Unthinking Evangelicals are really dangerous. It is possible to find people who still make mindless statements of faith ("The Bible says it, therefore I believe it!") - but you cannot maintain this kind of simplistic position with any integrity.
You have to think about the Bible and what it means - you have to work at it. The Bible gives us a lot of narrative, but very little meta-narrative. For example, there are many events recorded in Acts. One basic question we have to ask about each one is: has this event been recorded because it was unique, or because it was normal, or perhaps because it happened every now and then? Our interpretation of the event determines its meaning for us.
Similarly, when we read that few people responded to Paul's sermon in Athens, are we being told that even when we follow God, things don't always work out as we would like; or that Paul was not being led by the Spirit when he preached; or that Gentiles cannot be expected to respond to the Gospel in the same way that Jews can?
Preachers sometimes use emotional blackmail: you have to believe this because I am giving you the pure, unadulterated word of God. Nonsense. We are always giving you our personal interpretation.
Of course, I am not suggesting that we cannot tell what any given passage means. But I am saying that you have to work at it. There are principles to be followed, methods to be used. In essence, every good expositor… behaves like a scientist: examines different theories about what the passage means, tests each one, weighs the evidence.
All of this gives a real ethical dilemma for the preacher. Once you admit that you are making judgements about the most likely meaning, you have to admit that you may have got it wrong. Bu the congregation wants to hear a clear and confident message. So it is easy to preach more confidently that you believe. Most preachers do not intend to mislead, but it is so easy to do so.
[It is also possible that God intended some passages to be given contradictory interpretations in different situations, so that different lessons may be learned and applied. Because what matters is also that God speaks to us through the passage, not simply that our interpretation is doctrinally sound.]
So be careful of preachers. We may bring you God's Word. But we may be luring you into a false sense of confidence.
And we may be faithfully preaching one text, when the Spirit is wanting to give a completely different message to the church. There were many good, evangelical preachers in Germany in the 1930s. But what were they preaching, and when we look back, does it now seem to be God's Word, or does it seem to skirt around the difficult issues of the day, refusing to engage in the vital questions that God's people desperately needed to grasp and resolve?
What are we not preaching? What truths are either not being mentioned, or are not given the prominence they need?
I am very aware that what follows are some thoughts on internal, church based subjects. How do we also engage the current issues in society? Fear of terrorism; how to balance the needs of security and free speech…
The subject of the Second Coming came up in a conversation recently. I mentioned that I think I have heard three sermons on the Second Coming in the past ten years, and I preached all three of them.
I don't want to go overboard on that one topic, but it is an important question: can we live today as faithful and authentic Christians if we are not living with the expectation that Jesus is going to come back soon?