March 19, 2014
Old Dog, New Tricks
During the missionary
conference we were told that the effectiveness of the traditional three-point
sermon is lost on the upcoming generation and it’s going to have to be replaced.
“The only way to grab these kids coming up is with a story.” My first thought
was not for the next generation, but for traditional pastors who have based
their whole preaching life on the three-point sermon. Oh my! I can just see
them struggling to tell a story with three points. Paul was willing to put on
different personas in order win people to Christ – a slave, a Jew, one under
the law, or not having the law – and maybe we could add storyteller to the
list. “To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to
all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for
the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” (1 Cor 9:22-23 NIV)
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Gail;
-----Why three points? It hasn’t been a big question in my life, but it has always lingered. And I never really expected an answer. It rather amused me that how many points a sermon must have should be such a big deal. At times I thought pondering the relationship of the points in a few sermons might shake loose a clue. But most often just identifying the points in a sermon was the insurmountable challenge. Now you have set the three-point sermon in my mind beside story telling (which I thought most preachers were doing anyway) and the light goes on.
-----I wonder if the light is on for today’s preachers. Visiting “three point sermon” on Google is quite entertaining. The reasons given are as various and many as they are inconclusive. One was curiously similar to my own perpetual guess, “The number three gives your congregation the sense of a complete unit. It’s why your mom counted to three, it’s why we award triple crowns in sports, and it’s why carpenters build three bedroom houses. In a sermon, two points feels like there should have been one more, but four points feels like a random list.” (pastoralized.com) The nutshell instructions for developing a sermon as given on preachwithpower.org rather underscores the meaninglessness of this reason, “From the purpose and the scripture and the 'subject germ' begin brainstorming your main points. Write down every idea you have on a scratch pad…From the main points on your scratch pad select three that fit best your purpose and your subject.” And that’s it! Just because!
-----I will conjecture here maybe more than I should. But I think there’s more to it than three being a convenient number. Three is actually my favorite number to ponder because it is God’s number (the Trinity) and so many basic fundamentals fit it. Three is the least number of points needed to establish any circle or plane. It is the least number of a complete thought: subject, verb, object. The molecule of the most important substance to all physical life (water) has three atoms. In fact, all atoms are made of three kinds or particles: protons, neutrons, and electrons. The space we live in has three dimensions: length, width, and depth. The materials we use exist in three states: solids, liquids, and gases. Even our own assemblage is in three basic units: body, spirit, and mind. That’s better than two’s too few and four’s too many.
-----But your putting the three-point sermon in my mind beside a story for the new generation gave me a new clue. Why stories for the kiddies? Because the kiddies aren’t being taught how to think. A thinking populace is the most dangerous thing to the forming trend in politics. What to think is more important to teach them. Of course, this is more true when what to think is the truth. But how to derive the truth from a set of facts is just as important. And the number three is involved here, too. Triangulation divulges a variety of information. And the simplicity of three points of support will stabilize a developing concept on uncertainties as well as a three legged stool sits stable upon even rolling ground. But now I must research the history of the three point sermon because it smacks of syllogism to me. And a sermon’s purpose being to convince cries out for that simple structure of logic I like to call mental math, the syllogism: proposition 1 + proposition 2 = conclusion. It is the basic building block of ideas in everyone’s head, though few know of it. I am suspicious, now, whether the syllogism might be the ancient pattern for the three point sermon developed by the church fathers who were big into logic and persuasion.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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