They race to seminars, gather in living rooms, glue their ears to radios, take mail-order courses, collect tapes, glut their bookshelves with multiple volumes, traipse across the country to encampments, and rivet their eyes to blow-dried television preachers. People hunger for a word from God. Even a near-sighted insensitive observer of American religious culture could hardly miss the hunger for a word from God on the part of Christian people. Pulpit committees scour the nation and then complain to the seminaries, “Where are the preachers?” What they mean as often as not is, “Where is someone who can relate the word of God to my life?” Markus Barth has gone so far as to call some contemporary preachers traitors to their task.^[1]Markus Barth, “Biblical Preaching Today,” Review and Expositor 72 (Spring 1975):165.

What is the task of homiletical interpretation of scripture?

What is wrong with preaching? Every generation produces a covey of critics.^[2]Clyde E. Fant, Preaching for Today (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), pp. 1-10. He chronicles an amazing variety of criticisms of preaching, especially those during the so-called “Golden Age” of preaching. In 1976 Middleton blamed the weakness of preaching on the debasement of language itself, the loss of rational thought in American culture, and the failure to relate preaching to the political needs of the times. He even blames the “musicalization” of American culture which constantly assaults people “in restaurant, elevator, subway; there is no escape.”^[3]Robert G. Middleton, “What Is the Matter With Preaching?” Religion in Life 45 (Autumn 1976): 299. Yet in his entire study there is not a single mention of the loss of the Bible in contemporary preaching.

Bell more accurately diagnoses the disease by comparing the contemporary sermon to surgery without a knife. In an immaculate and fully supplied operating room, a highly trained team of surgeons prepares the anesthetized patient for surgery. The chief surgeon picks up one instrument after another and makes futile passes over the patient. This goes on for an hour, after which the patient is wheeled out to a recovery room. Before long, it becomes obvious that the patient is getting weaker. Indeed, the surgeon has many such patients showing no signs of recovery. At a general staff meeting to investigate the problem, an unpromising, dull intern dared to say it:

“Mr. Chief of Staff, “he said, “I have scrubbed in on a number of these unsuccessful operations, and there is one thing I have repeatedly noticed: the surgeon does not use the knife. There is no incision, no bleeding, no going down to the source of the illness. Nothing is removed. When the patient leaves the operating room, he is in exactly the same condition as when he came in.”

Bell proceeds to accuse the contemporary sermon of a similar fault. Distinguished men in beautiful facilities never do the very thing that is at the center: get out the word of God to the people.^[4]L. Nelson Bell, “Missing One Knife,” Christianity Today 21 (August 1970):34-35.

Across his distinguished career Jesse James Northcutt has sought to help preachers avoid the ridiculous posture of a surgeon without a knife. Central to his concern stands the interpretation of scripture in preaching. Against the backdrop of his commitment to a contextual, grammatico-historical exegesis, this article addresses those concerns of biblical interpretation as it relates to preaching. This modest effort does not intend to discuss exhaustively trends in contemporary preaching. That has been done recently and well by others.^[5]Harold T. Bryson, “Distinctive Trends in Contemporary Preaching, “The Theological Educator (Spring 1973):119-35. This study confines itself to several selected concerns shared by Northcutt and the author.

For that purpose, this study will first place Northcutt in the larger framework of twentieth-century hermeneutics. It will demonstrate his adherence to the grammatico-historical interpretation of scripture. Next, the devotion of Northcutt to contextual concerns will demonstrate the critical importance of biblical context in preaching. The major portion of the article deals with grammatical and syntactical interpretation. Especially significant is emphasis on the necessity of biblical languages for mature interpretation. Finally, the article addresses the necessity for imagination in interpretation.

 

Hermeneutical Context in Homiletical Interpretation

Northcutt’s career spans a period of upheaval in the world of biblical interpretation as it relates to preaching. The evangelical scholar Walter Kaiser speaks of a “current crisis” in exegetical methodology. The entire landscape of biblical hermeneutics has shown “such tremendous convulsions that the old landmarks cannot be lightly assumed anymore.”^[6]Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward an Exegetical Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1981), p. 23. Any assessment of Northcutt’s career and influence at Southwestern Seminary demonstrates his commitment to the “landmarks” of historical-grammatical-syntactical-contextual interpretation of scripture. He has insisted that scripture has a single meaning anchored in objective history and that the interpreter can discover the one meaning the author intended. While informed and aware of the New Hermeneutic of German coinage, he has insisted that the text of the sermon (be it verse, paragraph, pericope, chapter, or biblical book) communicates the meaning of the author and the interpreter can understand that meaning. In his text Northcutt explicitly endorses the “grammatico-historical theological interpretation” of scripture. He traces this to the patristic interpreters at Antioch, John Chrysostom, and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Additionally, he contends for theological analysis of texts:

Theological interpretation is an essential part of grammatico-historical interpretation. True interpretation seeks to understand the truths of a passage of Scripture by careful grammatical analysis against its historical background.^[7]H. C. Brown, Jr., H. Gordon Clinard, and Jesse Northcutt, Steps to the Sermon (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1963), p. 54.

Northcutt’s view has largely shaped the approach to hermeneutics at Southwestern and among practicing Southern Baptist pulpiteers. It is in order to set him in context in the larger flow of hermeneutics this century. The eighteenth century witnessed a revival of classical philology which emphasized the historical and grammatical context of biblical narratives. This benign movement was shortly threatened by a prejudicial approach. The Enlightenment mentality insisted that a “presuppositionless ” interpreter accept only what commended itself to his enlightened intellect. This rejected “transcendent, supernatural, miraculous revelation, and an objectively authoritative scripture.”^[8]Searl F. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, vol. 4: God Who Speaks and Shows (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1979), pp. 496-97. Reflecting classical philology, William Ames (1576-1633) produced the standard work on hermeneutics used at Harvard for generations. This seventeenth-century divine stated the case for conservative orthodoxy: ” . . . there is only one meaning for every place in Scripture. Otherwise the meaning of Scripture would not only be unclear and uncertain, but there would be no meaning at all – for anything that does not mean one thing surely means nothing.^[9]Kaiser, p. 24

This view prevailed with variations until the incursion of Friedrich Schleiermacher’s subjectivism in the nineteenth century. He contended that although grammatical interpretation focuses on the objective meaning of the text, beyond that there rests a vast possibility for subjective understanding of the text on the part of many readers. His whole view of language opposed Ames’ view that an author’s words have a given meaning which can be understood. Adolf von Harnack, a mentor of Barth, contended that a primitive, non-supernatural Jesus took historical precedence over the supernatural Christ of Paul. Barth labeled Harnack’s hermeneutic as a one­ sided personal prejudice. Whereas Harnack insisted on the “scientific” possibility of absolutely objective exegesis, Barth insisted that every interpreter has presuppositions which color his thinking.^[10]Henry, p. 297. To that extent Barth stood with orthodoxy. He departed classical evangelical orthodoxy, however, in that he did not consider the biblical writers to be “divinely entrusted transmitters of a verbally inspired Word of God objectively given in Scripture.” For Barth, an ongoing sporadic divine encounter is the locus of revelation, which in turn depends for its validity on one’s trusting response. He sacrificed “the objective inspiredness of the Bible and linked the reality and truth of revelation, not with grammatical-historical exegesis of a divinely vouchsafed body of authoritative teaching, but rather with one’s inner personal response to a revelational confrontation assertedly attested in Scripture.”^[11]Ibid., p. 298. Barth insisted that revelation was given in superhistory and that the Word of God gave meaning to otherwise disjointed biblical works. Since revelation has no objective form, for Barth no amount of higher criticism can undermine it. For evangelicals, in fleeing Harnack’s classical liberalism, Barth ran too far the other way.

In essence, these two views typify the crisis of hermeneutics that spans Northcutt’s distinguished career: Can the preacher trust the text as it stands, or does he have to look under it, behind it, or through it to some other meaning? In a real sense, the discussions of this century have repeated in different words the ancient contest between Alexandria and Antioch: Does the text say something in its own integrity or must one assign his own meaning to it on the basis of any number of scientific or dogmatic presuppositions? The Reformers themselves battled to free the text from the bondage of allegory only to find it chained again in the twentieth century to the presuppositions of the New Hermeneutic. The struggle seems to be fought again, only in different language.

A brief discussion of this century’s hermeneutical debates lies far beyond the scope of this article. One fears that any discussion at all in such brief space runs the risk of caricature. Nevertheless, a few of the representative voices should be heard to set Northcutt in context as a conservative scholar devoted to a reverent historico-grammatical hermeneutic.^[12]Stephen Neill, The Interpretation of the New 11:stament 1861-1961 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), pp. 1-336. This book has no peer as a comprehensive record of the developments in hermeneutics of the last century. Hans Georg Gadamer (b. 1900) codified the subjective approach to interpretation in what has generally been called the New Hermeneutic. This is a vague, catch-all term for a wide range of neo-orthodox and existential approaches to scripture typical of German and later American interpretation in the twentieth century. Although the term as it is now used technically refers to successors of Bultmann, its roots go back to Gadamer. The prose of many such existential interpreters is notoriously difficult to decipher. One wonders if there is a single meaning to their prose, not to mention the biblical text. A few landmarks along the way help place Northcutt’s hermeneutic in historical perspective.

Albert Schweitzer’s Quest for the Historical Jesus (1906) set much of the agenda for the subjectivism and relativism to follow. He insisted that it was impossible to know anything about the man of Nazareth, and that Jesus himself did not understand what he was doing.^[13]Richard R. Caemmerer, Sr. “The New Hermeneutic and Preaching,” Concordia Theological Monthly 37 (February 1966): 100. This led to an abiding distinction in that school between the “historical Jesus” and the “kerygmatic Christ.” Preaching related not to factual events of history but to the language of faith embedded in the church’s entirely subjective belief in a non-verifiable “resurrection event.”^[14]Ibid., p. 101. Rudolph Bultmann abhorred any attempt to corroborate a preaching of faith with an historically verifiable fact. He insisted, “Faith does not at all arise from the acceptance of historical facts.”^[15]Ibid., p. 104. Gerhard Ebeling continued in the same direction with the insistence that the identification of the text with “Word of God” placed the understanding of both in jeopardy. The interpreter’s hermeneutical task is to help the past “word event” to move from the text to the current moment of proclamation. The word of God, according to Ebeling, aids our understanding. “The primary phenomenon in the real understanding is not understanding of language, but understanding through language.”^[16]Ibid., p. 105.

The impact of Bultmannian hermeneutic on mid­ twentieth century American preaching may be measured by the Lutheran Carl E. Braaten. He is convinced that many preachers experience the misery of a bad con­ science in preaching. The reason for this uneasiness is turning the gospel into law. ”A bad conscience and the law are always correlative. “And what is this awful bondage to the law? It is “when preaching takes the form of an account of historical facts which must be accepted even though it is highly doubtful [to Braaten] that they ever happened.”^[17]Carl E. Braaten, “The Interdependence of Theology and Preaching,” Dialog (Winter 1964): 12-13. Indeed, Braaten even goes further than Ebeling who at least insisted that one must look for the self-understanding of Jesus in order to have faith. Says Braaten, “I regard this as a reactionary tendency that can only introduce once again a great uncertainty into the preaching of the Christ and place faith in reliance upon the shakiest foundation.”^[18]Ibid., p. 20. For Braaten any statement which identifies the Christ preached with the historical Jesus of scripture undermines faith and belongs to law rather than to gospel. Braaten laments that “most of the preaching of the church remains in bondage to an uncritical conservatism.”^[19]Ibid., p. 12. Braaten’s outrageous divorce of the Christ proclaimed from the historical Jesus Christ of scripture has fortunately never occurred to most Baptist proclaimers of the word. In the Northcutt tradition of interpretation for preaching, the objective integrity of biblical history stands without question.

Northcutt’s response to this movement was unqualified:

Denying the historicity of basic elements of the kerygma robs Christianity of its historical ground and character. It makes the ‘modern scientific mind ‘ the criterion by which Scripture is discerned rather than judging scientism by the Bible.^[20]Brown, p. 53.

When the Baptist pastor stands before his people, he confronts a congregation that is most definitely interested in whether there was indeed an open and verifiably empty tomb. They are not faintly interested in whether or not Jesus “rose into the kerygma.” They believe he ascended to the right hand of the Father from which he will come to judge the quick and the dead. More than once it has been observed that Bultmann’s hermeneutic totally misses the mark for evangelical scientists in the so-called hard sciences. The present writer’s experience argues that Christian chemists and physicists, far from wanting the gospel demythologized in a vague pulpit rehearsal of uncertainties, are the ones most interested in how, when, and where the events of the gospel really, historically occurred. Markus Barth agrees concerning the homiletical bankruptcy of some such critical tools “developed in order to do justice to the questions and needs of ‘modern ‘ humanity. . . . What was once modern is now decried as outmoded in the light of recent linguistic, psychological, and ethnological tools.” Barth calls for a new respect in preaching for “the relevance of the texts as they stand.”^[21]Barth, p. 163. Those who preach in the Northcutt tradition may echo the words of James McKee Adams in an address to the student body of Southern Seminary in 1922:

We have not yet found any flaws in Jesus; we have not yet seen the radiance of his life and words dimmed by searching inquiries of a jabbering criticism whether such criticism emanates from a Tubingen school in Germany or from the radical press association of America. . . . We have no occasion to raise here the slogan for a movement “Back to Christ” for the simple reason we have not abandoned him.^[22]James McKee Adams, “The Preacher and His Message,” Review and Expositor 20 (January 1923): 11. This address to the student body focuses on biblical authority and inerrancy. He defends four proposi­tions necessary for the preacher.

Granted that the reader takes the text seriously as the word of God which cannot err, does that solve the problem of hermeneutics? Hardly. For the most conservative and cautious interpreter the distance between the study desk and the pulpit seems to be a great chasm. Getting the word from Palestine to Pittsburgh, from Jerusalem to Jersey, challenges all those who confess that God’s word cannot err. Often between the study desk and the pulpit the text “seems to have passed through a mysterious underground process of filtering, like the Danube River, whose water, it is true, re-appears—but then it is flowing into the Rhine.”^[23]Manfred Mezger, “Preparation for Preaching – The Route from Exegesis to Proclamation,” trans. Robert A. Kraft, in Translating Theology into the Modern Age (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 160. This represents one of a few efforts to move from the study to the pulpit. Particularly helpful are the remarks about translating exegesis into pulpit exposition. No one bridge helps the interpreter cross that chasm. He may study the history of preaching and see how others crossed it. He may study homiletical principles codified in a hundred books. He may observe contemporary examples of preaching. Yet having done all that, the central act of preaching may elude him: getting the word of God out of the then into the now in this Sunday’s sermon. One may count on his fingers the number of books that even attempt to bridge this gap between exegesis and pulpit. That is the very act of interpretation for preaching.

Some may assert that the ability to make the word live in the act of preaching is a gift. Mezger correctly asserts, “This is connected with the conviction that the crucial factor in preaching, just as in art, cannot be taught because it must be ‘given’ a person; but also with the conviction that a great deal can be taught, and that the position as well as the situation of the sermon can be changed for the better, if the preparation for preaching is properly carried out.”^[24]Ibid., p. 162. Even the most gifted preachers admit they do not always leap that chasm between then and now. Luther himself concluded sermons with the confession that he had only partially come to grips with the text. Praiseworthy was his practice of con­fessing, “We will hear more of this at another time. May God grant that others after me do better.”^[25]Ibid., p. 168. When have you heard a sermon end with that confession?

Nevertheless, the preacher like Jacob has entered into a life-long wrestling match with the text. He wrestles with the text to compel it to give him the twofold blessing: what it said then and what it says now. In the Northcutt tradition, the preacher does this by addressing the literary-contextual, historico-grammatical, and mood­ imaging aspects of the text.

 

Context

Barrett recalls a discussion between his father and a noted Methodist preacher of an earlier day.

“When I have found a text,” said my father, “I always begin by studying the context in order to make sure of its original setting and meaning.” “When I find a text, ” replied his companion, “I never look up the context for fear it spoils the sermon.” That is dishonest; that is handling the word of God deceitfully.^[26]C. K. Barrett, Biblical Problems and Biblical Preaching (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964), p. 37.

As Robinson notes, “setting the passage within its wider framework simply gives the Bible the same chance we give the author of a paperback.”^[27]Haddon W. Robinson, Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1980), p. 58.

You would hardly read a single paragraph on page one hundred of an Agatha Christie novel. Yet countless preachers drag texts out of their context every Sunday while the text screams, “I don’t want to go; please don’t make me leave here.” Faw accuses the whole Christian world of having the “dread disease of fragmentosis subjectivosis . . . fragmentizing the Bible along the lines of their own subjective predilections or theological leanings.”^[28]Chalmer E. Faw, A Guide to Biblical Preaching (Nashville: Broad man Press, 1962), p. 58. This fragmenting tendency may have been unintentionally aided by the French printer Robert Estienne (Stephanus) who versified an edition of the Greek Testament in 1551. The Geneva Bible (1560) and the King James Version (1611) followed. The indention of each verse, however, leaves the erroneous impression that every verse stands on its own without context. While this may be true of John 3:16, it is hardly the case of a single verse in Leviticus, for example.

Northcutt by teaching and example demonstrates the significance of biblical context for preaching. He defines several levels of context:

The immediate context consists of those verses or paragraphs immediately preceding or following a passage. The remote context is that portion of Scripture less closely related to the passage and may embrace paragraphs, a chapter, or even an entire book of Scripture. Beyond the remote context there is the larger context of the development of thought in the Bible itself. The principle of progressive revelation calls for a passage being interpreted in the light of its relation to the stages of development of biblical writers.^[29]Brown, p. 55.

Northcutt’s masterful sermon on Phil. 1:1-12, ”A Drama in Christian Joy, ” demonstrates throughout the excellent homiletical use of each contextual level mentioned above. The sermon opens with a reference to the book context, emphasizing the recurrence of “joy” throughout the four chapters.^[30]Jesse Northcutt, “A Drama in Christian Joy,” in Southwestern Sermons, ed. H. C. Brown, Jr., (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1960), p. 161. Northcutt then moves to the canonical context, relating Philippians to Paul’s expressed desire to preach in Rome (Rom. 1:13). He then turns to the historical context of the imperial guards who watched Paul, describing their position in Roman society. Next, he touches the immediate context in Phil. 1:15-16 concerning those jealous of Paul.^[31]Ibid., p. 162. He returns to the historical context with a description of Nero. He concludes then relating the canonical context, his imprisonment in Rome (Rom. 1:16). The entire message is virtually a reverent meditation on the levels of context of the Philippian letter.^[32]Ibid., p. 165.

The canonical, remote, and immediate literary context of a passage figures as the first step in the evangelical approach to historico-grammatical interpretation for preaching. The canonical context locates the passage in question in the larger stream of biblical revelation. For example, in preaching from Nehemiah the interpreter must first ask, “where does Nehemiah’s ministry and message fit into the larger history that began with God’s call of Abraham and culminated in the ministry of Jesus?” The fact that Nehemiah lived in Artaxerxes’ winter palace at Susa around 444 B.C. locates him in time and space in the unfolding sequence of God’s mighty acts. To fail to locate Nehemiah in the post-exilic period of restoration would be fatal to an appropriate understanding of his work. Yet canonical context is more often than not ignored in preaching.

This does not call for yawn-provoking lectures on ancient history. A few apt phrases in the introduction of a biblical sermon can set the canonical context in a memorable way. One might introduce a sermon from Nehemiah with the following contextual remarks:

Steve Allen hosted a captivating television program on the educational network. Each week he seated around the same table great figures from various centuries and diverse fields. He might host Alexander the Great, Woodrow Wilson, Flo­rence Nightingale, and Joseph Stalin. It would be ‘fascinating to gather around your table the great men who lived during the eighty years of Nehemiah’s life and ministry. You would seat the great Greek dramatists Aeschylus and Aristophanes, the noted historians Herodotus and Thucydides, as well as the philosophers Socrates and Plato. Yet sitting with them would be a rugged Jewish layman with a single vision. While they spoke of philosophy and history, Nehemiah would tell how he built the wall that mattered for God.

Without being heavy-handed and with some imagination, the interpreter may present such contextual material in creative ways.

The remote context concerns the location of a passage in the total scheme of a biblical book. The thoughtful expositor should always indicate that con­text in his message, either in the introduction or within the exposition of the passage. For example, in 1Pet. 4:14 the apostle warns, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you” (NIV). The interpretation of this verse should not ignore the remote context in 1 Pet. 1:6, “. . . though now for a little while you may have suffered grief in all kinds of trials.” These two passages have a mutual and reciprocal interpretative relation in context. You can understand neither without the other. The first clarifies the breadth and purpose of the trials. The latter passage underscores the nature of the trials, literally “fiery trials” at the hand of local police action and persecution among the recipients. The exposition of either verse would be anemic without recourse to the other in remote context.

The immediate context involves those verses directly attached to the passage being preached. A book such as James presents a particular challenge in determining and communicating immediate context. Some feel that James is no more than a book of detached aphorisms, sapiential literature such as Proverbs with little contextual relationship. Others feel that James does have con­textual relationships. James 1:2-8 addresses the multi­ colored trials of believers, with the admonition that they ask for wisdom in the trials. James 1:9-11 contrasts the humble poor with the arrogant rich. On the surface these two paragraphs appear to have no connection at all. On closer examination, however, James picks up the word “trial” again in 1:12. This should tip off the preacher that 1:9-11 deals with two specific kinds of trials: the trial of affluence and the trial of poverty. Where there appears to be no context, there indeed is a contextual relationship that makes the preaching of 1:9-11 more than random remarks about the rich and poor.

In addition to the literary context discussed above, the historical context also demands attention. Sometimes this research is given the name “isagogics.” That simply means studies which “lead into” the understanding of a passage, typical isagogical concerns are the author, recipients, date, occasion, peculiar historical and geographical concerns, and any other related matters in the deeper background of the text. In a recent excellent exegetical manual, Fee suggests the interpreter attempt to discover these matters himself in the preliminary reading of the text.^[33]Gordon D. Fee, New Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students and Pastors (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 15183), p. 34. This volume provides an exceptionally clear step-by-step procedure for the exegesis of the He provides both a long form and a shorter approach for the busy pastor. The table of contents enables the reader to turn immediately to any question he might face in treating the text. While this should be attempted, the busy pastor will also find these matters fully discussed in standard Old and New Testament introductions as well as in the front matter of any monograph on a biblical book.

Ignoring context produces sermons that would sometimes be humorous if they were not so tragic. Years ago there was an occasion which honored the anniversary of a religious magazine, whose logo was a beacon. At the commemorative banquet there was even a beacon revolving on top a stand.. The theme for the evening honored the journal as “a beacon atop the impregnable rock of Holy Scripture.” The message from the motto was grounded in Isa. 30:17, “One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on a hill.” Totally ignoring the context in Isaiah 30, the leadership seized on the single phrase, “a beacon upon the top of a mountain.” In fact, that phrase in context makes exactly the opposite of the intended assertion. In context, Isaiah warned the inhabitants not to make an alliance with Egypt out of unbelief in God’s power to deliver. If Israel made such a pagan alliance, her enemies would so overpower her that Israel would be abandoned on a mountain with no defense in sight. Indeed, she would be as exposed and helplessly visible to her enemies “as a beacon on top a mountain.” One supposes that the patrons of the worthy journal did not actually wish to make the point that their magazine was a “sitting duck ” helplessly exposed to even the weakest attacker! Yet that is exactly the point of Isa. 30:17. Beware of context.

 

Grammar

Grammatical Elements in Interpretations

A respected Northcutt contemporary write, “Basic to all competent approaches in New Testament study is the historico-critical method. . . . It is the only method which keeps the exegete in continuous dialogue with the text he seeks to understand.”^[34]Ray Summers, “Contemporary Approaches in New Testament Study,” in The Broadman Bible Commentary, ed. Clifton J. Allen, vol. 8 (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1969), p. 48. The cornerstone of such methodology is the accurate examination of the grammatical constructs of the text.

The exposition of scripture cannot avoid the exposition of words. As such, the exegete-preacher must deal with the variables presented in the words, phrases, and clauses of scripture. At the most basic level, words have phonology – a certain sound. The English “amen” transliterates the Aramaic by the same sound. Hosanna is a rough translation of the Hebrew hoshea na, which means “save now”. Phonology seldom plays a large role in interpretation. Morphology means the form of a word. As such it plays a crucial role in interpretation. The declension of nouns and the conjugation of verbs reflect their morphology or form. Verbs vary in mood, voice, tense, person, and number. Nouns vary in case: vocative, nominative, dative, ablative, genitive, objective. Each of these influences the translation and interpretation of a passage.

Lexicology considers the meaning of words. As such it addresses etymology, which studies the roots or primitive meanings of biblical words. In Old Testament studies this involves the cognate languages. In New Testament, it involves the careful study of classical, hellenic, hellenistic, koine, and patristic Greek. Lexicology does not stop with etymology. It further studies the historical development of a word, its usage in various contexts, and comparative synonyms to distinguish that word from similar words. The responsible preacher must use all of these tools to establish the usus loquendi, the meaning of the words at the time of the author.

Three resources for lexicological studies aid the interpreter. The first of these are Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias. These provide general and specific treatments as well as further bibliographic information. Biblical word books and lexicons provide more specific explanation on individual words. These come in both single volumes that deal with more prominent words and multiple-volume sets on both the Old and New Testaments. Although dealing with the original languages, such tools may also help the English Bible student. A third source is biblical concordances. Although these do not give definition of words, they do demonstrate usage in context which may in fact give more definitive understanding than lexicons.^[35]John H. Hayes and Carl R. Holiday, Biblical Exegesis: A Beginner’s Handbook (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), p. 56. This book, although not as helpful as Fee’s, deals in individual chapters with form, tradition, and redaction criticism. As these critical approaches are not discussed within the limitations of this article, the reader might refer to Hayes and Holiday for an introduction to these disciplines.

Fee, in a recent concise handbook for exegesis, gives a helpful list of all grammatical concerns for the serious interpreter:

For nouns/pronouns:	case function(e.g dative of time, subjective genitive); also antecedent of pronoun
for finite verbs:	significance of tense, voice, mood
for infinitives:	type/usage: (e.g., complementary, in-direct discourse)
for participles	type/usage: attributive: usage (adjective, substantive) supplementary: the verb it supplements circumstantial: temporal, causal, attendant, circumstance
for adjectives:	the word it modifies
for adverbs:	the word it modifies
for conjunctions:	type (coordinate, adversative, time, cause)
for particles:	the nuance it adds to the sentence[36]Fee, p. 78.

It is beyond the scope of this study to list the staggering number of aids presently available to the student of English or Hebrew/Greek Bible. The explosion of biblical study aids gives to every student the most comprehensive tools in the history of biblical interpretation.^[37]Fee, Exegesis, and Hayes, Biblical Exegesis, give copious attention to hundreds of practical tools for biblical exegesis.­ More to the point, there exists a current crisis in grammatical studies. A trend in contemporary American theological studies is the neglect or elimination of biblical language studies. This writer contends that such studies are the cornerstone for continuing excellence in biblical preaching.

 

Biblical Language in Homiletical Interpretation

Northcutt believes that a background in biblical languages best prepares the exegete for the task of interpretation for preaching. His own background included theological, biblical, and linguistic studies. An examination of his sermons demonstrates a thorough grasp of the principles and practice of using the languages to undergird interpretation in the sermon.

Four and one-half centuries have passed since Erasmus wrote the Preface to his Greek Testament. In spite of the imperfections related to that work, for three centuries it was the standard for ministerial linguistic study. Erasmus exclaimed,

These holy pages will summon up the living image of Christ’s mind. They will give you Christ Himself, talking, healing, dying, rising – the whole Christ, in a word. They will give him to you in an intimacy so close that He would be less visible to you if He stood before your eyes.^[38]Eric C. Malte, “Preaching from the Greek New Testament, ” Concordia Theological Monthly 25 (September 1954): 656.

For example, in his sermon “The Forks of the Road” (Heb. 11:1, 23-27) Northcutt emphasizes strongly the refusal of Moses to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. “The word refused indicates that it was a deliberate decision of renunciation.”^[39]Jesse Northcutt, “The Forks of the Road,” in Chapel Messages, ed. H. C. Brown, Jr., and Charles P.Johnson, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1966), p. 111. He bases this interpretation, without doubt, on the aorist verb which emphasizes the punctiliar quality of the refusal in this context. This is only a single evidence of many which indicate his reliance on biblical languages in the context of his thorough commitment to the grammatico­ historical hermeneutic.

Earle Ellis decries that attitude toward biblical language which discounts it in the present clamor for immediate relevance. The view which discounts biblical languages as a basis for preaching leaves the student at the mercy of textbooks written on the high school level. “No minister who has -however long ago -learned Hebrew or Greek can ever be quite as susceptible as before to a simplistic misuse of the Bible.” Whether or not he uses the tool, he has been handed it; his attitude toward the text can never be the same as before exposure to biblical languages.^[40]E. Earle Ellis, “What Good Are Hebrew and Greek?” Christianity Today 26 (May 1972): 9.

Without some reference to the languages the minister cannot make a reasoned use of modern literature about the text, consult an analytical commentary, do a word study, or discuss a biblical concept such as “inheritance.” Further, he is impeded in the comparison of the multiple translations and paraphrases available today. Interpretation of scripture without reference to biblical languages “is like making a lemon meringue pie with a purchased pie shell, ready-mix filling, and aerosol top­ ping -one is ‘doing cooking’ without having to bother learning to cook.”^[41]Ibid. Needless to say, such sermonic cooking usually gives a case of homiletical indigestion. In law school understanding a case is based on a prior knowledge of political science and history. Medical school assumes a background of chemistry and biology. You would not wish to consult a physician whose only study involved bedside manners and prescription writing! The listening congregation deserves like attention to the language of the text.

Scholars often resort to metaphorical language to indicate the value of sermon preparation from the languages. No freezing or canning process can substitute for the freshness of a peach taken directly from the tree. Just as a rose begins to lose an indefinable something as soon as it is picked, even so the text loses something when cut from its roots in the language. In the Preface to his reference aid Vincent notes:

Even as nature fills in the space between the foreground and the background of her landscapes with countless details of form and color, light and shadow, so the rich details of the New Testament words, once apprehended, impart a depth of tone and just relation and perspective to the salient masses of doctrine, narrative, and prophecy. . . . How often a picture or bit of history is hidden away in a word, of which a translation gives and can give no hint!^[42]Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, Vol. I (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1946), p. xii.

Robinson uses a felicitous metaphor when he compares the difference between study and preparation in the translation and the languages to the difference between watching black and white or color television. You see the same show, but the difference is one of color and enjoyment.^[43]Robinson, p. 59.

Northcutt contributed the chapter “Interpreting the Text” to the textbook Steps to the Sermon, the standard text at many schools. There he insists, “To understand the text the interpreter must know the kind of language with which he deals, the significance of words, and the relation of the words to each other in the passage.”^[44]Brown, Steps, p. 56. He insists that the first step in interpretation must be attention to verbal analysis of the text. “Grammatical relationships within the passage must be clear if the passage is to be understood. Words mean what they mean as they stand in relationship to each other.”^[45]Ibid., p. 57. The interpreter of scripture must be an interpreter of words in every nuance and significance. This means more than a gift for pulpit gab. The expositor of scripture matures through years of careful and repeated treatment of the biblical languages.

The suggestiveness of careful exegesis for preaching should stand beyond need for demonstration. The obvious absence of such exegetical preparation from contemporary preaching suggests the need for some reminders. The preacher working on Rom. 12:1-8 finds a sunburst of meaning in the original text. When he confronts the exhortation, “Be not conformed: but be transformed, “he uncovers a dimension of understanding which transforms his sermonic interpretation with the slightest attention to the languages. “Conformed “renders sunschematizo and “transformed ” renders metamorphoomai. The exegete will discover that the former implies “to assume an outward expression that does not come from one’s inner being and is not representative of it but is put on from the outside.” The present imperative preceded by the negative me forbids the continuation of an act already in progress. He might translate, “Stop assuming an outward expression which does not come from within you and is not representative of you but is put on from without and is patterned after this age.” A wealth of ideas leaps from this suggestive word. Christians may masquerade as materialists in an outward conformity to current values, while contradicting the inwardness of their spiritual lives.

When the interpreter turns to metamorphoomai he discovers a like mother lode of meaning. The simple verb implies “to give outward expression of one’s inner being, that expression coming from and being truly representative of the inner being.” Sermonic ideas almost assault the exegete from this interpretation. The Christian life reflects an outward expression of an inner nature. Being always precedes doing. For a Christian, to be is to do. What is more, such attention to exegetical detail readily suggests illustrations. Who could not see in the chameleon’s ability to change color with the situation a perfect illustration of the two verbs above?^[46]Kenneth S. Wuest, “The Greek New Testament and Expository Preaching,” Bibliotheca Sacra 117 (January 1960):40-41.

It is especially in tenses that Greek cannot be matched in modern languages. One discovers a sermon in tenses in Rom. 6:13. The authorized version renders, “Neither present your members unto sin, but present yourselves unto God.” The first instance of “present ” is the simple present which denotes successive, repeated, continuous acts of sin -a way of life and a direction of habitual living. The second “present” pinpoints the aorist imperative, a supreme act of self-surrender which carries with it all future decisions.^[47]Malte, p. 658. Again, the exegesis suggests the illustration. When Hernan Cortez arrived at Vera Cruz with six-hundred soldiers, he burned his boats in the harbor before marching to the Aztec capital. That decision carried all else with it. It was indeed an aoristic act! One will find that illustrations grow from the native soil of the text and are truly illustrations, not impositions. The writer attests without question that the best illustrations in his sermons always come from suggestions embedded in the exegesis of the text.

An entire outline may take shape from the analysis of a few words of the original text. Consider 1 John 2:1b, “we are having an advocate face to face with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One” (author’s translation). The noun parakleton (advocate, counselor for the defense) repays any study in a theological dictionary. The present tense of the verb echomen proclaims that there is never a time when the believer does not have the advocacy of Christ. The preposition pros denotes the position of Christ in intimate, face-to-face relationship with the Father. The proper name Iesous, from the Hebrew for Joshua, distinguishes the human name of the man from Nazareth. Yet the word Christ with its ordinary usage in Johannine literature identifies that man of Nazareth as none other than the anointed Messiah, Son of God. As such he is dikaios, righteous in every respect before God.

From this emerges an exegetical outline determined and contoured by nothing but the text:

If the interpreter only adds fresh, crisp illustration and narrow, specific application, he may stand with confidence that every movement in the sermon finds direct biblical authority.

A single Greek finite verb may determine the outline and explanatory content of an entire sermon. Criswell, in his sermon “The Command to Be Filled with the Spirit, ” bases the entire sermon on the mode, tense, number, and voice of the verb in the famous command plerousthe en penumati, “be filled with the Holy Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). He begins with an etymological study of several Greek verbal synonyms to distinguish the significance of pleroo. Having done that, he develops the body of the message entirely from the morphology of the verb:

Here the entire sermon is dictated by the grammatical elements of a single Greek verb. Although not every message could or should be so tied to grammar, in this instance it provides masterful use of grammar in the treatment of a difficult and sensitive subject.^[48]W. A. Criswell, The Holy Spirit in Today’s World (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1966), pp. 132-36.

To present the findings of lexical, grammatical, and syntactical study, one does not have to sound like Browning’s grammarian -dead from the waist down. Studious preachers must always avoid the temptation to take the tools of the trade to the pulpit. Your congregation has a distinct lack of interest in the finer points of the pluperfect middle passive! When you visit the doctor, you do not expect him to bring out a cadaver and read over it some incomprehensible medical tome. You want him to tell you in plain language why you hurt and how you can get well. Likeise, the congregation expects you to deal with the details of the text, but they wish to hear it in the vernacular. Exegetes should never forget that koine Greek reflects the marketplace and the street­ corner, not the Academy and the Stoa of academic remoteness.

Among others, Ward demonstrates an engaging way to present the nuance of Greek verb tenses without the baggage of grammatical jargon. Consider his description of the difference between the aorist and the imperfect tenses:

We have the contrast between pinpoints and panoramas, between shooting Niagara and navigating the rapids. The aorist savours of the staccato, of the brisk striking of a note on the piano, whereas the imperfect holds down the keys of the organ. The aorist drops the curtain; the imperfect shows the players acting on the stage. The aorist corresponds to the short squirt from a boy’s water-pistol whereas the imperfect is illustrated by the continuous flow of a waterfall.^[49]Ronald A. Ward, Hidden Meaning in the New Testament (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell, 1969), p. 15.

Few congregations would object to the use of exegetical insight if presented with such lyrical and pictorial quality. The working pastor, stretched on the rack between returning telephone calls and running to the hospital, may immediately cry foul. Who can administrate the staff and also pour over grammars? Additionally, the pressured pastor responds, “There are so many good translations now. Why should I bother with textual analysis when so many more competent than I have already done the work?” This sounds good, but in reality argues for just the opposite. Since so many translators have become interpreters-in-paraphrase, as never before the pastor needs a basis for comparison. Some learned the languages as if their lifetime occupation would be to teach Classics or Semitics.

The busy pastor should not hesitate to use any “crib” necessary to get at the languages in a way he can use them. An interlinear, analytical lexicon, or any other of the many popularizing aids should be used without guilt or apology. In this regard the dictum is “Halitosis is better than no breath at all.” As Adams observes,

With all that a busy pastor must do, it is only right for him to employ every available aid that he can afford, to keep his hand into the continued use of Hebrew and Greek. He would be a poor steward of time and energy if he did not. Many men have lost any language ability they once had because they believed . . . that it was wrong to use anything but the naked text and the standard grammars and lexicons.^[50]Jay E. Adams, “Help in Using the Original Language in Preaching,” Journal of Pastoral Practice 3 (1979): 169.

 

Syntactical Analysis for Homiletical Structure

More recently a new emphasis in interpretation for the pulpit has emerged. This emphasis promises to make the biblical sermon not only biblical in content but also biblical in shape. The emphasis in question is that of syntactical analysis. The Greek preposition sun means “with” and the finite verb tassein indicates “to put” or “to place.” Thus syntactical analysis emphasizes how words, phrases, and clauses are placed with each other in shaping the biblical narrative. In other words, such analysis indicates in the flow of thought what the biblical writer considered dominant and what he considered subordinate.

Kaiser calls the tool for discovering the structure of narrative a “block diagram” or “syntactical display.” Fee favors the more exotic title “sentence flow schematic.”^[51]Kaiser, p. 99. See also pp. 165-81 where Kasier gives numerous examples of syntactical displays from both Old and New Testament passages in both original languages and English. Fee, p. 61. See pp. 60-76 where Fee presents numerous examples of his “sentence flow schematic” which is equivalent to Kaiser’s displays. By whichever name, the purpose is the same. These procedures yield a visual display of the dominant and subordinate thoughts of the writer. This enables the preacher to shape his outline by the contours of the biblical text.

Childs complained, “Much of the frustration which the preacher experiences in using commentaries stems from the failure of the interpreter to deal with the text in its canonical shape.”^[52]Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus, The Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster PRess, 1974), p. xv. The analytical, grammatical study of a passage fragments and atomizes the passage. The preacher must have a tool to put the passage back together. At the same time this tool should enable the preacher to move from the “then” of the text to the “now.” Syntactical exegesis helps in both regards.

If homiletical sins may be divided into venial and mortal, surely the outrages perpetrated in some sermon outlines border on the mortal. Does not the outline have a right to be shaped by the text as much as the content of the message? To be truly biblical one must contour the message around the contour of the text. Baumann reports an awful abuse of this principle from a sermon on the prodigal son:

The syntactical display provides a way out of this forced, artificial outline that often characterizes expository preaching. Consider the following block diagram of 1 Peter 1:3-5 as an approach to shaping a biblical sermon:

Note that the more dominant elements in the text tend to the left and the more subordinate elements tend to the right. The central idea of the text may quickly be discovered from the first three lines of the diagram: praise to God for the new birth. Immediately thereafter are four adverbial elements which qualify the new birth. One may readily discover a sermon structure based on the shape of the text itself. By generalizing the adverbial clauses into present, active, transitive statements, the preacher may move the text into the present. Consider the following sermon outline under the title “Birthmarks of the New Birth”:

Birthmarks of the New Birth
1 Pet. 1:3-5

Thesis: God marks every believer with identifying marks of the new birth.

I. The new birth marks you as the recipient of great mercy.

II. The new birth marks you with living hope.

III. The new birth marks you with a secure inheritance.

This simple outline demonstrates clearly how syntactical diagrams enable the preacher to discover the shape of the text and structure the outline of the sermon to fit that shape. For example, under III the preacher might wish to pick up the four strong adjectival elements which describe the “secure inheritance.” In speaking of the “incorruptible, undefiled, unfading, kept” inheritance, the expositor can give each adjective the play it deserves in the exposition without majoring on minors or skewing the entire outline to emphasize his favorite theme.

 

Imagination in Homiletical Exposition

The same sudden Sunday surprise has confronted every prepared preacher. Throughout the week he has labored over text, illustrations, and application. The sermon employs accurate exegesis, unimpeachable hermeneutic, and homiletic balance. Yet on Sunday morning it weakly oozes over the pulpit and hardly gets past the Lord’s Supper table. One carried the homiletical football to the opponent’s ten yard line, but failed to score a preaching touchdown!

What is missing? Often such fainting fits in the pulpit can be traced to no imagination in the presentation. Although every iota subscript of the text has been studied and the preacher has prayed for the anointing of God, no imagination has been used in the presentation. Northcutt’s sermon from Philippians 1 demonstrates the difference that imagination can make in preaching a well- known passage. Equally spaced throughout the sermon are passages demonstrating imagination in exposition. He uses the leitmotif of the cloudy day broken by the sun:

When the curtain rises on scene one, it is a dismal, dreary Monday morning in the city of Rome. The setting is the closely confining four walls of Paul’s rented house in Rome. With him is a silent, surly Roman soldier. It is one of those days when one awakens with a sense of depression and finds it easier to count his troubles than to count his blessings. Let’s suppose the apostle experienced such a day.^[54]Brown, Southwestern Sermons, p. 161.

Complimenting the exegesis in the midst of the sermon, Northcutt imagines:

Even as he began to think of God’s goodness, the sun began to break through the clouds and to shine through his small window, piercing the gloom and driving away the chill. There was growing light and warmth where once there was darkness and gloom.^[55]Ibid., p. 163.

Finally, toward the last movement of the sermon he once again uses the motif:

The sun which had filtered through the small window and had begun to drive away the gloom and chill of Paul’s prison was now shining in warmth and brilliance. Possible depression fled before its brilliance.^[56]Ibid., p. 164.

The violin virtuoso Fritz Chrysler had a flawed technique, but he was nevertheless a great violinist. His greatness came in the imagination with which he interpreted the music. The same may be true of preaching. Few combine Northcutt’s exegetical and theological skills with his bright imagination. Yet every interpreter may brighten passages with creative imagery that rests within the legitimate bounds of the text. Although this cannot be taught, Garrison suggests some steps toward it in the intriguingly titled chapter, “Think Yourself Out of Your Own Skin “:

1. Strive for the viewpoint of a child.
2. Seek the outlook of the novice.
3. Adopt the viewpoint of one who offends.
4. See from the perspective of various backgrounds.
5. Explore the non-human world.
6. Fashion metaphors and epigrams.
7. Extend your sensory experiences.
8. Go outside the familiar.^[57]Webb B. Garrison, Creative Imagination in Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1960), pp. 118-31.

He concludes with the exhortation,

Thirty seconds from every safe and familiar route, there is a strange world that includes good reasons for the heart to pound. To the degree that you deviate from the sheltered and familiar, you are likely to discover close at hand a new universe of experience.^[58]Ibid., p. 131

Surely this generation waits for the pulpiteers who can bring the Middle East of the first century to the Southwest of the twentieth century. Some now do and some now unknown certainly will. But those who do will approach the text with a reverent grammatico­ historical hermeneutic, an eye to the shape of that text and with the luminous quality of imagination that will cause yet another generation to say with those who heard that exposition by the Lord who gave the word, “Did not our hearts burn within us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:32 KJV).