per year will they spend in front of a TV? Average adult 2000. 2000 hours a year in front of the TV. Now, people will debate that because they're saying, well, that's just the time the TV's on the home. It doesn't necessarily mean people are watching. It's almost visual wallpaper, isn't it? In many homes, it's just on all the time and is causing and habituation to picture thinking.

[00:20:53] It gets scarier when you think of young people, generations that are now coming up. The average high school graduate will have watched 15000 hours of TV. Minimum. Minimum. 15000 hours of TV. He will only spent 12000 hours in school itself. Some more more hours watching TV than being in school. Now, by the time he graduated high school, you've only spent 1000 hours in church. So 1000 hours in church. Now, this is you know, these are fairly faithful church people going. You're talking about regular church goers. 1000 hours in church, actually, 1100 is what my notes here say, 1100 hours in church, 12000 hours in class and over 15000 hours watching TV. We'll have watched 350,000 commercials, will have watched 350,000 commercials. But here's the one that scares me the most. The average preschooler in the United States will have watched more TV before entering the first grade. Then he will listen to his father in his lifetime. The average preschooler will spend more time watching TV before first grade than he will spend time listening to his father in his lifetime. We are deeply affected by the pop culture around us and even if we personally think we are not. There is no question that people to whom we speak are deeply and profoundly affected by the age in which we live now. Then you might say, Well, now wait a second is all your saying, because we are habituated to picture thinking that we are just going to capitulate to our culture. Is that what you're talking about? That we're just going to entertain because we're going to capitulate to the vices of the present culture? Well, even though we talk about the way we live, I want you to think about the way of giants in the past.

[00:22:52] If you think about those who have preached in previous generations, I will ultimately contend that the reason that we use illustrations is not just because of this age, but because of the way the mind functions in every age. The way the mind functions in every age. Think of this In the Middle Ages, there was a group of documents that would circulate among the monasteries. It was known as the ARS predicate. The art of preaching wasn't preparation in Del. By John Broaddus. It wasn't Christ preaching or biblical preaching by Head and Rahman, but it was the ars predicate in kind of the curriculum for preaching that circulated in the Middle Ages. Among the monasteries, among the ARS Credit Condie were the documents that were known as listen to the term. They were known as the exemplar. The the documents that were called the exemplar. Was that sound like to you the examples? Yes. What they were books of. They were books that illustrations not just wait 10,000 illustrations for preachers today that you can get over in the library, you know, not just barn houses, illustrations that you can get in the library today, but as far back as the Middle Ages. Now, think in a pre electronic media age, people who were preaching were still collecting illustrations and still using them as fundamental to what preaching was in these pre electronic ages. If you were to go to good preaching in any age, for instance. Jonathan Edwards, if I were to say to you, what sermon do you remember of Jonathan Edwards, what sermon would it be? Centers in the hands of an angry God. And what is the portion of the sermon that you remember? You remember the spiders over the flame? Now, isn't that interesting that Jonathan Edwards was not on the radio? He was not on TV.

[00:24:46] And yet he was using profound illustrations on the American frontier that we still remember to this day. If you want to look in in the Middle Ages or you want to look at the American the early American Great Awakening time, but you were even to go all the way back to Chrysostom, the earliest preacher that we are aware of, Golden Tongue, Golden mouth. In some translations he was called. You will recognize he was powerful in his use of illustrations. There is something more fundamental than pop culture going on in the way that we understand. Remember again, intellect aspect transform the will. There's something that has to hook the will to the intellect, and that typically in the history of preaching has been the use of illustration. I'm trying to think if you can think of others. SPURGEON That. SPURGEON Use illustrations. Sure he did. Wrote a whole book on the use of illustrations. Was he on the radio? No pre electronic era as well. If you were to think of of Moody or Billy Sunday. Oh, here's one good one for you. You heard the lecture on this, the Westminster divines and the directory for public worship. What did the Westminster Divine say should be included in our sermons? Illustrations that do what? Remember the light you're saying? The light? The heart of the hearer in that? Interesting. Even the Westminster divines pre electronic era free TV. All of that before the age of habituated to picture thinking are still talking about the use of illustration. And the reason for that is it's just an old, old, old preacher's rubric that the goal of the preacher is to turn the ear into the eye here, that to turn the ear into the eye. I want to visualize what you're talking about now.

[00:26:39] It's really more than that. It's I want to experience what you're talking about. And the best preachers have always recognized that if I've only spoken, given you had knowledge, heart knowledge is still a long way away. I want you to experience what I'm talking about as part of effective preaching. The reason for this is being discerned in more recent decades, by the way that we learn. By the way that we learn. I think most of you who've been in teacher training or education in recent years recognize there's a revolution that is occurring in this country, throughout the Western world, in understanding how we learn and incorporate information. Up until the 20th century, the Cartesian model ruled. I think therefore what I am cogito ergo am I think the intellect is the ground of knowing. I think therefore I am. But then you had the French philosophers, particularly people like Merleau-Ponty, saying that's wrong. In fact it's backwards. I am. Therefore, I think in fact they said I can I can be involved, I can experience something, I can go through something. And as a result of going through it, I can actually think about it. In fact, if I haven't gone through it, I can't really think about it yet. Now you recognize this is dangerous philosophy. Talk about Subjectivism. If I don't go through it, it's not real. Hear the damage of that. And yet it is ruling much of the way in which education is going these days. Now, we should recognize the danger of this kind of radical subjectivism. If I don't experience it, it's not real. And at the same time, the power of saying, But when I experience it, don't I understand more? Now you all know these different things.

[00:28:34] They all kind of experience. This came out of a study, the Michigan State University. You know these things, don't you? We will understand. Certainly we will retain this. Is that learning pyramid or dales come? We will retain 10% of what we read. 20% of what we hear. 30% of what we see. 60% of what we do. Now, would that be true? You think? If you read something and have not had any other action with it, do you retain much of it? You know, instinctively we say, well, at least it's not as powerful as if I read it and experienced it now. And in a weird way that I'm writing is I'm pushing the limits here a little bit. It's even what happened in your last assignment. Remember I said to you three times, Answers of some points need to be in parallel statements. Gave you a quiz that even had that answer on it. But when you turned in your papers, 35% of you did not put your sub point answers in parallel statements. Now there's no 40 you it actually is confirming this now that you've done it, interacted with it. Those words really will sink in. They'll mean a lot more. In fact, you kind of know I don't even know what he was saying. We said, were your answers in peril? I mean, I heard the words, but I didn't really know what it meant. But now, having done it, having interacted with it, you know, a whole lot more of what it means. I want to tell you how it profoundly affected your education experience and mine. I think mine was probably the first generation in public schooling that decided it would go on field trips. To go on field trips.

[00:30:19] In your education, did your grandparents go on field trips in their education? Now all this stuff from Michigan State University. Dale kind of experience. The philosophers of the French schools coming to the United States were saying, you know what, Those kids have to interact with it. Don't just tell them about firemen, Take them to a fire station. Don't just tell them how bread is baked. Take them to a bakery. And you know what? Lots of you remember those field trips. A lot more than you remember. I mean, just instinctively, you know, that interaction somehow drives knowledge deep. You also know because of the generations you're in that people learn differently, don't you? It's the reason we're a little suspect of the notion that everybody needs to learn by experience. Granted, the late night TV will tell you, come to our truck driving school and you'll get hands on experience. At the same time, you're wondering, is that the only way people learn? But intuitively, you know, it's the only way some people learn. So we're going to be talking to all kinds of people. And one of the wonderful things that's happened generationally through some educational transfers is almost everyone has become more understanding of different learning styles. We recognize some of us learn very easily, just linear thinkers, just read it and I got it. But we understand a lot more about each other. Some people have to have some hands on or even say it to me rather than read it to me or let me hear you say it rather than have me read it, or else let me do an exercise and then I'll understand it more than just having what's preaching trying to do. Reach all of these different people.

[00:32:02] All these, not just some of them, reach all of these different people and use the different tools that the history preaching provides. It really is the way of giants of the past and the way we learn today. Number four, it's the way we motivate. It is the way even we motivate. If my child says to me something like, Dad, what? Why should I save money? I say, Now, listen, sometime you're going to want to get a Christmas present for your mom. And now what am I starting to do? I'm not going into an economics lesson on the nature of savings and, you know, interest income accrual and what am I doing? I'm telling a story. I'm trying to motivate my child by saying what will be the implications of your doing or not doing something? I explain a principle by saying, here's an experience you will have as a consequence of involving or not involving that principle in your life. I thought of this in terms of just how we how we feel the weight of illustration by hearing some good ones here in a sermon that was underscoring the importance of every child of God having a role in God's kingdom. Here, the principle Every child of God has a role in God's kingdom. Now I can just kind of principally state that right? No matter who you are, you have a role now. If you think you're insignificant, just a child, you have a role in God's kingdom. But I want you to think of this illustration not only in terms of what it communicates of knowledge. But what it does to the will at the same time. Okay, so think of it as it's not just clarification, but motivation and think of what the preacher may be doing.

[00:33:46] Here again, is it saying the importance of every child in the kingdom, the role of every child in God's kingdom? Rising out of the swamps just north of Savannah, Georgia. Is an historic church named Jerusalem. Salzburg. Lutherans built this church in the 18th century after being expelled from their Catholic homeland. General Oglethorpe offered free land to these Lutherans, who would assume the role of screening Savannah from hostile Indians all around. The Sadat Salzburg ers from Austria brought their faith to this newfound land and named their town New Ebenezer. The name harkened back to biblical images. More solid. Here I raise my Ebenezer. Means what, Doug? Sound of my help. So they're raising this town out of the swamps. And what do they call their town? Rock, rock of my help here in this swamp that they need the name harking back to biblical images more solid than the bogs surrounding the town, the dangers of the land and the diseases of the swamp soon decimated these early Lutheran settlers. But no trial could deter them from setting up their community of faith. The few able bodied men continued to climb, scaffolds to hoist bricks up to forming the massive walls of their church. Women mold in them bakes sandy clay. Children carried the materials both to the women on the ground and the men on the scaffolds. And to this day, if you go to new Ebenezer, you will see embedded in the brick of the church the fingerprints of children. When you picture in your mind those little children transporting bricks to their sick or dying parents. Your heart may still break. But I imagine those children would rather your heart soar For the print of each child is a poignant reminder that God can even use little ones for his work as they endure in his purposes.

[00:36:14] Here with the preachers wanting to do. Can you just say kids have a role in the kingdom? But he's not just wanting you to feel the information. He's wanting you to feel the impact of it on experience. So that heart and mind and body and all aspects of us are involved as well. You get a little feel of that. The role of illustration is not just to clarify. It is supremely to motivate, to bring intellect to the will by dealing with affect. It is the way that we motivate beyond the way we motivate. It is the way that Scripture teaches. Does the Bible use illustrations? A lot of it depends on how you define an illustration. Right. But if you said are there accounts of people experiencing the truth of God, then would say yes, actually, how much of the Bible is historical narrative? You know, estimates vary on this, but round figures how much of the Bible is historical narrative? About 75%. Now, that's an amazing teaching understanding. If we say, you know, the stories just don't have a place in teaching, God's people said, Oh, wait a second, 75%. Is that really just little tales for little minds? 75%. It's not just even the the composition of the Old Testament that we recognize or the new, but even the way if I were to say to you, how does redemptive history unfold? Granted, there's lots of law and proposition, but if I said, how does redemptive history unfold, we typically think the garden. And the Flood and Jacob's Ladder, the Patriarchs, we think in the kingship of David and the following Kings, we think of Christ on the cross. We think of these major images that are signaling the epochs of biblical history, but also the flow of biblical truth.

[00:38:12] It could have just been a systematic. Do you ever get frustrated with God? Why isn't it just a systematics book God? I mean, that would have been so much better. Why don't you just put it down as a book of doctrine? Why do you think that is? Because of the genius of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit recognizes that if it had just been propositional statements, then those propositions would change with the experience of subsequent people. We will always interpret propositions out of our experience. So what is the Bible doing? It's giving propositions, but it's giving the experience of God's people in that proposition so that the experience is explaining the proposition, even as the proposition is explaining the experience. They lock each other down. It becomes transcendent truth because it's not governed by my experience of the proposition. It is governed by my seeing the experience of God's people to live it through their experience. Now I know what the proposition means when God says You shall have no other gods before me. How do I know what that means? I see the people of Israel over and over again turning to other gods. And the consequence of that? I understand the proposition by living through in the described detail the experience of the people of Israel. The experience locked down, the meaning of the proposition further explains, It motivates us to do what the proposition says. The proposition is absolutely. That's where the modern philosophy is wrong. It says, If I don't experience it, it's not true. The Bible says it is true. And here's the experience of God's people who show you and prove that truth. Therefore, there is no temptation taking you, but such as is common. You now know this truth because of the experience of people like you.

[00:40:10] When we begin to see what the Bible is doing. I'll tell you, the more I studied kind of modern hermeneutics, the more I thought God is really, really smart in the way that he put together the Bible. I mean, we would have on our own, we would have just put together a book of doctrine, a systematic theology book, and not recognized that would actually have lost to people over time. Having the story with the proposition is what actually locks down, meaning. It is, of course, the way that Jesus speaks. I put this little thing up on the board earlier, right. The man in the bottom kind of echoing a lot of our concerns about preaching, in my opinion, said this person listening to this man preaching on the mouth. In my opinion, he needs to use fewer parables and more scripture. Ever hear that complaint? Sure. Is it ever valid? Sure. I think there's almost an evangelical instinct that if it's our story, it's what people call skyscraper sermons. Story on a story on a story on a story. On a story, on a story. You know, skyscraper sermons. We all kind of object because what we feel is going on. Is entertainment rather than preaching. You just want to keep me engaged. So you just keep telling me stories and it's more your concern for how you're doing as a public speaker than it is for communicating the truth of God. At the same time, we object to arrogance that says, I will never connect with you. I will never connect this biblical information with your life. We have to earth heaven at times. That's really the goal of the preacher always isn't to bring heaven and earth together. And one of the things that we're doing in illustrations is we're taking the experience that people have and we're saying how it relates.

[00:42:04] It says in Mark four, you read this passage in your readings in Mark four. Without a parable. Jesus did not say anything to them. Now, that's that's a remarkable pun if you think about it both ways. It could just mean without a parable. He didn't say anything else. So we're keeping proposition linked to parable. But in educational theory it has another meaning. Without a parable, nothing was communicated. It didn't come across. Now, did he ever use parables to keep things from coming across? You remember that happened to Right Without a parable? He didn't say anything to them, but when they were in private, he then explained it, which in my mind is again, biblical genius coming through. If it is just a story without proposition, it also does not have meaning. If it is just proposition without story, it does not have transcendent meaning. What makes it have meaning is proposition that is transcendent and experience that links that to our world. So that transcendent truth comes into our world has meaning for us as the Scriptures intended. One of the remarkable places that this is said is in the Gospel of John and then in the in the Epistle as well. Now, here's what I am going to try to move you to think about before we move into lecture 14 what Merleau-Ponty, the various French philosophers and most teacher education in this country in recent years have said, is that the way in which stories work, they have power to engage people, But the way they work is what was with what with what is called lived body detail. It's as though I lived through the experience again in my body. That's what makes the affect occur my mind. The abstract propositions are now lived through as though my body were in the experience of those propositions.

[00:44:06] Now. Great abstract truth, maybe. Listen to how John the Apostle uses it. This is what he says in John 114 and 18. The glory of God who cannot be seen here. Abstraction, the glory of God, who cannot be seen, was revealed in the sun. Who made known. That is. Arrest middle indicative of accident. Oh my which at Robertson some of you read to mean to bring out in narrative. The sun made known the glory of the Father by bringing it out in narrative. That's an interesting concept. How does he do that? How does he bring it out in narrative? By the way, he lived among us. This is how John says it then in his epistle. Now think again of live body detail. That which was from the beginning. The sun removed from us, which we have now heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life, for the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and shown to you that eternal life which was with the father and manifested to us that which we have seen and heard, we declare unto you so that you may have fellowship with us because our fellowship is with the father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. Now listen to what the Apostle is doing. There is the glory of the Father, which is revealed in the Son. We know that glory of the Father because the son lived among us in narratives in our lives. And now the way that you are going to know it is, we're going to communicate to you what we have seen and heard and handled. Do you hear live body detail? And what we have seen and heard and handled is the glory of the son, which is of the father, and we've had fellowship with it.

[00:46:28] And the way in which you are going to have fellowship with it is what? By us telling you what we have seen and heard and handled the live body detail communicated is what is ultimately going to communicate the abstract to our experience. Famous study done in the 1970s by a pair of researchers named Stein Occur and Bell. You don't have to know this. It's just kind of incidental thing. They began to say this when they recognized the power of experience. They said, Well, how can we make learning occur when everybody cannot have the same experience? They can't all go on field trips to the same place. So how are we going to begin to test something? They said, if I won't just have someone go through an experience, but I will fully describe an experience and hear the language, fully describe and experience, how much of the experience will be known by them. And what they discovered there was no testable difference, no testable difference between what people actually experienced and an experience that was communicated to them as long as the experience was fully described. Now, testable difference is an interesting qualification because I still say probably if you actually go through a scuba dive, it's a little different than somebody describing it to you fully. But in terms of a testable difference, they said there is no testable difference between an experience that is lived through and one that is fully described. Now think of what John is saying. That which we have seen and heard and handled we tell you about so that you will know the glory of the father revealed in the son lived. Body detail.