First-Person Bible Preaching

First Person Bible Preaching

A few posts ago I told you about Jim, a member of the first church I served as pastor.  You can review the story here.  My wife and I received an  invitation to a reception/open house for Jim.  He had received a terminal diagnosis of cancer, and rather than have people enjoy gathering at his funeral, he decided he wanted to talk to the people who had invested in his life.I was invited because, even though I hadn’t been his pastor for over 30 years, he looked back at the four and a half years that I was his pastor and wanted to thank me.

To my surprise, what he remembered the most about my preaching was the times that I engaged in first person Bible preaching.  In this post and the next few we’re going to explore a way to do first person Bible preaching that impacts people in this way.  I’ll be leaning on my own experience, as well as on a book by J. Kent Edwards entitled Effective First-Person Biblical Preaching. 

What Is First Person Bible Preaching?

Exactly what am I referring to as first person Bible preaching?  I’m referring to you becoming the main character in one of the narrative passages of the Bible.  Obviously, this takes a little bit of acting skill, but this is something that, if you can do it, will make an impact.  As Jim said when I greeted him and hugged him,  “I can still see you up  there dressed like Luke, telling us about the coming of Jesus.”    I limited this kind of preaching to the special times of the year.  I remember being Luke, a Shepherd hearing the angels, as well as Herod the king and Thomas the disciple.   Many times I used costuming to seek to make the presentation more authentic.  But the realism will be as effectively conveyed through your wording of the message.

An Example of First Person Biblical Preaching

Your preaching class, if you had one in seminary or Bible College likely focused on preaching out of the New Testament epistles.  I was taught during a time when the three point sermon was the norm.  There was no explanation of the possibility of doing first person biblical preaching.   In fact, there was very little specific teaching about how to go about preaching on the narrative portions of Scripture.  I’ve always had a little bit of the actor in me, so I decided one advent season to become one of the Shepherds in the story recorded in Luke 2.  I dressed in something a little better than the typical bath robe of such presentations.  A shepherd’s crook that I borrowed (as I remember) from another church in town was another prop

The job  of Shepherd became another part of the message.   A general overview of the shepherd’s task was another focus of the message, with explanations of the shepherd’s crook and club. the crook of the shepherd to rescue sheep and point them the right way.  I

Then I talked about that night when an angel appeared.  I tried to convey the fear of that moment, and then the thrill of the angel choir.

I closed with a description of the shepherds headed back to their flocks telling everyone they met about that the Messiah was born.

Conclusion

Here’s another example of a sermon preached by J. Kent Edwards.  In subsequent posts we’ll develop a process to go through for first person biblical preaching