Archive for June 1, 2012

Random Quotes from Driscoll’s Sermons on Ecclesiastes, Part 1

Posted: June 1, 2012 in Sermon Illustrations
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You know, between 1970 and 1999, in this nation, the average person, their income, when adjusted for inflation, has gone up 16 percent; but, divorce has tripled. Teen suicide has tripled. Depression is an epidemic. We have a great depression, but it has little to do with our money. It’s a poverty of soul. Medication, counseling, suicide, discouragement, despair.

When will you be happy? What will it take? What will it take? Every one of us has something that we are anticipating once we achieve or once we experience or once we accomplish or once we obtain, then we’ll be happy, satisfied, joyous people. You can just fill in the blank. I’ll be happy when – blank.

And my question to you is this. Do you really think when you fill in that blank you’ll be a happy, satisfied, joyous person? Do you really think that will happen? Because I would submit this to you. If you look back in the course of your life, five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen years ago, however old you might be, that, at some point, you thought, “As soon as I obtain, achieve, experience or accomplish blank, I’ll be happy and satisfied.” And you have labored diligently from that point forward to achieve those things and upon achieving them, you’re still not all that satisfied and you’re still not all that happy. So, what we do, then, is we create another list of things that we’re going to pursue and going to chase. And we do this until we die.

And a great philosopher, Peter Kreeft, basically says that what this is, life is a wild goose chase with no goose.

A commentator says it great. He says that “Every one of us walks around the earth with a can of peaches and Jesus is the only one with a can opener.”

And one of my favorite philosophers, Blaise Pascal, he has this great statement. He says that, “Many of us live in the past, reflecting on a season that we have  already been through; either regretting the things that we should have done, reminiscing about the things we shouldn’t have done; or we live in the future, planning, anticipating and expecting that some day, things will be good and I will be happy and I will have a good time.” And what he says is, is if we live in the past or we live in the future, we never live because we always miss the present.

Wealth is not just eating good food, but enjoying the food you eat. Wealth is not just drinking good drink, it’s enjoying whatever it is that you drink, even if that’s just water. Wealth is not having a lot of stuff, it’s enjoying whatever you have. Wealth is having memories of the times that God enabled you to be happy. And wealth is having people you love to be happy with and to do good for. That makes you wealthy.

The Importance of Identifying the Plot and the Scenes in Narrative Preaching, Part Seven

Posted: June 1, 2012 in Preaching Narratives
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The exegesis of scene seven in 1 Samuel 1:21-23 enables us to make this Summary Statement: Hannah gives Samuel to God. The Summary Statement which is the meaning for the original audience will be converted into a Timeless Principle or meaning for our modern audience: Give to God your best and watch Him bless.

Scene seven

In scene seven, the answer is given to the question and conflict in scene six. In scene seven there are five lines of narration to prepare the reader for the all important seven lines of dialogue. There is a time and location change to help the reader identify the new scene. The narrator skips the three years of breast-feeding with one sentence: “And when she had weaned him.” The location change involves taking the child, Samuel, to the house of the LORD in Shilohwith three bulls to be offered in worship.  One bull was a burnt offering which was sacrificed in fulfillment of a vow according to Num.15:3. The other bull was a purification offering sacrificed after childbirth according to Lev.12:6. The final bull could be offered with a meal offering accompanied by a drink offering where wine was poured out as prescribed in Num.15:4-11. Baldwin otes that Hannah and Elkanah gave the most expensive sacrifices the law allowed. “The choice of bulls when smaller animals would have been acceptable (Lv.12:6) is indicative of the gratitude of both Hannah and Elkanah.”[1] The expensive sacrifices the narration has detailed also prepares the reader for the ultimate sacrifice Hannah is going to give to God as communicated in her final speech  in verses 26-28.

Fokkelman explains Hannah’s speech as an oath that she utters to show the solemnity of her commitment to give Samuel to the LORD in full-time service as she had vowed. “In 26c the life of the priest is summoned as a witness to the oath.” The oath concludes in 28b where “the life of Samuel is that which is handed over and is the subject of the oath.”[2] In between the introductory formula in 26c “as thy soul liveth” and the concluding line in 28b, which is the substance of the oath, “as long as he liveth he shall be dedicated to the LORD” is the background for the oath, and it is dominated by prayer, which mirrors Hannah’s life. Hannah reminds Eli in 26d,  “I am the woman that stood by thee here, praying unto the LORD.” Three years earlier Hannah not only stood before the LORD to pray, but she stood up for herself before Eli who externally and falsely accused her of drunkenness. In 27a Hannah informs Eli of the subject for which she was praying when he misjudged her. “For this child I prayed.” Eli sees the answer to her prayer standing by her side. In 27b Hannah states “the LORD gave me the petition which I asked of him.” Four times, Hannah will repeat the word “asked” or “petition” in her concluding speech.  In 28a Hannah informs Eli that what God had given to her she was now going to give  “lent”  back to the LORD. The word means “ask,” but it can also mean “give”as is does  in Ex.12:35,36 and here in 1 Sam.1:28a. What Hannah vowed or promised in her first recorded words in v.11, she now swears by way of an oath to perform in her last recorded words in 28b. There was not going to be any taking back what she had given to the LORD.

In this last scene, Hannah in essence worships the LORD by first of all bringing three bulls to sacrifice to the LORD as the narrative report of scene seven depicts. Then as communicated through the dialogue of Hannah with Eli, Hannah has worships by sacrificing her son to full-time service in the LORD’s house. There is a debate who “he” refers to in the last statement of the story. Some say that “he” refers to Eli and that Hannah’s worship impacts Eli to worship. When Eli hears Hannah’s explanation in verses15,16, he perfunctorily pronounces a priestly benediction not knowing the significance of his pronouncement. But now that Eli has seen God providentially answer Hannah’s prayer, he falls down in worship of Hannah’s great prayer-answering Sovereign. Others, such as Charles Spurgeon, believe that “he” refers to Samuel, the antecedent in verses 26-28. Thus proving that Hannah had not only prepared herself to present Samuel to the LORD, Elkanah does not have to drag Hannah kicking and screaming to the temple, but she had prepared Samuel to willingly leave his beloved mother and father and turn and bow before the LORD and never turn back. Truly Hannah prepared Samuel to “there abide for ever” in his full-time service to the LORD. Hannah giving her son to full-time service is not only the solution to the new conflict raised by her husband when he doubted Hannah, but Hannah’s act of worship in giving her son is the solution and fitting conclusion to the entire narrative. Brueggemann captures the inductive conclusion of Samuel’s first narrative. “The resolution is glad worship (v. 28), a trusting yielding, which is Israel’s proper posture for the new story of monarchy now about to begin. Hannah’s ‘now therefore’ indicates the climax of the narrative and the resolution of the problem. Her offer of the boy is a faithful counterpart to her vow. Barrenness ends, by the power of God, in glad, trustful worship.”[3] To summarize scene seven and the entire narrative is the following: Hannah’s unselfish worship of the LORD was the solution to her every conflict.

[1]Baldwin, 1 and 2 Samuel, 54.

[2]Fokkelman, Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel, 69.

[3]Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel, 14.

The Pastor and Personal Criticism, Part Three

Posted: June 1, 2012 in Pastoral Theology
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Here is the third excerpt from the posts by C. J. Mahaney on The Pastor and Personal Criticism. I am reading these ten posts just for personal growth in this difficult area of pastoral ministry.

1. The Pastor and Personal Criticism

2. The Pastor’s Temptations when Criticism Arrives

3. Learning Wisdom by Embracing Criticism

Years ago during a study on Proverbs, I was surprised to discover that maturing in wisdom is often the fruit of correction (see Proverbs 9:8, 19:25, 29:15). I can remember thinking, “Surely it’s possible to learn wisdom without any need for correction and criticism.”

Apparently not.

In his commentary on Proverbs, Derek Kidner writes that wisdom’s “frequent companion is correction” [1]. That phrase is now firmly fixed in my mind. If you ask for wisdom to hang around in your life, you will find that she doesn’t prefer to travel alone.

If we could mature in wisdom without any need for correction—and how I wish we could!—I would have discovered a way to do it by now and probably written a bestselling book explaining how. But that’s not how it works. We cannot separate growth in wisdom from criticism, correction, and reproof.