J. A. MotyerBesprekingen
Auteur van The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction & Commentary
Besprekingen
Comentario de Isaias door J. Alec Motyer
Preachers, teachers and serious Bible students of all types will find this commentary a wise, winsome and welcome guide to the prophecy of Isaiah. It may easily be the best one-volume evangelical commentary on Isaiah available today.
When the opportunity to review a new preaching book by Alec Motyer presented itself, I jumped at the chance. A competent biblical scholar, Motyer has written several commentaries that I have on my shelf (both in paper format and electronic). Notably, his commentaries on Isaiah is essential to anyone who wishes to gain a greater grasp on Isaiah’s prophecy. He is the general editor of the Old Testament for the Bible Speaks Today commentary series (published by IVP) and has contributed several volumes to the series. He is also former principal of Trinity College, Bristol.
In Preaching? Simple Teaching on Simply Preaching, Motyer details his approach to expository preaching. He shares wisdom from years of practice with plenty of examples of how to take a text and turn it into a sermon. This is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to preaching. Motyer writes, “For preaching is a very personal and individual exercise. We can learn from each other, but must not copy each other. It won’t work! Like criminals we must each discover our own modus operandi – find out what is our own brand of murder – and, hopefully, get away with it!” (Kindle Locations 306-308). Without heavy-handedly describing ‘the’ plan for preaching, Motyer shares his advice and insight on how to do it well. As a scholar, pastor, expositor, and preacher with decades of faithful service, he has a lot to say.
Motyer’s method is simple (as his subtitle suggests). He tells us to find a text: examine it, analyze it, orient ourselves to it, and harvest from it. The wisdom of his approach is that it forces the preacher to sit under a text rather than use a passage to illustrate their own agenda (or what they think the church ‘needs to hear’). Literary structure, inclusio, word studies and repetitions reveal meaning in the text. Often attention to the broad contours of the passage reveals an apt word for our context. This is what Motyer suggests: study and understand the text, prayerfully submit yourself to the text and pay attention to what God is saying there. When you have done that, you can craft a sermon (harvesting). And yes, he does offer advice on presentation and delivery: what to do and not do, and what to do but not too much. He does have some good words to say about how to draw out applications from a passage.
These are all important points and I agree a wholeheartedly with most of what Motyer commends. I have minor disagreements with him in places because as Motyer observes, preaching is a highly personal endeavor. But I have still failed to mention what I think are the most significant insights that Motyer imparts. I appreciated Motyer’s passion for the importance of preaching. Unfolding God’s Word and declaring it to the church gathered is sacred work. Beginning in his early chapters, but throughout this volume, Motyer describes this joyful and serious task and the demands it makes of the would-be-preacher. To preach and preach well is to give attention to the Word and to the church. While Motyer devotes much of this book describing attention to the Word (where we hear the voice of God), to preach well is also to fulfill our pastoral vocation: to pray for the congregation, and be involved in their lives. As Motyer observes, “Our position as ministers in a church gives us the right to preach, but it does not give us the right to be heard”(Kindle Locations 1503-1504). A pastor who is actively caring for the flock and prayerfully attending to their spiritual formation will preach with power.
I warmly commend this book to preachers, especially young preachers with little experience. Motyer illustrates his approach by giving several examples of how to exegete a passage and turn it into a sermon. By opening up his process to new preachers, Motyer gives them a gift. Those who follow his method will be brought into an encounter with the Spirit in the text. May all who declare God’s Word do so with such loving attention! I give this book 5 stars.
Thank you to Christian Focus Publications for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for my review.
The introduction discusses, among other things, the interesting view that the collection is arranged deliberately in five groups of 3 - of which the first focuses on the distress of God's people, the second on God's power for his people and the third on the security of God's people.
[This was new to me, and I found it thought provoking. However, like other discussions of the structure of psalms, I think this this is a more a hint or suggestion for further investigation than a law to guide interpretation. I'd ask if the distress/power/security suggested by this structure is always to be taken as the chief interpretive key as over against, say, the internal structure of the particular psalm. Still, the suggestion that the juxtaposition of psalms is significant for their interpretation should not be lightly dismissed - elsewhere it is commonly noted that the thematic importance of the first 2 psalms for the whole psalter is in part theirs because of their place at the head of the collection (as well as their themes and the absence of specific ascriptions in their first lines in a book whose content is almost comprehensively seen as Davidic) and few would deny a significance to the collection ending with 5 great psalms of praise.]
In short chapters of about 8 pages each, Motyer discusses these psalms making the sensible suggestions of the seasoned Hebraist and OT commentator we have always appreciated. The notes at the end of each chapter often offer helpful explanations of vocabulary or translation issues, and give references for further investigation.
Since I am not a Jew in ancient Israel, I need to think how this section of the OT applies to me as a Christian. In this, as his title suggests, Motyer has offered the hermeneutical key of the Journey - so that the christian reader might think of themselves as also on a pilgrimage - 'though one now directed toward Christ. At times this is a very useful metaphor, and one which finds a multifaceted reflection in, say, the NT book of Hebrews.
But I must say that although I have come away helped by Motyer's book, I remain somewhat dissatisfied. For me, the dilemma is that the Christological interpretation of these psalms rests more on the suggestive nature of their ascription as 'songs of ascents' than on easily discerned direct links to the NT and to Jesus' person, word or works. I acknowledge that to some extent most of the Psalms gain their applicability precisely because a specific situation has been generalised for the people of God. Still others offer us a clear fulfilment in the coming messiah. But these psalms are in content so often either so much about commonplace actions and thoughts or about Jerusalem itself, that we are limited to more generalised connections. Apart from the possible quotation of Ps 132:11 in Acts 2:30, they appear to be unreferenced by the NT and therefore even though they are songs of great beauty and simple yet profound insight, understanding the significance of their detailed content remains somewhat mysterious for a Christian who meets God in Jesus not Jerusalem, and does not hope to rise to him (having already done so by faith) but more eagerly looks up for Christ's return from on high.
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