Preaching Daily - October 21

Today's Word for Pastors...

Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.
Hosea 10:12

Today's Preaching Insight...

Establish a Context When Preaching from Old Testament Narratives

A very important first step to making a section of Old Testament narrative "preach-able" is to read it in relation to its immediate context, the larger narrative within of which a given pericope is a part. For our purposes, we might note that there is an intriguing development in the Kings narrative wherein Jeroboam is appointed by Solomon himself to be the one who oversees the men whom Solomon had compelled to labor. Soon after, as 1 Kings 11:29-39 informs us, the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh goes out with Jeroboam from Jerusalem to tell him that YHWH has decided to tear the kingdom from Solomon and make Jeroboam king over ten tribes. In the space of about one chapter we learn that Jeroboam has gone from a man who had been "taken" by God and given all Israel to rule to a man against whom YHWH had sent his prophet in judgment.

What could bring about such a turn in fortune? What had Jeroboam done that turned him from God's appointed and approved king to God's enemy? Surely 1 Kings 13 gives its own implicit explanation, but we will endeavor to show that one way to feast upon Old Testament narrative is to take cues from its interplay with prominent themes that have been traditionally associated with memorable portions of other biblical narratives. Our second step, then, will be to discern any literary and cultural motifs that the writer may have woven into his work and filled with theological significance.

(Read the entire article, "A Homiletical Spiral for Preaching Old Testament Narratives" by Carlos R. Bovell at Preaching.com)

Today's Extra...

Self-Awareness

Some people already know they have a problem. According to an October 28, 2002 Associated Press story, a 22-year-old Green Bay man led police on a chase that often moved as slowly as 20 mph and ended in the Brown County Jail's parking lot. The man parked his pickup in the jail's lot, smoked a cigarette, got out of the truck and lay face-down on the ground to be arrested, police said.

He apparently told police he knew he was drunk and was going to be sent to jail, so he just drove himself there. The man also was arrested for cocaine possession and an outstanding warrant for a hit-and-run accident.

AP reports that the chase began around 1 a.m. An officer spotted the truck ignoring signs and going the wrong way on a one-way street. The officer chased the pickup, which often traveled as slowly as 20 miles per hour. A 21-year-old female passenger tried to get out of the vehicle several times and eventually bailed out near an intersection. She was not injured. The man's next stop was the jail.

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