The Greatest Challenge and Privilege of OT Preaching

The many preachers and teachers trained and commissioned by Mike Bullmore testify to his godly character and special gifting as a minister of the gospel. I corresponded with Bullmore, senior pastor of CrossWay Community Church in Bristol, Wisconsin, and learned about the greatest challenge and privilege for Old Testament preaching.

You’re speaking about “God’s Great Heart of Love Toward His Own.” Why don’t more people think of love when they read about God in the Old Testament?

There continues to exist, in many people’s minds, a tendency to think of Jesus as speaking a message of love, and the God of the Old Testament as a God of judgment. This is, of course, a monumental error, both exegetically and theologically. Exegetically speaking, it doesn’t take much reading of the New Testament, particularly of the words of Jesus in the Gospels, to see that he spoke quite a bit about judgment and the reality of hell. And on the other hand, it really doesn’t take much reading of the Old Testament, particularly the prophets, to see that God speaks quite a bit and quite passionately about his love for his people. It’s hard to read the books of Isaiah or Hosea for example without being deeply impressed by God’s love.

Theologically speaking, the very idea of “the God of the Old Testament” as opposed to “the Jesus of the New Testament” is a false one. John’s Gospel is probably the best place to go to put that idea to rest. It speaks repeatedly of the unity of the Father and the Son and anchors Jesus message of salvation in the eternal loving purposes of God as reflected in the Old Testament Scriptures.

How did you choose Zephaniah as your preaching text?

As the planning was being done for the upcoming national conference the idea was suggested that instead of doing a serial exposition of a single book (like what was done at the 2009 conference with 2 Timothy) that we do our best to represent faithful gospel-centered preaching from the various parts of the Old Testament. We hoped this would model both good exposition and a gospel-centered hermeneutic in a body of Scripture that can be challenging to preach in a gospel-centered way. We wanted to have a message from each of the major divisions of the Old Testament, including the often overlooked Minor (so-called) Prophets. Zephaniah recommended itself partly because it’s not the hardest and it’s not the easiest, partly because it’s not the longest and it’s not the shortest, but mostly because of its content, especially the beautiful section near the close of chapter three.

What are the primary challenges for preaching expository messages from the Old Testament?

The challenges are many. The size of the cultural gap between us can make the Old Testament feel remote and foreign. The pure amount of material in the Old Testament can be daunting, i.e. how should you best cover the long narratives and long prophetic writings in a week-by-week Sunday morning preaching setting. The variety of literary genres can present a challenge, i.e. what does one do with the numbering of generations? How should the sections of civil and ceremonial law be preached?

But the greatest challenge (and the greatest privilege) in preaching the Old Testament is finding the way that it points to Christ and bringing that to the congregation in a way that clearly honors the Old Testament passage and makes much of Christ. This is not a call for importing some artificial connection to Jesus whenever we preach. Just the opposite. This calls for understanding and expositing the specific ways in which Old Testament passages point to Christ. But it does presuppose, based on Jesus’ own words in John 5 and Luke 24, that every passage of the Old Testament does indeed point to him.

What resources, disciplines, or teachers have made you a better preacher of the Old Testament?

There have been a number of good resources that have helped me think about preaching the Old Testament, chief among them probably being the writings of Graeme Goldsworthy, especially his book Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture. Bryan Chapell’s book Christ-Centered Preaching has also been a big help.

Without question though the greatest influence has been watching other men preach from the Old Testament really well. I remember an occasion from several years ago hearing Mark Dever preach a sermon from Ezekiel 1. It was a powerful sermon and God used it in a unusual way to strengthen in me a desire to preach the Old Testament Scriptures with great faith and joy.

Perhaps it might also help to look at this for a moment from the perspective not of the learner but of the teacher. I’m convinced that the best way to train younger men to faithfully preach the gospel from all of Scripture is for those of us who are already preaching to faithfully preach the gospel from all of Scripture. William Perkins in his book The Art of Prophesying has a chapter called “The Scarcity of True Ministers.” He says there, “So let every minister both in his teaching and in his conversation work in such a way that he honors his calling so that he may attract others to share his love for it.” Every time we preach we’re training the next generation of preachers. It makes me very grateful for those who have faithfully “honored their calling” that I’ve been privileged to sit under.