JY: Welcome to Gear Talk, a podcast on biblical theology. Today, Tom Kelby and Jason DeRouchie talk about the need for those preaching God’s word to focus on the text rather than the event behind the text.

TK: Welcome to Gear Talk. I’m Tom Kelby, and I am sitting in Jason DeRouchie’s home. Nice to be here, Jason.

JD: I’m glad you’re here with me. We’re in Missouri and eager to record today.

TK: Just had to shut the window because the Missouri bugs were being a bit loud for this.

JD: A little chirping out there.

TK: So we have a three word title for this. The title is Text or Event. What do we mean by that Jason?

JD: Well, what we’re getting at is what is the significance of the fact that God gave us his word in a book? He acted in history. But we don’t know anything about that history during the biblical times, apart from what Scripture tells us. At least that’s where we get God’s perspective on those events. We’ve got archaeological data that we’ve gathered. We have other texts outside the Bible that can fill in certain stories that parallel biblical testimony. And yet none of those other acts are God’s word.

TK: So we have events. An event would be like the flood, event.

JD: Or the exodus.

TK: The exodus. And then we have texts. Talk about that.

JD: That’s right, which is the biblical authors retelling and in the process being very selective as to what they include and what they don’t include—which author, which characters in the story they mention, which ones they give names to and which ones they don’t, all the details of the biblical text, and all the details they chose not to mention. And the question is, when it comes to preaching, what are we called to preach? As much as we know about the historical background, or specifically what it is that God reveals to us in his word?

TK: I think for me, I have, I know, for years had a tendency to preach events that you read about something. And take a pic, take the flood, take whatever and I start asking questions or talking about things that Moses, the author there, chose not to talk about. And maybe a starting spot would be this, Jason, when we say we would tell the preacher, the Sunday school teacher, the parent as you’re talking about these, to make sure you give priority to the text—we’re not saying that the events didn’t happen.

JD: That’s right, yeah. In fact, the historicity of the events is required for the biblical text to be true. It’s making truth claims. So we’re not in any way downplaying the events. In fact, they’re absolutely required for the biblical text to hold strength and authority for our lives. If God didn’t make promises, there’s no reason to believe them to preach them—simply the fact that they’re written down—if God didn’t really make them, if these are more man’s words of a made-up story, then it means little to us. It ultimately will not give hope. It could change people’s actions because they believe it’s true, even though it’s not.

But for the Bible to be true, think about 1 Corinthians 15 and the way that that Paul talks about the resurrection. If Christ was not raised, then our faith is futile. It’s in vain (1 Cor 15:14). If Jericho was not razed, meaning if it—using the term razed in a different way—if Jericho wasn’t razed, that is, if God didn’t make those walls come down, the question would be what does that have to do with our our biblical faith? And I think it has a lot to do with it because everything in Scripture suggests the biblical authors believed it really happened. The history is a foundation for what we believe. But when it comes to preaching, we are not called to preach history as event behind the text, we are called to preach what the text says. And some of that is historical narrative, some of it is poetry, some of it is law, some of it’s parable. But it’s our responsibility as preachers to engage in what is truly a textual discipline.

TK: So talking to pastors today, people who are preaching on a Sunday morning—if that’s how it happens in your setting—calling people to pay careful attention to the actual words that the author uses to describe something and staying rooted there versus going off to the event itself. So again text or event. Before we get any further, Jason, what if somebody would say to you, I believe the Bible is true in matters that pertain to my holiness or things like that. But science matters and that sort of stuff, things that involve the physical world, I don’t need it to be true for that. How would you respond to that?

JD: I think we need the Bible. We don’t get to pick and choose what we think the Bible states accurately. If we begin to do that, then we’re going to have a Bible that looks a lot like what we think. Rather than allowing ourselves to be conformed to scripture, we’re reshaping a new authority that looks a lot like us. That’s not what we want to do. 1 Peter 4:11, “Let him who speaks speak as if speaking the very oracles of God.” That’s what we believe Scripture is. It is the the revealed word of God, and, therefore, because it comes from God, we want to surrender to it in all that it affirms both with respect to faith or what we would call doctrine and with respect to practice, what we would call ethics. Whatever the Bible gives us with respect to faith and practice, doctrine and ethics, we want to affirm. Historically, the church has called that the Bible’s infallibility. What it means is that in all that scripture expresses with respect to faith and practice, doctrine and ethics, it is sure, it’s trustworthy. But then there’s another category, and that is with respect to facts. And this is where we get the language of inerrancy that the Bible…

TK: So you meant you mentioned Jericho’s walls for instance. 

JD: Jericho’s walls. If everything in the text suggests that the biblical authors wrote the story of the battle of Jericho as if it actually happened—that’s a fact in history—then we are called upon, because it’s God’s word and we do not believe it will have error, that with respect to facts related to history, chronology, I would affirm even science—if we believe that it’s what the Bible intended, then we need to affirm it. Now, given all of that, we still have to recognize that the way that the Bible talks—it’s able to use parables where it’s actually creating stories that their signals—these are not actual events, but these are stories designed to teach other principles. Or there is what we would call phenomenological language. A phenomenon is an event in space and time, and often people can say the sun rose this morning. Scientifically, you and I know the sun didn’t actually rise in the sky. The earth was rotating around the sun, and that gives us daytime and night time. It’s the rotation of the sun. And yet you and I can speak, oh, look at the sunrise. Look at the sunset. And neither of us needs to pause and give question regarding the veracity of our claims. We know that we’re speaking factually, even though we’re using a special kind of language to describe it that is non-scientific. And the Bible uses that same kind of language.

So what we need to do is be able to look carefully to understand the intention of the author at every point, trying to recognize we know this is a truth, a true claim. What type of a true claim is it? Is it a historical true claim? Is it a chronological claim? Is this making a statement about faith, about how we should live? What is the point of the author? That’s where everything hinges. What’s the point of the author? Because as God—he didn’t give us all the facts about history. This is a history book, but it’s it’s written from a perspective, from God’s perspective. And when it comes to preaching, we’re not—our goal is not to find out all that we can about the events—the events and historical data—behind the text. For example, God never gave us the name of the pharaoh of the Exodus. Historians wish we knew who that Pharaoh was, and many people have lots of ideas, but apparently God didn’t think Pharaoh’s name was that important. And if we study the book of Exodus, what we see is that God’s name Yahweh is central to the story. Pharaoh actually says, “Who is Yahweh that I should obey him? (Exod 5:2). And God goes out of his way ten times through the plagues to clarify for Pharaoh what is his name. That is, what is his character? What is his identity? What are his strengths and his passions and his values? What does he hate and what cherish?

TK: I think that Exodus 1 we do get two named characters there—are the midwives, so the one you’re expecting is we’re surely going to get Pharaohs name.

JD: He’s the great king of the land, the most powerful human on the planet.

TK: And we have two people who obeyed God and not bow their knee to Pharaoh and they get named.

JD: They get named. It’s amazing. And that’s what a preacher needs to recognize our goal. Take a character like Jeroboam II, he’s one of the most well known Israelite kings from the ancient world, he shows up in numerous ancient sources. We find out that Israel, the northern kingdom, was in a golden age during his reign. They had lots of power. They had lots of stuff. And yet the Bible gives him less than ten verses in the book of Kings, because from God’s perspective, he wasn’t the worst of the kings, and he certainly wasn’t the best of the kings. And so the author of Kings just almost passes over his life. What the world would have thought, oh all of his wealth, all of his power, and we want to spend a lot of time with him. The Bible just passes over him in ten verses. And as a preacher, we need to recognize that the goal wasn’t to learn as much as we can about Jeroboam II—you could learn a lot more about him looking outside the Bible. The goal is to preach the text and to help our people recognize why is it that a character like Jeroboam was only given ten verses.

TK: It’s reminding me even Genesis 4 when they’re talking about in so and so’s day iron work was invented, or musical instruments were invented. And you kind of have this thought, I’d like to know more about that. Tell me more details about that. But Moses the author does not care, because if you…

JD: He doesn’t. He jumps over it relatively fast. And so we have to say, why does he give us the details he does. But then be willing to let him not answer many other questions that we have and say, OK, for a sermon my authority is God’s word. And ultimately, God is the authority when we enter into the pulpit. And so we need to wrestle hard not to just teach stories, history lessons. We need to teach God’s word, and that means we need to be careful readers discerning what God’s purpose is passage after passage.

TK: And your—I think you said it—you talked about God’s perspective and what we have in the authors words. You would say that’s giving us heaven’s perspective, that’s God’s perspective.

JD: That’s right. God uses dozens of human authors, and he actually lets them have their own character, their own vocabulary. Certain ones have different dispositions than others. We know that Jeremiah was more melancholy. He’s called the weeping prophet. Ezekiel he—it’s very clear when you get to Ezekiel 33 that everyone else—people look at him when they as a prophet of God and they Ezekiel—God actually says through Ezekiel to all of your audience you’re just the singer of love songs, meaning that he’s just like a bard, a poet, a drama guy. He acts out his sermons more than any other prophet. And yet God says as soon as what you’ve declared is fulfilled, and surely it will be, they will know that a prophet has been in their midst. So we need to—so God is speaking, he’s able to use the different character traits and vocabulary and time periods of the various authors. He uses human words in a book. And yet every one of those words in Jesus’s language, every jot in every tittle, even the smallest little characters on a Hebrew letter, ultimately, are fulfilled by Christ. It’s not just the concepts that we attribute as God’s word, it’s the very letters themselves, are God’s word.

TK: Even as we just said it, even sometimes the lack of letters like why didn’t they talk about this?

JD: Sure, why didn’t they add this? And we might be prone to give ten minutes in our sermon talking about what’s not there. For example—quick example—in a group setting I have had people say OK, I want you to retell for me the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. And we go around that circle and people are able to retell much of the events, and yet, almost no one ever mentions the many, many speeches. And I think the message of David and Goliath is bound up in the speeches, and if all we know is the events themselves, we’re going to miss the main point of the sermon. The point of the sermon is not to focus on the fact that David was—I mean he tried on Saul’s armor. Why didn’t it fit? I mean, why didn’t he use it? That’s what I mean, why didn’t he use it? And if we’ve watched VeggieTales, the answer is, well, it didn’t fit him. But Scripture doesn’t say it didn’t fit him, it says it wasn’t tested—meaning he was used to killing, to using his sling and his stone. He wasn’t used to using a bronze breastplate, a shield, and a sword. And David was not a wimp. He wasn’t just a little boy. The story goes out of its way to say he got interest in the fact that he learned whoever beat Goliath would get Saul’s daughter. He’s got hormones.

TK: He actually had that conversation with several people that said he did.

JD: Yeah. He was a little interested in Saul’s daughter. And not only that, he had killed a lion and a bear. I mean, this was a man’s man. He was one tough dude. He was used to the wilderness being outside, entering into battle. He was no wimp. And he went in to battle with Goliath, with the number one long range weapon of the day, a sling and a stone. And he used it effectively. But what’s striking that’s the events that are retold in the book, but then he says, “God, who gave me victory over the lion and the bear will also give me victory over this uncircumcised Philistine” (1 Sam 17:36). And then he went up and faced Goliath, and then we hear the longest speech in 1 Samuel 17, and it doesn’t come from Goliath. It comes from David and he says something to the effect, like you uncircumcised Philistine, this day you have defied the the armies of the God of Israel.

TK: Because he starts talking about now, Israel as a whole and the Philistines as a whole.

JD: And he declares, David declares this day God will give your body to the birds of the air and all the world will know that Yahweh is God in Israel (1 Sam 17:45–47). That’s our preaching point. This isn’t about David. It’s not about even going out and beating your own giants. It’s about recognizing that Yahweh is the great warrior, and he had raised up David for a purpose to proclaim his excellencies not only in Israel, but throughout the world. And this is somewhat the difference between thinking about a story as event versus the text.

TK: So what would you say to me? And we’ve all either done or heard examples like this and I said to you, I called you on the phone and I said, Jason, he took five stones, Goliath has five brothers. I heard somebody say I think I’m going to preach that—that’s a big point I have. Look at his faith extended further. Based on what we’re talking today, if I said that’s where I’m going in my sermon, what would you say to me?

JD: I would say what you preach as your main point, you want your people to be able to see it in the text. You need to be able to prove to them what God’s point is and you make that a point like that, a thought like that could be a secondary reflection. This might be one of the points of this text, but it’s not the main point and I would want to clarify for my people I’m wrestling with the text. You see the five stones. The text is what tells us that Goliath had these brothers. So there may be a connection there, but it’s not the primary point. We have a battle of champions here and David is being set up in the book of Samuel to anticipate a greater David who will be a greater giant even the way that Goliath is described with scaly armor. It’s as if he’s serpent like. He’s bringing curses against God’s people, and he wants to kill God’s people, much like the serpent wanted to kill God’s people in the garden. And what David does to Goliath is what Genesis 3:15 tells us the greater David will do to the ultimate serpent. And so my sermon would be heading in that direction because I believe it’s right where the text wants us to go.

TK: Based on what you said earlier, you’d say you’d use the speeches to guide the main point.

JD: Yeah, within stories, that’s how I believe we’re always supposed to do it. We are reading the stories through the speeches because that’s where God the character, or the characters that the narrator is focusing on—and the narrator is the inspired authority. He’s the one being guided by the Spirit of God to clarify for us what God’s point is, even God as a character—how much we learn about God, what he’s like and what he does—it’s all determined by the narrator, the human narrator, who is guided by the Holy Spirit himself. So we want to track those speeches because it’s going to be the means by which God clarifies for us the main point of the actions.

TK: Just this led to a thought. Further back in Samuel you have the same story, different characters if you want to say. But when the ark went into Dagon’s temple, the same thing happens actually. Put in there and the first day the Philistine statue, the Philistine god is lying face down in front of the ark. And then the second day it says that his hands and his feet were cut off. And that would be an instance of the times went on to say, hey, it fell and look, they broke off, but it actually doesn’t say that exactly what David did to Goliath happened to the Philistine god.

JD: And actually the same exact verb is used of how it fell face down, it’s exactly a parallel with Goliath. There’s something similar happening here under the power of God. He is at work destroying the enemies.

TK: And the author then is going after something, but the text is where we get it, not behind the text. If we want to say that.

JD: That’s right. That’s right. Our focus isn’t, for example, if we were to find great archaeological evidence that pointed more to that particular battle between David and Goliath—it would not be the focus of our message. 1 Samuel, 17, would be the guide for determining what we want to focus on, and that it’s God’s word trying to discern things. Some have noted, for example, Golgotha, where Christ died, that title Golgotha is, or Golgotha is found in no other literature outside the Bible, and it’s been proposed because it was called the place of a skull. And the only skull that we learn about associated with the Jerusalem in the Old Testament is Goliath’s skull. That’s where David took the skull, and so some have proposed that Golgotha is short for Goliath of Gath. And that it’s mentioned by the Gospel writers, all of them mentioned this place of a skull—all the synoptic writers Matthew, Mark, and Luke—and that it’s mentioned by them, even though it’s not found anywhere else in history, to highlight the fact that what takes place at the cross is the greater battle of champions. And that Goliath’s skull there is mentioned by the New Testament authors, potentially in order to recall the earlier battle and to identify that Jesus is the greater David who’s defeating now the greater giant. But even that is secondary, meaning we’re not sure if that’s what that means. It’s an interesting fact, and it has textual basis from the New Testament side and the fact that the skull is brought to Jerusalem. In the Old Testament it’s the only skull mentioned in association with Jerusalem. But I wouldn’t make that the main point of my sermon, even though it’s fascinating information because I’m not certain about that. But I can be certain about many other things in relation to both the victory that David had over Goliath and the victory that Christ has at the cross. And it’s governed what I know is governed by what’s revealed to me explicitly, clearly, that I could guide my people through in the biblical text.

TK: I have a little statue my family got. We took a trip to Israel when I was a boy and it’s of David—it’s now in my son Jack’s room—David holding up Goliath’s head over his head like a like a guy who’s just a rugby player or whatever, holding the ball at the end of football player. Like over his head, and that that is what our Lord has done.

JD: It is.

TK: So we have gone—we actually have a couple texts we’d like to go to, and 1 Samuel 17 was not one of them that we talked about. But we’re going to wrap this up the and we’re going to talk about them in our next one. So the idea though is text or event. So again, Jason, sum up what we mean by text or event. And if you had text on the left side in a box and event on the right side in a box—John Sailhamer, a theologian, he’s one who just this has said it that simply text or event. Tell us why we would say again, just wrap us up with why we would say preach the text, not the event.

JD: What God gives us in his word is his perspective on the events as he wants us to think about them. If we only approach events in general, then we lack God’s perspective on those events.

TK: Then it’s my perspective.

JD: It’s my perspective in those events and I’m the one who determines what’s most important and what I leave out and what I mentioned.

TK: So I named somebody who the authors say, wait a minute. I didn’t say his name on purpose.

JD: On purpose. And our responsibility is preachers to proclaim God’s word. That’s where our authority lies. Simply the fact that I have reverend next to my name does not by itself give me any authority, except maybe in man’s perspective. God sees that to mean nothing unless I am faithfully proclaiming him. So event is simply what took place in space and time as God revealed himself.

TK: True, it really did happen.

JD: It truly did happen, but what we want now, what we preach, what we live by, what we ground our faith and practice in, and what we understand Scripture to have been built upon all those events now have to be—sorry—what we live by is God’s perspective on those events as recorded to us in Scripture. And so we distinguish preaching and biblical interpretation as a textual discipline, meaning it’s governed by the perspective of authors who wrote in space and time, who who gave us subjects and verbs, who gave us conjunctions and prepositions. All those words matter. Paragraphs matter. We want to understand why God gave us his word in a book, and why he said it the way that he did.

TK: He crafted—the stories have been crafted to make an impact on God’s.

JD: That’s right. And our responsibility is simply to be able to show our people what’s there and to help them see that indeed we are faithfully interpreting what’s there, rightly. Our goal isn’t to tickle their ears with new information that we’ve discovered that can be fascinating, but we only mention it insofar as it illuminates what’s there in the biblical text rather than distracts.

TK: That’s good. All right. Well, next time we will actually get to the two texts we were talking about.

JD: Sounds good, Tom.

JY: Thanks for joining us for Gear Talk. If you have questions about Biblical Theology, you’d like us to address on future episodes, e-mail us at [email protected]. Also check out HandstothePlow.org for resources designed to help you understand the Bible and its teachings.