Therapeutic Preaching

Therapeutic Preaching

Introduction

As one begins his or her search for an identification of preaching in the early church, one should begin with the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus the Messiah to the nation of Israel. Even though the Gospels do not spell out in microscopic details the total essence of the Gospel, as do the Epistles, nevertheless, one can gather nuggets, here and there, that describe the Gospel in its “kernel” form, though not in its full bloom. As one approaches the subject of preaching the Gospel in the early Church, one should also begin with the Apostles if one wishes to discover the very heart, or full bloom, of its subject matter. Like an archaeologist, one must go to the quarry (New Testament) to dig for answers. As one seeks an answer as to what the early church preached, one is confronted with the question Jesus asked His disciple about His identity in Caesarea Philippi: “Who do people say the Son of Man is” (Matthew 16:13)? This is the critical issue for an understanding of biblical preaching and is, at the same time, the proper point of departure. The point of departure for preaching is found in the words of Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (16:16). The early preaching of the church focused on this central question: Who is Jesus? This question is the critical issue and the true starting point in the matter of understanding preaching in the early church (Jackson, 1950).

There is no one standard description of narrative epistemology. Walter Brueggemann has explored the idea of the “script” that is the organising principle for the self.My own introduction to a narrative epistemology came through learning an effective approach to therapeutic counselling called narrative therapy or narrative practice. The collection of philosophical ideas informing narrative practice provides the foundation for this paper.

The basic concept of a narrative epistemology is that we draw our identity from and make meaning in our lives by the story we tell ourselves about our life. The story we tell ourselves (or the story that tells us) is the way we make sense of our experience of the world. All of our experience is interpreted. Gregory Bateson suggested that we create the world we perceive through the set of beliefs we have acquired through our relationship with society and the world.The narrative or linguistic development of this idea proposes the personal narrative as the vehicle for the reality so created, and the reflection of the set of beliefs.

Discussion

Meaning is not an exclusively individual responsibility but our stories and the knowledgesthat they build on are created and negotiated within a set of relationships, communities and social structures.The linguistic and social context for the creation of the personal narrative is the network of discourses of the various communities in which we participate. The traditions of our culture are embedded within the discourse available to us, so the personal narrative will link us beyond our contemporary community, to our ...