Fitch on preaching part two: not much hoogly here

The last time I linked to a post by David Fitch on preaching, Paul Martin commented, “Really, Darryl. You liked this post? I thought it was bunch of hoogly.”

Well, Fitch is back with part two and I declare it to be 99% hoogly-free. I love where he goes with this. Samples:

1.) QUIT EXPLAINING AND START PROCLAIMING. Let us preachers quit explaining the text so much. Instead let us proclaim the reality revealed in the text so that we all might live in it. In other words, let us preach to unfurl the reality revealed in the text that we could not see apart from being engulfed in the story of God from creation to redemption. We will no doubt, need to explain some things in the text. But the primary task of preaching on Sunday morning is “proclaiming” the reality of the world as it is under the good news of the gospel that renders all things new…

2.) PLEASE, LET’S COME TO SCRIPTURE AS DRAMA NOT A TEXTBOOK. Let us preachers resist all modernist temptations to see the Scriptures as a propositional textbook of religious facts. Instead, let us see the Scriptures as alive. Scripture is real accounts, testimonies and witnesses of God’s people, through the prophets and the apostles, to what God has done and said and will do. So let us read and speak as ones invited to see ourselves as invited in to participate in the continuation of all this! This might mean we might have to see the Bible as a Narrative (as became so popular in the 80’s.) More recently von Balthazar (Theo Drama), Sam Wells (Drama – Improvisation) and Kevin Vanhoozer (The Drama of Doctrine) have all taught us to think of Scripture as Theo Drama where we become the participants. This is the metaphor I believe we must follow in our preaching.

The whole thing is worth reading. Some very good stuff here.