Applying the Bible to people today is the toughest task I face in preaching. Listeners want to know what a book written so long ago has to say to them now. It is not hard for the preacher to be relevant. That is the easy part. All I have to do is preach what people want to hear.  No! The hard task is showing listeners that the Bible is relevant to their lives. The challenge is connecting the text with the application so that the Bible speaks, not me! The temptation for every preacher is to mishandle the text in our desire to be relevant. Sermons mislead more often in application than information making it our most significant challenge.

 

Good hermeneutics leads to effective application. God inspired the original authors to write for a world beyond the text – our world! I do not mean that they understood our world. That is our job. But I mean that the original authors intended to write – under the inspiration of the Spirit – truth that transcended their world. Why David and Goliath, slingshots and giants? The author intended to teach lessons that every generation of humanity needs to learn. Authorial intent is the starting point of effective application. We are not seeking some mystical, deeper meaning. We seek to understand the author’s transformative intention in writing his account. Our application should arise from his intention.

There are contemporary life parallels (CLP) for every passage of Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Each CLP must match the original life situation recorded in the text. The danger is that the parallel we draw may not match the text we are preaching. Whenever our CLP does not match the original context, we mishandle the text. Determining a valid CLP for each text is the key to effective preaching. The CLP shows the listener what the Bible says to them. The listener needs to see how the parallel today connects to the text of yesterday if the Bible, not the preacher, is going to speak to them. Our job is to demonstrate that connection.

An athlete who writes Philippians 4:13 on his forehead is mishandling Scripture. Paul was not writing about the strength to win football games! I read a recent post which argued that all tattoos are wrong because of what God said in Leviticus 19:28. He misused Scripture in his application because he neglected the context. The previous verse (Lev. 19:27) said that cutting our sideburns is wrong! Clearly, the transformative intention of Moses goes way beyond beards and tattoos making the application wrong. Applying the prohibition against burning bodies (Jer. 7:31; 19:5) to modern cremation neglects the prophetic context. The key to correctly applying these passages is that our CLP should be a DNA match for the original situation. The closer the match the more effective the application.

How do we match our CLP to the text?

Our exegesis of the passage needs to focus on more than semantics and syntax. We need to grasp not just the words of the text but the life of the people. A sanctified imagination helps us walk in their sandals. The joys and the heartaches are inherent in the words of Scripture. Biblical interpretation includes seeing what they see and feeling what they feel as near as we can through our analysis of what they wrote.

Principlizing bridges the gap between the biblical world and our world. The preacher makes significant generalizations about the text which are true for all generations. Why did the author include these words in the pericope? In Philippians 4:13, Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” He writes those words after talking about being content in all circumstances (v.12) including his current prison experience. He is suffering for Christ. We can be content in all circumstances knowing that Christ will strengthen us as we suffer for Him. Paul wants us to learn this lesson for our lives.

I must know the world of the Bible and the world of my listener to match concrete situations today with Paul’s experience. The man who gets fired because he refused to fudge the books for his boss is in a Philippians 4:13 situation. He is out of work and financially struggling because he chose to live for Christ. The examples should be listener driven. Each audience is different so the examples we use will be different. If I am preaching to a group of millennials, my examples will be different then if I am preaching to a group of boomers. Examples in Maine will be different than examples in Panama. The better I know both worlds, the better my sermons will be.

 

My CLP is the key!