Applied Pneumatology: What Is the Holy Spirit Doing When We Preach?

[00:00:00] It's of course always worth focusing on the spirit and it's difficult to focus on the spirit because the spirits in some ways in the business of directing your focus to the father through the sun. And a lot of ways you want the spirit to be functioning properly and communing with the spirit almost in the background, you know not drawing him out you can actually be more spirit focused than the bible is and that would be a bad thing right you can go through and because you've got a triangle diagram in your head and you're properly convinced that they're all co-equal co-eternal co-essential

[00:00:30] you might think well I should engage in an equal rights for the Holy Spirit sort of campaign and make as much noise about him as I do about the father and the son. But just one thing I point out in the book is that's actually not a biblical way of honoring the spirit. Nevertheless, you want to be correct about the spirit you want to be biblically informed and accurate and so for educational purposes it's certainly worthwhile to draw out that pneumatological thread or dimension you know that doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

[00:01:00] Hey welcome to the expositors collective podcast episode 311 I'm your host Mike Neglia. The voice that you heard is the professor, the author, the lay preacher, the quick-witted Fred Sanders. There's a great conversation that you're going to get to listen in on as I get to speak with like a proper scholar about the Holy Spirit.

[00:01:30] What is the spirit doing as we are preparing our Bible studies, our Sunday school lessons, our exegetical sermons, what's he doing in us and also what's he doing while we're preaching it. And then also for those that are listening to sermons what is he doing in us as we are hearing God's word preached to us?

[00:01:58] This is a great conversation like I said, I really enjoyed it. I've benefited from reading Fred's books for years and years and so I was delighted to have this conversation and I hope that it serves you well.

[00:02:14] He's written a book published by our friends at Crossway entitled The Holy Spirit an Introduction and you can find a link in the show notes to that book as well as multiple other books that he's put out over these past years.

[00:02:33] I hope that this conversation and all that we do at expositors collective helps you to grow in your personal study and public proclamation of God's word.

[00:02:44] All right, hey, welcome to the expositors collective podcast. I'm excited to speak to Dr Fred Sanders. We're going to talk about the Holy Spirit, the Trinity of which he is a part and preaching that honors our Triune God. Good morning, Fred. How are you?

[00:03:03] Morning, Mike. Doing well. Good to be here. Excellent. Have you ever been on a podcast about preaching before? I don't think I have not one dedicated know. Are you a lover of preaching yourself? Yes, yes, on the consumer side. I haven't been a regular preacher anywhere. So I haven't had the every week experience of preparing sermons.

[00:03:25] Well, then I can't wait to see what we can all learn from you there. Well, kind of going back to your like start. You know, you're known as an author and as a theologian as a professor, but like, yeah, I do know that like Bible teaching and preaching is in your background. And as you mentioned, kind of an occasional thing that you do. What was the first time that you ever taught the Bible?

[00:03:50] Oh, you know, I got saved as a high schooler in a youth group in a Methodist church. And then I went off to college and there was no one to lead that group. So as a result, at a very young age before I knew much of anything, I actually preached, I think the youth sermon at a Methodist church. And there is no record of that. I don't have any notes. There's no recording. This is way way back early 90s. Maybe I'm not sure maybe late 80s. Anyway, I remember exactly what I preached on.

[00:04:19] I had read Ephesians 4 and I read it in light of John 17. So what sort of rose up and dawned on me from Bible study was Jesus praying for the unity of the church, and then later on the Apostle Paul describing the unity of the church that the Christians and Ephesus were experiencing.

[00:04:39] And so basically, I know that I preached Ephesians 4 as the partial fulfillment of Jesus's high priestly prayer in John 17, which is I'm pretty proud of having done that. I assume the sermon was a disaster and that everyone was just, you know, all the nice old people in the church were polite to the young man who dared get up in the pulpit.

[00:04:58] But I'm still pretty pleased with that idea for a second. Yeah, the concept is gold.

[00:05:03] Have you since then have you like revisited that that theme at all?

[00:05:09] I have. Yeah, certainly in John and Ephesians have gone on to be really important key texts for me in my theology. Yeah, I think I think I wasn't wrong. You know, I probably I can imagine I should have put it better than I did.

[00:05:25] But there is something about that apostolic experience of the unity within the body of Christ that is filling out what Christ prayed for in that high priestly prayer.

[00:05:36] Yeah, his prayer was was answered to some degree. Yeah, to some degree incrementally and ultimately will one day but already not yet. Sorry, I don't want to.

[00:05:49] The all theologize in front of an actual the allotment. Well, and I do take Ephesians for we always think of Ephesians for as being in the sort of the ethical or the command part of Ephesians.

[00:05:59] But if you look closely at the first half of four, it's mostly teaching. It's not mostly go out and be unified. It's actually teaching about what has already been done to achieve unity.

[00:06:09] Yeah, no, it's got some things like forgive one another and be tenderhearted. But the main point is not get up and go make the church unified.

[00:06:16] It's actually a statement about how the risen Christ has provided for that unity. Yeah, yeah. Hey, thanks. Thanks to that little little nugget. Well, how have you grown as a preacher since then? I guess, you know what you content.

[00:06:29] Let's assume it's always been orthodox and great. But have you do you feel that you've taken steps towards being more comfortable on the pulpit or communicating better and what are those steps been?

[00:06:41] Yeah, well, I went to seminary, got an imbediv, took a preaching class and did a couple of classroom sermons. And so that was really helpful for one thing I grew in my actual knowledge of the word of God.

[00:06:53] So I wasn't just I wasn't merely stumbling from verse to verse and being delighted to find things. That still happens. But now having read the Bible through a few times and kind of gotten a doctrinal framework in place, it's less a total surprise when I find wonderful connections.

[00:07:08] And then of course, my seminary class in preaching. This wasn't a major emphasis, but it did sort of put the proclamation of the word in the context of not only proper Bible interpretation, but of classical rhetoric, you know, the idea that there's

[00:07:24] not to quote Aristotle and polite company, but there's ethos, pathos and logos. There's the content that you're focusing on which is always that's my thing. I'm always content driven. But then there's the pathos of making connections with human emotions and the felt needs and responses of the audience.

[00:07:43] And then the ethos of knowing yourself as a communicator and knowing how your audience is reading you as the person bringing the message. So growing in all those areas and there's a really, really solid seminary class training experience.

[00:07:57] Yeah, who taught it?

[00:07:59] You know, I can't remember. I remember my fellow students in the class, but I have not thought about that prof. I wasn't uniformly pleased with everything about how the class was conducted.

[00:08:11] Okay. All right. Does it, does it do you well to know that people don't remember their professors?

[00:08:17] Yeah, absolutely. We get that all the time in my job as a prof that people will say, oh yeah, then I heard this thing and it changed my life said who said that? I don't know one of one of you.

[00:08:29] Well, yeah. Today is today's Tuesday.

[00:08:34] On Sunday, I preached on Philippians for 10 to 13. I preached on the famous. I can do all things through him who gives me strength.

[00:08:43] So I preach that on Sunday morning Monday night. I went to this interactive Bible study that are our church sponsors and there was someone there.

[00:08:51] And she said, you know, in the conversation about something else, you know, I think it says somewhere. I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.

[00:09:01] I'm not sure if it's the Old Testament or New Testament and I'm like, you were just there in church. I just said it. And you know, the passage you should at least know whatever.

[00:09:10] Anyway, hopefully in both of those it's been the content that gets through and the communicator is forgotten.

[00:09:19] Yeah, so it's almost as if our goal is to communicate truth and not be the focus.

[00:09:25] Now as we pivot and speak about maybe God the spirit, I've heard and I think Jay Packer and others have spoken about like the spirit.

[00:09:36] As his like part of his role is to shine light kind of away from himself and towards the father and the son.

[00:09:46] Like number one, do you agree with that? And then number two, I'd love to hear like, yeah, number one, do you agree with that?

[00:09:52] The spirit like is it a light deflecting or pointing towards father and son?

[00:09:57] Yeah, I think that's right. And you can think about when you come to faith, when you're exercising faith, you're coming to the father through the son.

[00:10:07] And so your attention is primarily on God and it's also on the way you get to God. You know, Jesus is the way and the truth and the life.

[00:10:16] And I think it's a CS Lewis and Miraculous, Janity who points out that the motive, the motive power, the energy by which you cross that bridge to that destination is attributed to the Holy Spirit.

[00:10:29] And so of course you think about that less. You know, you're thinking about the goal then you're thinking about how to get there.

[00:10:35] But what's going on meanwhile inside or behind you is the power of the Holy Spirit focusing your attention on the father and the son.

[00:10:44] So it's almost a later action, a reflex action. When you think how is this happening? And then you begin to recognize the presence of the spirit.

[00:10:53] So as a result, he was always already at work before you started reflecting on him being there and at work.

[00:11:00] Yeah, yeah, well, well, the reason why I did that incredibly awkward forced transition and please, please forgive me for that.

[00:11:09] But yeah, I've recently been reading through your latest book which is the Holy Spirit and introduction.

[00:11:17] And like I've come to know you and I've been reading your stuff for years and I've been learning so much about like Trinitarian theology from you.

[00:11:26] And now you focused on like one member of the Trinity. How did it come about that you are like narrowing your focus upon the spirit?

[00:11:36] Yeah, it's of course always worth focusing on the spirit and it's difficult to focus on the spirit because the spirits in some ways in the business of directing your focus to the father through the son.

[00:11:47] And in a lot of ways you want the spirit to be functioning properly and communing with the spirit almost in the background, you know, not drawing him out.

[00:11:55] You can actually be more spirit focused than the Bible is and that would be a bad thing.

[00:12:00] Yeah, right? You can go through and because you've got a triangle diagram in your head and you're properly convinced that they're all co-equal, co-eternal, co-essential, you might think, well I should engage in an equal rights for the Holy Spirit sort of campaign and make as much noise about him as I do about the father and the son.

[00:12:18] But just one thing I point out in the book is that's actually not a biblical way of honoring the spirit.

[00:12:24] Nevertheless, you want to be correct about the spirit. You want to be publicly informed and accurate.

[00:12:29] And so for educational purposes it's certainly worthwhile to draw out that pneumatological thread or dimension, you know, that doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

[00:12:40] The short answer is there's this series of books from Crossway, short studies in systematic theology. They've done really well. This is something like the tenth book in the series.

[00:12:49] And the editors asked me some time ago what I do, the Holy Spirit volume.

[00:12:55] And so there was a publisher invitation to write a short effective book on the spirit.

[00:13:01] So you didn't nominate yourself. You were requested to do this.

[00:13:06] No, that's right. They already gave the Trinity book to Scott Swain and I didn't think I could do any better than that anyway because it's an excellent Trinity volume.

[00:13:13] So I was glad to be able to come into the spirit one.

[00:13:16] Yeah, well, again, have been familiar with you as the Trinity guy.

[00:13:21] I actually when I received this I looked with kind of excitement to see how are you going to separate the one from the other.

[00:13:28] And then I read the table of contents and saw that's not going to happen at all.

[00:13:33] It's the Holy Spirit in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit and the father, the Holy Spirit and the son.

[00:13:38] And then last finally, it's the Holy Spirit himself.

[00:13:42] So they are intertwined of course.

[00:13:46] Yeah. And you know one reason I did that.

[00:13:48] I don't know if you've had this experience Mike. I've had it over and over.

[00:13:51] You teach about the Holy Spirit and everyone nods and they follow the Bible versus and they say, yeah, that's really clear.

[00:13:59] Thanks for teaching that. And then about three weeks later they say, what's the deal with the Holy Spirit?

[00:14:05] Because I think the people can Christians can docilely receive instruction about the spirit.

[00:14:11] But somehow it doesn't stick. And so my question was and then they remain in more apparent confusion than they really are in.

[00:14:19] They actually know lots of things about the Holy Spirit.

[00:14:22] So I thought, what's a good way to make the doctrine of the spirit stickier?

[00:14:26] You know, and both because I think it's the best way to go and because it's what people expect from me.

[00:14:33] I decided, yeah, I'll use the Trinitarian grid or matrix.

[00:14:37] And the pitch is you already know most of the most important things about the spirit if you have a properly functioning doctrine of the Trinity.

[00:14:46] You know he's God, you know he's in relation to the Father, you know he's in relation to the Spirit.

[00:14:50] And I even try to make quite a bit out of the fact that you know he's third in an important sense.

[00:14:56] He's of course co-equal co-eternal, co-essential utter equality there.

[00:15:00] But we say Father, Son and Holy Spirit following the baptismal formula in Matthew 28.

[00:15:07] And often we can think of thirdness as a problem like oh well he's in third place or you know bronze medal or something.

[00:15:13] Of course we want to avoid making that error.

[00:15:16] But there's an advantage to the Spirit being third. There's a completeness or a fullness or a perfecting of like you know you're done when you've said and the Holy Spirit.

[00:15:25] Yeah, you're ending the journey.

[00:15:27] Yeah great point. Yeah there's there's not a subsequent fourth to but yeah now that's wonderful and I I appreciate like your like didactic style like it came across in your earlier book the deep things of God.

[00:15:42] Like you just always telling people you already know this stuff and you're you're kind of pulling out what is implicit in you know the ordinary layman,

[00:15:53] the Christian already knows this stuff and you're just like helping us to see what we already know but haven't articulated.

[00:16:00] Yeah that's right it's never I guess it's tempting for a theologian to think here comes the theologian to the rescue.

[00:16:06] Oh you poor unenlightened masses I'm good thing I got here to you know put this instruction in place.

[00:16:11] Obviously I think theologians can help, but it's a supportive kind of help as they enable what Anselm called faith seeking understanding.

[00:16:20] If you're teaching a Christian context, you're dealing with people have faith and that's faith is never ignorant there's always some doctrinal content to faith.

[00:16:29] You can't just believe without believing in something so you've always got something to begin with.

[00:16:34] Yeah well moving on to yeah maybe like some of the things that the Holy Spirit like does like in the life of a preacher were with expositors collective podcast we're here for like expositors and Bible teachers.

[00:16:47] So could you maybe help us think through like how does God the Spirit help us in our sermon preparation for those that are preaching weekend week out what's the role of the spirit as we study the Bible to prepare to preach it.

[00:17:02] Yeah well I'm going to start with what in some ways is the most obvious and there's also easy to just take for granted an overlook.

[00:17:11] Late in the book I land pretty hard on the doctrine of verbal inspiration of scripture and that is appropriated to the spirit.

[00:17:20] That's why we say it's inspired so that's a biblical way of thinking about it.

[00:17:24] Of course the entire Trinity is behind the word of God being in scripture but it's especially the spirit which means that if you're preparing a sermon by studying the Bible and trying to understand the words as they go

[00:17:38] you're already doing some applied new mythology like the words you are reading are the words of the spirit that's what's happening in scripture.

[00:17:48] I love applied new mythology that's a great my title this episode applied new mythology.

[00:17:56] So beyond studying the passage itself which is yeah delving deep into what the spirit has to say does he do anything else?

[00:18:06] Yeah there is a work of the spirit in opening the eyes of the person who's hearing or reading the word of God and so that would apply also to the preacher.

[00:18:18] I think this is explicit in Ephesians 1 the prayer that starts at 15 Paul praise of course that the Christians he's talking to would know certain things from God you know the hope of the calling and the greatness of his power toward us.

[00:18:32] But before he just says those things he wants them to know he starts all the way back with I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ would give you a spirit of wisdom and understanding and knowledge of God so that the eyes of your heart are enlightened and that word enlightened you could you know in a more Latin word base you could say illuminated.

[00:18:50] So this is the doctrine of illumination that the spirit opens the the spiritual perceptive powers of the Christian.

[00:18:59] Oh gosh what's the theological way to put this it's the second noetic office of the spirit no noetic in the sense of like cognitive or having to do with the mind or knowledge.

[00:19:08] The first noetic office of the spirit is inspiring scripture the second noetic office of the spirit is illuminating the reader of scripture so that something you're not just practicing good grammatical historical exegesis as you interpret though you are also doing that but something spiritual is happening a divine action.

[00:19:28] It's being carried out that's kind of parallel to the divine action of inspiring it that is in little short words the same spirit who inspired the words of scripture is illuminating the reader to understand them accurately yeah and so.

[00:19:44] If that's the case and it is how how should a preacher or a Bible study leader.

[00:19:51] How should they be on the lookout for that or even what are the sort of prayers that he or she should be praying to kind of open themselves up for that.

[00:20:00] Yeah well the model prayer there any fusions one 15 is ideal because it begins with the vine action works through a change state of affairs that will occur in the mind and then terminates with the actual knowledge to be known and I don't know about my default prayer is to start at the end with just here's what I want to happen.

[00:20:20] Here's the result I want and then I might pray my way back up into this change state of affairs and the divine action whereas Paul in his longer prayers and certainly in that one any fusions one 15 and following begins with a divine action that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation then moves through a transformation of the knowing subject the eyes of your heart being enlightened and then finally gets to the result you would know his power.

[00:20:50] Yeah well thanks now that's kind of the spirits work on the on the front end what about in the preaching act itself what is the spirit doing in the preacher as as the sermon is being delivered.

[00:21:08] Yeah well the spirit is the first John calls him the witness or the one who one who bears witness the testifier and specializes in bringing to mind the things that belong to Christ right so in John Jesus says that when the helper comes he will take of what is mine and show it to you.

[00:21:30] So I do think that that happens that's a much broader claim and promise about the nature of the spirit in the work of the spirit and everybody but applied to preaching I do think it means it really aligns well with them not just your ability to remember what you wanted to say.

[00:21:45] But actually draw out the things of Christ and be able to present them to people it's also of course great that the spirit is on both sides of the communication event he's in the speaker and in the hearers I was just going to ask that as well what about yeah the ones listening is that that same applied new mythology from earlier or the illumination are we hope it in praying that there would be that.

[00:22:12] Illumination that takes place as the word is preached yeah that's right yep that same that second noetic office of the spirit also occurring in those who hear the word of God faithfully explained out loud to them and applied yeah.

[00:22:25] And now you know i'm from a you know a mildly charismatic church tradition the cabbage apple family of churches and this is something that I've heard you know about like feeling the spirits help in in the pulpit some people would use language or they would hope for some kind of like impromptu deposit of the spirit into into their mind.

[00:22:55] What yeah what do you think about that is that something that you think we should be expecting what what's happening when those types of again i'm using very subjective language i'm describing what people have said you know but how does a preacher know if the spirit is with them as a preaching.

[00:23:14] Yeah i think there is something to that to the felt experience of it i mean of course it's probably important as a baseline to have a proper confidence that the spirit is at work even if your ability to register that or feel that is not there you know sometimes.

[00:23:31] You just don't feel it and nevertheless the work is happening that's yeah that's one of the things about the spirit being at work on both sides of communication event i was going to say this is probably true of all teaching you know if you're teaching biology or.

[00:23:44] Whatever you're teaching you think as a teacher you know the important parts and you do you have content mastery you think you know what's going to communicate.

[00:23:52] And then you throw in some little side comment or you happen to put it a slightly different way and that's what totally grabs the students that happens in all kind you know that happens in math education which you would

[00:24:03] think would be totally under control and not subject to sort of variations of expression but in the pulpit it really happens you know the the thing that you have the most confidence in communicating well turns out to be not what people catch or remember there's this one little thing you do it's unscripted and for some reason that's what lands home you know i do think if you've got older other traditions people keep inventing phrases for when the preacher is really kind of in the flow or feed.

[00:24:32] You know there's no old Baptist tradition which is very much not charismatic but which would say as I preached i began to feel great freedom of speech right yeah freedom yeah i began to experience continuous utterance i was no longer halting but i went to the well and came up with water every time you know in the black church tradition you hear sometimes something like and suddenly there was a function.

[00:24:56] Yeah and you would say that function freedom or feeling the spirits presence it's because because you brought up that biology teachers experience something akin to this how is it different how is it different than just like you know the synapses are all firing and a new turn of phrase comes into your mind do you think it's it's just that it's something that all teachers experience experience

[00:25:26] or is there a unique spiritual with the capital S aspect to that yeah i do think there's something unique about it it's primarily having to do with the content and just in general i would say this you know when we have spiritual experiences they tend to be well there's never a total divorce between our felt spiritual experience and the knowledge

[00:25:50] and the doctrinal commitment of the truth we believe so the experience always kind of comes to us cooked you know i sometimes have this experience where people ask you know i felt christ was i felt Jesus was really among us the risen lord was there this morning and then someone else will say well i thought i felt the flow of the spirit

[00:26:06] and if you're not careful it's going to turn into who's got the most sensitive spiritual detection device kind of installed in their heart yeah i'm just very skeptical about that i think i've been at this a long time i think about the trinity every day i don't think i can detect the difference between the sun or the spirit being present in the proclamation of the word

[00:26:26] now i think i have true doctrines about that and i could say a lot of true things about it but i don't think there's a little needle in my heart that either pegs in the direction of spirit or christ yeah or the pleasure of the father

[00:26:38] that's right and i don't believe other people when they tell me that they do i mean i'm open to being convinced but i'm skeptical about that i think it's a mixture of what we feel in the moment what we register spiritually and emotionally

[00:26:50] and what we know to be true from being informed to biblically yeah i appreciate yeah you of all people um saying that so that that does that does carry weight some of us yeah i struggle for the vocabulary to describe a certain thing

[00:27:06] and then maybe even sometimes are made to feel inadequate because we're not reading the room the way that everyone else does or sensing the whatever divine activity is taking place

[00:27:18] being able to articulate it's you know do you the um the awakening or outpouring that they had at asbury seminary or asbury college in university

[00:27:26] um a while ago i was kind of inspired by the fact that the preacher who brought that sermon you know i always whenever there's a revival it breaks out i want to hear exactly the sermon i want to know what what was said

[00:27:36] that brought about this result and it was a fairly weak sermon by the preacher's own admission i think he i think he left the pulpit

[00:27:42] called his wife and said something like well a swing and a mess i'll see you soon

[00:27:46] yeah um and there was it was an underwhelming thing but he was he faithfully proclaimed and did all the right things

[00:27:56] and put put it out there and the spirit mightily used what he said yeah no he wasn't filling it all in the pulpit

[00:28:04] yeah and so would you say that's more of a work that was done in the in the hearers than in in through him

[00:28:14] so yeah no i mean you could check his work and say did he say anything false did he say anything confusing i'm not saying it was an actively bad

[00:28:20] right yeah um yeah i've read the same thing i know that by his own admission he's like uh wasn't wasn't that great

[00:28:26] and um so but yeah but he was also he was also of course drawing on the previous several weeks of sermons it was a roman series

[00:28:34] and he kept doing callbacks to what the congregation had heard and so he was leveraging sort of the um i want to say the normal life of the church

[00:28:42] it's a college chapel situation so it's uh slightly different from church church but yeah

[00:28:46] yeah and again it's what the second noetic purpose yeah the second noetic office of the spirit yeah

[00:28:53] yeah and i'm learning a bunch from you today that's great

[00:28:58] well that that is that that's encouraging and i guess i suppose maybe another thing before we move on

[00:29:02] to the next the next topic so most of the people who listened to this you know podcast were preachers

[00:29:09] but i know there's people who listen who don't who don't preach and are just like interested in this

[00:29:15] what can't and then even preachers we don't preach all the time what can we do to prepare ourselves

[00:29:20] to be like fertile soil or to be good listeners um as we hear the word preach to us we can or we can

[00:29:28] out yeah you know it's it's immersion in the word of god it's um spending enough time in scripture

[00:29:37] i don't have like uh rules or quotas or anything for how you know daily quiet times or devotions

[00:29:43] but just the world is so much in our in our faces all the time that we need enough dwell time

[00:29:50] in scripture um and in and in thinking about scripture that when we see things in our daily

[00:29:57] experience it reminds us of truths from scripture rather than vice versa if the polarities

[00:30:02] reverse then everything we read in scripture just reminds us of stuff we're experiencing in the

[00:30:06] world and so the the larger narrative becomes the the humdrum the mundane stuff from every life

[00:30:13] um and when we think about that passage i can do all things it reminds us of our uh external secular

[00:30:19] ambitions and and projects we're working on um rather than all those things that we're doing in

[00:30:25] daily life reminding us of the power of god in our lives yeah yeah well yeah thank you so

[00:30:31] the preparation the delivery the hearing and then even the the preparation for hearing um all

[00:30:36] what should be done under under the umbrella of an openness to to the spirit of god saturation and

[00:30:43] in the inspired word of god uh so so Fred you spend a lot of time with uh with young and new

[00:30:51] well young Christians anyway so you're a seminary prof so you have a lot of um

[00:30:57] um up and coming i guess Christian leaders perhaps that are coming through your classes

[00:31:03] and i guess focusing on like preaching um are there kind of trends that you notice in like younger

[00:31:09] or or newer preachers that either give you cause for concern or hope for the future yeah um

[00:31:19] so first of all just my my main day job is i teach undergrad gen ed so i'm actually not mostly

[00:31:24] in the seminary classroom i do a little bit of um i cross over and and uh addjunct basically a

[00:31:30] little bit at Talbot School of Theology here at Biola but i it's kind of peculiar despite my

[00:31:35] public facing work teaching on the on theology and the Trinity um yeah i'm an undergrad gen ed

[00:31:41] gen ed so i'm teaching great books to 18 to 22 year olds primarily oh forgive me

[00:31:47] i yeah no it's fine i made an assumption there i should have done my due diligence better

[00:31:52] it makes sense my public my public face is definitely theology prof but i'm uh undergrat great books

[00:31:58] gen ed so so which is just to say that my observation about preaching is much more from my general

[00:32:03] Christian life and um and and not so much from the classroom i i think that there is a

[00:32:10] maybe i'm just seeing what i want to see but i think that there's a real desire to reconnect with

[00:32:14] the great objective doctrine to the Christian faith of course nobody wants to come to church to get

[00:32:19] a lecture on the history of Christology or something like that that's that's not the case

[00:32:24] but there is um i think preachers are responding to a felt need that Christians are expressing

[00:32:32] to um to know that there's some real there there in Christian doctrine so it's not that we're just

[00:32:38] making this up as we go along or discovering what we happen to discover in the bible but that um

[00:32:44] you know we got two thousand years of Christian thinking that's got remarkable consistency

[00:32:50] anyone can look around and say oh there's so many denominations and they disagree with each other

[00:32:54] and some of these are really serious differences so i'm not sure there's such a thing as the Christian

[00:32:59] thing but you know if you focus on Trinity and Carnation and Atonement uh the nature of God

[00:33:04] the nature of salvation these things really do stand right out from scripture and for all our

[00:33:10] differences there's remarkable unanimity and um i think i think preachers are finding ways

[00:33:18] to um get at that main thing and and there's a lot of doctrinal content there which does not turn

[00:33:24] sermons into you know lessons that are laying out um as if in a classroom uh all the content just

[00:33:32] for its own sake but there there can be a lighter touch whereas you're going exegetically through

[00:33:38] what's right there in the passage you're still sort of laying precept on precept and establishing

[00:33:43] something about the nature of God before you then go onto the nature of salvation i hear a lot more

[00:33:48] doctrineally motivated preaching and i think that's encouraging yeah yeah of course why do you think

[00:33:55] there's a risk or would you call that a resurgence or and why why are you what your theory is on that?

[00:34:02] yeah i think just people got tired of the thin the thin stuff you know um there's there's only so

[00:34:08] many riffs you can do if you leave out the main content and so again while i'm totally aware of

[00:34:14] the difference between teaching and preaching there is some sort of uh you know the boundary there's

[00:34:18] blurry but there is a boundary there um uh you know when you've gone to full on lecture mode

[00:34:24] and and left behind the kind of the exhortational or reminding sort of character of the sermon

[00:34:32] yeah i just i think people i think christian believers have faith and by nature it wants to seek

[00:34:38] understanding and so they're um they're looking for it yeah well think that's that's encouraging

[00:34:44] to hear you say that now that's kind of like some broad notions about preaching but do you with your

[00:34:53] public facing focus on on the trinity and then even your recent focus on the spirit?

[00:34:59] are there are there like unhelpful ways that you've noticed preachers talk about the trinity

[00:35:04] in the past or how could you like you're you're just seeing a bunch of preachers what what

[00:35:08] mistake should we not make when we discuss or speak or preach about the trinity?

[00:35:14] yeah well um a lot of times there's nervousness about how complicated the whole thing is and so

[00:35:19] a lot of preachers will try to defuse that nervousness with a joke or even to say like put

[00:35:24] themselves on the same level as like listen i don't know much about this it's really tough um

[00:35:29] and so there's some kind of nervous joking about about that i it makes me think of one of the first

[00:35:35] large venues i spoke at it was actually an apologetics event and my zipper broke right before

[00:35:41] I went up on the on the podium and the the the the nervous energy of like i thought i don't think

[00:35:47] it's that noticeable but should i totally not draw attention to it or should i just make a joke out

[00:35:52] of it? obviously i should not make a joke out of it um i think a lot of times pastors hit the

[00:35:57] pulpit they're thinking about the trinity they've got right in the front of their mind how complicated

[00:36:01] this is and so they start saying setup things which are like nobody understands this we're not

[00:36:07] going to get very far on this and they've kind of given the game away right there i would say

[00:36:12] of course we don't understand god as well as god understands himself we don't comprehend

[00:36:16] the trinity in that sense but we don't comprehend anything about god in that sense

[00:36:21] i actually think we should proceed with a confidence that we know as we understand the trinity

[00:36:26] as well as god intends for us to understand it we know that there's one god that there are three

[00:36:31] persons who each are that one god and that's something we know you know so i say we comprehend

[00:36:39] it's got comprehensive knowledge of it yeah yeah yeah and i was looking for the quotes i think

[00:36:45] somewhere in here there's there's this quote that is allegedly attributed to a gustan

[00:36:49] that if you deny the trinity you lose your soul if you explain the trinity you lose your mind

[00:36:56] yeah yeah very unmotivating yeah yeah yeah hey did he really say that and then be do you think

[00:37:02] that's a good thing for us to quote yeah no one know it's as far as i can tell it was coined by a guy

[00:37:10] named Robert South in like 1700s and you'll notice that if you have a book that starts out with that

[00:37:17] quote usually the person won't footnote it or take credit for it they'll say as someone has said

[00:37:23] you know which is kind of a way of saying like i know we shouldn't say this but someone has said it

[00:37:27] yeah yeah yeah i have one big answer for how to preach the trinity well um and that is to connect

[00:37:35] it to the gospel as early and clearly as possible right trinity and gospel go together the better

[00:37:41] we understand what salvation is the more deeply we will be able to understand uh who god is the god

[00:37:48] of salvation and the more clearly we understand god the the deeper we'll be able to understand what's

[00:37:54] going on in the gospel yeah and and yeah and to kind of like puff you up a little bit um i remember when

[00:38:01] i was reading the deep things of god i was um jogging with my friend Phil Walsh and we're just kind of

[00:38:07] talking back and forth and and i'm like i'm reading this book about the trinity and apparently like

[00:38:13] Phil there's so much more about the trinity than just you have to believe it to be a good Christian

[00:38:18] or or to not be a heretic like there's there's more like you know and much of i guess the instruction

[00:38:25] that we have is just kind of like here's here's a bunch of heresies you know auringism this or that

[00:38:30] you know the story and the trinity is the answer to those or you can use the trinity to show the

[00:38:36] Jehovah's Witnesses that they're wrong you know those types of things but um i just like just like

[00:38:42] man it's so much deeper and foundational and better than just you have to believe this to be a Christian

[00:38:49] mm yeah yeah you know the other thing about making that connection to the gospel um it puts the ball

[00:38:55] in the hearers court right they it's things they already know all start making sense okay they kind of

[00:38:59] got them app in their head now and they say oh that's why that's there okay they're trinitarian

[00:39:03] reasons for all this but also it answers in advance the question why does this matter

[00:39:09] because there's a way of just proving the trinity from scripture like is there one god yes here's

[00:39:13] the verses is the father god yes here's the verses as the sun god yet we can prove all those

[00:39:18] um it's fine way of teaching but when you're done with that and some if someone has obedient

[00:39:24] obediently received the instruction believes it is convinced of it they then want to know why does that

[00:39:29] matter which is a perfectly good question and it's where the uh where the hunger for illustrations

[00:39:36] comes from it's when people are asking out i believe about why does it matter that then they think like

[00:39:41] well what does that like and then you begin this sort of not very useful quest for like well maybe

[00:39:46] it's like a shamrock maybe it's like water freezing and steaming and flowing maybe it's like you know

[00:39:52] me having three jobs and then all those illustrations are like kind of good largely bad they work up to

[00:39:58] a point they still don't matter much but they're notice there are all attempts to say why would this

[00:40:03] matter what does it like uh see if you go back and connect the trinity to the gospel from the beginning

[00:40:09] the why does it matter question is already answered and it doesn't come up and so it's not that

[00:40:15] you've come up with a great analogy for the trinity it's people don't want a great analogy for

[00:40:18] the trinity they actually want the trinity yeah wow yeah that's that's excellent thank you thank

[00:40:25] you so much for that um and then maybe to ask again but with a different thing like what are some

[00:40:31] like more or less helpful ways that preachers describe the spirit of God um what are the the errors

[00:40:37] or can you help us to communicate about God the spirit in a way that is less cheesy or or I guess

[00:40:43] more more helpful yeah yeah a lot of what I do in the book I wrote about the spirit is try to really

[00:40:51] track exactly how the Bible talks about the spirit because of course the spirit inspired

[00:40:57] scripture therefore what we're getting there is the spirit's self-description and I try to capture

[00:41:01] the ways in which that's frustrating um for instance often the father and the son are mentioned

[00:41:07] and the spirit simply isn't mentioned you know in Matthew 11 Jesus says no one knows the father

[00:41:12] but the son and no one knows the son except the father and anyone to whom he chooses to reveal him

[00:41:16] and he does not name the Holy Spirit and as a good trinitarian I sort of want to get out my red pin

[00:41:21] and correct the Lord and let him know he failed to be trinitarian but obviously I know better than

[00:41:26] to do that what I really need to do is norm my own expectations and way of talking to how scripture

[00:41:33] actually talks what that means is I'm calibrating the concreteness of my knowledge of the spirit to

[00:41:39] the concreteness given in scripture um and I'm settling for that so would I somewhere deep in my

[00:41:46] heart like for the spirit to be more obvious concrete and personal yeah but that's an itch

[00:41:53] that I doesn't need to be scratched it needs to be extincted I need to learn to accept how God

[00:41:58] himself revealed himself in scripture one of the ways this shows up I use one little case study

[00:42:03] late in the book it's from the maybe the 1700s in Catholic Europe of a of a nun or a religious

[00:42:10] woman who had a vision of the Holy Spirit as a young man with curly hair and a widow's peak

[00:42:16] he needed a beautiful guy and he showed up and he was a visual image of the spirit good old christencia

[00:42:22] yeah christenta de calcaren and eventually the Pope had to write a letter and say you know

[00:42:27] knock it off that's not there is no biblical warrant for seeing the spirit is like where did you

[00:42:32] even get that why would you think he was a beautiful young man with curly hair um now I you know

[00:42:38] I'm writing a Protestant evangelical context we're mostly not tempted to have visionary experiences

[00:42:43] from nuns and make up little prayer cards and distribute them um but I think I next go on to tell

[00:42:48] a story about um a church that preached through the book of acts and had character had dialogue for

[00:42:53] characters to come out and give a monologue like I'm Peter boy I sure was surprised when God turned

[00:42:57] this to the Gentiles um and in conclusion they wrote a little monologue for the Holy Spirit to come

[00:43:02] out and say I'm the Holy Spirit here's what I was working on that whole time and I think okay kind

[00:43:08] of a bad idea for a skit probably shouldn't have done that but and it's not it's not heretical or

[00:43:12] anything but it does express this hunger for greater concreteness and personal focus of the spirit

[00:43:20] which we just have to admit I understand the hunger it's kind of beautiful to want more of the

[00:43:24] spirit I can affirm that but I cannot affirm making up stuff about the spirit or pretending that

[00:43:31] the spirit is made known more concretely and precisely than he is I think our job is not to

[00:43:37] make up details about the spirit but to become satisfied deeply with what's actually made known

[00:43:43] about the spirit yeah yeah okay well then as we have about four minutes left of this conversation

[00:43:52] we always end each each of these episodes just by asking like how do you want to improve as

[00:43:59] as a preacher and then maybe you can just broaden it as just like a teacher in general but what are

[00:44:04] the ways that you're trying to get better yeah that's a good question um contents always king for me

[00:44:10] so I want to understand scripture better uh more deeply and in a more networked way anytime I take

[00:44:15] up a passage I want to I kind of want to be teaching the whole Bible from that passage you know

[00:44:20] so that on the content side I want to have a clearer vision of how everything fits together

[00:44:26] on the preaching side I'm growing in an understanding and acceptance of what I'm actually capable of

[00:44:33] as a communicator I see someone preach in a really exciting way you know with a lot of power

[00:44:39] and kind of an ability to confront the audience or plead with them um kind of in a in a

[00:44:45] kicked up emotional register not manipulative but just really powerfully present I see that and I wish

[00:44:50] I could do that um and you know as I'm 50 something I think well that's probably not going to happen

[00:44:55] there probably aren't it would have happened by now yeah yeah if I got superpowers they would have

[00:45:00] emerged when I was when I was a young mutant so but but to be instead to focus my energy not

[00:45:09] on hankering after wishing I had a different personality in life or in the pulpit but to say well

[00:45:13] what what am I good at what what am I capable of doing how have I how can I look back and say god

[00:45:19] has used this so in my particular case I think I probably can't bring a congregation to its feet

[00:45:27] you know with a sudden emotional on rush of power I love that I appreciate that kind of work

[00:45:33] what I can do is design the way I express ideas in such a way that they get deep into your mind and

[00:45:40] are sort of still with you 10 days later out of nowhere um you know not radically change your way

[00:45:46] of thinking in one speech event but just really kind of get inside your mind like a kind of an

[00:45:52] earworm or something so that you you keep an idea that has been transformed in your head I

[00:45:57] so I'm trying to play into my strengths and not go too far after my um my weaknesses and I say

[00:46:04] that as someone who's now got a track record of having preached enough times that I can kind of see

[00:46:09] what's been helpful what's not been helpful where am I likely to be able to grow into

[00:46:14] yeah well this is kind of a final question I didn't I didn't warn you about this but you could

[00:46:20] be as honest as you want but like um I've looked up you know Fred Sanders Sermon's on Sermon Index and

[00:46:27] you know and they're all about the Trinity do you ever wish people invited you to speak about

[00:46:34] like Joshua Marching around Jericho or like do like yeah do you get do you wish you could preach about

[00:46:40] other stuff um you know when I'm on the road when I'm when I'm guest preaching it almost always

[00:46:47] is about the Trinity or Ephesians and that's that's fine with me on on the road I have a friend in

[00:46:56] a black church tradition who talks about having a sugar stick Sermon you know you're invited to

[00:47:00] you're invited to preach somewhere and you got something like I know this one's gonna work

[00:47:03] okay yeah yeah obviously the Holy Spirit has to show up but if I'm just called on to preach I got

[00:47:08] one that I know will it's kind of my best thing I don't get to preach at home anymore because I've

[00:47:12] already heard it at least once but but on the road I'm gonna go to this one so I'm fine with that

[00:47:18] in my home church I do we have we preach exegetically it's evangelical for each church we preach

[00:47:22] exegetically through a long you know a book of the Bible and so things get divided up there and we get

[00:47:29] you know I do draw passages that are from here there and everywhere on what we happen to be preaching

[00:47:36] through oh it's also a team it's also a team preaching approach so it's a shared pulpit and I

[00:47:41] only cycle up there every now and then so yeah I do appreciate that opportunity to get

[00:47:47] apparently random passages of scripture I know there is a central plan or putting the Sermon

[00:47:51] series together but yeah yeah all right well then I guess yeah those those aren't on sermon index

[00:47:57] calm I didn't I wasn't able to find those there's just like a long list of like you know

[00:48:01] the Trinity of this the Trinity part two you know and I wonder like yeah to see okay so I'm glad

[00:48:07] that you get the opportunity is to do to do both hands yeah though I will say all things do end up

[00:48:11] being somehow connected to the Trinity in my mind somewhere but yeah sure yeah and as you said

[00:48:16] with every verse that you teach you want to teach the whole Bible from that verse and and the Bible

[00:48:21] is a story about the trying God so of course it's going to to weave its way in and out all right well

[00:48:28] so thanks so much for talking the Holy Spirit an introduction part of the short studies and

[00:48:33] systematic theology published by Crossway there'll be a link in the description for those that want

[00:48:39] to go add that to their collection and yeah thank you so much what's your next project

[00:48:45] a book on union with Christ with Baker academic yeah really a book on union with Christ yeah

[00:48:50] and then an Ephesians commentary right after that wonderful well I look forward to adding it to my

[00:48:56] Fred Sanders collection on my bookshelf great thank you so much and for the listeners to this show

[00:49:01] I hope that this episode and all that we do help you to grow in your personal study and public

[00:49:06] proclamation of God's word thanks Fred all right thanks for listening all the way to the end

[00:49:14] you can visit Fred Fred Fred.com to read some of Fred Sanders blogs and then be connected to his

[00:49:24] recently published and kind of the back catalog of books that he's written you can also if you

[00:49:32] search hard enough find links to his sermons that aren't about the Trinity by using your friendly

[00:49:40] neighborhood search engine all right well that's about it I look forward to seeing you next Tuesday

[00:49:48] for the next episode of the expositors collective podcast God bless you this podcast is a part of

[00:49:54] C.G.N Media a podcast network that points to Christ we are supported by listeners like you

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