The challenge of preaching from the Gospels is, in part the challenge of preaching from narrative. The best of Western seminaries and theological colleges reinforce the cultural bent toward the abstract, and fill students' heads with the importance of grammatical, lexicographical exegesis. Such exegesis is, of course, of enormous importance. But in students who do not have a feel for literature, it can have the unwitting effect of so focusing on the tree, indeed on the third knot of the fourth branch from the bottom of the sixth tree from the left, that the entire forest remains unseen, except perhaps as a vague and ominous challenge. I am so glad that I have been reading this commentary by Carson. I absolutely know that I could easily miss the forest for the trees, so to speak. My tendency is to drill deep on each verse and attempt to figure out what that verse is about. I love the wealth of information that can be found in each individual sentence. I don't w...
Striving to be a Samwise Gamgee in a world of Smeagols.