Preaching is leadership. The preacher not only is a leader by position, but by practice as he or she works to move people to new levels of appreciation for and obedience to the truths of God’s Word. However, this is leadership from among the people more than it is leadership from the front.

The traditional practice of elevating the preacher to the front of the building sometimes has the unfortunate effect of convincing the preacher that the people are following him. In truth, preaching is what God does. The human preacher is simply the instrument that God uses to lead people to hear what he is saying. The preacher is only privileged by the fact that he or she has had the advantage of a head start. He or she is every bit as accountable to the message as are the listeners to whom he or she speaks.

I was talking with one of my students about this recently who suggested Moses as an example of this principle. Moses was a heroic leader for God’s people, but Moses lived in the wilderness too. He was not somehow separated from or exalted apart from the rest of the people. In fact, Moses himself did not realize the eventual reward that he had long promised by his preaching. For forty years, Moses lived in the desert, living among the people and experiencing their daily challenges. Moses privilege was simply that he had heard from God before the others. It was, then, his responsibility to share what he heard with all the others, and to make sure that he himself was living faithfully by what God said.

It’s common in the business literature to talk about “leading from the middle.” This humbler approach is well suited to the preacher. Our position does not privilege us over the rest of God’s people. The preacher as a leader is God’ servant for the people.

One of my favoring TED Talks featured James Geary, author of The Secret Life of Metaphors. Geary’s presentation, titled Metaphorically Speaking is required viewing for preachers, as far as I’m concerned.

For Geary, metaphor is ubiquitous in life, claiming that we utter six of them every minute. “A way of thought, more than a way with words,” Geary sees metaphor as a way by which we shake people’s ingrained patterns of thought so as to stimulate deeper and more effective thinking. When we say, for example, that “some jobs are jails,” we are speaking truthfully, even if we are not speaking with strict accuracy. When we think of a job as a jail, we might be moved to consider alterations.

Of course, preachers are among the most practiced users of metaphor. Yet, I sometimes wonder how much we understand our utilization of this tool. I vividly remember a popular preacher many years ago speak of “a horse of a different wheelbase.” His dual juxtaposition stuck with me, even though I can’t recall exactly what his point may have been.

Of course, that’s part of the danger. We don’t want to be so cute with our words that people lose the sense of what we’re saying. Of course, that’s just another way of claiming that we need to be more careful and intentional with the use of metaphor. “Claiming” by the way is a metaphor. See how common this form of speaking, really is.

The power of the metaphor needs to be utilized judiciously. Geary describes how things work in the financial sector. When prices increase, the financial news tends to use “agent metaphors” (describing the deliberate action of a living thing), saying things like “the NASDAQ climbed 300 points today.” Obviously, a stock index has no physical ability to climb. But climbing is a noble and positive activity. Declines, on the other hand, tend to be described in terms of “object metaphors,” through words like “the Dow fell like a brick in trading this morning.” A brick falling is as vivid as it is ominous. In either case, the metaphor loads the language with persuasive meaning, for good or for ill.

Geary also describes a study whereby people were told of a small country in crisis and asked whether or not the United States should intervene. Some were informed through use of World War II metaphors. Others with Viet Nam metaphors. Others still with neutral metaphors. Not surprisingly, those who were encouraged to view the crises from the perspective of Viet Nam were far less likely to advocate for intervention.

Preachers tend to understand these things intuitively, but given the power of these things, perhaps it would be well for us to be more intentional about our use of them. Jesus taught us to consider lillies and to conserve our pearls in the face of swine. Clearly, he wasn’t above using such a powerful tool. But like our master, we want to be sure that we use metaphor appropriately, without manipulative intent, but with a heart to offer blessing by “shaking” people’s ingrained assumptions to see the gospel in a more compelling light.

One of the more helpful resources I have discovered recently is TED Talks, an array of video podcasts from the Technology, Entertainment, and Design group of conferences. Billed as “Ideas Worth Spreading,” these short videos feature presentations from a varied group of people. The archive features presentations from Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and even Billy Graham. One of the more interesting recent presentations was a set of dual talks facing off Rick Warren with noted atheist, Daniel Dennett. I’m pleased to report that while Dennett wasn’t cowed, Warren more than held his own.

TED Talks try to grapple with some of the more significant issues facing humankind, including climate change, human trafficking, and the technologies that can lead to solutions. Theological themes often find their place. Some of these presentations are maddening. Others are enlightening. One of the more hopeful recent videos described how cultural iterations of American Idol-like programming in places like Afghanistan are leading to a defusing of ancient cultural animosities.

I encourage you to have a look at these on a regular basis in order to tune yourself to what some of the leading spokespeople in our culture are saying about the issues that are shaping us. Some of our listeners deal with some of these issues on a daily basis in their places of work. They will appreciate it if their preacher was more helpfully informed. Personally, I subscribe to the podcast on my itunes so as to keep up with what’s been said.

I don’t agree with a lot of it, but I find myself able to preach from a more informed perspective. Always a good thing.

I recently spent some time looking at cars, kicking tires, and test-driving various vehicles. Strangely, I never thought to look under the hood. Eventually a salesman decided to show me the engine of one of the cars I was looking at. We both looked appreciatively at the intricate wiring and the shiny covers for about fifteen seconds before closing the hood and moving on to less meaningful things like how good the stereo sounded. Clearly, the engine is the most important part of a car. Without a good engine, the car is not going to do what we need it to do. It’s just that I’m not in a position to either understand or do anything significant with the engine, given my lack of expertise.

I suspect that this illustrates the way that we think about exegesis in preaching. Good preaching depends upon solid exegetical work. That means that someone has read the Greek and sorted out the details and that the findings of that someone has found its way into the foundations of the sermon. Whether the preacher does original work in the original languages or rests upon work done by others as reported in the commentaries, reliable preaching relies about good work done in the text. The question is whether anyone needs to see that detail in the sermon.

I’ll grant there are a few people who understand the inner workings of the text and love to hear a preacher talk participles and indicatives. The rest of the congregation is just not going to be as interested. This is not to say, however, that they don’t care. The truth is they care a great deal. They want to know that the preacher they are hearing has paid attention to the details because they need to have confidence that what they’re being told is properly founded on an authoritative exegetical framework. It’s just that they don’t want to have to look under the hood for themselves.

We could lament this situation, believing that listeners need to be taught to do the work themselves, and that we impoverish our listeners if we don’t help them appreciate the structural nuances of the text. I take the point, but I don’t entirely buy it. In any area of life, we rely on the experts that are able to make the investment that the rest of us can’t. That doesn’t mean we don’t many any investment. It is just that not all of us need to commit equally to the task of exegesis.

If I want to drive a car, the government feels it important enough to test and examine my ability to adhere to a basic framework of reasonable expectations that can assure reasonable safety for all upon the roads. That doesn’t mean that I need to know a carburetor from a catalytic converter. I just need to know how to drive.

Just like we need a lot of good auto mechanics, I believe we need a whole lot of people with expertise in the biblical languages and in the practices of exegesis. I also believe that most preaching pastors ought be among them. At the same time, I understand that there will be many without the time, the capacity, or the inclination. These are the ones who will have to rely on the work of others. As long as their work does, in fact, rest upon credible research, it might not matter greatly whether that work is original with them.

In the end, good preaching rests on good exegesis, whether listeners ever bother to look under the hood.

Thanks to all of you regular preaching.org readers and contributors. 2009 was a good year for the website, marked by a 25% increase in visitors. More than twelve years into this now, we remain committed to helping you grow in your capacity to “help people hear from God.”

As we grow, we hope to offer more interactive elements that allow participants to be more helpful to one another in the development of their sermons. Stay tuned. In the meantime, we would continue to encourage you to make use of the Sermon Builder, the Discussion Pages, the Book Reviews, and other elements of the website.

Blessings on you for a great new year of preaching.