Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast, making theology central. Good afternoon, everyone. It is Saturday, July the 19th, 2025. It is currently 2.52 p.m. Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. And for some weird reason, I feel like I said it's Saturday, June the 19th, and if I did, well, I'm out of my ever-living mind. It is July the 19th, 2025, 2.52 p.m., still coming to you live from the Theology Central studio, which is still located right here in Abilene, Texas. So I hope I was as clear as I could be right there because the last thing you want to do is, well, not to be clear. You want to make sure people understand. You want to make sure people can properly interpret what you are saying. I mean, don't we all desire to be clear in our communication? Don't we want to be properly Don't we get bothered if we are misinterpreted or misunderstood? We may get either bothered that someone misunderstood us or misinterpreted us, or we may get frustrated with ourselves because we think, I'm not being clear. In fact, I think it's fair to say, I think a lot of conflict that occurs with people is because of communication, misunderstanding, misinterpreting, having just a, you come at the conversation with already a certain feeling, a presupposition, whatever the case may be, I think problems in communication leads to conflict. I think that's fair to say, right? There's got to be proper interpretation of people's communication or it leads to conflict. Well, the one thing I do know that in 2,000 years of, let's say, Christianity, there's been never-ending conflict because for some weird reason, we don't seem that we are capable and that we are we have the capacity to truly understand what God has given to us in his word. We misunderstand it. We misinterpret it. Everyone seems to think that their interpretation is right and everyone else's interpretation is wrong. There's just a host of those problems. And when we talk about those problems, inevitably, I'm going to use the word hermeneutics. Right? Hermeneutics. And that the problem is people don't understand hermeneutics. And because they don't understand hermeneutics, they lack the skill, they lack the ability to then properly interpret what God has said. And because we lack that ability, then there's this miscommunication, misunderstanding, which leads to conflict and which leads to division, which is exactly what happens in our interpersonal relationships when our communication skills break down. So in some ways, it just follows the same thing that happens everywhere else. But this is a major problem. And we've been talking about it a lot recently. Lots of episodes dealing with hermeneutics. And you've heard me express my frustration. You've heard me express my irritation with the entire thing because it comes down to it, and we've talked about this, the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation. I'm not saying this is what was intended, but this is the unintended consequences. We rejected the authority of the church. We said we no longer need an institution to have the authority to interpret the scripture. No, no, no. We can remove it from the institution. We can give it to the individual. We no longer need a pope. No, no, no. We become our own pope. So we threw out the institution, we threw out the individual, and we've given now the power of the institution, the power of the pope to every single person. So every single person becomes their own pope, their own magisterial authority, their own church, and they get to open the Bible and say, this is what it means. Then they can turn around, judge, Anyone else's interpretation say, your interpretation is wrong, your interpretation is wrong. So not only do they have the power and the authority to interpret, they then have the power and authority to tell everyone else that their interpretation is wrong. They declare what is right, they declare their dogma, and then they anathematize anyone else who disagrees. And this has led to nothing but chaos and confusion, and there's no way to get around it. So you say, well, how can we fix it? Well, we need hermeneutics. But the thing is, there's not even agreement on hermeneutical systems. So we've been talking about all of this. I offered some resources, a course. I talked about a very famous book in the realm of hermeneutics. We did an overview of that. In fact, at some point, we're going to be doing some more work on hermeneutics. But everything, all of that discussion, all of that frustration, all of that communication, whether it was understood or not, was interrupted in a sense by an email that I received on July the 17th at 10 55 p.m. July the 17th at 10 55 p.m. I received an email and as soon as I got the email was like, oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no. This is probably going to be bad. This is going to be bad because most of the time if I get an email or I get a comment on YouTube or a comment that shows somewhere else on some other platform, Typically, it's going to be some kind of criticism, right? Because people don't agree with me. They think I'm wrong and they think they're right. Or they don't like my communication style. In fact, I had a YouTube comment recently, you just need to get to the point. You spend too, and they just, and I'm like, okay, well, I'm sorry that I don't broadcast and communicate in a way that's to your liking. I'm sure you can find a broadcast that will. Because what am I supposed to do? Apologize and grovel that I don't broadcast the way other people want me to? No, forget that. If you don't like my style, well then move on. But it just comes down to this. I think I'm sharing this to, to try to make this point that even communication style can greatly impact how one perceives or how even one interprets what you have said. So this problem of interpretation impacts every area of life. We could really expand this into a full-blown discussion. But all of our discussion about hermeneutics was interrupted by an email that I was worried was going to be negative. But let me go through some of this, because there's a question they ask. But I want to kind of give you the context here. I'm going to pretty much read this straight through. I don't think there's anything here that would be any personal information. If I see anything like that, I'll skip it. But for the most part, I'm going to give you the context so that we get to the question. Because they ask a question. that I had not really considered. And so I will at least want to give it a fair discussion in this episode. So here is how it begins. I'm just a simple lay person who discovered you a couple of months ago. Now, let me stop right there. I don't believe that there are simple lay people versus those who are not so simple. I believe that in a roundabout way, everyone who's a Christian, we're all simple lay people. We're all trying to figure this out. When it comes to Christianity, whether you have been to seminary, whether you've been to Bible college, whether you have studied for 15 years, or whether you've been saved for two days and you've studied for 15 minutes, we're all just sinners trying to figure this all out. And 2,000 years of church history will prove this. No one has it figured out. Not anyone. Everyone thinks they're right. Everyone interprets the Bible in a way that is right in their own eyes. They then think they're authoritative. It's nothing but mass confusion, disagreement, fighting, and arguing. So, we're all simple laypeople to some level. But I know what they're saying, but I just, from a more, I think, deeper philosophical level, we all should just see ourselves as simple laypeople just trying to figure this out. We open the Bible, and we try our best to figure it out. It says, I appreciate your episodes. Oh, OK, well, that's good. At least someone does. And then it goes on to say, for context, I also listen to things like the White Horse Inn. I love The White Horse Sin. I have recommended that podcast. I do get frustrated, just for full transparency, because a lot of times, like, for the full episode, you can, you know, become a reformer for whatever, $20 a month. I don't like when people put content behind paywalls, but maybe they've stopped doing that, you know, if they have. But, so, they listen to The White Horse Sin, think biblically, and then they revisit audio courses. etc. Not really any sermons, and they put LOL. That's interesting. I don't want to extrapolate from one email some like, oh, here's a trend, but I am curious with the rise of philological podcasting, right? Philological broadcasting, where there's discussions about theology and hermeneutics and ecclesiology and eschatology, whatever the focus is, all of these kind of very focused type podcasts, or some that are maybe more open to just all kinds of different things related to Christianity, the Bible theology, church history, etc., depending if it's very specific or more vague, the rise and the availability of all these different podcasts. I wonder if Christians are more prone to listen to those things versus listening to sermons. I wonder which has the most. Do churches who upload their sermons, do they get more listens versus those who do podcasting? I would be interesting to note—I mean, well, again, I hate—all right, technically, just make sure we make this clear. Anyone who uploads their sermons online and there's an RSS feed attached, you're a podcaster, even though you're—no, I'm not. I hate podcasting. Your sermons are online. There's an RSS feed. I can subscribe to it via any podcasting app. You're a podcaster, no matter what you say, okay? So from a technical side, everyone who puts their stuff online is a podcast. But I understand what they're saying. These more podcast-like broadcasts versus just sermons online. But if people are not listening to sermons, I wonder why. Now, based off my experience, I can see why because sermons drive me to the point of insanity. But okay. All right. But I thought that was an interesting note. They go on, they give some information about what they do for a living. It says, They started consuming certain type of audio content about a specific thing related to the field they work in. And then with the advent of podcasts, they did this while commuting, mowing the lawn, etc., etc. And a lot of people do listen to podcasts while mowing the lawn or commuting or different things along those lines. It says, I've been interested in armchair theology since I was blessed with a thorough church history course in high school. Wow. That's awesome that you were able to get a good church history course in high school. So I searched for resources back when the internet became a thing. I found biblicaltraining.org, Covenant Seminary back in the early days with full seminary audio courses made available online for free. Oh man, I remember those days. I loved it. those early days when you had so much content out there for free. Nothing was behind a paywall. So many of these seminaries and even universities, they would put all of their just lectures online. You could go from Notre Dame University to MIT, Harvard, and many of them may still do that, but just all of the stuff was right there. And you could just, you could listen to a philosophy course, a history course, ethics, you just name it. And you could, oh man, I consume that stuff like, I mean, like I was a drug addict, it was the greatest thing. And then over time, things started being pulled and put behind a paywall, put behind, for $4.99 a month, for $5.99 a month, for $6.99 a month, for $37.99 a month. And it's like, ugh. And it's like, I want access to all of this stuff. But I remember those days as well. And I hope the people who did not, I always got frustrated with the people who weren't taking advantage of it. I'm like, here's this new technology. We have all this stuff available and you're watching cat videos and you're like, nevermind, just okay, all right. They're arguing about who knows what on social media. I'm like, you could be listening to a lecture. So I'm right there with this person, very much loved that and still look for many of those types of things. It says tons of top-notch classes were free and they absolutely were. Even before AI tools like eSword Bible study software and Blue Letter Bible, We're there, absolutely, Blue Letter Bible app. If you—this person only discovered me a few weeks ago. If you listen to this podcast, I've—man, Blue Letter Bible app, I've used forever. You'll hear me when I play—whenever I mention a Greek word or a Hebrew word, I will play literally the audio from Blue Letter Bible app so that it's, you know, you get to hear it stated correctly, not from a West Texas— Perspective, okay. So yeah, love those tools. Love those tools. It says, there was a wealth of resources made available for simple folk like myself exploded with the internet. And it's absolutely true. When the internet came about, it just exploded with content. 24-7 you had access to literally everything. Now you still have access to so much. Don't let me take away from what's still available. I don't want to be ungrateful for what's there. It's just so much of it became monetized and put it behind a paywall, put it behind this. And you'll notice that today when you're looking for certain news articles. How many times? Well, to read this news article, you need to pay $4.99 a month or $1.99 a month. And I understand that you can't just make everything free for everyone because, well, then who's going to pay the bills? But man, after a while, you're like, well, I can't pay for everything. So then you're just like, well, I'll just try to get the information some other way. But there was a time so much was just available everywhere. And it was awesome. And yeah, and I hope people, if you didn't take advantage of it, take advantage of what you have today before it's gone, because you never know. It says, so the wealth of resources exploded. It says, I don't know the biblical languages, just lots of computer languages, but very nice to be able to cross-reference with Strong's, yes, the interlinear stuff. And I use that as I can as a springboard to go deeper. I have no vanity that I can parse all that stuff right with no formal training, but maybe it can help me ask better questions and seek better other scholarly resources from investigating it. And look, and this is just a key with biblical languages. I think everyone needs to understand this. Most pastors They may be very good, right, at being able to say a Greek word correctly, stating it accurately, coming across authoritatively, coming across as if they're well-educated, but don't always fall for that, all right? And here's the reason why. Most pastors may only have very limited study in any of the formal languages. You may get a year of Greek. I mean, most pastors are not pursuing major study in Greek or Hebrew. They get a basic course in it, maybe. Very little. Now, some may pursue biblical languages, but if you're going to put forth your study into biblical languages, most likely you're going to then move more away from ministry and being a pastor, and you're going to probably move into something more either become a professor, you're going to be some kind of study of biblical languages, you're going to be moving in some kind of more of an academic direction, not ministerial, pastorial, you know, that kind of thing. And so the average pastor, you learn some basic stuff, And some of them pick it up very, very well, right? And they will continue to work to hone their skills, and they will be very good at pronouncing it. But just make sure you know, just because someone says the Greek word correctly, states it very authoritatively, sounds very educated, don't always fall for, they're the ones who are the expert on the words. Because I cannot tell you how many times I've heard sermons from people who sound so well-educated in the Greek or Hebrew, And then you'll go, hmm, you'll do like a little bit of research and go, okay, I may not be the expert. They may know more than I do, but I've already, within about 30 minutes of research, found out there's about a thousand people who disagree with everything they just said about that Greek word or that Hebrew word or whatever the case may be. Yeah, by all means, respect scholarship, respect those with training. Obviously, you know I yell and scream about the lack of that, but just also know sometimes it's not accurate, especially within the church. Basically, my view is anything within Christendom, whether it's a Christian book, whether it's a Christian broadcaster, whether it's a pastor. I don't trust almost anything said because I've been in Christianity for too long and heard too many lies and misrepresentations and just half-truths and... Everything from church history, things about the church fathers, I mean, you just go on and on and on. And in many cases, they use Greek almost sometimes to keep people away from the truth, right? In other words, well, in Greek, if you knew Greek, you would see this. I mean, we could get into the whole thing about the different kinds of love. Remember, we talked about that, that all the pastors preach, and you come to find out, no, those words are actually synonymous and interchangeable, right? And remember, we talked about some of those. Those are common things where pastors will use the original language, and they're actually leading people to a complete misunderstanding. But I do like the fact that there's no vanity. Look, here's the thing, no pastor, nobody even seminary trained, none of us should have the idea that we somehow can parse all of this stuff right, even with formal training. Because just think of all the people with formal training, and yet there's still no agreement. There's lots of people with formal training completely disagree on every area of theology. So formal training doesn't fix any of that. I do like the fact that the more you learn, the better questions you can ask. That's good. And then you can pursue other scholarly information to see what you've discovered versus what they found. It says, anyway, I thought about sending this when you had your fairly recent I'm done episode. And that depression episode was several weeks before the Now Faith Screamer. I like the way they described the now-faith person, okay. And it says, I got busy and then you shared a paid course on hermeneutics, which I did. And it says, hang on if I can find out where it's important here. So I thought I'd finally type all of this. While I wanted to share some resources, I also wanted to ask this. Now here's the question. Here's what I wanted to get to. As it feels important to what you recently highlighting, apologies if you have this in the vast back catalog somewhere and I haven't gotten to it. That's perfectly okay. Over 4,000 episodes, don't expect people to find everything. And even if I discuss it, for those who are new, any... past discussion should never be taken into consideration, and a present discussion. Because whatever I'm talking about today has to be considered from today's studies, today's thought, not yesterday's conclusions. Yesterday's conclusions are of no value today. You know what yesterday's conclusion was good for? Yesterday. Today, even if I came to the conclusion three weeks ago of whatever the conclusion was, when I get to today, if I'm going to study the same subject, I need to look at it again. Because that's the only way you grow and the only way you move forward. Your past understanding is of no value in the present. It really isn't. So it says, when a big seminary and it names a certain seminary, for example, has a proper hermeneutics course, which all the students take, what is the homiletics course situation like there? Is there a disconnect at the same institution between the disciplines? Would their homiletics courses contradict their hermeneutics courses? I guess I'm asking, does sermon prep go off the rails right after preacher training inception and homiletics or later when it makes contact with the real world speaking and the gravity of all that prior art there in the experiential, devotional, charismatic, anti-intellectual styles? All right, so basically what they're asking is you have hermeneutics class. Hermeneutics class is telling you, giving you the principles, the methods, the skill to interpret the text. Here's how you interpret the text. Now, just got to make sure you realize when you go to seminary, most of the time, most seminaries, when you walk into class, every class is going to be taught through the theological team that seminary represents. So if you go to hermeneutics class, this is already problem number one. They're not going to give you, here's, now they may mention all the different systems of hermeneutics, but inevitably they're going to say, these are all wrong. This is the right one. Okay. Instead of training people, I think really what you need to do is You need to train people in every system of hermeneutics so that you know the history, you know how it works, you know what it leads to, so that you're an expert in every one of them, okay? But that's a whole different discussion. But you're going to be trained in a certain system of hermeneutics. All right, so hermeneutics class is about learning those skills. Now, once you walk out of hermeneutics class, you go down the hallway, three doors, take a right, now you're in homiletics class. I don't know if that's where it's actually located in your particular seminary or Bible college, but you go into homiletics class. Now, homiletics is all about how to preach, how to present your teaching. And in many cases, homiletics, it's more about style It's about connecting with the people. It's about communicating clearly. It's not so much about how to interpret. So what they're asking, can something like, you learn great hermeneutics, you learn this stuff perfectly, but when you get to homiletics class, does everything kind of go off the rails? And what you're learning in homiletics ultimately will triumph over, will conquer, will defeat the good hermeneutics. Maybe you're taught perfect hermeneutics, but somehow in homiletics, now learning to preach a certain way, you're not so worried about homiletics. Now, what I will say is this. I think there's much here to consider, and we're going to talk about this in great detail, and I'm going to put forth at least some ideas and some concepts. I will say this. When you listen to sermons, what I will just refer to—we'll just refer to this the problem of homiletics. I'll just call this the problem of sermons. Because sermons are designed a certain way to connect to people, to be practical, to be interesting, to be engaging. They have a certain time limit that you have to get through. There's a certain kind of expectation that people have for sermons, right? And so you have to take all of this homiletical information and homiletical knowledge, and you've got to condense it into what is, well, works on a Sunday. Because you'll hear people say, well, you can't just do that on a Sunday. And you'll hear in homiletics class, you've got to preach to a certain level because you'll lose your people. And there's all these considerations. And I think inevitably sermons are the death are the death to proper biblical understanding. I think the more sermons you listen to, the more biblical it is. I think sermons actually lead to biblical illiteracy. If you say, what causes biblical illiteracy? I will say sermons. Because sermons are about being practical. It's about making it about the people. It's about application over interpretation. It's about style over substance. It's about being engaging over then being exegetical. It's about eisegesis versus exegesis because you read things into it. You've got to come up with a good illustration and stories, and you've got to make sure it flows properly, and you've got good transitional points, and you've got to make eye contact, and you style. What how your hand movements and the sound of your voice and do you project do you need a little bit more? Bass in your voice all this just it's all stylistic. It's like getting ready for a performance I think sermon and and how many I mean for someone who reviews sermons Constantly. My sermon reviews, if I've pointed anything out, is how these sermons literally keep you away from the actual meaning of the text. You'll listen to a sermon, you're like, whoa, there's like 500 things in this text you didn't even bother to deal with. And look at our sermon, the sermon reviews we've done in Isaiah 40 through 55. How in the world does Isaiah 40 through 55 become about anybody other than the people in Babylonian captivity? I don't have a clue what's going on there. It's about us. It's about infant baptism. It's about what are you doing? It's insane. I think it's the problem of the sermon. But I still think there's a hermeneutical problem as well. How does these work together? So let's try to consider this, right? So we could ask this, hermeneutics versus homiletics, are they disconnected and seminary? All right. Let's go with the idea that yes, in some cases there is a disconnect. All right. Let's at least, let's put forth this theory. I'm not going to be dogmatic about this. I'm just going to put forth the theory. All right. in many institutions, many seminaries. students typically take hermeneutics, which is a course, and they usually take this course early on. It's typically in your theological education. You're going to take a hermeneutics course pretty quickly, right? Pretty early on. I mean, you're going to do your Old Testament survey, New Testament survey. You're going to have some of your basics, but you're usually going to get a hermeneutics class early on, right? And this is usually rooted in most conservative schools in a historical, grammatical, At least those principles are going to be there, historical grammatical principles. It's going to be rooted in biblical languages, and it's going to be rooted in trying to give you some interpretive controls. Hey, these are the concepts that control your interpretation. You can't go past these controls. They're like the gate. They're like the little rumble strip on the highways when you're driving along and you move a little too far to the right. I'm telling you to get back on. All right, hermeneutics tries to give you its, you know, interpretive rumble strip. It tries to give you these basic things to help you stay, hopefully, on the highway. Now, you're going to get that class pretty early on, and you're going to be getting hermeneutical principles throughout everything you do. If you're doing Old Testament survey, New Testament survey, hermeneutical principles are still being articulated in those classes, even if they're not explicitly stated. Now, while all of that's going on, at some point later, you're gonna be taking a homiletics class, especially if you're going into ministry, you're gonna be a pastor. Now, these are focused on the structure of your sermon, the delivery of your sermon, audience engagement, how to craft your sermon, Now, hermeneutics is all about how to take the text apart. But now the sermon comes along, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I know you're learning all of these great hermeneutical principles, and I know you could dig in, and you could articulate this, and you could take this apart, and you could go in depth. Does that really work in a sermon? I mean, are you going to lose your audience? You've got to keep them engaged. They didn't come to church for a seminary lecture. They didn't come to church for an academic study. They came to be moved. They came to be challenged. They came to be convicted. And so this is what you'll hear constantly in homiletics. Preaching is not teaching. Preaching is to move them, to confront them, to convict them, to challenge them. Teaching, you do that in a different context. And so sometimes it will try to make this distinction. And I think that's the death knell then to biblical interpretation. Because no matter how well the pastor can interpret the text, if his preaching is not so much about expounding and taking the text apart, but it's about all of these preaching stylistic issues, then you're going to not do justice to the text. I'll never forget the very first homiletics class, preaching class. It wasn't called homiletics. I think they just called it preaching. It was like preaching 101, whatever. Now, one of the favorite things I loved about that is you would walk into that class and then they would be like, okay, They had a bowl with all these folded pieces of paper inside the bowl. You would go up. Each person would be called up individually. You'd close your eyes, reach in, pull out a piece of paper, you open it up, give you a text of scripture. Then you were to leave the area, and you could go to anywhere in the building by yourself. I think you had like 30 minutes, maybe—I think maybe an hour. You had an hour to come up with a sermon, and then you came back and preached the sermon. The sermons could be like 15 minutes. I don't think they were allowed to be more than 20. I think that couldn't even be more than 15. I think it was 15. So you had to give some kind of discussion or preaching on it, right? Then you were graded and challenged on your ability. Now, and every time I did so, I was never criticized for the interpretation I gave. I was never criticized for the way I structured. You know what I was criticized for? This is how useless it was. You need to add a little bit more bass to your voice. You need to add a little bit more bass. It's like, what? So now this is performance? I gotta sound different. You need to sound more like a preacher, more ministerial." And so from that point on, I'm like, no, I'm not gonna play your games. I'm gonna speak in my style and my way. And if people don't like it, tough, because I'm not here to do a performance. That's one of the things about podcasting. I've tried to do that same thing. I'm not going to edit this to death. If you watch some YouTube, you can see all the jump edits. That thing's been cut and spliced 15,000 different ways. No, no, no, no, no, no. You get the real me. That thing is recorded live. Every mistake I make, every time I stumble over a word, if I get confused, you hear it because it's not supposed to be a stinking performance. It's supposed to be communicating what's in the text. So I'm not saying all homiletics classes are that bad, but many cases that's what it becomes about. Now on paper, this is important, the hermeneutics class and the homiletics class would claim to be scripture-centered. The methodology, I think that we could say the methodologies, let's do it that way, I was going to say the methods, but the methodologies and practical goals I think often diverge. And I think sometimes drastically, right? Because there's a methodology to hermeneutics and there's a methodology in preaching. And I think, and then your practical goals. What is your practical goals from hermeneutics? What is your practical goal in preaching? What is the method in hermeneutics? What is the method in preaching? And I think these can diverge and they can sometimes be, you know, an ocean apart. I'm not saying always, but I think in many cases. So I think there is a disconnect to some level. But this is me. This is not even about homiletics class. This is just me about sermons in general. I think sermons in general tend to keep people from the text because there seems to be a different motivation in it. And I know this, because I abandoned the kind of this—I mean, I've always been somewhat skirted around kind of what a sermon was like, but I started moving further and further away from the basic sermon structure. And the more I moved away from the basic sermon structure, the more criticism I would receive, and the more people left the church, because they wanted it to feel like a sermon. And I'm like, well, what do you want in a sermon? And they could never really articulate, but I know what they wanted. They wanted a nice introduction. They wanted three little points with a powerful conclusion. They wanted it practical, applicable, sounded like a sermon, felt spiritual. There was a feeling, a vibe they wanted, versus me going an hour breaking things down in the most academic way possible. People don't want that in church. And I get it, but my thing is, well, you get the sermon. If you get the sermon, I think you get biblical literacy with it. But let's, so there's kind of like, that's kind of the disconnect. Let's talk about, I think hermeneutics teaches restraint. This is my theory. Hermeneutics teach restraint. Homiletics teaches performance. And I've already alluded to this, but I think we can make this like its own point. Hermeneutics is to teach restraint. Homiletics is about performance, all right? Hermeneutics at its best, when it's really done correctly, it's emphasizing the intent of the author, not of the speaker, not of the preacher, but of the, what is this text? What did the author intend in this text? It emphasizes historical context. It emphasizes awareness over the genre that we're looking at at a particular text. What's this genre? What is this? Is this poetry? Is this narrative? It gives us textual boundaries. We're not to go beyond the text. hermeneutics is to train everyone—the student and everyone sitting in the pew—what does this mean based on what it says within the historical setting in which it was said? It's not about, what does it mean to you? What does it mean to me? It's not about, well, what does our church think this teaches? What is our theological team? We don't care about theological teams. We don't care about what anybody thinks. What does the text mean based on the words that were used, based on when it was said? Now, homiletics, in contrast to that, that's hermeneutics, homiletics comes along and it's like, it emphasizes application. You gotta make it applicable, you gotta make it practical, you gotta make it relevant to the people. Well, if I'm trying to make it practical and relevant to the people and I'm preaching Isaiah 40 through 55, a good portion of that may not be that practical or relevant to us because it's about what happened to people in Babylonian captivity, unless you, in many cases, do damage to the text by inserting us into it. Homiletics will emphasize emotional connection, alliteration, storytelling, and relatability. Basically, in hermeneutics, what does this mean based on the words that were used and based on when they were said? In homiletics, it's like, how do you make this message impact your audience? How do you make it land with the audience? How do you connect with the audience? How do you move your audience? How do you make them like you're preaching? How do you? It's about the audience. Hermeneutics is about the text. Homiletics is about your audience. It's about how to deliver to the audience, how to keep them engaged. Not too many hand motions. Some hand, make your hand motions mean something. When you move, don't walk too much. Don't walk too little. Make sure it's purposeful, but don't look mechanical. Look natural. Make sure you make good eye contact from the left of the room to the right of the room. All the little things, you know, kiss some babies, shake some hands and sell some t-shirts or whatever the case you're supposed to be doing. So I think this results in a situation where a student can be taught to interpret a passage one way in hermeneutics, but then you're kind of coached to preach it entirely different to create impact. Hey, I know you were taught this in hermeneutics, but it's not like the homiletics professor says, now guess what guys, everything you learned in hermeneutics, forget, we're in homiletics today. It's not that it's like this, major conflict outwardly, it's just this like almost unconscious sub, you know, it's just like this, almost as subversive in a way that you don't really know what is happening. You don't catch on to it, right? You just know, okay, I've learned what this preaches, but I learned what it means, but how do I get this across in my sermon within this time limit, within this structure? Because you know the time limit and the structure almost inevitably is going to cause you not to be able to go in depth on some of this. But people will say the pulpit's not where you go in depth with all of that stuff. Well, then where am I going to go in depth with it? Well, you could hold special classes on a Thursday night. Oh, so you're saying that only the people who come to class on Thursday night, they get the in-depth stuff, but the people sitting in the pew on Sunday, They don't get it. You know what I would tell the people? Don't come to church on Sunday. Come on Thursday because Sunday morning is like kiddie church and it's a waste of your stinking time. You can get more information listening to, who knows, a podcast on the way to church. So hermeneutics teaches restraint, homiletics teaches performance. Now, I think a third concept here is that the disconnect, I don't think it's an academic disconnect. I think it's a structural and philosophical disconnect. See, I think in some cases, seminaries pay lip service to hermeneutical integrity. I think churches pay lip service to hermeneutics. I think churches love to say, we want to interpret the Bible. We don't want to use eisegesis. We want to use exegesis. They will use all the right terminology. Maybe in their statement of faith, it sounds so good. Sometimes you've got to listen to the sermons, and you can listen to the sermons and sometimes go, wait a minute. that you talked a big game, but what I'm hearing delivered is not matching all the talk you gave. So I think seminaries pay lip service to hermeneutical integrity, but homiletics professors often come from a different culture. They prioritize pastoral insight and rhetorical strategy over strict exegesis. It's all about your rhetorical style, your delivery, your tone, your enunciation, and all of those other kinds of things. So practical ministry pressures will override textual fidelity. So students will be told things like, This is good exegesis, but you'll lose your people. Hey, that's sound exegeticals work, but you're gonna lose your people. They're not gonna want that. You're gonna just lose them. And I'll never forget, I'll never forget, I'll never forget. So we were doing a lengthy study. I'm gonna reach down and grab my Bible. I'll never forget this as long as I live. Now, the people left my church, which, you know, clearly they weren't the right fit. But if you look in the book of Psalms, you'll notice that in some of these Psalms, there's these, what we'll call them, chapter headings. these chapter headings, right? So we were taking one of the chapter headings apart. We spent an hour taking the chapter headings apart. And I was also discussing that there's some theories, right? There's some theories that the chapter heading, say, that's under Psalm 46, actually belongs to Psalm 45, and the chapter heading for Psalm 45 actually belongs to 44, and that we, because There's a lot of, like, when were the chapter headings—remember, the little chapter headings in many cases were not a part of the original. So when were they added, and were they supposed to be the heading, or were they kind of supposed to be the footnote? Right? So there's some dispute over this, and I went through all of these theories. Well, basically, in the middle of all of this, someone basically in the middle of my sermon was like, when are we going to get to something more practical? I can't remember their exact words, but basically, this is a waste of time. Why are we doing this? Why are we covering this? I'm like, why are we covering it? I don't know. Everyone who owns a Bible, they see that chapter heading. Don't you think we should try to understand how they got there? What they're possibly telling us? Are they useful? Have we misinterpreted them as being giving information to the psalm that we're reading and not the previous psalm? Does that work? No, no, they didn't want any of that. Of course not, because they come to church not to stinking learn anything. They just want a little level of spirituality so they can pat themselves on the back and go, I go to church and I'm such a good little Christian. I don't know anything, but I go to church. Well, congratulations, because I'm glad you go to church. How about we do something when we're there? But people don't want that. They don't want anything. That's why the whole church structure, I think, is such a waste of time and money. Because all this money goes to build buildings, support all of this, for what? For sermons that are not even at an 8th grade level. In many cases, they're like elementary school. and they bypass over major textual issues. Like, you know, like if we're in Genesis 1, 2, and 3. Well, Genesis 1 through 11. What genre is Genesis 1 through 11? What genre? Some of you interpret it as a historical narrative. You do realize that there's no agreement in Christianity over that, right? Not everyone believes Genesis 1-11 is a historical narrative. In fact, many would argue the way it's actually written has more in common with Hebrew poetry than it does narrative. the way it's structured, the phrases that are repeated, the way it has some of the hallmarks of Hebrew poetry. Well, if it's Hebrew poetry, do we interpret Hebrews 1 through 11? Now, see, for me to even mention that, someone will say, liberal Bible denier. It has nothing to do with denying the Bible. It's like, we have to figure these things out. But you can't discuss that. Because in many cases, the church, they don't want to get into all those complicated issues. They don't want to deal with all those issues. So they oversimplify and they preach one narrative that supports their theological team. And it's just, it's so misleading. But in homiletics class, that's good exegesis, but you're going to lose your people. I know you can. The minute you say, well, you know what, I'm not going to worry about the style and the structure, and I'm not going to go, I'm going to dig into this this morning. Yeah, you're going to lose your people. And guess what the one thing churches can't do is lose people. Why? Because people mean money. And if you don't have money, you can't pay the bills. So then what matters? exegesis, in-depth study, hermeneutics, or I got to preach in a way to keep the audience because the audience equals money. And without money, the buildings can't be paid for, the air can't be kept on. Gotta keep the people coming in. So the minute it becomes, and you can't deny that that's the case. If I get in my car, back up, drive out of my residential area, take a left, get to the stop sign, take a right, go down the access road, get up on the highway, go what, two miles down the road maybe, maybe two miles, there's a relatively new Church of Christ on the right-hand side. It's a nice building. I don't know how, property, how much it paid for the land and the building that had to be pretty astronomical. I'm assuming they're still paying it off. Well, guess what they can't do? They cannot lose people. They've got to maintain a certain number of people. Once those kind of financial considerations, then you can't be like, we're going to worry about going in depth. We're going to worry. And so in many cases, it's not a battle between hermeneutics and homiletics. It's a battle between hermeneutics and the business of keeping a church open. Which is, what is the business in keeping the church open? Don't tell me, oh, we're here to please Jesus. Oh, give me a stinking break. You're there to please the people who give money. You don't please them that don't give money. I know that. I've ticked people off on this broadcast, and then you'll get the message, I'm not supporting you anymore. Not supporting you anymore. Okay, well, just lost another supporter. So what do I do? I've got to find out what all the people who give money actually want, and then I've got to ensure I give them what they want. You see, you're almost like, to be in ministry, you're really at the mercy of those who give the money. That's why you don't want to know who gives the money. Make sure you give them something for Monday. That's another thing you'll hear in homiletics class. You've got to make sure you leave the people something for Monday. And my thing is, what did I leave them for Monday? I left them, hopefully, the best hermeneutical exegetical understanding of the text that we covered that they have ever heard in their entire life. That should give them plenty for Monday. But what do they mean? You've got to give them three practical points. You've got to give them three things to do. be a better husband, so this week you're gonna do this, you're gonna do the dishes, and wives you're gonna, you know, whatever. Moralism, that's what it comes into. Another thing you'll hear, you need to make the text come alive. Do you ever hear sometimes people say, you make the text, like if you're a preacher, they'll say, you make the text come so alive. You know what that usually means? Do you know the reason why the pastors made the text come alive? Because they take the text and they turn it into a story and they do storytelling. You know what many cases they do when they tell those stories that make the text come alive? They paint this beautiful word picture. They create the scene. But you know what many cases they're doing? They're embellishing. They're adding to the narrative of things that may not even be explicitly in the narrative. But it makes a good story. It moves. It keeps people engaged. It moves them to the edge of the pew. And they're focused. And they don't fall asleep. And they love it. You're wonderful. But did they actually hear the text? And my thing is it's not my job to make the text come alive because I believe that it's supposed to be living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. So I don't make it come alive. It's supposed to, supposedly, it's already alive. But isn't it interesting that what makes it come alive in the minds of many Christians is a pastor who tells really, really, really good stories and can take a biblical text and retell the story in such a dramatic way that it makes it comes alive? Well, then that means I guess the text was dead to you, but my understanding is it's supposed to be alive whether I say a word about it or not. So this is what happens. Homiletic form shapes interpretive outcome. Homiletical form shapes interpretive outcome. But shouldn't the interpretation shape the homiletical form? Or shouldn't interpretation If interpretation is the main goal, then the homiletical form should be, I'm here to explain the text to you. Now, I'm not saying that when a person explains the text, they should do so in a very, you know, Buehler, Buehler, is it Buehler? I think it's Buehler. Whatever it was, okay, was that Ferris, Ferris Buehler's Day Off, right? Wasn't that from that movie? Okay, see, now I'm getting my cultural references wrong, and it's an outdated one, so it's not even relevant. Okay, but the point is, you don't have to do it in such a monotone way. Sometimes I'm like, pastor, are you, Are you dead? I mean, are you happy to be in the pulpit? You can give interpretation with passion and zeal and hopefully be engaging as long as you're being real though. Now, I will say this, the pastors that I may feel like, are you alive? Are you okay? Annie, are you okay? That's another cultural reference. Are you okay, Annie? Annie, are you okay? Are you there? But you know what? If that's them being real to who they are, they should be as dead and as monotone and as bland in the pulpit as possible, because that's being them. So I'd rather someone be monotone, bland, and quote-unquote boring, but they're being authentic. versus someone being all dramatic but not really being them. And for me, to try to be monotone would be very inauthentic because I'm just loud and passionate about anything anyway. So, the real breakdown often happens on contact with the church world. So what happens is when everything really falls apart is when you make contact with the church world. See, even if a student graduates with an honest effort to bridge hermeneutics and homiletics, once they step into congregational expectations, what do you think congregations expect in a sermon? They want devotionalism, even if they claim they don't. They want moralism, even though they say they don't. They want something practical, even if they say they don't. Oh, people love to show up and go, I want a church that teaches in-depth, I want a church, and they talk a big game. In my experience, 23 years, the people who show up talking the big game of all that they want, you give them what they want, they'll be the first ones to walk, turn their back on you, stab you in the stinking back, and leave, and then gossip and slander you for 27-something years. Well, they showed up, I'm so sick of church as it is. I'm so tired of the fun food and fellowship. I want a place that preaches the word of God. And you give it to them and then they're like, well, why don't we do this? And how come we never do this? And why don't we hold hands and sing Kumbaya? And why don't we do this? And why don't we... Well, I thought you, I thought what you want, nevermind. So you can show up from seminary ready to go, guns loaded, you're ready to rush hell with a water gun, you're ready to go. And then you get there behind the pulpit and all of a sudden, within seconds, you get complaints and you get criticisms. Because what the people in the pew want is they want what they want. What they really want is a streaming service. They want to sit down in the pew, grab their remote control, turn on their Netflix, go to their profile and pick what they want. And they don't care if what they want is not what the person next to them want, because everybody is stinking selfish and all they care is about them. And if you don't give them what they want, they criticize and they'll leave your church. So you can show up knowing hermeneutics all day long. Doesn't matter. Once you step into the pulpit, you now got the expectations of the congregation. And no matter what they say, their expectations is always much more, it's always gonna be less academic, less exegetical, less hermeneutical, less theological. It's always gonna be much more devotional, moralistic, practical. And that's reality. Sometimes you'll get demands once you get into the real world, because you're gonna get in there and you're looking at your church and you're gonna be like, wait, why? And just depending on the era you're in, right? Wait, Chuck Swindoll, everybody's listening to him, or John MacArthur, when everybody was listening to him, or Mark Driscoll, when everybody was like, whoever the celebrity pastor of the time is, you'll get some kind of pressure. Well, maybe that's the way we need to preach. Maybe I need to preach like that. So you also get this like, Do I need to modify my preaching so that we can gain people and not lose people? And the people in the pew, if many of them like this famous pastor, they may kind of want preaching like that. A lot of people, when they fell in love with MacArthur, wanted churches that preached like MacArthur. That's what happens. So basically, once you become a pastor, you're forced to confirm, well, I should say it this way, you are forced to conform or risk alienation, risk becoming irrelevant, or risk being replaced. So when you become a pastor, you're forced to conform, or you're gonna risk alienation, irrelevance, or being replaced. or, to quote the famous lyric, conform or be cast out. That's what's going to happen. It's just like high school. It's just called church. So the disconnect becomes normalized, basically. Faithful exposition becomes almost almost like the indie version of preaching, right? It's the alternative version. You've got mainstream, you've got pop, you've got the pop world, but if you really want to go into faithful exposition, you're the irrelevant indie band that no one's ever heard of. It becomes a niche. It becomes almost like this odd thing, and it does not become the standard. So sermon prep goes off the rails at the point of homiletics in many cases. So if we were to say it this way, does sermon prep go off the rails right at preacher training, inception, and homiletics, or later in contact with the real world? I guess we could ask the question that way, right? So where does it go wrong? Does sermon prep go off the rails right at preacher training, In other words, as soon as you walk into a homiletics, I think it really goes off the rails when you come in contact with the real world. I think homiletics class may kind of already kind of set you up, but homiletics is trying to train you how to perform. And then when you get to the real world, you're like, okay, this is what the people want. And when you get enough criticism, you're going to have to make a decision. Do you fight these people or do you surrender? I think the seed of contradiction is planted in homiletics courses that don't enforce hermeneutical integrity. But I think the fruit of the compromise matures when preachers are rewarded for abandoning good interpretation in favor of crowd-pleasing delivery. Because if you will please your crowd, if you will make them happy, if you will make them love what you do, they will praise you, they will encourage you, and they will give and support you. But the minute they don't like you, they will discourage you, they will attack you, they will gossip about you, they will stop giving to support you, and they will leave you faster than trying to get out of a place where a plague just broke out. So I think the church in many cases has created a system where the ability to interpret scripture faithfully Maybe we can say it this way. The church, in a sense, has created a system where the ability to interpret scripture faithfully is taught, but the ability to preach scripture faithfully is penalized. I think that's fair to say. So the church, in a sense, has created a system, especially with the seminary system, where the ability to interpret scripture faithfully is taught. There is hermeneutics courses, hermeneutics textbooks. There's all of this information out there teaching you how to interpret the text faithfully. But the ability to preach Scripture faithfully is going to be penalized from those sitting in the pew. I think that's the best way I can describe it. In one sense, the church gives you a system where, hey, we're going to teach you how to interpret the Scriptures faithfully, and here's all these resources. Even the emailer gave me all kinds of resources, lots of good resources. Great, they're there. But once you step into the church and sermon structure, I think you're penalized for it. You're penalized for it. Now, I will say this. That's just, everything I stated there, even though it came across somewhat dogmatic, I stated at the beginning. It's kind of a theory. I'm putting forth a theory there. I'm not being dogmatic about it. I'm giving that for you to consider. But I will say this. The things that we have witnessed with how pastors handle the Sermon on the Mount, which is insane the way they handle it. It's like they don't understand it as law. It's not teaching us something we can do. giving us a standard in which we cannot keep, and the only one who's ever kept it is the one who preached the sermon, and that's the whole point, is to drive us to him, and that his obedience to the sermon he preached is imputed to our account. The way that's handled, the way the farewell discourse is handled in John 13-17, the way Isaiah 40-55 is handled, I think a lot of what we hear in those sermons, I don't think those are homiletical issues, though. I think those are hermeneutical issues. I really do. Now, you could say, well, maybe they're motivated to preach some of those passages the way they do so because they're supposed to make it practical and make it about us. I guess you could—maybe that's the thing where, which one is to blame? Is it a lack of hermeneutics or is it bad homiletics? Or is it homiletics canceling out good hermeneutics? I think it's always going to be blurred, but I know this, there's a problem. And I will constantly say the sermon structure is the death to biblical interpretation. All right, well, I wanted to address that email. I hope I went through that carefully. I know I could have organized it a little bit better, but hey, there it is. All right, so thank you so very much for listening. We'll talk more about hermeneutics next time. If everything works out tomorrow, we'll be in Isaiah 44. I think that verses six through eight is the next section in our ongoing verse-by-verse exegetical study of Isaiah 40 through 55. So we'll definitely do that. Maybe tomorrow we'll also do some work on hermeneutics. I don't know. We'll just see how tomorrow goes. All right. Thank you for listening. Everyone have a great day. And, well, you determine. Where's the problem? What's the problem? Hermeneutics? Homiletics? you figure it out. God bless.