Lesson Goal
In this lesson I want to encourage the use of pericopes in preaching.
Lesson Intro
Have you ever sat through a Bible flipping sermon, where the preacher turns to several Scriptures, ripping them out of their context. The only relationship between the Scriptures is that they all contain the same word that the preacher looked up in a concordance while watching Saturday Night Live. Then to cover up the sermon's total lack of integrity and his incessant twisting of the Scriptures, the preacher starts putting on a theatrical show with yelling and sweating and pacing up and down, constantly asking for an amen which he doesn't deserve, and using other manipulative gimmicks such as telling you to turn to a neighbor and make some trite comment.
Sincere enthusiasm is good and highlights quality preaching. Insincere theatrics is an attempt to dress up an otherwise awful sermon. This kind of bad preaching is empty-headed fluff and far too common. It is not worth the money you put in the offering, and not worth your time. It deeply grieves my spirit to sit through a sermon like that. How can we overcome this kind of rubbish in the churches?
Lesson Plan
In this lesson I propose to explain what a pericope is, why the use of a pericope is a superior preaching method, how to choose a pericope and how to make it come alive.
Lesson Body
1. What is a Pericope
What is a pericope? Did I mean periscope? No, a pericope [puh-RICK-oh-pee] is a section of scripture that has a natural beginning and ending. It may be large or small, but it must be a natural unit.
A chapter may contain several natural pericopes. Chapters and verses are far from perfect breaks in Scripture. They were added in much later centuries and sometimes are inserted in awkward places. For this reason, some natural pericopes actually overlap the beginning and end of a chapter. The number of pericopes chosen from any segment of Scripture can vary greatly. Depending on your emphasis, a particular chapter may contain one, two or dozens of pericopes.
How large should a pericope be? The size of a pericope can be as small as part of a verse or as large as several chapters but is most usually chosen from part of a chapter. A lectionary reading is a good guide to a natural pericope. The headings that are inserted in many modern translations also form a suggested pericope, but may or may not be the specific pericope that God leads you to expound for your sermon. For instance, each of Jesus’ parables forms a natural pericope. Some are a dozen verses long, while others are only one verse.
2. Why Use a Pericope
Pericopal preaching is superior preaching because it keeps everything in context. Not that it is wrong to use several scriptures. That is what forms the basis of systematic theology, but systematic theologians go to great pains to take care to consider the context of each verse. However, even theologians get themselves into trouble.
Consider the raging debate between Calvinists and Arminians. Each has their string of verses to support their side of the issues, and each has "difficult" verses, which are challenging to explain. That's probably why most theologians end up somewhere in the middle of that debate.
Most preachers would squirm if they had to preach regularly to a group of expert theologians, who knew way more about the Bible than them. It would feel like you were on the spot every week. I know a theologian who just doesn't bother to "help" his pastor because it would be too discouraging for the man. Most of the time, he just overlooks the fellow's less than perfect theology. However, there is a way for most of us to keep ourselves out of theological trouble. That is having the habit of preaching pericopes. By preaching pericopes most of the time, we are treating scripture in its context, and we might even impress a real Bible scholar from time to time, not that that is the most important thing. It is a very important thing to handle the Bible with integrity and honesty.
Let's look at an example of what can happen when we string verses together willy-nilly without a care or concern about their respective contexts. The Bible says that those who are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:8), but Jesus Christ came in the flesh (1 John 4:2). This could confuse people because the same Greek word for "flesh" is used in both verses. However, the context would clearly show that the same word is used to mean two entirely different concepts.
Context is very important. Too many false ideas are preached because the preacher ignores the exegetical process of considering the context. Too many Scriptures are twisted out of context to drive home the preacher's pet ideas instead of God's.
3. How Choose a Pericope
In the end of the day, every part of Scripture can be divided up into natural pericopes. So choosing is not a matter of saying that one book of Scripture is pericopic and another book is not. Choosing then falls down to the same reasons you would choose any part of the Bible to preach. Is it part of the lectionary series? If so, the choice is between three or four pericopes.
Is the choice because of some perceived church need? Then the choice becomes more critical. We need to choose a pericope that we can expound honestly, because of what it actually says, rather than because we have an axe to grind. If you have something on your heart that needs to be addressed, then do so, but don't twist a Scripture out of context to make it back you up. Most problems are common though and will be addressed in Scripture somewhere, even if only in principle. In such cases, allow the Scripture to address the problem. If you hide behind the Scriptures you will be safer.
4. Giving Your Pericope a Subject
Does the pericope or text have a natural subject? Usually any passage of Scripture will have several possible subjects, but we ought to focus on one in general.
5. Outlining Your Pericope
A pericope will normally have some kind of outline. It may not have the complete outline of introduction, plan, body and conclusion, because it will often be a sub-topic in a broader discussion. However, there is a challenge: to introduce the pericope, find a proposal and a conclusion that best fits without doing damage to the Scripture.
Example Sermon
Title: "Power for What?"
Goal
To teach understanding about a main two-fold purpose and meaning of power from the Holy Spirit.
Intro
Luke-Acts is really one book. Acts could have been called 2 Luke, but Acts is probably the better title in order to separate it from the Gospels. It is a book about the mission of the church and the power of the Holy Spirit to carry out that mission.
Plan
We will look at the passage introducing the book of Acts, explain it, find an application for today and make some other comments. We will discover 2 main purposes for the power of the Holy Spirit.
Body
1. Reading the Passage (Acts 1:1-11)
Remember the lesson on reading aloud. This is a chance to put it into practice.
2. Explanation
Why did Jesus tell them to wait in Jerusalem? Had Jesus mentioned the coming of the Holy Spirit to his disciples before? Yes, he told them to stay until the Holy Spirit came and filled them with power (Luke 24:49). The coming of the Holy Spirit been foretold long ago. Isaiah (44:3) prophesied the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. Ezekiel (36:27; 37:14) foretold the Holy Spirit being put in the Jews. Joel (2:28-3:1) prophesied that the Holy Spirit would be poured out on all people.
It's interesting that Isaiah and Joel wrote that God would pour out the Holy Spirit when Jesus spoke of being baptized with the Holy Spirit. The pouring of water in baptism is practiced by some churches as a picture of this. Other ways of saying this same thing are that God would send the Holy Spirit, that we would be filled with the Holy Spirit and that God would put his Spirit in us. All of these descriptions are different ways of referring to the one event.
Being filled with the Spirit of God was not a new thing (Exodus 31:3; 35:31; Luke 1:15, 41-42; 67-68; 4:1), but it was to have a new result. Rather than being an individual experience, several whole congregations experienced it (Acts 2:4; 4:31) and power was given to speak with boldness (Acts 4:8).
Many Jews believed that the Hebrew Scriptures linked the coming of the Holy Spirit with the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. The disciples, who had lived under Roman occupation, naturally asked about this as well.
What was the primary purpose for the coming of the Holy Spirit? What did that coming do? Jesus' words explain clearly the main purpose for his coming, to give the Apostles power to tell people about Jesus. In verse 8 Jesus plainly tells the disciples that a reason that the Holy Spirit comes is so that they can be witnesses.
The Greek word for witness is µ??t?? (martus, pronounced like mar'-toos). (1) It means in a legal sense someone who is a spectator of something, what we would call today an eye witness. (2) In an ethical sense, a witness is someone who is a martyr like Jesus. History records that all but John were apparently martyred for their faith. This then is referring to the Apostles who were to be witnesses of things which we cannot. We were not there to witness the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We may be witnesses of what Jesus has done in our lives, but we were not eye witnesses to his death and resurrection. We may also not be required to die for our faith.
3. Application
Is this a formula for how God gives his Holy Spirit to us today? Does God give his Holy Spirit to people in different ways? How is the giving of the Holy Spirit to us different to the apostles? How is it the same? Do we too sometimes have to wait until we receive the Holy Spirit?
(1) Eyewitnesses: If we cannot be witnesses of events which we have not seen, can we be witnesses of the things which the risen Christ has done in our lives? Does a person need a degree in theology to be a witness? Do we too need the power of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses of things that we have experienced? What have you experienced of Christ in your life?
(2) Self-sacrificing: We may not be required to become martyrs like the apostles, but we are required to be living sacrifices, living a self-sacrificing life. That too requires power from on high, because the natural thing to do is live a selfish life. We need Holy Spirit power to live a selfless life.
4. Comment
Some say this proves that we must wait for the Spirit, but that is not what this is teaching. It teaches that the Apostles waited for the Spirit and that they waited in Jerusalem. If some people today have to wait for the Holy Spirit, that is God's business. This does not teach that everyone has to wait, but only tells us that the Apostles had to wait and in Jerusalem. It is a description, not a prescription.
When then does the Holy Spirit come? In the Bible, some people received the gift of the Holy Spirit before they were baptized (Luke 1:15, 41, 67; Acts 10:47), others at the laying on of hands (Acts 8:17; 19:6), and still others at other times. The timing is still up to God, not us. Our religious mumbo jumbo does nothing without God's say so. The rest of the book of Acts shows a variety of ways and circumstances under which the Holy Spirit was given and what the results were. There is no formula, but there are principles.
Rather than get side-tracked by the controversies of the church, we need to be about the mission of the church. It is not the how or when the Holy Spirit is given that is most important, but the why. He was given to give the Apostles power for their mission.
A key to proper interpretation of the Bible is to ask questions like: Who was this addressing specifically at that time? What did these instructions mean to people at that time? Only after we have satisfied those kinds of questions, can we then ask how it applies to us today? But we must be careful not to expect a full answer to many of the "Holy Spirit" controversies of today.
A lot of modern disagreements over the book of Acts are based upon things over which the Bible or history is silent. We need to learn to be mature Christians, who are satisfied with not being know-it-alls, who are willing to honestly answer, "I don't know" to a lot of issues. Immature Christians often believe that we need all the answers. Some people confuse confidence with being dogmatic, when in fact; God has purposefully hidden many things. I believe that he purposefully hides some details so that we will learn what the essentials of Christianity are, rather than chasing things which only tickle our ears and get us side-tracked into useless pursuits.
The most important thing is not whether we have a particular spiritual gift or not, or what mode of baptism we use, but what we are going to do with the Spirit of God. How are we using his power to witness the things we have seen? That can certainly include things in the Bible that the Holy Spirit has illuminated to us. (1) Are we using his power to witness at all? (2) Are we using his power to live selflessly?
Outro
We have looked at the passage introducing the book of Acts, and found that power was indeed given to the apostles and that it was power to be living witnesses of the things they had seen. This power is also available to us, and helps us do two things: (1) power to be witnesses of the things that the resurrection has done in our lives and (2) power to live a life of self-sacrifice.
Exercise
Take a popular book written by one of the lesser educated televangelists if you have one, or even one of the Purpose Driven series and see if you can discern any Scriptures ripped out of their context to vainly prove a point of the author's but which the Scripture in its context does not actually say. That ought to be easy.
Suggested Assignment
Choose one of Jesus’ parables or some other pericope that is easy to identify. Expound it using all the lessons you have learned to date. Read through the pericope using vocal variety and dynamic emphasis in appropriate places. Prepare a powerful conclusion and arresting introduction.
Lesson Outro
In this lesson we have seen what a pericope is, why the use of a pericope is a superior preaching method, how to choose a pericope and how to make it come alive. A lectionary series usually contains suggested pericopes not just for the weekly readings but also for the sermon. Use pericopes for most of your preaching and you will be safe and you will be doing your congregation a great service.
