
The post is a response to Steve Worsley’s post last month. Steve’s post made me feel a bit defensive (I don’t know Steve personally so assume he wasn’t aiming it at me) but I am very lazy when it comes to application and so I thought I would take Steve’s provocation to explain why. I deliberately take a polemical tone to encourage debate, not because I believe Steve to be guilty of the extremes I warn against.
1. Everyone benefits from getting to know the bible better; application can seldom be universal – meaning more weight on exegesis benefits more of the congregation.
2. Application that is too direct can create defensiveness and resistance to the message, however get people to accept the principle and then when the penny drops and the spirit convicts it has more force to change their actions as well.
3. The sermon is not for telling people what to do but to lead them into a new way of thinking in the possibilities of the new creation. Transformation of the mind is the goal not information. We are shepherds who lead people to the green pastures of biblical imagination not dictators who control every step. Over-emphasis on application creates a sense of legalism – doing what the preacher says, rather than transformation as the mind is renewed by the Spirit.
4. The more time spent on application (i.e. considering how individuals in the congregation ought to respond to the sermon) means people are more likely to feel got at. I think it is important to avoid using the privileged knowledge of a pastor to preach into situations you know are happening in the church. If you’ve got something to say to someone you need to say it to their face not in front of x number of people. That way the sermon is for God to speak, not for the pastor.
5. Leaving work for the listener encourages engagement with the message and principles; spoon feeding them makes them rely on your insight into their lives to make application. You will not intend it but they will take it as exhaustive. Leaving it open ended allows for application far beyond the preacher’s limited insight and imagination. At a previous church we would leave application for the weekly small groups, so the preacher could lay out the Bible passage and its message but leave it to the small groups to discuss what that should look like in their own lives – I think that is a good way to do it in theory at least.
Example 1 In Steve’s account in his post he (internally) screamed at the preacher for not applying the sermon to his own life, but surely the good teacher is interested in getting the learners to work things out for themselves. Steve is still thinking about how to apply the sermon now, but with a selection of answers provided at the end he may well have been happy to close the book on that sermon and not think of it again. I’d say the sermon was a success.
Example 2 Recently while I was preaching on the Ten Lepers (Luke 17) I made reference to the prejudices that can blind us to what God is doing (e.g. with a Samaritan). I know that some in the church hold strong prejudice against, for example, homosexuals, the Roman Catholic Church and political Maori. If I named those groups in application I would have been mistaken for advocating for those groups and immediately had my point rejected. By allowing them to accept the point in abstract without attacking their personal views they may come to their own conclusions which will be far more powerful than having my conclusions thrust upon them.
Sometimes the text has to be applied specifically and directly and I am not an absolutist by any stretch. I also have to admit that people do appreciate direct and forceful application when I do it and I do get criticised from time to time for not doing enough of it. But you’ve heard my reasoning for doing it not much, what do you think?