Evangelists Conference: Preach it because it's hard

Fantastic day at the Evangelists' Conference yesterday with John Woodhouse, Principal of Moore College Sydney. The day was trying to get to grips with how to preach Old Testament Narrative evangelistically. And it came at a great moment for me personally.

I've just started to prepare for a sermon in a couple of weeks' time, and I was given the story of Jephthah from Judges 10-11. This particular judge is raised up by God to beat back the Ammonites, but as he goes into battle he makes a vow to the Lord that If he gets victory, he will sacrifice the first thing that comes out to greet him from home. Victory comes. But his only daughter comes to greet him, and is duly sacrificed.

Wow! Not exactly a comfortable story to find in the Bible, and, I guess, if we were the kind of people that pick and choose their Bible passages, I would be hunting for something easier and more comfortable to preach on. Something that doesn't raise so many difficult questions for me and my hearers.

But yesterday I was particularly nailed by the last point of John's first talk at the conference. In explaining why we must preach evangelistically from the Old Testament, he said that we must do it because it is hard! Yes, you heard it - not in spite of it being hard, but because it is hard.

Here's the rationale.

The Bible reveals God's mind about our world. It is God's truth. So when we find something odd, counter intuitive or just plain weird in God's word - assuming we have understood it correctly - then it we who need to change - not the Bible. Strange things in scripture reveal our ungodly thinking. And because preachers are called be part of the process whereby God changes people's minds (repentance), then we must never shrink from preaching difficult passages. Quite the opposite. We absolutely must dig deep into these parts of the Bible, and proclaim the uncomfortable truth from them.

That's another reason why a systematic expository preaching programme is so important. Given the choice we back away from passages like Jephthah. But if it is part of a programme, we simply cannot avoid it.

Still time to sign up or roll up for the Northern Evangelists' Conference tomorrow. It's at St John's Church Centre Hartford, Cheshire. You won't be disappointed!

Oh, and do pray for me as I prep this sermon - I'm finding it hard, but deeply challenging...