NOBTS Conversation with Dr Robert Smith

our guest for today on Station's is dr. Robert Smith jr. dr. Smith is a professor of preaching at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham Alabama just a beloved and respected pastor preacher a teacher of preachers thank you for your time we appreciate you meeting with us today dr. Smith what a blessing it is to be with you dr. Newsome well let's start off with just a basic general picture of preaching if you don't mind let me ask you this why what is preaching and why is it important hmm i define preaching as assuring the hearer by the Word of God into the presence of Christ the Son of God by the power of the Spirit of God for the purpose of transformation now that's important to me because I take that metaphor the preacher has an exegetical escort from Galatians 3:24 that the law served as a potter go-go's a trainer a teacher a schoolmaster in this case an escort to lead people to Christ that's my job my job is to take God's Word and lead the people I preached to into the presence of Christ and then when I lead him into the presence of Christ which is the throne room the door shed and they are left there and transformation comes as a result of the encounter between Christ and the hero my job is over I am to lead them I'm not to transform them so preaching for me is necessary so the people are transformed changed not simply patched up or amended or reformed but that people are changed and the gospel has this mysterious ability to change individuals from the inside out so that they can walk uprightly and so that the vertical relationship between God and human has been fixed which affects the horizontal relationship between humans and humans so preaching is absolutely necessary more than a motivational speech more than just inspiration more than just information but transformation and only the gospel can do that yeah yeah now I'm sure that in your days as a preacher in teaching preaching you've certainly seen shifts cultural shifts also shifts and preaching what's the state of preaching today as you look out on well let's just say in the US what's the state of preaching today preaching to draw from the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer when he came to America he said that preaching had the trajectory of a from us to us whereas he felt like preaching in Europe those who really preached and were really prophets that the message went from God to us so the trajectory was from God to us rather than from us to us and of course he's relating to the psychological preaching the preaching of a Harrison Fosdick this cycle therapeutic preaching this group counseling preaching he wanted to see a trajectory that started from God to us so that's one of the things I think that we are living in a day where there's a great deal of motivational preaching people are desperate for improvement economic reversals relational rifts all those things and they want they want some relief which will only be a superficial which will only be cosmetic for there to be a real in-depth change that it must come from God to us now another thing I think I think we've moved Jeremias to being henna Nyhus jim i Hananiah they were contemporaries both of them were prophets both of them said that they preached from the same book the same Torah but they had different messages Jim I said to the people of Judah you will go into captivity for seven decades 70 years Ananias said not so just two years well who would not want to hear a preacher like that if we have to go into captivity two years over 70 years yeah and the people liked his preaching Jim I probably would not have received an invitation to preach in any state convention in his time certainly would not have been invited to sit as the guest speaker at the governor's luncheon he was very unpopular and the Bible says in Jeremiah chapter 28 verse 17 that Hannah and I because Jeremih told him that that you were not gonna live that God rejected your preaching because you said you represent their God and you said two years and God told me seven years that Jeremiah died that seventh month of that year because God's Word is true people may not want to hear truth it may be soothing they want teachers as Paul says with itching ears but it's only the grass that withers and the flower that fades away that they will get the Word of God will stand forever so I'm seeing this shift that preachers want to be had and I as popular and appease people and they want truth to be politically correct and accepted by the populace and buy whatever amendment the law may be submitted to but not the Word of God that doesn't need to be adjusted but needs to be trusted so that's a major shift for me I want to see preachers raised up who say I want to be a Jeremiah I don't wanna be a Hananiah because I'd rather have God on my side because I'm I'm standing on his word than the people on my side and God against me yeah in your book dr. Nick dances we we use that book here I highly recommend the books a great book so I appreciate that that work you talk about the sermonic snack and how we serve our people sermonic snacks and they continue to be hungry and in that book you talk about the need for doctrinal preaching what do you mean by doctrinal preaching and and what's our process I guess for getting dot more doctrinally sound or delivering doctrinal sermons yes love Pelican a greek slovak professor church history of years ago great not many years ago passed a few years ago great scallop has i think one of the great definitions of doctrine whatever the Church of Jesus Christ believes teaches and confesses on the basis of the Word of God this is Christian doctor hmm and the key to it is it's not what we just believed teach and confess but it has to be a belief a teaching at a confession based on the Word of God hmm that's Christian doctrine so doctrine for me has to be that has to have that basis but it must not drag it must not be boring doctrinal preaching is boring because we're boring and I'm not talking about cheerleader antics I'm saying that people come and as a what I call a doxological dancer that we have to communicate the doctrinal verities of scripture with accuracy rightly divided word of truth and ardor enthusiasm and passion so that the exuberant hero to assume that people come to church not to be put to sleep that they want to give us a half an hour 45 minutes because they believe we have something to say so that the exuberant hero will exalt will rejoice in the exaltation the fact that God is being exalted and so honor and accuracy must be inexplicable in inextricably connected all the time so that our accurate but at the same time I have order this fire fire and light are not antithetical and whatever method whether it's verse-by-verse whether it's some kind of narrative exposition based upon an Old Testament passage doctrine is going to be preached regardless because doctrine means teaching it can be false or it can be true it can be Orthodox or can be heterodoxy one of the two and I hope that we will be Orthodox in our presentation yeah yeah yeah I appreciate how you you know it's so tough when we talk about preaching and just even teaching preaching to to pull back from those extremes we get locked in and the more sort of cognitive cerebral approach and then there's the other extreme which is all emotion and no substance I appreciate how you connect the two they're not mutually exclusive they shouldn't be anyway and and so I like your approach in that in the book for those two connecting those two especially for our listeners they definitely need us to connect those okay let's uh let's move sort of just to practical the questions that I'm asked in classes by those who are preparing you know I heard another preacher say if it was like Sunday comes every day because you're always thinking about sermon prep and and Sunday's coming for sure so what's what's your basic process that you walk through yourself and that you teach just the basic homolytic oppress for developing a sermon well Naomi if this is she had she did not have homiletics in mind when she said this don't call me Mara I mean don't call me Naomi call me Mara because I'm bitter but she says I went out full I left Bethlehem juda fool and I'm returning empty I know what she meant by that she no longer had a husband her two sons were dead etc but I think that's what preaching is you go out fool that is from your study yeah you've read the people have different methods they go through different processes you know when you do your word studies and when you do your commentary searches and when you look at journals and all that and if it works for you find that that work for me I have to study and what I call bite-sized pieces which means I'm always in a mode of preparation so I grab fifteen minutes while I'm walking from slowly from my office to the library thinking of a parent while I'm driving home I'm preparing I'm listening to scripture tapes just the passage because I want to get in that passage that I'm preaching so much so that I'm obsessed by it I don't want to memorize it I want to internalize it so it comes out of the pores of my being it's my DNA I want to know that I mean that's that's the zip code I'm operating out of the sermon is the address but I want to live in that zip code so that if I'm getting a haircut and I have to wait for my turn which isn't sometimes forty-five minutes an hour I'm thinking I get far away as far away from people as I can and if I have to put on earplugs even though I'm not listening anything because I want to use that as as time to think and prepare I won't have 15 hours of uninterrupted time bite-sized pieces it's important for me it's it's kind of what - my dad and the ministry dr. James ara Massey in his book calls the burdensome joy of preaching you go through the burden during the week and it's heavy but Sunday morning there's joy yeah are like garnet Calvin Taylor as he calls it the sweet torch of Sunday morning where it's torturous during the week but the sweetness comes out on Sunday morning when you preach and if you and I are not prepared it's gonna be a burden during the week it's gonna be burning on Sunday yeah it's gonna be a torture during the week it's gonna be torch on Sunday but it's so joyous and so sweet when you see God bringing out of you what he has put in you doing the week so whatever process you have to go through all of them you know the linguistic studies to come and Terrace that is the journals the reading of novels all those kind of things and I'm finding out that things that I read that are not necessarily geared toward being a part of that sermon somehow in a mysterious way fine a place in that sermon and they are given a voice in that sermon it's providential leading I am I he does it but it does yeah yeah that's good yeah I like your picture of internalized the scripture and I know you you and I were talking previously that you recommend to your students to read the passage fifty times at least fifty comes walking through it even you know focusing I think sometimes we jump to the word studies we jump to the commentaries we jump jump over the word we read you know the passage once or twice and then we go see what so-and-so needs to say what would what would your comments be to you know to those young preachers to the well to old preachers any preachers that they just to get them back to the word you know rather than moving from the word to the commentaries and usually I think it's for the sake of time you know well I need to go ahead and get over here to study with it yeah yeah Genesis I think we read the Bible too fast too quickly I've wondered for a long time because I preached from Genesis 22 and number times and I was so quick to get to Jehovah Jireh the Lord will provide the Lord will see to it I wondered you know that morning when God after God told Abraham take your son your only son the son you love Isaac to a mountain that I will tell you I'll show you the Bible says he got up the next morning now of course if you know you're going to execute your own son I wonder how much sleep you get that night I'm reading too fast I need to get into the emotion of Abraham I need to hear what James Lysander says that biblical characters do not primarily serve us as models for morality but rather as mirrors for identity how would I how much sleep did I get that night if I knew that the next morning I was taking my son to the place of his execution probably not much at all he just said he's got up but you can get up without going sleep Sonny just need to stop think about that I can't say more than what scripture says he got up but I could identify with this this this person Abraham and then then the Bible says he cut enough wood he took his servants and Isaac and they left that's verse 3 of Genesis 22 verse 4 on the third day they arrived at Moriah so they've gone three days and in one verse what happened doing the first day what did they talk about he and his son what did he talk about the second day about the third day how much sweat came from his skin what is he talking about with God God you said that out of my seed the whole world's gonna be blessed and now you're asking me to cancel my future how's this gonna happen all of these kind of things I need to at least think I mean you cannot think for three days so what did Abraham think about didn't rehearse the promises of God in the presence of God just what you're just asking questions that's the kind of thing I'm talking about I come from an ancestry where it was illegally United States to read and write for a time doing the slavery period and in a way it was beneficial for preachers hear me when I say this I don't belong not saying your literacy is beneficial I'm saying those who could read which Jimmy were preachers and a lot of white brothers and sisters without permission taught slaves how to read but before then they just had to hear of the reading and hear it and hear it over and over again and I'm grandmother's you could read it and then call yourself because it's the long chapter skipping seven or eight verses or whatever and they could tell you you skip something and tell you what you skipped even though they could not read they they would not know the name Josh you write me the name Joshua on a box called letter inbox car-sized letters and they would not know that name but if you talked about the story they say Joshua not Joshua Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho and the walls came a-tumblin they knew the store so oral tradition caused black preachers to be imaginative I'm not telling my fantasy fantasy is not based on truth imagination is but to imagine that's this vivid rich imagination because they had lived in this story hearing it over and over again many of them learning how to write by eventually and read by eventually because they eventually came from this ability to read and write based upon what others had talked it read and write based upon the ability to read scripture read scripture so I think that's that's so important that we return back to that so that we engage all of us what do I smell in the text what does fire and brimstone smell like down by the Dead Sea I've been there it is like rotten ears hmm does the leper feel like his skin what does charcoal fire smell like because that's important in John 18 and 18 Peter warms his hand hands over the charcoal fire while he's denying Jesus three times three days later in John 21 and eight he goes to the Sea of Galilee coast and sees Jesus who is warming or if you will cooking fish over charcoal fire and those are two instances three days apart and you cannot help but to say that Jesus didn't need to cook fish he could have said like he did when he fed the 5,000 from the two fish and five loaves of bread come here fish they were good at they thought they would cut it they were proud grilled whatever but that charcoal fire I believe was there because that started Peter coming under conviction and getting prepared for three affirmations yes Lord you know I love you and so I'm just saying what do I smell because as hell Metallica says the olfactory glands the nose is the organ of remembrance it causes the unconscious to be conscious and when Peter smelled that charcoal fire which has a very distinctive smell his mind had to go back three days and then mmm this is why I denied the Lord three times and it is not coincidental that Jesus asks Peter three times do you so take your time Robert Smith and use all five of your senses because you walked around in the Texan ass what is what's what smells what what sound how's this taste taste and see that the Lord is good how's this how does this particular thing feel and use all your senses yeah Wow alright now I want to ask you this question we'll wrap it up with this this is a question that I'm asked by pastors generally and the question is what do you do when you don't feel like preaching okay but you have to preach you preach you preach until you're feeling catches up with the fact you don't if I'm a preacher that's that preaches because I'm motivated by the feeling I become an addict to the feeling hmm I don't want to be an addict to the feeling I want to be an addict to the fact that I've been called yeah what do you do what is your sweet wife do I'm making this personal now when you're two and a half year old baby cries at night because of a stomach ache and what does she say well it's not time for you to be waking up it's only 3:00 in the morning you're not supposed to be waking up to eight she gets up she doesn't feel like and yet your calling is a calling you have to be instant in season and out of season when you feel like it and don't feel like it you know this and you're a young preacher and of course the older you get you know it more sometimes the times in which God will use you in a greater way is when you don't feel like hey you don't think you have much and you stand up to preach and you're saying about one third of the way when will this be over I can just get through this and before you know it something clicks in but you can't explain and the Lord meets you and you have an encounter and it's like Jeremiah this is this is the best example I know Jim I said in Jim I 20 verse 9 he starts out with I will not he says I said I will not speak any more in his name in the Hebrew it really means I said I wouldn't even think about him anymore because he said God you have sovereignly seduce me verse 7 you deceive me you deceive me you pin me you're stronger than I am you've allowed me to become a life in a laughingstock he's upset with God it's his soliloquy because God never says one thing in Jeremiah 20 verses 7 to 18 he's just talking back to God he says I said I will not make mention of his name anymore do you think he felt like reaching but his word not but his word was in my heart here comes a feeling like fire shut up in my bone and I was weary of holding it in indeed I could not so he moves from I will not preach to I could not help from preaching why because in the middle what's the word and that word brought about fire so you preach until you feel like preaching you let your feeling catch up with your fact and that that's a marvelous thing when you recognize after all it's not you you're not the one that's doing it he's doing it all the time and he wants you to test yourself why are you preaching are you preaching because you're addicted to the applause are you preaching because you love the verbal and visual affirmation are you preaching because you love to talk and be articulate are you preaching for anything less than you love me even though you don't feel like it it's the love that you have for me and the Lord to do your calling that says that causes you to say woe is me if I don't preach the gospel well dr. Smith thank you so much for your time thank you for your service to the Lord you're leaving a legacy behind of great preaching from you but also just encouraging the generations behind you and teaching us how to be more effective preachers and just to honor God with our preaching so thank you for that to God be the glory hey man thank you for your time and God bless you in the future thank you brother you

Channel: New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

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Length: 26min 58sec (1618 seconds)

Published: Wed May 14 2014