The Joys and Challenges of Being a Guest Speaker (Part 2)
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Read the series.
Being a guest speaker in a local church congregation is a great honor, but there can also be some very real complexities that accompany such an opportunity. How should we as preachers handle these challenges?
I shared in the first installment that I always try to ask the following questions before I go into a church to speak:
- Does the congregation have a strong preference regarding dress in the pulpit?
- Does the congregation have a strong preference regarding Bible translations?
- Is the congregation used to having a media slide presentation (i.e., PowerPoint, Google Slides, etc.) during the sermon, and how is that system set up?
Last time we looked at the first of these questions, and this time we’ll turn our attention to the second one, which is likely the most controversial of the three.
Bible Versions
In principle, we would respond to this second issue of Bible versions in the same way we do to the first, regarding dress—endeavoring to accommodate the wishes of the local congregation, in which one is a guest speaker.
I must admit, however, that attempting to do this can leave me in a quandary. Probably like many who are reading, I am blessed to own a number of Bibles in a variety of translations. However, my Bible—that is, the Bible that I preach and teach from, is not interchangeable with any of the others that I use. I bought it in seminary, and this fall it turns 25 years old. Now, when I went to select a Bible, I had to pick a translation, and I chose the New King James Version in the form of the Thompson Chain-Reference Study Bible.
I purchased this Bible with the determination of making it my preaching Bible—drawing on the example set by my two great theological mentors, Dr. John Whitcomb and Dr. Myron Houghton, along with other teachers I’ve enjoyed. I have a unique highlighting system for it, and I’ve carefully filled it with notes. My familiarity with this Bible, in combination with the different colors of highlighting and the notes that I’ve recorded in it, makes it much easier for me to locate passages and other information that I need to access in real time. If called upon, with no advanced notice and no other notes in front of me, I could definitely preach a sermon, teach a lesson or strive to answer a question—as long as I had my Bible with me.
In fact, I will often speak (following the models of my teachers again) with only this Bible, and no other notes—especially if I am using a slide presentation.
Thus, changing the Bible that I speak from is not as easy as picking a different one off the shelf. Many people have no grasp of this concept. Some probably think that switching Bible versions for a sermon should be as easy as changing the font on your computer screen. But it is not—anymore than it would be so easy for a trained musician to switch instruments after preparing on the one they are most familiar with.
On occasion, however, I have specifically been asked to change the Bible version that I speak from. Sometimes a church will request me to go even further and alter my slide presentation.
Now, I have a heart for serving all churches that desire our ministry, and want to be sensitive to their needs. I realize that the guest speaker is, before anything else, a guest. I must admit, however, that these situations cause me to struggle.
Recently, for instance, I was preaching in a church that asked me to use a different Bible version. As a result, during the Sunday School hour I bungled an easy Bible question simply because I could not locate the passage I was looking for. Had I been holding my Bible, I could have answered effortlessly. Then, in the sermon, I messed up a major point I wanted to emphasize because I was reading it from that version.
These experiences leave me wondering whether such mistakes are really justifiable.
Yes, the church is the host and I am the guest. But should I ever be more forceful in declaring that I simply must use my Bible? Should I ever make it clear that, in my desire to be true and accurate to the text, and Biblically correct in all that I say, it is more or less necessary for me to use my Bible?
These are not easy waters for the itinerant speaker to navigate. I know men that I respect who have dealt with it in varying ways.*
What will you do when you have the opportunity to teach as a guest before a congregation of God’s people? How would you manage this situation? I’d love to learn from any wisdom that you can convey.
* For instance, I have known some Bible teachers who did not generally concern themselves with this second question when going to preach at a church. They simply presumed that anyone inviting them to speak understood what they were requesting—including the Bible version that the speaker was known for using.
Paul Scharf 2023 bio
Paul J. Scharf (M.A., M.Div., Faith Baptist Theological Seminary) is a church ministries representative for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, based in Columbus, WI, and serving in the Midwest. For more information on his ministry, visit sermonaudio.com/pscharf or foi.org/scharf, or email pscharf@foi.org.
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I have not really faced this problem, though I’ve spoken in a fair number of places over the years.
I’ve never preached/taught from the same physical copy of a Bible for more than a few years. Generally, when I mark up texts, it’s part of my preparation process for a particular message or series, so I like to start fresh fairly often.
I do remember one slightly awkward pulpit fill occasion. I had somehow forgotten to bring my usual Bible or my “usual in that particular translation” Bible to the venue. The church was near where my mother lived and I was staying with her. So I ended up preaching from my Dad’s KJV New Scofield… if memory serves.
I once preached from my grandfather’s Bible, too, somewhere. That was cool.
It was only awkward because I had gotten used to pages having a certain weight and thickness and had also grown comfortable with approximately how many pages I’d be turning to go from, say Luke to Galatians or Genesis to Psalms. And those Scofields have really thin, sticky pages!
But it didn’t affect the accuracy of anything I had to say, I don’t think. I’m not sure the translation I’m reading has ever been a factor in that… because I always study several and assume the audience is reading several. So I try to address the most common alternative wordings where there are differences that might be noticeable.
So my suggestion would be never use the same Bible more than a few years, study from multiple translations, and prepare notes that account for differences in wording (a caution here: I’ve seen more than a few preachers really get bogged down explaining the translation options. You want to keep that short and simple if you’re not delivering a seminary lecture.)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Well, Aaron, you'll never convince me to give up my Bible ... I just hope I can hold on to it through the rapture! LOL
A few interesting tidbits for our "Bible geeks" out there:
- Dr. Whitcomb's Bible was an NASB Ryrie Study Bible, one of the originals, with a special inscription in the front from Dr. Ryrie. He used it until he went to be with the Lord (40-plus years).
- Dr. Houghton's Bible was The Believer's Study Bible (NKJV). He used this for nearly 30 years, until he died—and made lots of converts to that edition while I was in seminary!
(Interesting—when I first went to FBTS, I heard that the Faith Bookstore was one of the leading sellers in the country of Ryrie Study Bibles.)
Still going strong are...
- Dr. Thomas Ice, who has used his NASB Ryrie Study Bible since the first week it came out, I believe ... autographed by Ryrie.
- Dr. Randall Price might also make 50-plus years with his NASB Ryrie Study Bible, which is covered in wood from Israel. It was lost once in an airport ... but found and returned!
I have also had other teachers and friends who, in similar fashion, used one Bible with their notes for many years. I had breakfast this summer with a man who had a recovered wide-margin New Scofield Reference Bible filled with notes! (A true Bible ... and prophecy ... geek, to be sure!!)
I hope this isn't one more generational thing that we're about to lose....
Blessings, PJS
Church Ministries Representative, serving in the Midwest, for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry
I’m aware that there’s a tradition of sticking with a single physical copy for long periods of time—and it’s been advocated by a lot of guys I respect.
What I’ve not heard much about is why.
Admittedly, I’ve occasionally seen some advantage when doing unstructured Q&A with audiences and I wanted to find a particular verse on the spot to answer a question. If I could remember marking up a passage or cross referencing it, it was easier to locate quickly.
But (a) How often does that happen? and (b) Are there really no other ways to achieve quick recall/finding of passages? (In my experience, there are.)
Growing up, I was in the “keep your marked up Bible forever” school of thought for sure… though without thinking about it much. I had a favorite KJV that was thoroughly marked that way. And we used to do a lot of Bible drills, so I could find anything in that copy in seconds. But when I went away to college, I picked up a new NASB and realized that looking at Scripture in a fresh, clean copy, and maybe a new translation, could be enormously profitable for seeing things I had not seen before. For me, that was a personal revival of Bible reading and study.
So, I’m sure there are trade-offs, and I’m not saying anybody who uses the same Bible for years and years is doing anything wrong. I see advantages to “knowing your copy” but also advantages to not being copy dependent.
Since I don’t use a physical copy at all now (I’m all digital on an Android tablet), I’m pretty sure I’m not going back. But who really knows? All this tech could be fried by some kind of sun flare or EMP or something tomorrow. Then I’d be back to my former favorite ESV or NKJV (I think I still know where they are).
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
If a pastor invites a guest speaker, and that pastor only wants a certain version used from the pulpit, then the pastor should clearly communicate that to the potential guest speaker. The guest speaker can then decide to come or not.
I don't know how other people are doing it these day, but for me, I have I every passage I want to read typed out in my notes before hand. I hardly ever flip through or read from my physical Bible while teaching.
I usually have the main text I’m preaching from open in some format, then cross referenced passages pasted into my notes.
On some occasions, though, I have used a marker of some kind in my physical copy for a second passage I want to spend some extended time in. That way I’m not wasting time looking for it… though I do give the audience time to find it (but it’s nice to be able to keep talking or at least keep thinking while they do that—so I want to be there before they are.)
For Sunday School settings, we’ve usually looked at a lot more different texts—depending on the study. I can’t say I have one approach to that. If it’s a lot of short passages, they go in my notes or on slides, or both. If it’s kind of a lot of lengthy passages, I’m more likely to have references and excerpts in my notes/on slides but turn (or scroll) to the actual passages in my Bible.
Everybody has to work out their own system, but I think it’s helpful to hear what other people do to maybe pick up some new ideas or tune the system you already use. The main thing is that it works for you and your learners.
Kind of a different topic, but I want to pass it on for what it’s worth, because it has so exceeded my expectations. Lately for listening to preaching and teaching, I use Logos on an Android tablet with a split screen layout in Logos (two translations side by side) and the Android (One UI 5.1) split also with a note taking app on the bottom.
So it looks like three panels, two Bibles above and a notes panel below.
For the notetaking, Samsung Notes is great but doesn’t integrate with Windows, where I do all my work other than during services. So now I use Logos on the top and OneNote on the bottom. (You can ‘feed’ Samsung Notes into OneNote, but syncing is often delayed or just complicated, so… I have found it impractical overall.)
(The large Android tablet has the additional advantage of being a great tool for scrolling through sheet music—which is also super easy to mark up with a stylus. So I use that for singing, then switch to Bible+notes when I sit down… and back again as needed. Downsides: for my eyesight, the tablet is pretty large and wasn’t cheap. It can be a bit distracting to people nearby who aren’t used to such devices. But I’ve been doing this for several months with this larger device now and folks have gotten used to it.)
Back to the topic of Logos as a Bible: With a couple taps I can see underlying Greek/Hebrew or cross references or notes and highlights, and two translations in parallel fits just fine. This would be impossible with paper and ink. There are some interlinear hard copies that could come pretty close, but they’re really bulky… and then you’d need a notebook separately also.
For preaching: I admit I haven’t done much preaching or teaching from tablet vs. the thousands (maybe 1.5k? I haven’t counted) of sermons from paper notes+paper Bible. I’ve done a bit more with paper Bible+digital notes. Short talks as all tablet.
I really think, though, that with practice, the Logos on top and notes on bottom approach could work just fine for me… probably. I’d probably have a paper Bible on hand also, though, for longer talks, just in case. As a guest speaker I would definitely also bring both paper Bible and paper notes because you have to be ready for things to go wrong.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I preach with an iPad with Pages and use presenter mode. Works great for me. I have all my texts I’m my notes and put them in bold so I can find them and slow down a little extra when reading God’s word.
I preach from Logos, from a laptop because I hate the Logos mobile interface. I don’t use a manuscript per se, but jot down brief notes for various verses in the passage. Each note creates a “Post-It”-like icon. I click on each note as I preach the text for reminders of what I want to emphasize. Here is what it looks like for a sermon:
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
For quite a few years I had a Bible where if I was looking for a passage, I knew roughly on which side of the page it was on and how far down it was. Then I started to use a different version, so I did not have that same familiarity. I now read out of multiple versions for devotions. There are definitely trade offs. I may not be able to find things as quickly, but I feel like I understand the passages better.
Further, I use more computer-based resources for sermon prep than I did years ago, so although I may have a paper Bible open during sermon, prep, there are times I barely use it. Instead, I will be looking at my Bible on computer with so many more notes and resources available at the press of a button. For earlier generations, personal notes and cross references were so valuable, but now we have so much more available with our modern technology. Further personal notes can be added within these programs without running out of room in the margins. Sure, a computer can crash and info lost, but a paper Bible can be left on the roof of a car and be lost as well.
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