A Crisis in Homoletics -- By: Mal Couch

Journal: Conservative Theological Journal
Volume: CTJ 02:7 (Dec 1998)
Article: A Crisis in Homoletics
Author: Mal Couch


A Crisis in Homoletics

Mal Couch, Editor

This morning by telephone I had about four conversations with Greek teachers in four of our most conservative, Evangelical seminaries and Bible colleges. When I finished, I found myself thoroughly discouraged and depressed. It is one thing to be concerned with the “enemy without” the camp, it is something else to realize he has breached the fence and is now an “enemy within.”

What was in these conversations that could have brought on that kind of reaction? To answer, I have to take you back to the 1960’s and my seminary days. Before completing college, I was on my way to attending Dallas Seminary. The reason? As a Sophomore I saw Dr. S. Lewis Johnson teach a course on Romans for the entire student body of John Brown University where I was enrolled. Dr. Johnson “exegeted” without apology. He would say, “This is an aorist tense and what Paul does with an aorist is …” He was not afraid to explain, to break apart grammar and sentence structure. No student felt he was simply trying to impress them. They could understand clearly his intention as Romans became even more clear.

Dr. Johnson did this in order to throw light on the Word of God. It was tremendously forceful and meaningful to the students. They had never heard anything like it! Paul’s letter came alive as Johnson explained it. But during my second year at Dallas a wet blanket was thrown over this kind of teaching of Scripture.

A new professor arrived on campus with a bright new Ph. D. degree in speech and homiletics. He told us in so many words that we were to preach from the pulpit, not teach. He had us practice our three points and four illustrations. We had to move like high wire artists with hand and mouth motions in perfect time. But the killer was, we were supposed to keep our Hebrew and Greek exegesis in our studies and offices. “Don’t mention the languages!”

I could not do what he asked and got a C for the course! Later on, I went back to teaching verse by verse from the pulpit, parsing verbs, and explaining nouns for my audience. These forty years I’ve found that this is what people appreciate, when they get used to it and when they can compare the “sermonette” approach to the deep explanation of God’s holy Word!

Now back to my original starting point: Greek teacher after Greek teacher is crying because of the lack of interest in the biblical languages. I contend that traditional homiletics caused the death of hard, deep exegesis! The arguments were: “People will be snowed and unable to understand if you explain the Greek.” Or, “You’ll appear snobbish if you explain something they

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe

visitor : : uid: ()