I appreciate and agree with Kenneth Langley’s opening statement: “Preaching should be God centered because God is God centered and wants us to be God centered in everything we do. All God does he does for his glory, and all we do—eating, drinking, and certainly preaching—we do for his glory (1 Cor. 10:31).”[1] I also like the way he refuted authors like Christocentric preachers like Tim Keller, C. J. Mahaney, and Edmund Clowney who contended that David is prophetic of his Greater Son. Langley responded, “I disagree that ‘it is impossible not to see Christ in his passage.’”
Our preaching should be God cantered in contrast to man-cantered. There is a difference, however, between God centered preaching and a hermeneutic that is not unlike Christocentric. In Christocentric hermeneutic, Christ is found in every text. In the Theocentric God the Father must be found in every text. Langley wrote: “Theocentric preaching avoids this problem because God never has to be read into any Scripture text: every passage is from, for, and about God.”[2]
The editors of Homiletics and Hermeneutics raised issues with all four views. In reference to Langley’s view [the Theocentric hermeneutic], the editors wrote: “Theocentric preaching seems to suggest a God-centeredness, like Christ-centeredness.”[3]
My concerns with all four views is that the authorial intent of a text to the original audience may not include Christ, God, the Law or the Gospel. The Historical/Grammatical hermeneutic is text driven and interprets the author’ message to his original audience which may or may not include Christ, God, the Law, or the Gospel. The author may be presenting an example to be followed.
There is legitimate and illegitimate exemplary preaching. Edmund Clowney gives the example of illegitimate exemplary preaching when he states that in some sermons, David and Goliath might as well be Jack the Giant Killer. We must avoid this kind of exemplary preaching that is man centered. God is the hero in the David and Goliath narrative. God chose and anointed David to be the next king of Israel in 1 Samuel 16. In 1 Samuel 17, God enabled David to defeat Goliath the enemy of Israel’s God, to demonstrate the David was God’s chosen leader.
Abraham Kuruvilla is a Senior Professor at Southern Seminary. Kuruvilla formerly taught at Dallas Theological Seminary for fourteen years. He contends that “all biblical genres in the OT engage in moral and ethical instruction; they do not serve exclusively as adumbrations of the Messiah, and neither do they solely establish salvific truths.”
Kuruvilla adds: The same situation pertains to other genres of the OT, as well. For instance, while not denying the employment of the psalms for messianic purposes, they are often applied to believers: Ps 2, for instance, is applied both to Christ and to Christians (Acts 4: 25– 27; 13: 33; Heb 1: 5; 5: 5; Rev 2: 26, 27; 12: 5; 19: 15); also see Ps 44: 22 (Rom 8: 36); Ps 95: 7– 11 (Heb 3: 7– 11, 15; 4: 3, 5, 7); etc. Prophecy, too, is applied to the believer: Gen 3: 15 (Rom 16: 20); both Jesus and believers are called “light of the world” (Matt 5: 14 and John 8: 12; 9: 5; from Isa 49: 6; 60: 3); and Isa 45: 23 is used both of Jesus’ ultimate victory (Phil 2: 10) as well as to motivate believers to remember the final accounting and, therefore, to treat one another decently (Rom 14: 11). Wisdom literature is also employed in the NT for instruction in godly living— the book of Prov, for instance: Prov 3: 7 (2 Cor 8: 12); Prov 3: 11– 12 (Heb 12: 5– 6); Prov 3: 34 (Jas 4: 5; 1 Pet 5: 5); Prov 11: 31 (1 Pet 4: 18); Prov 25: 21–22 (Rom 12: 20); etc. In other words, Scripture is more than just a witness to the fulfilment of messianic promises [or God the Father, the Law or the Gospel]; there are ethical demands therein as well that must be brought to bear upon the lives of God’s people. Christocentric preaching [as well as Theocentric, etc.] tends to undermine the ethical emphasis of individual texts.[4]
Any hermeneutic beyond the historical/grammatical that adds to the author’s intent in a text of Scripture for this original audience, be it Christ, God, Law, or the Gospel, has misinterpreted the author’s message to this original audience.
[1]. Gibson, Scott M.; Kim eds., Matthew D.. Homiletics and Hermeneutics: Four Views on Preaching Today (p. 81). (Function). Kindle Edition.
[2]. Ibid., 98.
[3] Gibson, Scott M.; Kim eds., Matthew D.. Homiletics and Hermeneutics: Four Views on Preaching Today (p. 162). (Function). Kindle Edition.
[4] Abraham Kuruvilla. Privilege the Text! A Theological Hermeneutic for Preaching, 2013, (p. 243). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition).