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Topic: How to turn a story from Scripture into a compelling sermon. Preaching Today: One of the great chapters in The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching belongs to you, Paul. Can you start by giving us a thumbnail sketch of how to do good exegesis of a story? Paul Borden: When I was in seminary learning Greek exegesis, I was taught how to interpret didactic material. So I have to forget that kind of training when I come to story. The first thing I do is lay the story out in paragraphs. I assign descriptive titles to each one. Then I write a descriptive sentence tying together all of the titles I've given to the paragraphs. Once I've done this I begin to look for specific items. Who's the main character? Who is the antagonist? If I were going to cast this story as a movie, who would get top billing? If I was a director and each paragraph was a scene, how would I shoot each scene? I want to see what is in the scene. I want to see how the characters interact with each other. I want to see the dialogue. Doing exegesis means asking, " How does the narrator intrude? " , " How is the story designed? " , " What is the plot? " , and " What is the tone? " Once I come up with the exegetical idea, how do I turn it into the preaching idea? I come up with a descriptive sentence; what I call my " Joe Friday " sentence. It is a factual sentence with no interpretation. Then I look again at the character, plot, design, and scenes. Which of those are influencing this story to make a point? I add that interpretive answer to my descriptive sentence. This gives me the exegetical idea. When I'm working in the Old Testament, and I have someone like David involved in a way that's not going to play in today's world, I look at that interpretive sentence and ask, " What's the eternal principle that is impacting David? " I rewrite the sentence in today's terminology as a kind of theological proposition: a sentence with a subject and a complement. You pointed out that the preaching idea is a remedy. It's the tonic for the disease. Talk a little about that. Because the preaching idea is simply a restatement of the exegetical idea in modern terms, I know why God put that story at this point in the text. Because I believe that story was put there to help me, I now know how God wants me to think or act. That's the remedy. But I have come at that inductively and intellectually, asking " What's the story a remedy to? " That puts me on a quest for the disease. How do we preach in a manner that honors the story form rather than simply abstracting three points from it? First, ask, " What is the writer doing in this story to make the point? " Some movies or books are all about the character, and how she interacts with life. Action movies are mostly movement, with scenes showing car crashes or whatever. Other movies have very intricate plots, and you don't know what's happening until the end. I have to ask the following questions of Bible stories: Is the focus in this story on the character? Is the story focusing on the plot? Is it just focusing on the scenes? The answers determine what I'm going to preach because they become my major points. If I am looking in Romans, I'm always going to look for the main verb or participle because they often affect the main points of the sermon. Story is difficult because in one, the main point may be in the character development. In the next story it may be the plot. So as I begin to build my sermon I must return to my exegesis and ask, " What's emphasized here and what's not? " You break the homiletical side into two stages. Can you lay those out for us-the stage of the problem and then the stage of bringing the solution to bear on it? When I have the idea in front of me I know I have an answer. What I don't know is to what this is an answer. The first four chapters of 2 Samuel present an interesting study on how David reacts to power. His problem was this: when do I let God act and when do I act? This is a struggle we all have. So, as I deal with , I have some answers. But I still have to answer this question: " How do I struggle with what David struggled with? " For example, in , David obeys God to the point of risk. Obeying God may mean reading my Bible, praying, and giving. But there's a different step of saying, " I'm going to obey God to the point of risking my life or reputation; cutting the rope and hoping God's hands are there. " That's the answer. That's how I begin to deal with the problem.
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