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I took time earlier this week to go back and interact with the comments to all of the June 2007 blog posts. Thanks to all of you who take the time and effort to post comments. The discussion is helpful and stimulating. One recent comment referred to the “common mistake of spending too much time on commentaries.” I’m going to address that issue in this post. To be honest, I know few, if any, pastors who spend too much time in commentaries. But I see a lot of mistakes made in using commentaries. I must confess, too, that I’ve made all of them in the past. So, here are some common “commentary mistakes.”

In our two-part interview with Wayne Shaw, "The Dire Need for Doctrine" (Part 1 and Part 2), Shaw shared his concern over today's preaching being void of doctrine. Near the end of part one, Shaw offered this interesting insight:

If we're going to form a Christian community into what the Bible calls the church, we're going to have to deal with the major tenets biblically—what we're to believe and what we're to do. In other words, "What marks us as Christians? What marks us as a community of faith?" If we don't know that faith, then we're just joining another organization. That's how serious it is to me.

Two days ago, I preached a sermon on Proverbs 5 as part of the series I’m doing this summer on the book of Proverbs. The topic of the chapter is sex – specifically, avoiding sexual immorality (represented by the adulteress) and enjoying this incredible gift in the context of marriage. All of this is to be done in the fear of God (see 5:21). There’s a lot I could suggest when preaching texts which focus on sex, but I have one concern which eclipses all others: Sermons on sex must not be sermons on sex. Let me explain!

Ernest Hemingway has something to teach preachers. For years, Hemingway has fascinated me at two levels. First, I am haunted by his quest for love and deep healing. As D. Bruce Lockerbie points out in his book, Dismissing God, Hemingway abandoned his Christian upbringing and turned to the worship of a rugged masculinity. Yet neither bull-fighting, big-game hunting, nor booze brought him the hope and healing for which he longed. Second, I am intrigued by the way Hemingway wrote his novels and short stories. The way he communicates in A Farewell to Arms (my favorite Hemingway novel) or Big Two-Hearted River (my favorite ‘Nick Adams’ short story) models something which I must master as a preacher of Scripture.

In our two-part interview with Haddon Robinson, "The Biggest Idea" (Part 1 and Part 2), Robinson discussed the power and necessity of doctrinal preaching. When asked what kinds of sermons we often end up with if our preaching is light on doctrine, Robinson had this to say:

They end up being nothing more than moralisms: We should, we must, we ought. Or, here are three ways in which we can be better off financially. A sermon I heard a while ago on how to deal with procrastination had as its first point to get a Day Timer. You knew you were in trouble when you heard that. I have no doubt that when people left that church, if they were procrastinators, they thought it was a helpful sermon. But it was simply something that a motivational speaker could have done.

While preparing for my sermon last week, I had a day where I hit “sermon block.” The more I tried to think, the more frustrated I got. I had done my exegesis, and I read and re-read the best commentaries. Still I could not articulate in my mind the point that the writer was trying to make. I could not see where the argument was leading, let alone how I was going to communicate it. I muttered, “I couldn’t think my way out of a paper bag today if my life depended on it.” So I simply acted followed a piece of profound advice from Eugene Lowry’s book, The Sermon: Dancing the Edge of Mystery (Abingdon, 1997).

Preparing more than one sermon per week puts a strain on one’s ability to deliver Spirit-empowered, life-transforming, God-exalting sermons. When a ministry requires the preparation of more than one sermon a week, what is a preacher to do? I have five suggestions. I offered two in last Tuesday’s post: (1) prioritize and spend most of your time on the primary sermon; and (2) feel free to recycle a good sermon in the appropriate time and manner for use in the secondary setting. I’m using the expression ‘primary sermon’ to refer to the one you preach in your main worship service(s). The ‘secondary sermon’ is the additional sermon you must prepare for another setting such as a Sunday night or mid-week service. Now, here are my final three suggestions.

If your church or ministry setting requires you to prepare more than one sermon a week, how can you prepare an additional sermon after pouring everything into the first one? A reader recently raised this question. It’s the challenge you face if your church has a Sunday night or mid-week service in addition to your primary weekend worship service(s). Let me state the question from another angle: if it takes all your time and energy just to produce one quality sermon a week, how can you hope to prepare two sermons which rise above mediocrity?

How can preachers ‘stay put’ in the text they are preaching and yet make necessary, legitimate connections with other Bible passages? Let me use Proverbs 1:1-7 as an example. There are two extremes to avoid. One is turning to so many other Bible texts (the ‘cross-reference’ approach) that Proverbs 1:1-7 never gets developed. The other extreme is refusing to discuss other texts which illuminate the ideas communicated in Proverbs 1:1-7.

An old adage claims: “The best interpreter of Scripture is other Scripture.” True. But expositors must not abuse this insight when preaching a particular biblical passage. We must learn the discipline of staying put in the text we’re preaching. I face this challenge every weekend. I have to ask, “When is it appropriate to turn to another passage, and when is it better to stay put in the text I’m preaching?”

As I finished my sermon preparation this morning for Sunday’s sermon on Proverbs 1:1-7, I found myself working both sides of the equation. On the one side, I spent an hour poring over the infinitive constructs in verses 2-4 and 6 in my Hebrew Bible. Do they flow out of an elliptical verb in verse 1, or do they connect to the jussive form of “hear” in verse 5? One the other side, I did some research on illegal insider trading. Since my ministry context is ‘Corporate America,’ I’m going to use this information to illustrate the difference between immoral wisdom and the moral wisdom described in Proverbs 1:3. Effective expository preaching must work both sides of the equation. Let me explain what I mean.