Exegete Your People
Training In Paragraphs (TIPs) 67
In his memoir The Pastor, Eugene Peterson recounts how as a young seminarian in New York City he used to sit weekly with other students for a casual conversation with the pastor of the church they attended. One evening, Peterson says, the pastor was asked, “What is the most important thing you do in preparing to preach each Sunday?” The pastor’s answer took Peterson by surprise. “His answer: For two hours every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon I walk through the neighborhood and make home visits. There is no way that I can preach the gospel to these people if I don’t know how they are living, what they are thinking and talking about.”
Preparing to preach requires us to exegete two things: Scripture and our people. To be able to bring God’s truths to bear on the hearts of our people, we need to have seen their hearts. Do we know what they are thinking and talking about? Do we know their anxieties, their fears, their hopes, their dreams? To do this takes time, conversation, and intensive listening. It takes learning the habits of their hearts and how the larger culture and ethos of their local place are bending their souls away from the gospel.
To teach for change, we must exegete both the timeless Scriptures and the time-bound people we are serving.
This is a powerful reality in favor of pastoral longevity. Whether senior pastor or student ministry pastor, longevity is a gift.
Such a great reminder. The public ministry of preaching is often better when the private ministry of discipleship and counseling is alive and active.