I wonder what Jesus thinks about how little his servants preach the Bible he used. Jesus preached and taught from the Old Testament, so why don't we?

We claim to believe in the inspiration of Scripture. We frequently quote 2 Timothy 3:16 to support that view. But ironically, we pay little attention to the rest of that verse which teaches the profitability of all Scripture. Simply put, all of the Word of God has a reason to be there. A sovereign and omniscient Holy Spirit included it for all believers of all cultures and all epochs. Whatever cultural differences or span of time might separate contemporary readers from the text, the promise of the Word is that we can discover something timeless and true in every passage of the Bible. We need not be embarrassed by any part of it.

‘Profitless’ passages?

When I became a preaching professor 16 years ago, I put 2 Timothy 3:16 to the test and forced students to search for the "profit" in passages they might typically avoid. In the course of a semester, students in a practicum usually get to preach five times. Along with four texts of their own choosing, I assign each of them a single, ridiculously difficult passage. I have assigned texts that were "creepy," like the rape of the Levite's concubine in Judges 19. I've assigned the sexual taboos of Leviticus 18 or Genesis 38, a bonus passage with levirate marriage, God's killing of Onan because of his withdrawal, and Tamar's disguised seduction of her father-in-law—all three! I have chosen texts that were particularly politically incorrect: imprecatory psalms like 137 (particularly verse 9 about dashing little ones against the rocks), or David's collection of 200 Philistine foreskins in 1 Samuel 18. Sometimes my choices were "simply" exegetically difficult pericopes such as Christ preaching to spirits in prison (1 Peter 3:18-22) or baptism for the dead (1 Corinthians 15:29).

My favorite assignment was Genesis 36, a list of the descendants of Esau.

Watching students wrestle with the text and their convictions about it proved one of the greatest fringe benefits a seminary professor could ever enjoy. As I made these assignments, I noticed an excitement in the students that the other sermons did not hold. They looked forward to that cycle of preaching not only because it challenged each of them personally, but also to see how their classmates handled their respective assignments.

Of course, the question always awaiting me after my critique of the sermon was, "Dr. York, how would you handle this text?" So between listening to so many students look for the "profitability" in each text and thinking through it every semester, I had to accept my own challenge. Once I began pastoring again ten years ago, I was determined to put that commitment to the test.

Over the course of time a church will not only assume the personality traits of its pastor, but more importantly, also his or her approach to the Word. If a pastor preaches through a book or a passage but skips over difficult or distant parts, church members will do that too—in their private Bible study or their small group classes. More tragically, because of the pastor's tacit neglect of parts of the Bible, they will begin to think of the Word of God as a patchwork quilt of things that are relevant and irrelevant, important and passé, inspiring and embarrassing. This discounting of the difficult parts is lazy, and dangerous to the health of the church.

I was determined to show my church the beauty of the text and the wisdom of the Spirit in what he inspired the authors to include. The confusion often comes when we grapple with the difference between inspiration and profitability. Though all the Scripture is equally inspired—no one part of Scripture is more inspired than another—all passages are not equally profitable. Romans 8 and Ezra 2 (a list of those returning from the exile) are both equally inspired by the Holy Spirit. That does not mean, however, that they both have the same level of spiritual instruction for the church. Romans 8 simply has a lot more content than Ezra 2. Most pastors would take numerous sermons to preach through all that Paul writes in that single chapter, but pity the poor congregation forced to sit through a series from Ezra 2! Still, based on what God says through Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16, I must conclude that Ezra 2 has some profit for the church. Something there is a distinct advantage to doctrine or correction or admonition or instruction in righteousness. As a preacher of the Word, my job is to discover and show that meaning, relevance, and profit.

Redemptive understanding

As I began to preach through sections of the Bible, especially Old Testament texts, I determined never to skip over difficult passages. No routine list of names, atrocious genocide, buzzard-shooing mother, or Edomite genealogy escaped my sermon plans if they occurred in a section I was preaching. The response of the congregation was more than just curiosity. With their heightened interest came deeper study and thinking about the Word. More importantly they began to be convinced that the entire Bible truly is the Word of God, including the Old Testament.

A pastor must establish and explain a redemptive understanding of the whole Bible for his people. Congregations need to know that the Bible is ultimately about Jesus and God's work through him to redeem and preserve a people for himself. That does not necessarily mean that each individual constituent part of the Bible directly points to Christ, but certainly in its totality and canonical role. Once a pastor clearly builds that framework and frequently reiterates it, then he must work within that framework. So when he comes to a difficult narrative passage, he must not merely preach the event, but the meaning of the event.

In Genesis 38 for example, the preacher has to question what Tamar's seduction of Judah has to do with the coming of the Messiah and his redemptive work. Since Tamar is mentioned in Jesus' genealogy in Matthew 1, one could easily default to that and at the very least show that Tamar and Judah are part of the line of Christ. This, of course, is another reminder of our kinship to Jesus. He was born into a world of horrid dysfunction and rebellion against God.

But Genesis 38 presents much more than just this for us to ponder. For instance, its placement is strange. Why is it after the Joseph narrative has begun? It would seem to make more sense if it came before chapter 37 at the conclusion of the Jacob narrative. Chapter 37 begins the story of Joseph and his seemingly perfect obedience. Then, immediately after the story of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers, comes this tawdry tale of Tamar's deceit in order to have the child that has been promised to her by Judah.

Frankly, the placement of the narrative is what I find absolutely fascinating. Why did this Spirit-inspired author, who could have done it any other way, choose to write it in this order? Why does he so clearly interpose the shameful story of Judah into the Joseph narrative? The two brothers and their deeds stand in sharp unmistakable relief. I cannot help but preach that text as a contrast between them, and since I have already established this redemptive historical framework for my church, now I have to explain how this narrative fits within that framework.

In this case, after the entire story of the almost super-human obedience and moral rectitude of Joseph, he almost disappears from the Bible. Because he gets two tribes named for his sons, we never see his name mentioned with the twelve tribes of Israel except once in the book of Revelation. So in a sense his blessing leads to his subsequent obscurity. He becomes merely a tool of Israel's redemption and deliverance. Judah, on the other hand, is mentioned throughout Scripture including and especially in the Apocalypse. The Messiah is born into Judah and Jesus is eternally identified as the Lion of Judah. Well, that's a treasure too rich to leave un-mined in Genesis 38! How can it escape our notice that Jesus identifies with the shameful, sinful, hypocritical, tawdry brother and not the one who seems almost too good to be true? We'd love to relate to and see ourselves like Joseph, but we know ourselves too well for that. We are Judah, making promises we don't keep, holding others to standards we don't keep, and discovering that God is so great he can use us anyway.

[Editor's Note: See Hershael York's sermon about Judah, "Why Can't You Be Like Your Brother?" on PreachingToday.com.]

Section by section, not verse by verse

When I am preaching through an Old Testament book or section of a book, I do not feel obligated to preach verse by verse. I usually preach the book section by section because a large portion of text may convey only one basic truth. I feel it incumbent on me to explain why every section is there and how it fits within the immediate context of the book, but also how it fits in the redemptive historical framework that I have established.

A text may contain moral lessons—something to emulate or something to avoid—but it will still fall within those two contexts. A basic question I ask myself is why did the Holy Spirit choose to include this for all time, particularly when the circumstance or event at hand may be so foreign to a modern audience separated by culture and time?

Exodus 4 is another great case. Preachers usually default to the burning bush in Exodus 4 if they preach anything at all from it. We're very comfortable with the thought of God calling Moses, even through a supernatural means. How thrilling to think that after a 40-year education in the isolated environs of a shepherd, Moses was finally ready for God to use him. Our hearts are encouraged to read God's promises of strength and wisdom needed for such a task. What immediately follows, however, is as strange and theologically challenging as any passage in the Bible. Why does God try to kill the man whom he just called to deliver his people? What does it mean when it says God "tried" to do anything? Furthermore, the story unfolds rather strangely. Zipporah, not Moses, circumcises one—not both—of her sons and then throws his bloody foreskin at her husband who is apparently estranged from her at that point on.

Our work is cut out for us with such a text. But if we can locate it both in its immediate context—why the author put it precisely here in the Book of Exodus?—as well as in its redemptive historical context—how does it point us to the work of Christ?—then we will be rewarded with a congregation of people who read the Bible that way.

Ultimately the preacher's goal is not merely to explain a given passage, but to train those whom he teaches to be self-feeders, to understand the Word of God for themselves. So by modeling this approach even to the most difficult texts, a preacher is instructing others to ask these questions of every passage. How does it fit in this book and how does it relate to God's revelation of himself in Christ Jesus? Those two questions help them answer the two ultimate questions of the text: what is the main point and how does it apply to my life?

Hershael York is pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Kentucky, as well as professor of Christian Preaching and dean of Southern Seminary's School of Theology in Louisville, Kentucky.