How to Preach a Text You Don’t Fully Understand

Some good advice here.

This is a topic I had on a list of things to write about some time. In my own ministry, I’ve often found myself in situations where it was time to preach/teach, and I hadn’t yet made up my mind which view of this or that portion of text was most likely correct.

I’ve also seen teacher and preachers handle this situation badly—and really confuse or frustrate a lot of listeners.

What I appreciate about the linked article is the exercise of looking for what the views have in common and focusing on that. I’ve often found that when you get to the “so what” part of a message, the most well founded interpretations of the text point to the same response—or very nearly the same.

So I don’t find it uncomfortable at all to say “It might mean A or it might mean B, but either way, this much is clear…. ” Always focus more on the certainties than on the uncertainties.

I ran into this twice preaching through Genesis 1-11.

The first time was Gen 6 with the marriages between the sons of God and women of man as well as that relationship to the Nephilim.

The second time was Gen 9 with Noah cursing Canaan instead of Ham.

I have no problem saying "I don't know" and/or "I don't understand this" for difficult texts that no one seems to be sure of.

I've found that saying "it might be this or that" often is heard as "pastor said it means this".

"I don't know" is a liberating answer and may even reveal that one can be humble.

I guess if you're saying "I don't know" for things that are pretty clear, that might be a sign that you're not really qualified to be a pastor, but a flip side is that if a pastor doesn't say that from time to time, that might mean he's not addressing the subtle issues in Scripture, or is purposefully dodging difficult texts and topics. I've seen quite a bit how some pastors more or less use the text as a springboard from which they go to talk about their hobby horses.

Another huge benefit of "I don't know" is that it can enhance the sense of wonder at what God is doing in a passage. So call me pretty affirming for a pastor or teacher who is willing to admit he doesn't know.

Another example of why it’s important that the office of pastor is not the office of prophet, and the pulpit worker (whether senior pastor, some other elder, or anyone else doing teaching) is not “the Lord’s anointed.”

In the OT, even a legit prophet can be wrong (I vaguely recall a prophet telling David to go ahead and build the temple, later to be informed by God that David is not going to build the temple) once in a while… when he’s talking from his own mind.

The parallel in preaching is that we are only speaking infallibly when we are quoting the Bible itself, and even then some margin for translation error. The rest is human work—guided in varying degrees by the Spirit, but still human work.

So there’s “I don’t know who’s right, but… ” and also “I could be wrong, but…”

These can be overused.

I remember hearing one guest preacher years ago. He was just out of seminary and still very much in “difficult passage analysis mode.” He was expressing some kind of qualification or uncertainty every other sentence—and rolling out alternate views for every sub, sub point. This tends to not edify.

But as a teacher/preacher people should know that you know you’re just a human being made of dust like everyone else.

When I am in a passage where the commentators are all over the map, I tell our people so, along these lines, "conservative commentators have differing opinions, which means no one really knows for sure."

But I also try to analyze their views and if I can't see one more probable, I'll try to identify the two or three most probable and make applications from them. It can be done, and usually the main gist of the passage is clear, even if you don't know what all the details are about.