Genre and Preaching Jonah

Ed Scott raises the important question of how one's understanding of the genre of Jonah influences the preaching of Jonah here. But unfortunately he does not really address the issue other than affirming the book's historicity. I agree with that the book reflects a historical event but that is not all there is to the issue of genre. And the issue is an important one as Steven Smith in Recapturing the Voice of God has pointed out, text-driven preaching not only preaches the text but also the genre of the text.

Questioning Apocalyptic

I have long struggled with apocalyptic both as a phenomenon and as a genre. It is not so much that I don't understand what is said about these but rather how the term apocalyptic and the baggage that comes with it is applied to books in the Bible (e.g., Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, Revelation). Too often it seems that the label is used much like a hermeneutical trump card. Merely playing the card means this or that. But labeling a text is not interpreting it. There also seems to be a fair amount of circularity in the process. Certain texts are determined to be apocalyptic and therefore we derive a definition of apocalyptic based on characteristics noted in the books. In turn we say that a certain book is apocalyptic because it fits a definition that we derived from books we have already determined were apocalyptic. I hope that makes sense. In any case, Paul Henenbury raises some issues here that resonate with me. But I will have to wait until his forthcoming fuller discussion is available to assess his critique overall. 

Shaping Sermons Like Scripture

I have just started reading Steven Smith's Recapturing the Voice of God: Shaping Sermons Like Scripture (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2015). Smith suggests that the better way to preach texts is by allowing the genre and structure of the text to drive the structure of the sermon.So far the book has thought-provoking, clear, and well-written. If you have the book or you might be interested to see what Smith is advocating you can watch these brief videos.

Recapturing the Voice of God #1 - Introduction
Recapturing the Voice of God #2 - Old Testament Narrative
Recapturing the Voice of God #3 - Law
Recapturing the Voice of God #4 - Gospel and Acts

HT: B&H Academic Blog

2016 Expository Preaching Workshop

I know that it seems a bit early to be talking about 2016 but Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is hosting another one of its expository preaching workshops on March 7. This year's theme is "Recapturing the Voice of God: Preaching the Genres of Scripture." The workshop will cover preaching the Law, Psalms, Parables, NT Letters, and Revelation. You can read more about it here but it does not appear that you can register yet.

Defining Apocalypse or Apocalyptic

Mark Goodacre pokes a bit of fun at a oft-used definition of apocalypse here. Although the point Goodacre makes is interesting, I think that there are more serious methodological challenges based on how the definition was developed (descriptively) and how it is often used (prescriptively). That is, the definition appears to be developed from certain literature that one already determined was apocalyptic and then taking that very same definition and saying see these books are apocalyptic or that apocalyptic literature has to be characterized in this particular way.  

Poetry Infographic

The following infographic is interesting even if it totally ignores biblical poetry.

Schnabel on Genre, History, and the Book of Acts

“Genre remains important. We can read the gigantic Chicago phone book as a poem celebrating shared humanity, as an ode to ethnic diversity, as a sonnet on the relevance of facts and figures, or as the meta-story of the hidden identities of the Chicago mafia. As interesting as such literary games might be, they would miss the point of the book. If we accept that the Book of Acts is a short historical monograph, or apologetic historiography, or a ‘lively political theology in its time,’ or a biography, or a ‘biographical history of important developments in earliest Christianity,’ historical questions are an integral, indeed foundational part of Luke’s concerns. Scholars who do not want to engage historical reality of the first century should, perhaps, seek other objects of inquiry than the Acts of the Apostles.”

Eckhard J. Schnabel, “Fads and Commen Sense: Reading Acts in the First Century and Reading Acts Today,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 54 (2011): 257–8.

  

Diagrams of the Genres of the Bible

C. Michael Patton has created two nice diagrams of the different genres contained in the Bible. You can access them here.

Defining Apocalypse, Apocalypticism, and Apocalyptic Eschatology

Patrick George McCullough has a helpful post on "Defining Apocalypse, Apocalypticism, and Apocalyptic Eschatology." I don't agree with all the conclusions but it is a decent summary of the state of scholarship is on the issue. Read it here.