Of late, my church and my pastor have had need of me to preach.  That is a special privilege and it is a conviction of mine that the needs of His people are the commands of Christ, so I have tried to obey.  Yet, I can see readily enough that my style is a bit unusual for a small Reformed Baptist congregation.  They have been patient and accustomed themselves to some of my eccentricities and I have returned the favor in adapting to some of theirs.

A sample of what I have in mind might be that I have resisted addressing the congregation from a pulpit.  Instead I’ve chosen to stand down below in the midst of the congregation.  I do not feel above my brothers and sisters in any sense, especially as I am not their pastor, and I don’t like the view from the pulpit anyway, towering over everyone.  It’s not simply an urge to be different that drives this practice.  I’ve tried to comply with the more traditional expectations in the past, but I felt secretly foolish when I did so and this was becoming a distraction from my real purpose.

I’m sure I would find it very tempting to make self-deprecating jokes if I were forced to preach from one of those absurd ornate balconies which the Reformers once used, gazing down from the heights like the proverbial St. Peter, compelling the quivering souls below to discover exquisite reasons for my allowing them admission into heaven.  I don’t suppose the Word of GOD needs the superficial aid of a pinnacle to impress anyone with its authority.  Who could possibly stand that high anyway?  The highest pulpit conceivable would bring us no closer to heaven (probably further away), and even so terrifying a rostrum as Mt. Sinai was not able to dispel idolatry from the hearts of the people.

Instead, I have reasoned, if the Son of GOD made Himself low and came among us humbly to preach, then how much more obviously would this apply to me?

Another divergence from the usual practice among Reformed Baptists is that I am not fond of preaching exhaustively through books of the Bible.  In fact, on this point I come into conflict with the prevailing wisdom of many of the best preachers of our day.  The call to this kind of “expository” preaching is everywhere and there are some who are so moved by it that they argue that any other form of preaching is simply unbiblical.  Dr. Mohler is just such a man, full of passion about preaching in a “postmodern world.”

In this book, he focuses upon the diminishment of preaching in our day and the way to return to a vibrant flowering of worship as it has for centuries been understood, with preaching as its root.  Mohler describes the present antipathy toward preaching as a result of several factors:

Contemporary preaching suffers from a loss of confidence in the power of the Word… from an infatuation with technology… from an embarrassment before the biblical text… from an evacuation of biblical content… from a focus on felt needs… from an absence of gospel…

He elaborates upon these considerations as he grapples with common skeptical tendencies that scratch away any significance from the personal nature of our words, from linguistic meaning, and therefore from authentic communion and a genuine knowledge of life.  When written or spoken language is degraded, denied legitimacy or purely privatized, we are not only estranged from each other, because we are incapable of breaching the barrier of our singular experience of life—trapped into conversing alone with our inner voices, our useless passions and private demons—we are also isolated from the voice of Christ who apparently could only have ever been a revelation to Himself.  Mohler’s book is like a breath of fresh sanity filtering into a latrine flooded with worldly wisdom.

He has a few ideas that sound a bit radical, recalling the days when “exhorters” were used by churches to apply the preaching directly (even publicly) to the lives of the members.  I don’t suppose Mohler is yearning for a return to this practice, but I think he wishes to shake modern sensitivities a little with a witness of the seriousness of religion in former times, a practice I can sympathize with.

I have admired Mohler from my earliest introduction to him.  An extremely energetic and uncompromising advocate of our faith, he is nevertheless able to deftly balance that otherwise precarious combination of sobering intensity and a caring and compassionate touch, emphasizing the need to appreciate other points of view even when fervently disagreeing with them.  I’ve watched him exemplify this on a number of difficult occasions and was fascinated by his gift of insight for steering skillfully through the inhospitable waters of controversy where one would imagine that any answer must acquire fresh enemies.

In this book, he is much the same man, challenging others to their faces with grace so that it is often next to impossible to find fault with him, Biblically.  Mohler is ardent but careful, and I am so very pleased to know that he is entirely Christ’s man.  I would therefore recommend this book, not merely for pastors, but as Mohler insists, even for laypersons.  An understanding of good preaching is always of use to those who want more than merely a passive experience in church.  As Jesus warned, those with understanding must take great care in how they hear.

However, this is where the other shoe drops.

 If “expository” preaching, as Mohler insists throughout, is the epitome of Biblical preaching, then we are left to reason with Gamaliel that we should let it take its course.  To contend with this manner of preaching would be to find ourselves contending with the LORD, and I doubt that we should expect a blessing to be waiting for us at the conclusion of our mismatch.  One might suppose then that a study of Biblical preaching would simply lead us to the nature of the “expository” method.  But those who advocate this style are not satisfied with insisting that we must preach “Biblically”.  No, they hope to say much more than that.  They would like to define for us what “Biblical” preaching is, and therefore what “expository” preaching is.  It is predictably at this point where the controversy sharpens.

To reach their more exclusive depiction, “expository” preaching becomes a rather flexible idea.  First, the conception is stretched out wide like an accordion in a general sweep of convictions, and then, wherever most convenient, it is forcibly squeezed back in to narrow out what is less desirable.  These equivocations lend the whole matter a sense of misdirection.

It is not that I believe that Dr. Mohler or others intend to be misleading.  I don’t.  In fact, Mohler doesn’t really explore the method of preaching exhaustively through books of the Bible in He is Not Silent.  He refers to the method and considers it momentarily, and then moves on.  Because of this, the work doesn’t quite suffer from the shortcomings in his usual diatribes against other forms of preaching.  But it affords me the opportunity to take a little stab at a subject I’ve wanted to address for some time.

For Mohler and others, “expository” preaching promises to reawaken faithfulness in the pulpits of the future.  Everywhere those who care about preaching are singing the praises of an “expository” style.  As for other approaches, topical preaching and the like, every compromised shepherd seems to them to have made elaborate use of these to lead churches into doctrinal ruin.  Many advise churches in the SBC to be suspicious of pastors who do not preach expository sermons and churches have responded by making it a prerequisite for the position.  It’s all very serious business.

As anyone reading theological books these days can attest, Christian readers are accosted by a host of conversations over some “crisis” or another in evangelicalism.  Every author seems to think he has tapped into the real problem presently facing the Church which explains its spiritual doldrums and has industriously developed a plan for the best way to solve it.  The pro-expository camp of pastors, theologians, systematicians and even popular bloggers, firmly maintains that it is only “expository” preaching—the term itself becoming a sort of reveille—that will march the evangelical world back to glory.

Now to be fair, it is obvious that the level of Biblical literacy in the churches with which we are all familiar is deadening.  And things do not seem to be getting better.  But as you see, here I am typing away, furthering the language of “crisis” already.  Let me begin again…  Ignorance and carelessness with Scripture are certainly with us (and within us), even if they are no more prevalent now than at any other historical juncture, and it would be lovely to imagine that there exists a single, simple remedy for all of this.  Perhaps “expository” preaching really can show us the way forward, but that depends upon what “expository” preaching is.

Those, like Dr. Mohler, who passionately affirm this method, describe it in grandiose terms as the only faithful way to herald the Word because they define it as preaching that centers itself in the actual concerns of the text of Scripture.  And who could argue with that?  To use my earlier illustration of an accordion player, it is at this stage that “expository preaching” is spoken of in its broadest sense, stretching wide to take a great deal in.  Anything that centers itself in the precise concerns of context would fit into this category and, in that case, “expository” preaching would include faithful preaching of every kind, even topical preaching.  And, of course, the “expository” approach would unarguably be the only Biblical way to preach.

But then the equivocation begins, the accordion contracts, and the whole category shrinks down into a much more narrow and manageable prescription.  It soon becomes clear that, for its more vocal advocates, there is a little set of assumptions that tags along which contends that a faithful attention to the concerns of a Biblical passage must include the requirement that preaching take its structure, its emphasis, its direction, its motive and the like from the shape, emphasis, direction and motive apparent in a series of chosen texts.  And to the defenders of this point of view, this would, in one way or another, look a lot like tunneling patiently through verses or pericopes one at a time.  Still, who could really argue with that?

Before I do, I want to mention briefly the most common arguments in favor of their position that I am familiar with:

1. Carefully preaching through books of the Bible while taking virtually every aspect of the sermon from the immediate context encourages the preacher to faithfully follow the course of reasoning presented in the text and center himself in the actual concerns of any passage.  The context would be apparent to all and the abuses which topical preachers are so prone to in their manipulation of proof-texts could be eliminated altogether by the necessity of being tethered to the flow of Biblical thought as GOD breathed it.  Of course, the notion that this would encourage a greater literalism of interpretation only adds to its lustre.

2. The whole Bible will be more readily represented because preachers will not be able to slide so easily into their favorite passages while ignoring less convenient or less comfortable verses.  Our brothers and sisters will be granted a fuller range of Truth as Scripture interprets and elaborates upon itself to them.

So, this fashion of “expository preaching” would compel a greater appreciation of individual books and of the Bible more generally.  If that were truly the probable outcome of applying this method (and this method alone), I would champion it as heartily as anyone else.  But it isn’t.  In fact, I will try to explain why I believe that this theory in application will generally rob us of these and other priceless spiritual treasures and is, therefore, somewhat self-refuting.  If that is true, then it cannot be divine wisdom, which is never self-refuting…

The Lesson of Experience

Several years ago, I was interviewing a gentleman over the phone for the position of head pastor at our church.  He had graduated from a seminary program with an emphasis in “expository preaching” and it was his favorite topic.  At the end of our conversation, I asked him what, in his opinion, was missing from the questions I had presented to him.  What would he have focused upon in such an interview that I had missed?  He responded with no small surprise that it would have been much more helpful to emphasize the necessity of expository preaching.

I had to smile at this as my mind drifted back to something he had said in the interview.  He was very explicit about the fact that he had recently taught through the book of Romans in its entirety.  As he claimed to be a Calvinist, I wanted some idea of his approach to Scripture, so I had asked him about the statement in Romans 9, “Esau have I hated.”  My question stunned him.  He had no idea what the phrase meant nor was he comfortable with the fact that our LORD had inspired Paul to write it.  After silent reflection and a bit of fumbling, all he could manage was, “Well, all I know is that He loved Jacob!”

Whatever benefits expository preaching may have conferred upon this man, dealing with the whole text wasn’t one of them.  And he is hardly alone.  There are many men, in fact, who preach expository sermons through Romans and skip chapters nine through eleven.  Many do the same for whole books of the Bible.  Let’s be honest.  How many preachers make their way, verse-by-verse, through the Song of Solomon at any point in their ministry?  How many plod through Numbers or would even have the skill to do this with Ecclesiastes?

Given the constraints of expository preaching, it is difficult for many pastors to avoid a running commentary as they pass their finger along the page.  That is hardly preaching in any sense.  Others, out of a desire to dig more deeply and profoundly into the Word, creep so slowly through a book that they impart mind numbing legacies to their people after decades of dwindling their congregations down to a handful of the most ardent followers.  The highest in quality of these mammoth achievements might be works like Joseph Caryl’s famous sermons on the book of Job (in twelve volumes), Lloyd-Jones’ fourteen volumes on Romans, Manton’s three volumes on Psalm 119, or perhaps William Gurnall’s twenty year stint of preaching on only eleven verses of the Bible.  Very few have equaled the skill or the tenacity of these men, yet their patient exposition would make it impossible to work through much of the Bible in an expository fashion because there simply aren’t enough years in a lifetime for this.

John Piper is a solid modern example.  He seems to make use of an expository style and, recently, I believe he predicted that it would take at least six or seven years to finish working through the Gospel of John.  At that rate, he will not be able to preach through even half the books of the Bible.  What happened to all those promises regarding the holistic benefits of this method?

The Practical Switch

Of course, in their defense, these men have explored a great portion of the Bible by beginning in their main text and then roaming far and wide in search of supporting passages elsewhere.  They do preach through much of the Scriptures in their lifetimes, but this simply demonstrates an important flaw in the argument for expository preaching.  In the case of the more skilled advocates of this approach, they often end up preaching excellent topical or textual sermons anyway.

It is said that topical preaching more easily lends itself to misuse.  But why would that be?  The answer is that it seems to offer too much freedom to the preacher, too much room for subjective applications.  It isn’t tied closely enough to the text, and this affords the unscrupulous a greater opportunity for the manipulation of context and thus the manipulation of meaning.

But how bound should we become to a localized context?  Most advocates of expository preaching will quote, ironically, from a master of textual preaching like Spurgeon, making reference to his practice of selecting a text to elaborate upon and then making “a beeline to the cross.”  Mohler also used this as evidence of the need for the Gospel, particularly the cross, to factor into most (if not all) expository sermons.  But how can this be done without reading quite a bit into the primary context from the outside, especially when preaching from the Old Testament?  In fact, wouldn’t this, in some sense, make all our preaching topically driven?

This is one of the most important flaws of assuming that an immediate context must be virtually the only determiner of subject, structure and meaning in Scripture.  It cuts us off in some measure from a robust appreciation for the fact that Scripture as a whole interprets itself.  The larger context is vital to understanding the full meaning of any passage and especially the relation of a passage to the life and work of Christ.

Consider our Savior’s response to Satan in the wilderness immediately after the Adversary invites Him to jump from the Temple Mount and quotes from Psalm 91, referencing the angels that will keep Christ from all harm.  Jesus refutes Satan, not by discussing the immediate context of this Messianic Psalm, but by clarifying it with a quote from Deuteronomy 6.  But how can that be legitimate if Deuteronomy 6, which belongs to a different literary genre altogether, is beyond the purview of the intentions of the Psalmist?  It can because later prophecy, if it is Scripture at all, will comport in every way with the oracles of GOD already revealed.  The Torah was established before the 91st Psalm.  And how did I know to apply this idea of earlier and later revelation?  Because I connected every bit of this to other aspects of Scripture regarding the nature of the GOD who reveals, and these are even further removed from the original context of Psalm 91.

How far can a pastor move beyond the local context when preaching through a book of the Bible before he has basically shifted to textual or even topical preaching?  In many an expository series, a verse is taken, its subject is elaborated upon, other passages from outside the immediate context are brought in, and months later, the topic of that verse is exhausted.  What this produces is a series of topical or textual addresses, and those lacking the skill of a Lloyd-Jones or a Piper usually progress through the verses so minutely and indistinctly that much of the contextual flow of the Biblical author’s thought is lost.  This is how expository preaching often subtly evolves into groupings of topical or textual sermons.

A Rash Judgment

Now, some might argue that this is hardly fair.  The failures of preachers, far and wide, to apply this method properly do not reflect poorly upon the method itself.  But unless we are to become hypocrites, we would have to apply this reasoning to other forms of preaching as well.  As I observed earlier, one of the main objections to topical preaching is its present abuse by liberals.  Can the abuse of an idea or method reveal a flaw in the method itself?  If not, then this cannot be used against topical preaching either.

The Nature of Biblical Instruction

Where non-expository modes of preaching can be manipulated by evil men, it seems impossible to avoid a compromise according to expository principles.  This would suggest that, although there are legitimate forms of topical and textual preaching, expository preaching is apparently never quite legitimate by its own standards.  I will explain why this must be…

The Scriptures teach that there are levels of spiritual wisdom and learning among Christians, often referred to as those who feed upon “milk” and “elementary” teachings, as opposed to “solid food” or “meat.”  In the context of “milk,” the book of Hebrews lists the following topics, after which it urges us to move beyond these to more advanced knowledge:

Repentance from dead works

Faith in God

Teaching about baptisms

Laying on of hands

Resurrection of the dead

Eternal judgment

Any good teacher understands that a foundation of basics must be laid before progress into deeper things can be responsibly ventured.  The Bible also identifies doctrines of greater and lesser importance as well.  Paul, for instance, refuses to give more solid spiritual food to people guilty of jealousy and strife for they are “not ready” for such food.  He fed them on “milk” instead (I Corinthians 3:1-3).

Would it do much good for a pastor to discuss for several weeks the question of “head coverings” or comment on the admonition for Aaronic priests to shave all their hair while the Christians under his care are struggling to appreciate their purpose and do not even understand the basic nature of revelation, of reasoning or of the presence and providence of GOD?  While discoursing on whether Paul undertook three or four missionary journeys or whether the institution of Purim in the book of Esther was truly faithful to the regulative principle of worship, too many precious lambs in the pew are privately working out the details of life according to something resembling mystic principles of divination.

Not long ago, I listened to Al Mohler read the following verses which he insisted a topical preacher would never, ever decide to preach from even if he had two hundred years to minister the Word:

When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity.

I have no doubt that he is correct but I am unsure why he feels this is an important criticism.  As I mentioned earlier, the failures of topical preachers do not constitute a failure of their method.  And, trying to be realistic, I also have to wonder whether most advocates of expository preaching would touch the passage either.  Or would they just slip quietly around on the other side like a priest or a Levite?

Mohler wanted to assure his audience that devoted expository preaching would produce an uber-faithful mentality, so he began illustrating from his own experience.  As he explained, he had been coursing his way through Deuteronomy before a group that included “a congregation of older ladies and all the rest,” and he lingered on these two verses, trying, as he explained, to draw from them some connection to Christ.  If you would like to know how he accomplished the feat, go here and begin listening at the 35 min. mark.

Mohler then insisted that:

You really find out whether you believe in the Bible by whether you’re going to preach it all. . . . I am committed to expository preaching, verse-by-verse and book-by-book, because otherwise I, Al the sinner, will avoid dealing with the texts that I don’t want to deal with.  And my congregation, your congregation, would never hear what they desperately need to hear from the Word of GOD.

This seems tragically out of touch, which is rather out of character for him, and it represents one of the odd inconsistencies of expository preaching.  For these men, a sermon is to be defined in all its details by the particulars of a specific revelational context, yet the Scriptures do not instruct us to teach this way.  Although the Bible is perfectly adapted for guiding us into all wisdom, it was not intended to do so one verse after another.

There are a number of reasons for this and I will do my best to briefly list as many as are likely to be helpful in furthering the point I am making:

1. The Scriptures are not outlined in systematic form, progressing from an exhaustive list of basic principles into more advanced subjects.  If they were, then movement from beginning-to-middle-to-end would make more pedagogical sense.

2. Each book of the Bible was styled to address the specific concerns and questions of its most immediate readers.  These readers did not share all our concerns and our knowledge anymore than we share all of theirs.

3. There are various genres which work wonderfully together but which are sometimes hard to understand alone, and the Scriptures seem to have been purposefully put together so that careful study and comparison would be necessary.

4. Some subjects are described as inappropriate for immature Christians, yet these are not clearly identified and set aside in a separate place.  In fact, it seems also to be the purpose of Scripture and prophecy (as it was Christ’s express purpose for teaching in parables) that those “outside” would find it difficult to penetrate into its secrets without a certain attitude and disposition of heart.

Nevertheless, expository preachers treat the Scriptures as though they were laid out with the specific needs of their congregations in mind.  But it is clear from the Word itself that it requires mature study and reflection as well as a cherished practice to discern its intentions.  And the method of teaching which reflects the wisdom from above is not an automatic effect of a simple transposition of the surface structure and content of Biblical books.

The Biblical Practice of Preaching

The last and perhaps the most potent criticism one can lay before advocates of expository preaching is that there is not a single example of this kind of preaching anywhere in the Bible.  There are lots of topical sermons and textual sermons.  We also find narrative and typological preaching, exhortations and testimonies, hymns of praise and prophetic visions, but we search in vain for anything resembling what is frequently defined as “expository” sermons today.  Again, this is a most curious inconsistency.

How can those so bent upon fashioning a sermon as closely determined by Scriptural precedent as possible fail to appreciate that their method itself has no Biblical precedent whatsoever?  That would seem to be an obvious self-refutation and makes their claim against the topical or textual sermon appear to be little more than empty rhetoric.  It is a sorrowful thing that the stalwart defenders of expository preaching, in the final analysis, do not really believe that what is GOD-breathed, and therefore preached by GOD, is sufficient to define the proper manner of all true preaching in His Name.

Conclusion

I must mention that there are excellent pastors and theologians today who do their best to preach and advance the principles of an expository homiletic.  Their sermons are often a great blessing to the rest of us.  Yet whenever they become so absorbed in their pet subject that they lack balance and insist it is the best or only faithful method, they are wrestling, it seems to me, with an insurmountable burden because they’re opposing preaching that is practiced in Scripture and which has been favored by the best of preachers for millenia.

Comparatively speaking, the expository method I have been critiquing is rather young.  It tempers the creativity of preachers by hemming them into a prefabricated structure which our LORD neither required nor practiced Himself.  Because of this, I cannot help my impression that the expository method is like preaching with training wheels.  Because the content and the structure of the books of the Bible are already available, many pastors seem to feel they have little sermon preparation to do.  The outline of the points and subpoints is already given, often with an illustration or two thrown in.  In that light, it is not surprising that strict expository preaching is often compared to a lecture or a Sunday lesson in which the application is difficult to discern.

Good preachers, of course, can turn any style to advantage for the people of GOD, but even among those who have favored expository sermons, it is often their topical series which proved most practical and were remembered best.  It is my hope that preachers will work even harder to realize the greater unity of Scriptural Truth and avoid the crutch of expository preaching, which in time will only weaken their vision into the deeper nature of what has always been there before them but which their system made it hard to see.

Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it.

But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they teach.

- Matthew 23:3 (NET)

A Maiden’s Reverie

My husband and I recently finished reading The Attributes of God together with our children for our daily devotionals.  It has been a sweet time as we gathered together in the evenings to read about God’s character and to discuss Him with one another.  The girls would pick up their knitting work and I would settle into a cozy chair while Benjamin read to all of us and from time to time posed questions to the children about what they heard.  Despite the older language of the text, the writing was quite lucid and the girls seemed to follow it quite well.  I enjoyed being read to by my husband, who has a lovely reading voice, and it was quite precious to share those evenings together, taking the time to worship God together and to meditate on His person and attributes.  I look forward to our next devotional book with anticipation, because I know that in these times of sharing, prayer and quiet contemplation, we truly grow closer as a family.  I pray that God blesses these little moments, these brief gatherings, and extends His grace to the hearts of our children, nourishing them with true food and true drink, and with the knowledge of His presence and providence in their lives.

A Monk’s Meditation

As I think back upon my first experience of Pink’s little volume, I can still remember how it captured and held me.  I had no great insights into what I was reading at the time, but even I could see that the GOD this man had met was a GOD worth knowing… in Himself the road to awe.

I admired how much Pink could say in so few pages and even now, after reading through it again, I am still struck by Pink’s uncompromising vision.  Nowadays I can see with greater sophistication that the polemical interests of his time often controlled the direction of his pen.  He had a mind to challenge the Christian world with his Calvinism, but Pink was firm about doing so from Scripture alone.  He had a penchant for rhetorical flare and a singular vocabulary.  I had to look up one or two words that were utterly foreign to me, but with a little guidance, our daughters were also struck by his reasoning and descriptions.

It is an uncommong thing to find a concise expression of divinity that seems to readily spring up out of the fire of a soul that is commonly tempered by the presence of GOD.  That doesn’t mean that I agree with everything Pink says or all the ways he chose to say it.  I recognize that a book about the attributes of GOD might best explore who He is in a way that is more unified.  Still, I do not have to agree with Arthur Pink in all these things in order to love him for what he was and be happy that some part of him became a part of me on a bright afternoon years ago, when a glimpse of the greatness of GOD opened to me another layer of life that I had not known was possible…

And I hope that he can give some measure of that to my children, too.

A Daughter’s Devotion

Shaelynn (10 yrs.)

One thing I liked about the book was the chapter on the mercy of GOD.  GOD gives us more than we need.  He gives flowers, birds and other animals, good food, even Himself.  Everyday we receive His mercy and He is merciful in every way.   He says, “I do not take pleasure in the killing of the wicked.  But rather that they live.”   He does not destroy us immediately but waits patiently and works within us, for He is slow to anger and patient.  But I wondered why GOD would give sinners mercy even if they killed His Son.

Another part of the book that I liked was GOD’s righteousness.  I used to think that, if GOD did not save everyone then He was not righteous.  But now I know He is righteous everywhere, no matter what.  And not only righteous, all of Him is righteousness.

Another part that amazed me was the wrath of GOD because it was just that He destroy sinners, even if that includes me.

I always looked forward to the time when we would do devotions because I was happy to know more about GOD.

Trinity (9 yrs.)

This was the best book I’ve ever read, besides the Bible!  I liked the chapter about the Love of GOD because it was very comforting, and I knew if I confessed my sins and “knocked on the door,” I would receive mercy and love (if I was truly sorry).  I was very comforted by this.

I was also very scared by the chapter on the knowledge of GOD because I knew that He could see all that everybody was doing at the same time and would punish me very severely at the end of my life if I did not change.

I think that Pink explained very well what GOD is like.  I say this because we, as sinners, must know little of what GOD is like.  I think Pink understood very well what little he did know.  He did so well that everybody should read this book.

 

Patience is the first virtue listed by Paul in his hymn on the fullness of Love, and without love, of course, even a superior grasp of every mystery leaves us nothing.  It follows, therefore, that without patience, a teacher merely teaches of himself.  I was glad then with the book selection our pastor had made for a men’s study group.  Our church has been a bit beleaguered by the superstition of certain members that GOD directs them through feelings or impressions into what I imagine is, for them, His “individual will” for their lives.  This certainly cuts down on Scriptural labors, but more to the point, it contradicts our Father’s description of the sufficiency of His Scriptures and, in some sense, denies the rich satisfactions of His Son (who is Himself the Word).

In the hope of better things, our pastor has devised this book study on the subject of divine guidance to encourage at least one prominent member toward a life of greater belief.  I followed him as he carefully investigated a number of books on this subject, measuring them out for their strengths, testing them for a balance of character and insight.  After finishing the book last night, I knew he had chosen very well.

I can honestly say that I have virtually nothing critical to pose to its author.  Any corrections I might offer would be minor.  Though an academic, Petty has had over a decade of pastoral experience and his study on the subject of divine guidance is graced with the wisdom that comes with honest spiritual struggle in keeping a bleary watch over the souls of others (and his own).  I found it very practical and not at all simplistic.  Though I had expected to come away from reading it with a feeling of having enjoyed a recollection of texts, the book did not turn out to be merely a review for me.  I was most captivated by his typically patient exploration of the nature of Biblical “wisdom,” which can seem somewhat elusive, the characteristics that distinguish it from “insight,” “knowledge” and “understanding,” as well as the means to attaining wisdom and maturing in it as it is applied to the details of life.  I struggle on with the questions of my own calling, though my internal conflicts have taken a finer and more deliberate shape through the present year.  This book, along with one of its primary recommendations for further reading, has given me hope of soon seeing the matter to a fulfilling end.

It was refreshing to learn from a man who has not allowed his academic focus to diminish into a “glass bead game,” knowledge for its own sake and that sort of thing.  He drew out detailed illustrations of very plausible situations which he followed through with an admirable touch, especially for an introductory text, and his style was not at all difficult or tedious to engage and to follow.  I would recommend this work to anyone interested in this central question of purpose and I have no doubt that even those readers who do not think they have much to learn will be pleasantly sharpened none the less.

O God, You are my God,
And I will ever praise You.
I will seek You in the morning
And I will learn to walk in Your ways
And step by step You’ll lead me
And I will follow You all of my days.

Russian history and culture has long fascinated me.  Ever since my own journeys to St. Petersburg in 1995 and 1996, I have been reading books on Russian life, especially that of the 20th century.  I began initially with a biography on Nicholas and Alexandra, the last Romanov tsar and tsarina before the Revolution in 1917.  The complex tapestry of passionate revolutionaries, 19th century aristocratic monarchism and the violent upheaval which transformed such an old-fashioned peasant culture into a modern, communist society stirred my imagination and my sympathies for the Russian people.  After that introductory biography, I began to devour Russian history and literature and even began learning the language- a beautifully expressive Slavic tongue.  In the first few years of my undergraduate degree, I aspired to a Ph.D in comparative literature, intent on devoting my life to the study and teaching of Russian literature and culture.

However, it was German and not Russian which I first studied in college.  At the time I was attending a small university and my choices were limited to Spanish, French or German.  I chose German because although I had previous experience with Spanish, I wasn’t interested in the language and French culture seemed at the time effeminate and superficial to me.  My parents had spent time in Heidelberg during the early 1970s, and I had more curiosity and affection for German than the other two languages.   I had a superb teacher and after two years under his instruction, I decided to double-major in German and English.   My thoughts were moving more towards a teaching career in English literature or in the German language.   In 2003, I transferred to the University of Oklahoma, where I eagerly began studying Russian simultaneously with my third year of German and other courses.

But I did not continue with Russian.  Early in the semester it came to my attention that the degree requirements for German majors had changed the semester before I had transferred to the university.  Students majoring in German were no longer required to learn a second modern language in order to complete the program.   Because of financial reasons and the complexities of planning for the next year’s classes, I decided to drop Russian.

As I spent more and more time studying for the German program, my interest in Russian studies waned.  Although I had amassed a hefty collection of Russian literature and historical works from the 19th and 20th centuries, they stood patiently on my shelves year after year.   Occasionally I would take a volume and read through it, or perhaps half of it, still drawn to the complexities of suffering, power and tragedy which laced this people’s past and present.  Although Russian studies were no longer my focus, I had a special place in my heart for the subject.

Most recently, while Benjamin and I were weeding through our book collection, I came across a slim paperback:  Through the Burning Steppe: A Memoir of Wartime Russia (1942-43). I had a week off from work at the time, which seemed the perfect opportunity to read through it.

This memoir was written by a woman who, with her mother, had survived the siege of St. Petersburg during World War Two and escaped by railway with many other people of the city in order to find refuge in the Russian countryside.  She was nine years old at the time.  This book describes her experiences between 1942-1943, when she was living in a small Cossack village with her mother and a handful of other refugees.  While her siblings had already perished from sickness and starvation, she and her mother continued to experience much hardship among the Cossack women, who distrusted them.  Being from St. Petersburg was associated with communist ideals, but the women of rural Russia had more allegiance to the land and viewed these northerners with resentment.  Despite these political difficulties between compatriots, the Cossacks did not turn the refugees over to the invading Germans, who by this point in the war were overrunning this territory with their airplanes and troops.

I often find it difficult to imagine how an author is able to reach so far back inside herself and describe events which took place during childhood.  Naturally, when a writer returns to events buried decades in the past and attempts to describe feelings and memories from childhood, there is much which cannot be recovered.  But this narrative is especially vivid and full of specific sensual and mnemenic details.  There is a reflective quality to the narration which communicates both the contemplative mood of the mature woman, but there is also an intensity for the present moment, part of the simple, direct expression of a nine-year-old girl who is very interested in her new surroundings.  I admire this kind of technique in writing, primarily because I find that much of my past is misted over so that it is difficult for me to remember specific moments with clarity.

Although the story was fairly depressing due to the nature of the subject, the author tried to capture moments of warmth between herself and her mother which brought a hopeful spirit to their experience.  But I couldn’t help feeling that the mother’s lesson to her daughter was terribly insufficient because it emphasized survival and little more.  Like so many in Russia during that generation, her mother was an atheist who believed that hard work and determination were the keys to enduring hardship and improving her lot in life.  Here is an excerpt from a conversation she had with her daughter one evening while milking the cow.

“…When something depends on us, even the slightest trifle–you cannot miss any chances.  Every minute you must paddle against the current.  Everything is needed:  to wash the dishes, to read books, to study the multiplication table, to sweep the floor.  And then, one sunny day, it turns out that we have survived, and survived as human beings.  You understand?  As human beings.  And now let’s end all talk.  Look at Brownie, she’s getting anxious.  She’s afraid we have given up on milking her.”

But I ask myself- what then?  You survive the war, you come out with a future in your hands, and what should you do with it?  This young girl learned to survive hardship with dignity– as a human being– and did she learn the meaning of her suffering or what sense to make of her freedom?  There was a sad purposelessness to her mother’s lesson.  Let’s get on with things, let’s move on, it seemed to say to me.  But shouldn’t there be a more profound message between a mother and a daughter at such a time, which transcends the momentary suffering and gives meaning to every day, whether that day is marked by tragedy or joy?

I was deeply dissatisfied with the central message of this memoir.  Although the mother tried to educate and instill a solid work ethic and hopefulness into her children in the midst of the most dire circumstances, her focus on endurance lacked any deeper spiritual guidance concerning the purpose of life.  What makes life worth living at all?  Why not succumb to despair?  Whatever her mother saw in life that made it worth living, she did not seem to communicate it explicitly to the girl.  The child was inspired by her mother’s apparently relentless cheerfulness and determined hopefulness, but I cannot see how these personal attributes alone could prove to sustain anyone ultimately.  Everyone has a breaking point.

Knowing that God is at work in the world, knowing that He is merciful even upon the evil, that he works all things for good for those who love him and are called according to His purpose, is our ultimate and most profound source of hope.  As an atheist, this mother could speak nothing of the love of God to her daughter, and this means that despite all her efforts to save her child physically, she was doing great injury to the child’s spirit.   How does it profit a girl to gain the whole world and yet to lose her very soul?

Pastor Mark Dever seems to me an eminently practical man, though to the worldly wise, there is perhaps not a more difficult or dangerous road than the one he advises.  That greater burden of realism which the Gospel places upon his shoulders inspired Dever to author a series of instructive manuals to guide aspiring pastors and others into the fields of Christ’s supreme labor.  This book is the final of three on the subject of building healthy churches.

Without wasting much time on eloquence, Dever alights briefly upon each topic, pausing to suggest ways to appreciate and resolve various peculiarities in the life of a church.  I was particularly glad for the opportunity to witness him expound upon the varied responsibilities of elders in the latter chapters of the book.  The earlier sections of the work were for me a simple review, but these later morsels were most insightful.  Dever is a man of uncommon sense and, in many situations, his disciplined, self-effacing methods gave one much hope for what Christ is doing in him.  He is a man who clearly appreciates the importance of the kind of patient care that, over the course of years, precludes the need for handling crises that will never arise.  Any good physician of souls will be the most skilled at preventative medicine.

And, in a tribute to the grace that governs his life, his abilities have not made him flatter himself into the belief that he has no need of others.  He welcomes the gifts of those around him and surrounds himself with men and women that harmonize well with his strengths and weaknesses.  He encourages pastors to anticipate the possibility that they will not always be able to lead their people and should strive to make those in their charge somewhat independent of their leadership.  His constant refrain is that a pastor must think in terms of years of gradual development.

One might criticize his approach by pointing out that he quotes from Scripture more or less predictably and sprinkles references here and there while repeated expressions about what “works” well for his congregation were most prominent.  To be fair, deciding how to structure a book of this kind is always a difficult decision to make.  Should it be as brief and straightforward as possible?  Should there be a lengthy exegesis of Biblical passages or abbreviated highlights and gestures toward well-known texts?  Should solutions and ideas be proven beyond the evidence of their usefulness in specific situations?  Should the overall work take the form of a suggestive guide or a carefully argued teaching?

Dever and Alexander consistently favored suggestiveness, brevity, pragmatic appeal and openness.  I believe it was his intention to be as sensible as he could be about the innumerable and unpredictable variety of contexts and needs that might arise and which could hardly be covered by a single philosophy of ministry.  Yet, it must be said that the book is sometimes too passive in making its case Biblically.  Often Dever appeals to principles that prove too subjective when describing his reasons for his chosen methodology.  He also occasionally simply leaves a question unasked, and some of the expressions, friendly as they were, seemed a little contrived and plastic.

I agree with Dever’s insight that a pastor’s attitude and approach will carry through to the sheep in his care.  They will naturally adapt to the spiritual atmosphere he creates and where he bends or twists, they will grow crooked or off-balance.  A pastor must be sure to display the proper mentality toward all that he touches, and a man who decides that it would be wise to train other pastors must learn to shepherd the shepherds.  But the manner of Scriptural reasoning that Dever models in this work is not a careful one.

Perhaps one could say, in his defense, that The Deliberate Church was written as a popular conclusion to a series meant only to offer helpful, introductory material for further study.  It would defeat the purpose to spend lengthy intervals in Scriptural analysis, especially if this has already been unfolded elsewhere.  Some might insist that this kind of approach is quite common among the more popular Christian authors, and that we can say at least that Dever hasn’t abused the Word.

Yet, I wonder whether that is always true… When a man establishes a practice on the tenuous ground that it “works,” I am always concerned to know how he is defining this criterion.  What does it mean in these contexts that a method or practice of his “works”?  It is easy to abuse Scripture at precisely this point where one might controvert the sufficiency of GOD’s testimonies in favor of standards of “practicality” without being aware of the danger.  And, of course, the example of a popular and “successful” pastor might encourage others to do the same.  Dever may have excellent reasons for his position.  I just wish he would have spent time revealing these more fully and thereby taught his readers to imitate his faith as he imitates Christ.

I think it is accurate to say that the central thesis of the book bears upon the fact that the teaching of the Word is the chief concern of every ministry endeavor.  Yet this thesis was undermined to a degree through a shallow example.  That is why I was left, at the end, with a number of grey areas and unanswered questions.  For instance, in spite of the apparent success at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, I continue to believe that pastors should resist Dever’s more administrative approach to shepherding.  It is a common approach and there are reasons to recommend it, but do these reasons arise from the solid consequences of divine revelation?  I know at least that my objections do.  I also disagree with the use of church covenants given that we covenant together already under the Word of GOD.  And I wonder whether it would not be better to break away from Dever’s attitude and ordain men who demonstrate the clear gifts and calling even when they would not fit ideally among the present leadership at one’s church.  They might serve very well elsewhere.

Yet, in spite of these criticisms, readers like myself can disagree with Dever in an atmosphere of acceptance because he works under the conviction that his ideas are not the last word on a subject.  He is willing to step aside when he is in the minority, where the people would not receive as much benefit from him, even when he is technically correct.  That kind of humility is difficult for many leaders to develop and too often pastors fight for control while it slips through their fingers.  In that light, the lambs of GOD at Capitol Hill Baptist Church are well provided for and have been gently blessed by their Father in heaven.  He has been and continues to be very kind to them.

And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.

- Jeremiah 3:15

The demographics of my classes have shifted again with the beginning of the first fall session.  Although my summer classes had held a majority of Arabic speakers,  they now incorporate a fairly balanced mix of Far-Eastern and Middle-Eastern cultural backgrounds (Korea, China, Saudi Arabia and Libya).  Add to this three students from Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Japan.  Gotta love cultural diversity.

Nevertheless, while I am striving to learn about international students in general, I continue to focus on Arabic speakers in particular.  Much to my chagrin, I have yet to master the Arabic alphabet, and my knowledge of spoken Arabic consists of a only few set phrases.  Many of the more gregarious Saudi students I had gotten to know rather well have moved out of my class, and the Arabic speakers who are now in my class are, for the most part, rather serious and they keep to themselves. So, my Arabic studies languish temporarily.

There is a young woman from Libya in my writing class.  She wears hijab, an expression of Islamic modesty manifested through wearing a headscarf and certain types of clothing- though her approach is far more westernized than some of the more traditional Islamic styles of clothing for women.  She seems demure and quiet, intelligent, but reserved.   I learned over the course of the class that this is the first time she has been in a classroom with students of both genders.  As I have learned from her first essay, she attended a high school only for girls in Libya, and since men were not allowed, the students did not have to wear hijab. She has also on occasion expressed her embarrassment at being in a room with male students.  Today, while I was working with her on her essay in the computer lab, she shared another surprising personal detail:  “When I was younger,” she had written in her essay, “my mother made me stand beside her in the kitchen and learn how to cook.  She would say to me, ‘You need to learn how to cook and clean so that you can be a good wife for your husband and a mother for your children.’  But I did not pay attention to her, because I did not want to learn something just for a man.  If I want to learn something, I want to learn it for myself.  Anyways, I hate men.”

This took me off guard, and I laughed out loud in surprise.  She giggled, and confirmed that she had indeed intended to write that last sentence.  I found this hard to believe, and wondered if she truly felt a kind of hatred in her heart for men generally, if it was a kind of reaction against the cultural norms she lived within, or if she had had a particularly bad experience which had scarred her.  At any rate, her abrupt postscript remained with me, and my thoughts returned to it later in the day.  I wondered how she had come to feel that way, and what other kinds of rebellious thoughts whirled about under her unassuming headscarf.

I have recently finished a book about a British Muslim woman, and admittedly, I had often thought of my student as I read the book- what she might think of it and how she might interpret the author’s take on Islamic life and practice.  Love in a Headscarf:  A Muslim Woman’s Search for the One, by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, is a semi-autobiographical story about a young Muslim woman in London who goes through the traditional steps of finding a husband.  Initially, she is primarily guided and assisted by family members who help with background checks, meetings, interviews and housecalls.  Later, as the process becomes more difficult and the right man seems harder to find, she begins to try alternate, more modern avenues, such as online personal ads for Muslims who are serious about finding a future spouse.  It’s a very funny and enjoyable book, and yes, she finally meets the perfect One- after several years of searching!

I had thought about including an excerpt from the book as a possible reading for my class, especially since we read primarily cross-cultural texts having to do with people from different backgrounds and ethnicities.  However, I decided against it because I didn’t want to be interpreted as a typical Western feminist with an agenda for “liberating” women in more traditional cultures.   The author, who grew up and was educated in Britain, holds a perspective on the roles of Muslim men and women that would most likely be seen as liberal by my students– though she considers herself to be a veritable champion of  a view of gender roles based on a faithful interpretation of the Qu’ran.  She sees many of the problems in Muslim life between men and women as rooted in a cultural manifestation of ideas which claim to be inherently Islamic, but, as she argues, are not.  Rather, she strives to value the equal status of men and women, based primarily on the Qu’ranic concept of the two genders being created from one soul.

Janmohamed has written a captivating and winsome novel and shared a great deal of her own personal experience with her readers, which I appreciate.  I see some parallels between some of the more conservative branches of Christian denominations and her own story, especially as it relates to the question of gender, modesty, personal expression and how people understand their faith in light of these concerns.  Being familiar as I am with various nuances of American Protestant religious life, I wonder how she measures up in the Islamic world at large.  How are her arguments seen and interpreted by those who have a more sophisticated understanding of the subtleties of Islamic teaching and practice?  Is she seen by them as a pretentious liberal, or as someone with sensitivity and something to offer?  Perhaps a little of both, or as a having a balanced perspective?  I suppose that depends on one’s own background and convictions.

I had thought to share a few excerpts with my student in order to see what she thought of this woman’s views.  However, I don’t want to take advantage of my position and influence, and would rather approach her about it when she is no longer a student in my class, so as to remove any possible pressure she might feel.   I have had mixed feelings about suggesting this book to her, especially after today’s revelation, but also because I am uncertain of how my suggesting it might be interpreted.  I am curious to know what another young Muslim woman thinks of this perspective.   It is not my intention to advocate the ideas of the author, but rather to investigate them.  I’ll give it some more thought and some more time before I make up my mind.

Try stepping into the head of a genius for a moment and you might just lose your bearings.  That’s what happened to me recently when, one cheery morning, I decided to obtain a copy of Chesterton’s allegorical novel and consider his methods in the use of a genre I’ve always considered poetic and very powerful…  It started out interestingly enough with Chesterton’s somewhat meandering, but never boring, observations rendered in a ticklish rhythm that makes me laugh.  Chesterton has a certain way of meditating out loud that can leave one dizzy.  Some have called him the “Prince of Paradox.”  I prefer to think of it as a kind of enjoyment of the ironies of life, but at times he can go a bit too far.  No longer merely pondering and playing with these oddities, Chesterton will at times charge into the maelstrom of worldly contradiction at full force.  In this classic work, there is never a dull moment, but the reader must keep his head as he descends into a flip-flop reality of will and representation.  Personally, I lost my way once and again.

It wasn’t difficult to determine the identity of Sunday.  I had that established very early on.  Trying to understand and appreciate this enigmatic figure, however, was a different matter altogether.  It wasn’t difficult to deduce at times what the protagonists were themselves barely beginning to intuit, yet to reach back behind the story, underneath the lives playing out wondrously before the reader, to the answers about life and meaning and GOD which they were shadowing… I am still not sure I have it right.

Was it all a dream of Thursday?  I can only be sure of this: just as Chesterton’s calendar is somewhat foreign to me, so is his God and the purpose of life he envisions.  I cannot own them for myself and I do not believe that anyone who does is likely the better for it.  The sense of brilliant waste is unfortunately reminiscent of Chesterton’s more famous admirers, as though in the midst of their exultation, they too forget whether the reality they’ve contrived is only a dream.

Does all this seem enigmatic or mysterious to you?  Believe me, it’s not as strange as the book itself.  Without spoiling anything for those who want to read the novel for themselves, I still feel that I should say that The Man Who Was Thursday is a fascinating experience inviting the reader to explore a panorama of challenging questions. I learned a great deal from watching a masterful writer put his skills to work to fashion a unique message.  I can only pray that his techniques will remain with me and perhaps serve in my work to reveal the even deeper mysteries and the stark, but intensely beautiful, realism of Christ.

A new session has begun where I work, along with the fall semester at the university.   The Center for English as a Second Language, where I have worked since May, is a place where incoming international students strive to improve their English and pass the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) exam before they can be admitted into their university programs.  Our students come from all over the world and speak various languages, including Arabic, Korean, Turkish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Bengali, Hausa, and more.  Their backgrounds, their English proficiency levels and their own specific needs are all very different.  It is quite challenging to find ways to teach them in an engaging, personal way while still ensuring that they are being well prepared for the academic rigor which awaits them just around the corner.

In the morning, I teach Academic Skills, in which we focus primarily on developing critical reading skills, improving their vocabulary, and learning how to revise their writing through multiple drafts.  I enjoy the book I’m using, which is called Guidelines:  A Cross Cultural Approach to Reading and Writing.   This is a fine text, very well structured both for the teacher and the student, and the readings have proved to be very engaging.  My students are responding very well, and I find that teaching composition to ESL students is a real pleasure for me.  I enjoy observing them slowly open up and begin to grasp the vocabulary more readily, to speak with more and more confidence, and helping them develop more complex ways of expressing their ideas.

In order to learn more about how to reach these students and provide them with quality instruction, I began doing some research on my own.  In the past two weeks, I have read two books which have been very helpful.  The first is Understanding ESL Writers:  A Guide for Teachers by Ilona Leki. This book was very illuminating and I devoured it in about three days.  The author has had quite a bit of experience with ESL students from many different cultures, and was able to offer helpful generalizations regarding various cultural backgrounds, while also helping the reader to understand how to approach students as individuals.  The two most important chapters for me were “Classroom Behaviors and Expectations” and “Characteristics of ESL Students,” which I copied and shared with some of the other newer teachers where I work.  They also said that these chapters were helpful.

I also read Teaching International Students: Improving Learning for All, edited by Jude Carroll and Janette Ryan.  This book also offered a number of excellent articles, and like the other book, was written both for ESL teachers as well as professors/instructors of mainstream university classes, who happen to have international students in their classes.  Some of the articles were not as useful as the others, but I really appreciated reading about the various experiences which are common to international students after they enroll and integrate into the broader academic community.  It inspired me with thoughts of organizing a survey/ interview project in which I could speak with various professors at our university and ask them about their own experiences and policies concerning international students.  That would prove to be very helpful in order to have a more informed idea of what my students should expect within their individual programs.

Although I do spend a lot of time speaking with my students and asking them about their own cultures and experiences, it is also beneficial to have a broader perspective when trying to approach preparing lessons and writing assignments, as well as evaluating my students’ work and progress.  I have found that I am less frustrated and more thoughtful when I have spent time reading about my students’ experiences from an outside perspective.  They certainly have a great deal which they are trying to achieve, and for many of them, they have only a relatively small amount of time, perhaps a year, to learn enough English to be admitted into the university.  Some have been studying English for many years in their home countries, but others come with next to no English preparation and are give a year by their government or their countries.  Within this time frame,

they must learn as much English as possible, pass the TOEFL entrance exam and be admitted into the respective programs.  If they fail, they are brought back home and are unable to continue their studies.  There is a great deal of pressure on the part of their families and their sponsors to do well.  Not only that, but the approaching task of succeeding in a foreign university setting awaits them like a tiger in a cave.  Nevertheless, most of them are enthusiastic, hard-working and have a very positive attitude- some are overly confident and need a much more realistic point of view, and I worry that they do not take seriously the difficulties they will encounter.  But it is my task to help them along, and I enjoy it very, very much.  This is a thoroughly rewarding job.  I just wish it paid a little more.

I am very glad  that  Mr.  Stein chose  to  record  and  publish such a helpful portion of his extensive knowledge and experience of the craft.  I am even more pleased that I found him so soon.  I feel optimistic that his excellent insights have saved me from quite a few embarrassing blunders and am pleasantly bereft these days of many of my former illusions about my abilities.  I now realize how much I have to learn, especially when I consider the fact that Stein on Writing was written as an introductory manual.

Perhaps the most advantageous aspects of Stein’s approach are his apparent interest in advancing the art of creative writing wherever he can and his lack of patience with quasi-mystical notions about whether one is gifted or innately capable of mastering some aspect of artistic communication.  Good writing is a kind of communion and, for that, every human being is naturally gifted because we are made in the image of a forever Self-Communing GOD.

I am reminded of a story Stein relates of a moment when sitting among a panel of editors answering various questions about how to improve one’s writing.  They were asked as a group about how to learn a particularly difficult aspect of the art of creative writing and each of the experts on the panel in turn responded that this was something that could not be learned.  You either grasp it or you don’t.  When Stein’s turn to respond came up, as respectfully as he could, he said, “This is how it’s done. . .” and laid out a groundwork of practical tips while dozens of audience members scribbled in their notebooks.

This is what writer’s really need.  As soothing to the ego as it might be to believe that good writers have a mysterious “sense” about exquisite expressions, Sol Stein has done the work of considering maturely both the patterns and methods which good writers have employed and the process which brings a writer to that place where excellent writing becomes a kind of “sense” that no one is born with.

I was also impressed by the fact that Stein did not forget to speak to those who are primarily authors of nonfiction but who realize the need to make use of many of the insights of classic literature and rhetoric which causes a work to sparkle persuasively in the minds of intelligent readers.  This book is helpful even if you are completely uninterested in fiction… unless you have succumbed to the wornout myth that serious nonfiction will avoid engaging the emotions of the reader as much as possible.

The only criticisms I would make of Stein’s work have to do with his willingness to venture into areas which are immoral.  Any book that intends to help writers in general will have to cover the romantic element of so many excellent stories.  Of course that is essential and perfectly healthy where it is a healthy expression of romance.  However, Stein doesn’t blanche in the least in covering subjects that deal with sexual immorality and even, because it’s much more common these days, homoerotic fiction.  I am sorry that an otherwise brilliantly workmanlike course of instruction on a topic too often left a foggy and impractical mess in other books is seriously dampened by the fact that Stein dismisses or refuses to recognize the primarily ethical essence of writing.

In the end, I disagree with him wherever he insists that a writer’s purpose is to reveal what we are all thinking but still unwilling to say out loud.  A writer is not simply a journalist of life and few would really qualify to tell such a story.  A writer is, finally, a preacher and a philosopher expressing as much as possible of the truth through the use of one incredibly potent illustration.  Life is a story and the best stories are those that tell the truth in a fictional medium.  But that “truth” is neither real nor rational where its ultimate message encourages us to descend finally into depravity.  We can leave that to the forgettable hacks, the hucksters and those who publish serials.  Because of this, I chose to skip this portion of Stein’s book and made better use of my time with him.

There’s also a few vulgar expressions and curse words in some of the illustrative bits and pieces taken from novels that Stein chose to bolster a point he was making along the way, but these are relatively few and far between.  On some level, when an author is trying to imitate the speech of a certain person in our time, assuming that characters drive the plot, this drawback will probably seem unavoidable at times.  I don’t know that it has to be, but I can say at least, assuming I am remembering correctly, that there are fewer such expressions in Stein’s book than one might find in certain portions of Scripture.  That doesn’t make Stein’s use of them sanctified but it does at least remind us that some of our notions of decency are not precisely defined by a desire for Biblical consistency.

Overall, I recommend highly this book for any who wish to really understand the practice of writing from a novelist who dedicated himself to understanding the nuts and bolts of the craft and worked as an editor with some of the most famous names in literature (fiction and nonfiction) for the last half a century or so.  I think he will encourage you, provoke you, draw you in and leave you with fresh insights and a hunger to take another shot at those pages you’ve been staring at while you wrestle in a curious fashion to give life to a few special characters who never lived… but who just might someday in the hearts of a few thousand people.

For a time, when I was much younger, I had a keen distaste for the seedy little nightmares of Edgar Allen Poe. Macabre was a good word for his work.  He seemed a tremendously disturbed spirit, always haunting the pages of his books with sordid and grotesque inanities. I couldn’t quite understand why anyone thought his work important, other than through some remote possibility that there was a genius’ method lurking behind the apparent madness… although I had to admit that the Tell-Tale Heart was quite good. Still, that and The Raven seemed to me to be the only redeeming aspects of his life’s work.

This was my prevailing opinion for many years until I learned of the brilliantly rational and calculating, C. Auguste Dupin. Edgar Allen Poe, as I discovered, had been the man to give us the art of detective fiction. Not only this, but he was so exquisite about it that he, apparently single-handedly, established the greater horde of novelties that would eventually become cliché’s of the genre: the deductive approach (which Dupin called “ratiocination”), the “amateur” consulting detective who always outstripped the dogged police force who “had their uses,” the intelligent but contrastingly unobservant partner who narrated the stories and who provided a perfect buffer for the equally inept reader, the skilled inspector who unwittingly played the foil and received all the credit, the baffling crime and the resolution at the end in which the astounding methods were plainly laid out, and so much more…

Although Sherlock Holmes, when introduced to Dr. Watson for the first time in A Study in Scarlet, humorously scoffed at Watson’s apparently offensive comparison of him with the great Dupin, it was obvious from the start that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle owed a good deal to Poe’s invention.  Without Auguste Dupin, there would likely have been no Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, no Hercule Poirot or Father Brown.  All the great authors of mystery borrowed from that original.  Any reader then with a taste for the best of detective fiction should peruse the pages of The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget and The Purloined Letter. Do not be fooled by the sensation that what you are reading has been done before. Before Poe, no one had done anything at all and those who came after him found it rather difficult to do better. He had a special way with mystery from the start, a singular panache… and for what he accomplished, I’ll always be grateful.