By Pastor Bruce K. Oyen
My subject is "Bird Feeders And Preachers."
The graphic is of a birdbath, not a bird feeder. But it won't make any difference as far as my point is concerned.
My church office window faces west. Directly across the street, maybe 100' feet from the church, is a gray-blue house in which live two or three young adults. One of the men is a glassblower for income, and can be seen at work from my window.
In their yard are two bird feeders. It is enjoyable to watch the birds of various shapes, sizes, and colors as they go to the bird feeders to eat. Sometimes there will be too many at one time, so they have to wait their turns. But recently the feeders have been empty. Some birds make a brief stop, and move on to another location to find something to eat.
Empty Bird feeders And Preachers
This circumstance made me think about us preachers. We are like empty bird feeders, if we have nothing to offer those who come to listen to our sermons. But if we don't want to be that way, we must do our part to have food on hand to offer our listeners. So what should we do? Let me suggest two things.
We must read our Bibles for our own benefit. It alone is God's written Word. As we let the Bible speak to our own hearts and minds, it will change us. 2 Timothy 3:16 & 17 tells us that the Bible is profitable for a number of reasons. Re-read those reasons, if necessary. The Lord Jesus Christ himself said, in John 17:17, that God's Word is truth, and that it has sanctifying power.
We must also read it to benefit others. After all, we are in the preaching ministry to benefit others. Therefore, we should seek personal familiarity with the entire contents of the Bible so that we can use it in our sermons and Bible studies. This familiarity is a result of avid Bible reading. The more we read the Bible from beginning to end, the more its truths will come to our minds when we need it. It is a great advantage to us if we know the Bible well enough to easily draw from its contents for preaching and teaching.
When I was a teenager, I regularly attended a large gospel-preaching church in downtown Minneapolis, MN. The preacher was a dynamic speaker who preached from the Bible, but whose memory sometimes failed him as he got older. But there was a man who attended the church who was very well-versed in the Bible, and who had a good memory. His name was "Walter." If the pastor would forget a Bible reference in his sermon, he would stop and speak directly to Walter and ask him where the Bible verse was found. After a few seconds, Walter would tell him what Biblical book, and sometimes even what chapter it was in. Walter knew the Bible so well because he read it frequently, and it was a help to the pastor.
The application is obvious: let us preachers read the Bible frequently so it will come to our minds when we need it, at least until our memory fails us. Let me suggest reading it at least twice a year, apart from reading it when preparing sermons and Bible studies. This can easily be done if we read only 8 chapters a day. 4 chapters a day will get us through the Bible once a year. Reading 4 or 8 chapters a day can easily be done if we do what I call survey reading. Survey reading is for the purpose of getting an over-all acquaintance with the Bible, not just our favorite parts, such as Psalms, John, and Romans. When we do survey reading, we don't spend much time musing on verses. We just read the Word to learn its contents. But the mind absorbs much more by this method than one might think. So does the heart. And what the mind absorbs by this method will be something the heart can meditate on later that day, that week, or that month.
We should be avid Bible-readers, first and foremost. But we should also read commentaries, theology books, and other Bible reference works such as Bible dictionaries. These can be very helpful to us in our preaching ministries. The Bible rightly says that knowledge makes us proud (1 Corinthians 8:1), but it does not have to do so. It can make us better and more interesting preachers and teachers of the Word of God. Some of history's most influential preachers were very educated men, even if it was self-education, such as was C. H. Spurgeon's education. Think, for example, of the knowledge of Biblical subjects revealed in the 10-volume Old Testament commentary set of Keil and Delitzsch, and in the commentaries of F. L. Godet, M. F. Unger, John Walvoord, B. F. Wescott, B. H. Carroll, F. F. Bruce, and Bruce Waltke.
The average person likes to learn something new from sermons and Bible studies.For example, in Luke 24:44 the Lord Jesus made reference to a 3-fold division of the Old Testament. This division was "the law, the prophets, and the Psalms." Our listeners are fascinated to learn that this was not the division of the Old Testament that we normally think of. Rather, it was the division common among the Jews at the time the Lord was on earth. "The Law" included Genesis - Deuteronomy. "The Prophets" were divided up into two groups: the former prophets and the latter prophets. The former prophets included 6 books: Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. The latter prophets included 15 books: Isa., Jer. Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. "The Psalms" included 13 books: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 and 2 Chronicles.
We once visited a church on a Sunday morning. During his sermon, the pastor made a point of the fact that he does not like to read. He said he does not like to read books, magazines, newspapers, or anything else, except the Bible. We had visited that same church a few times previously. But now, without realizing it, he told us why his sermons were so shallow: he was not studious. As one preacher/author, A. W. Tozer, put it, we cant' preach from empty heads. But if we are not students of God's Word, which involves using books that help us understand the Bible, we will be preaching with empty heads. We will be like empty bird feeders.
C. H. Spurgeon said "A man who will not read will not be read. And he who will not quote will not be quoted." He also had some strong words of reprimand for those who opposed the use of commentaries. His words can be read at the beginning of his interesting book called "Commenting And Commentaries." The words are found in the section called "A Chat About Commentaries." To read the book on the internet, click on this link:
http://www.spurgeon.org/misc/c&c.htm.
We should expound on the less-familiar parts of the Bible. Our listeners won't be so easily bored if we take them into new Biblical territory, so to speak. That is, if we preach on those more-neglected parts of the Bible, such as Daniel, Esther, and the Minor Prophets. Breadth of exposure to the Bible can vary from one congregation to the next. But many churches, perhaps, have need for their pastors to go through more of the Bible than they do.
The most important thing our hearers need is truth for salvation or daily living. Although our hearers need to learn new information from us, that is not of primary importance. They need truth that will help them to become Christians, if they are not yet Christians. We need to make the need and way of salvation plain to them, and we need to give them opportunity to be saved at once. And the Christians need to be fed truth from God's Word that will help them in their struggles with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We need to give them comfort from the Scriptures. A bunch of information about the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic languages from which the Bible is translated will not do much for someone dealing with illness, death, divorce, loneliness, persecution, poverty, or some other difficulty. They need practical help from the Bible.
Help for bi-vocational preachers. Some men in the ministry are bi-vocational, out of necessity. They have less time to devote to in-depth sermon and Bible study preparation. They have a challenge the rest of us do not have. May the Lord bless them in their work. Wise use of time, and concentration on the most important thing, that is, on Bible reading, will help them considerably. But if they have time to use Biblical helps, too, they should do so
. Though I am not presently bi-vocational, the following practice has been very enriching to me, and it could be a real asset to bi-vocational preachers. Sometimes in my daily Bible reading I read a chapter, and then immediately read a commentary on that chapter. But the commentary is never a real involved one, like The Pulpit Commentary or Keil And Delitzsch. This was done earlier this year when reading the Minor Prophets. The commentary used was by Charles L. Feinberg. It is not too deep, not too shallow. Just right for use while doing daily Bible reading. Many others use J. Vernon McGee commentaries in this way because they are not too deep, and not too shallow. Another good one to use in this way is by William MacDonald. It is called "Believer's Bible Commentary," which covers the whole Bible in one volume. It is also helpful to use study Bibles in this way. Read a chapter in the Bible, and then read the footnotes in the Ryrie Study Bible, published by Moody, or the Zondervan KJV Study Bible, or the NKJV Study Bible, published by Nelson. All three of these study Bibles have extensive notes, and especially the last two.
May the Lord help us all to put our hearts and minds into God's Word so that we won't be like empty bird feeders when others come to hear us preach and teach.
, God, the mighty God, and the Son of God; and of his offices as prophet
