Beeson Podcast, Episode 392
Dr. Bryan Chapell
May 15, 2018
www.beesondivinity.com/podcast/2018/Preaching-The-Task-of-Application


Announcer:	Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George.
Timothy George:	Welcome to today's Beeson podcast. Well, one of the great blessings of being at a place like Beeson Divinity School is that we get to hear great visiting lecturers and preachers, and today we get to hear Dr. Bryan Chapell. He originally presented this lecture here at Beeson as a part of the Lily Foundation Initiative to Strengthen the Quality of Preaching. That's a grant we received from Lily in order to encourage preaching and strengthen it in the life of local congregations. 
	He's talking here about preaching, the task of application. I'm sitting here with my friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Smith. I know you've known Dr. Chapell for a long time. You use some of his books in your own teaching of preaching. Tell us a little bit about him.
Robert Smith:	I've had the privilege of knowing Dr. Chapell now for over 20 years. Here in this lecture, he is dealing with the task of application in preaching. For him, a sermon without application is a pre-sermon. A sermon without application is not expository. It's important for him that students not only learn to exegete the text, but also exegete the hearer and bring both together. Theology for him represents an iron rod that holds the concrete of preaching together. It may not be seen explicitly always, but it's informing and shaping the sermon, so much so that theology for Bryan Chapell is in existence to make preaching as hard as it needs to be, to serve as an arbiter, to serve as an umpire, a judge, and, if you will, to do corrective surgery on what we do in the pulpit. Here is a man who preaches christologically, applies it to the hearer, and in the power of the Spirit inspires us to preach with power and strength that are not our own.
Timothy George:	Perhaps his best-known book is Christ-Centered Preaching, but he's also written many others, Christ-Centered Worship, Unlimited Grace, Praying Backwards. I mean, he's a wonderful writer as well as a great preacher himself and teacher of preachers. For a number of years, he was the president of Covenant Theological Seminary. Today he serves as the senior pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church, a PCA congregation in Peoria, Illinois. Let's go to our Beeson Divinity School classroom and hear Dr. Bryan Chapell preaching the task of application.
Bryan Chapell:	Just a word. Unlimited Grace, some of you have been kind to mention that sometime in seminary you looked at Christ-Centered Preaching as a textbook, and for lots of years I was asked, "Could you do something like that for laypeople or Sunday school teachers so that I can, as a pastor, give to my Sunday school teachers something that says, “How do we look at a text redemptively or teach kids?" That's what this is. This is kind of “Christ-Centered Preaching ABC” and intended for laypeople to think about, “How do I look at the Bible and think redemptively concerning it?”
	What we're doing today is taking that same general thrust, “How do you look at the Bible and think of it redemptively?”, but also, “How does that affect application.” Because often you think, "Well, the redemptive understanding of scripture is identifying how grace is unfolding and culminating. Does that have anything to do with kind of week-to-week applicational preaching? In fact, is application contradictory to that? If I begin to tell people what to do, is that in some way counter to the grace that's unfolding in all of scripture?"
	My goal today was going to be for two days. Now you get it crushed, so we'll see the progress we make. The goal for this is, say, “How does the grace in all of scripture affect application in preaching?” I'm going to focus on application, and then particularly how that's affected by our theology of scripture. Take that little narrow slice here.
	If you think of the big picture, which a lot of us are taught with different terminologies, but kind of the big concept of the unfolding message of scripture, you'd say, “You start with creation in which God made everything good. Very soon after that, there's the fall, in which everything went bad. We know the other end of the story, which is the consummation in which everything is made perfect”—which by the way is even better than good, right? The big question is, “Between the fall and the consummation, what's going on?”
	We don't really have to guess, because the Bible is establishing its theme right at the beginning, right? We call it the protoevangelium or first gospel, that after the fall God addresses Satan and says, "I'm going to put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed." What's going to happen, he, that is the seed of Satan, is going to strike the seed of the woman, strike his heel. What's he going to do, though? Crush your head, Satan. From that point, it is game on. 
	The big story that's unfolding, of course, is that the seed of the woman is going to have ultimate rule and be crowned, but in that process he is going to crush the head of Satan, which means that the unfolding story is the story of redemption. Where some people begin to think of the Bible kind of like the mean Bible of the Old Testament and the nice God of the New Testament, we actually say that's not what is happening, but rather there is an unfolding message of grace that's getting larger, and larger, and larger until it culminates in the crucifixion, resurrection, and ultimate victory of the savior, that there's an unfolding message. And that unfolding message that culminates in the work of Christ is what Christ-Centered Preaching is about.
	Sometimes a title gets you in trouble. When you say Christ-Centered Preaching, some people automatically think that I'm going to be trying to tell you how to get Jesus to magically appear in every text of the Old Testament. You know how that works, right? The ark is made of wood, and the cross is made of wood, and therefore the ark is about the crucifixion. Actually, it's gopher wood, and gophers live in the ground, and Jesus came up out of the ... That's not what we're going to be talking about, okay, that kind of allegorical, imaginative...
	Rather than trying to make Jesus magically appear, which is not the purpose, we are saying that there is a grace that is unfolding and culminating in the work of Christ. That's the big picture that I think you've been taught in various ways, to say that there's not a message in the Old Testament that's counter to the New Testament. Rather, there's a preparation. There's a prophetic nature. There's a preparing nature. There's a culminating nature. Things are moving forward in the redemptive plan until what God said from the very beginning, the seed of the woman is going to crush the seed of the serpent, that is the message that's unfolding.
	As you see that, you begin to say, "Well, okay. What difference does that make not just for a large view of scripture? What does it make for daily preaching? If I'm not going to be preaching Genesis to Revelation every sermon, how does the big story affect what I do weekly?" 
	I'm going to start with maybe what seemed to be an unlikely place. In 1601, one of the pre-Reformation artists was Michelangelo Caravaggio. Now, he was not a godly person, but challenging the church, challenging much of that. One of the most revolutionary paintings of all time is Caravaggio's “Supper at Emmaus.” Now, most of us have in mind the road to Emmaus, right? Luke 24, where Jesus himself is examining this process after the resurrection. You may remember, for reasons we don't quite understand, he's walking with disciples and they don't recognize him.
	But beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he revealed what was said in what? “All the scriptures the things concerning himself.” I mean, it's Jesus' own biblical theology, right? He is here, post resurrection, looking back over the past and actually saying what Paul the apostle would say in Romans 15:4, everything that was written in the past, which is a very broad statement, everything that was written in the past was written for us so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. Everything that was written was written for us so that through endurance and the encouragement we might have hope. 
	Is the hope in what we do? No. The hope is what God has provided, and Paul is saying, as Jesus is saying, everything that was written in the past, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he revealed what was said in all the scriptures the things concerning him. 
	Now, the disciples don't get it, but that's not the end of the journey. They go from the road to Emmaus to the supper at Emmaus. At the supper at Emmaus, Jesus does some particular Christ-like act that they suddenly recognize him. What does he do? He breaks the bread. In the breaking of the bread, they recognize him. It's that moment, like a snapshot, that Caravaggio captures where the disciples are saying, "It's Jesus. He is the fulfillment of the ages, the long prophesied Messiah, the hope of all the nations, the one that has been promised from the beginning. He is here."
	Instead of sitting back in glassy-eyed wonder, Caravaggio captures the application of that truth, in every convention of painting, that's being broken. The disciples nor Jesus have halos. That's not what Caravaggio's going to paint. They don't have beards, which in that day and age would mean they're like aristocrats. They're clean shaven, which means the sawdust and the fish guts can be washed off. They're working people. Instead of sitting back in glassy-eyed wonder, the disciples, "Oh, it's Jesus," instead they are rising from their chairs. Their muscles are taut. One of them reaching toward you, the onlooker, and tries to pull you into the scene to be with Jesus. It's as if to say, "If now the long prophesied Jesus is here, the desire of nations, the conqueror of Satan is here, there is something to be done. There is a message to make known. We have to be engaged now because of the culmination of grace that has come to our awareness.”
	My intention today is to say just that. If we just kind of sit back and say, "Oh, isn't it interesting that there was a culminating grace?" but to say instead there is a reason to know that becomes the strength, the fuel as it were, of the application that we should be doing on a daily, weekly basis as we teach the scriptures. It's not just kind of cognitive awareness. There's something to take from this that is powerful.
	Just a few quick thoughts as we think about application so that, we're trained different places, have similar terminology. If you think of application in preaching, we typically think it's one of the three major components of any sermon, right? Just in general parlance we say sermons are made up of explanation, illustration, application. Those are the three basic building blocks of messages. Most people don't know that. I hope you know, right? For most people, a sermon is just kind of this wall of words coming at them. It's just this kind of glob of thoughts and words and mud coming at them. But in our minds, we have these building blocks: explanation, illustration, application. 
	 Application, if we were to define it, to start confessionally, is the duty that is required of the text. It's the duty. Now, some of you are Presbyterian, at least one of you in the room. Our catechism says, “What do the scriptures principally teach?” Third question of the catechism, what do the scriptures principally teach? The answer is, “What man is to believe concerning God,” which Presbyterians will almost say amen to that statement. What do the scriptures principally teach? What man is to believe concerning God, and that's not the end of it, and what duty God requires of man. 
	Calvin, what is theology? It's knowledge of God and knowledge of—
Speaker 5:	Self.
Bryan Chapell:	Self, right? Theology is not just abstract knowledge of God. It's the creator and the creature, right? It's understanding what God is doing in the world and our response to that. Application is the second aspect of that, not only what man is to believe concerning God, but what duty God requires of man. A little more modern definition: Application is the personal consequence of biblical truth. Application is the personal consequence of biblical truth.
	For those of you that have a hermeneutics background, we go a little bit further and we say application is about significance rather than meaning. Usually explanation is about meaning, what does the text mean? Application is about significance. What is the significance of that meaning? Now, if you're really good at hermeneutics, you recognize that those are really not, even though I worded those as separate concepts, they are inseparable, right? Because the reality is if you do not know the significance of something, you don't know what it means. 
	Now, that's very important, because we can think that by regurgitating a commentary or saying lots of grammatical things about a text that I just explained what it means. But if our people don't know what to do with it in a very basic way, they don't know what it means, right? Because they don't know the personal significance.
	In order to explain the personal significance, we talk about application. Kind of my last little clarifying thought is, at least in preaching, we need to recognize that application is about attitude as well as behavior. It's about attitude as well as behavior, because our reflex says application is about behavior. What are the things you are to do? What is the duty that is required? But the writer of Proverbs reminded us of something critical: Out of the heart are the issues of life.
	If you think about the preachers that you appreciate, not those who have been preaching for five months or five years but 25 years or 35 years, I think you will almost always find that there's a consistent division of labor as it were between the explanation, illustration, application, and even duty and attitude. Almost all of us when we start out preaching, we're about behaviors, right? Read your Bible more, pray more, go to church more. Now it's the fourth Sunday. What else am I going to say? Well, read your Bible even more. Then we come up with a list of duties, and application is often kind of the laundry list of duties at the end of a message. "They told me to do application in seminary, so I got these. I haven't even thought about this prior to this sermon, but they told me I'm supposed to do application, so here's stuff you're supposed to do," right? We come up with a laundry list of duties.
	Those pastors who've been preaching a long, long time, if you look at, listen to their division of labor, they talk a whole lot more about the attitudes of the heart, not because they're unconcerned about behavior, but because they know if they get behavior without the heart they've actually lost. They know they have to be after the heart first. We just need to say these are unfair divisions between attitude and action, attitude and behavior. But our instinct is application's about behavior, and I want to say attitude is just as important and probably is the greater task in mature preaching. I'm not ruling out behavior. I'm saying attitude has to be on the page too.
	If you think about how important is application just even in our normal kind of unfolding of the average main point, explanation, illustration, application, even where we are in order seems to diminish the importance of application. Certainly when we're in academic settings, we would recognize—why did you pay the big bucks to go to seminary? You paid the big bucks for this bubble right here, so that you would get the explanation right. If you just think about your division of labor and the preparation of most of your sermons, where does most of the effort go? It goes right there. If you begin to think about how important is application, the division of our labor, the expense of our finances, the order of our sermons, I'll say, "Well, you're supposed to do it, but it's not the main thing to be done." 
	One of the thing kind of historical studies would be to look at the commentary of John Broadus, the father of expository preaching. Do you all know the name John Broadus? Okay. Post-Civil War era, higher criticism working its way into the North American setting. What does that mean? It means that 20 centuries prior to Broadus, most preaching that we can identify was not expository as we define it. Most preaching was topical. You might say most preaching was doctrinal essays. You take a verse, and you begin to explode it looking at other places, other verses, develop the doctrine throughout scripture. We actually look at Puritan preaching for instance or over the preaching of Spurgeon, we typically say there's the apex of great preaching. It's almost always topical, okay? It's almost always a doctrinal essay.
	Here was the problem with that that Broadus recognized. In a period of Christian consensus where people typically agree on the doctrine, at least of their denomination, that you can do that kind of explode a topic from a verse and people kind of go along with you. But that also means if I can kind of take an idea in one text and begin to prove what it means from other texts, and philosophy, and background, and poets, and kind of say, "This is what this text means," by going to and fro through both Bible and philosophy, what can I make the Bible say? Absolutely anything I want it to say, right? 
	As higher criticism is coming into the United States and people are talking about “the Virgin Birth doesn't really mean the Virgin Birth, and the resurrection doesn't really mean the physical resurrection but Jesus lived on in the thoughts of his disciples and their teaching,” all the aspects of criticism, Broadus recognized the church was basically powerless against higher criticism because of the way that it had been preaching. He devised a method of preaching, and this is going to sound very familiar. You may not recognize it as the Broadus method. It may just be what you think of as expository preaching. An expository message by definition gets its theme from the text. It also gets its main points from the text. The Broadus contribution, it also gets its sub points from the immediate text. That is the definition, classically, of an expository sermon.
	In kind of general reference, an expository sermon means I'm expounding the text. I'm saying what the text says. But Broadus said that philosophy is not a sufficient discipline for actually making sure you say what the original author intended. To say what the author intended, you have to develop the thought of the author in the way the author did. Not just the topic comes from the text, but the main points come from the text and the way the author developed those main points comes from the text. Theme, main point, sub points come from the text. That became what most of us think of as expository preaching. 
	Prior to Broadus, there were people who did say what the text said, but they were not by definition following this method. You say, "Well, wasn't Calvin an expositor?" Yes, but he wasn't doing this, right? "Wasn't Spurgeon an expositor?" Yes, but he wasn't doing this. This is relatively new in the history of preaching, okay? This method that you all kind of take for granted is actually relatively new in the history of preaching. 150 years or so of this.
	Now, if you think of John Broadus, the father of expository preaching, and now you take your building blocks, exposition, illustration, application, which of those is Broadus going to say is the most important aspect of preaching? Broadus said application is the main thing to be done. It's his language. Application is the main thing to be done, because he said we are not ministers of information. We are ministers of transformation, which is an interesting way of thinking about what the preaching project is week to week.
	Because if I think that my main goal is explanation, which is a different word by the way than exposition ... Exposition is unfolding the meaning of the text. Explanation is just explaining, right? What I typically think of is what I am doing as I do my exegesis, and my outline, and my illustration, and my delivery is I am trying to move the big rock of explaining the text, right? Broadus said that'll mess you up. You'll become a lecturer rather than a preacher. You'll become a commentary regurgitator rather than a pastor. 
	In order for us to pastor, he said you have to perceive what the real goal is. Yes, it is to build a message on solid explanation, but the goal is to move application into the lives and hearts of God's people. The transforming power of the Word of God is what you are mainly about, that preaching is not primarily an informative event. Now, in academic settings it's hard to take that out of people's brains, right? My main goal is to inform you. My main goal is to have you repent and change, which means the primary purpose of preaching is that it is a redemptive event. It is not primarily, not primarily, an informative. Now, I didn't take information off the page, but it has a purpose, and the purpose is a redemptive purpose. It is to bring the truth of the Word of God so that the transforming power of the Word of God enters people's lives and changes them in that way.
	After all, nobody's going to challenge you and say, "You know, this Greek here is used in the iterative present tense. It means to do things over and over again." Well, that's interesting. You're an awful smart person. When I say what this says means that you are a sinner in need of change, which you cannot do apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, and you are under the condemnation of God if you do not change, God requires your transformation, not just your cognition of what I'm saying. 
	It's a very different form of preaching as it were, and it kind of caused not only encourage from us, it actually begins to inspire us. If I'm not just doing a data dump, if that's not the goal, but I'm actually trying to move people spiritually from lethargy, or fear, or anxiety, I'm trying to move them to a different place spiritually, that is a different task that includes explanation of information, but it says what the priority of my purpose is. 
	Now, if you begin to think that way, not only does it kind of change priorities, it begins to make you think about why it is so important. Not just because hopefully, Broadus said, that application is so important. You take other writers who begin to recognize that. I've mentioned Calvin, and those of you who are not Presbyterian should recognize that whenever Presbyterians get close to saying something heretical, we always quote Calvin, because he's got more credibility than we do. While John Broadus can say, a good Baptist, application is the main thing to be done, we're listening, Presbyterians, for what'd John Calvin say, right? 
	Here's what John Calvin said. He said, "If we leave it to men's choice to follow what it taught them, they will never move one foot. The doctrine of itself can profit nothing at all." Now if I said that, I'd be in big trouble in my presbytery. But because Calvin said, "The doctrine of itself can profit nothing at all," what is he meaning? Even the devils believe, right? It's not just knowledge of doctrine that's the right thing. 
	I sometimes tease a little bit in my own circle and say we Presbyterians, we are pretty much convinced that your good works will not save you, but we're also pretty much convinced that your right doctrine will save you, and it won't. It is the grace of God. You and I know people who are totally correct in their doctrine whom the Spirit seems to have no control over heart and mouth and action, right? 
	It's also our generational experience in terms of why, Broadus would say, why is application the main thing to be done. This is in lots of readings, lots of books. Stetzer is doing a lot of work on it by the way, if you just kind of read things. Those who claim to be born again, you know what percentage of our culture? Those who claim to be born again, what percentage of our culture? Roughly a third. It hasn't changed since World War II. It goes up a percentage point or two, up or down. Has not changed since World War II. Roughly a third, between 27 and 32% depending. By the way, it's a little higher right now than it would have been five or seven years ago. It doesn't change much.
	But does the behavior of those who claim to be born again get much affected by what they say they believe? You know all these factors. The divorce rate among those who claim to be born again versus don't, is it much different? No. The abortion rate? Not much different. View of pornography rate? Not much different. Entertainment differences? No real differences. Investment differences? No real differences.
	If you actually look at something like drunkenness, it actually increases after people claim to be born again. Now, there are reasons, all kinds of sociological for this. Sometimes the reason is those who identify, straight talk, you're pastors, the people who claim to be born again in this culture tend to be from a lower demographic of education and economy. Often when they claim to be born again, it's kind of the last desperate measure to deal with an addiction, a marriage that's coming undone, something like that. People in particularly Southern culture who claim to be born again, often that's the lifeline for my bad habits of a lifetime, right?
	Stetzer says ... Have you listened to some of these talks? I mean these are good. He's a friend of evangelicals, very fine Bible believing man. He'll say most of those who claim to be born again are rarely actually involved in the church. The claim of being born again doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of their church habits versus much less any other habits.
	One of the interesting conclusions he's discerned is this, we do know, much debated, do evangelicals really divorce at the same rate as the rest of culture. Huge debates about that. Some will say, "Well, no they don't." The reason they debate at such a high percentage is they're at least the ones still getting married and that's why they get divorce rates. Well, it's not entirely that. The highest percentage by the way that's been estimated of how often do evangelicals get divorced was done by the Focus on the Family people when James Dobson was still there, and he said it is not true that 50% of evangelicals get divorced. It's only 37%. That's still very high, and that's by somebody saying the 50%, so still very high at 37%.
	Research of Stetzer, what about those who pray together as couples every day? What is their divorce rate? Less than 10%. Now, you can turn that into a legalism, an ounce of magic, but it does say something about faith commitment and not just faith profession, right? That actually, I think, is a very hopeful thing to be saying in our culture—that when faith is real, if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, it's not just words, it's something deep down in there, that it really does make a difference in family and life. 
	By the way, the same sorts of things are true. We do read that two-thirds of our youth out of evangelical churches will leave the church once they go to college, right? You know that. You've heard that. Stetzer would confirm it. About a third of those two-thirds who leave will come back. When will they come back to the church?
Speaker 5:	When they start having kids.
Bryan Chapell:	When they start having kids. Again, more recent research from Stetzer. What about those families which, again, regularly pray over meals with their kids? Two-thirds do not leave the church when they go to college. You know, we have to say, "All right." All this is still saying however something you begin to recognize. Words are not alone. Information is not enough. What are you living is so key to what is actually the process of spiritual growth. 
	I'll go again. The data dump is not primarily preaching then, right? What's the significance of what you're saying as well as the meaning of the text? You begin to just get, as I'm throwing lots of facts at you, you begin to just get a sense of why application. Broadus would say that's really the main thing to be done, right? Not apart from explanation, but we have to think of what that means.
	Just for grins, I thought it might be important for you to remember that not explanation, illustration, application but if you think of what are the components of any persuasive message. If you're going to persuade people of something, what goes into it? Now, long ago Aristotle told us it's logos, pathos, ethos. Logos is the word content, that if people are going to understand and be persuaded it better make sense, so there has to be a certain word content. That's the organization. That's the definition of terms. It's, “Does it cohere, does it make sense?” For a message to be interpreted, it has to have adequate logos.
	It also has to have adequate pathos. If logos is word content, what is pathos? When we present something, it has to have pathos to be persuasive?
Speaker 5:	Passion.
Bryan Chapell:	Passion. Sometimes we call it the emotive content, which in Western culture we're suspicious of because we say that was just emotional or he's just playing to the emotions. But what we forget is that the manner of your expression is your first testimony of its truth. If manner does not cohere ... You know Broadus, some of you, and some of you will know Haddon Robinson. Robinson says it just this clearly. If manner, how I say it, if manner does not conform to message, if manner does not conform to message, which will be believed? Manner. 
	This is really important. I hope you guys get it, because if you don't get this, this is so important. You'll go to hell if you don't understand it. Now, I just said words, "It's very important," but what did my manner say? Not important at all. If I say, "What this church needs is people who just love each other a little more!" Manner and message going different directions, which will be believed?
Speaker 5:	Manner.
Bryan Chapell:	Manner. Manner is the first testimony of the truth of the text. If it has no effect upon the speaker, why should we expect it will have any effect on the hearer? Now, we all recognize there can be false emotions, manipulative emotions, but authentic expression of what is true. As a dying man to dying men, right? To say it's important as though it is important. True for personality? Yes, all those things into effect. Is truth poured through your personality? Yes. In American culture, whether you're John Wayne, or Harrison Ford, or Johnny Depp, it's kind of the great unmoved men. We're just not going to be effected, which is actually to say this is not important and not significant. How do I say that to you? Well, just the way I said it to you. That says it's not important or not effective, right? Manner.
	But the last piece of what persuades people is ethos, and ethos is perceived character. We hate that, because it doesn't say actual character, what I intend. It's what's perceived, right? My homiletics professor years ago, John Sanderson, said, "Before you ever hire a preacher, play softball with him and on a close play at second base when he was really safe, call him out. See what happens." Does the character ... What did Paul say? You received our words because why? You know that we loved you, right? Not as the words of men, but as it is in truth the words of God, you know how much we loved you, right? There was compassion for others.
	Now, of these three, Aristotle long ago said which is the most effective? Logos, pathos, and ethos, which is the most persuasive? Anybody know? The last. See, we paid all the money for this one, and God is doing most of the work here. Is your heart persuading? Is what people know about you persuading them? Because the reality is people can discern about you far more than they can prove. You and I do it, right? We're engaged in conversation with people in our congregation. I will tell you, most of us know in the first 30 seconds what level of spiritual maturity I'm talking to. Their word choices, what they laugh at, whether they look at me, don't look at me, how they talk about other people. I'm discerning, and people are doing the same thing. We're talking 30 minutes, 35 minutes. They are making huge ... They don't even know how they're doing it. They are discerning if what we are saying is credible. Therefore, ethos is the most persuasive element.
	You and I know this when we go and visit a relative at vacation and they tell us about this wonderful pastor that they've got. Would we please go listen with them? We go and we listen to the pastor, and we leave saying, "That was really bad, but they listen and go week after week. Why do they listen to such awful preaching?" Why do they listen? Because that person does what? Loves them. Cares for them, and they know it.
	If ethos is so persuasive, we have to know some things about it. What are the components of ethos? What bearing do they have on what we say, how we say it, and ultimately on application? Ethos is a combination of two things, what I call “the C and the C.” People are always evaluating are we worth listening to, does what we're saying have any significance for them? Ethos is a combination of credibility ... Credibility is itself people assessing whether we have knowledge. Do you know what the text says, right? They're assessing. Does that make sense? And realism.
	"Now, if you're really going to walk with me through Romans, I want you to take a course on Greek." "You have no idea what I'm going through in life." "You should just love your boss." "You have no idea who my boss is, how he talks, what he's like, how hard it is." Do you understand my world? Part of ethos is not just knowledge of my world, it is knowledge of your world.
	What is application going to be dealing with? Knowledge of your world, because one of the primary aspects of ethos, which is I need to listen to you, is do you get me. Do you understand my world? Not just the knowledge of the Greek, and the Hebrew, and how long Israel's been in the desert. I get your knowledge. Do you understand my world? Knowledge and realism are part of credibility.
	The other big C, are you worthy listening to, is compassion. "We delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well. You know how much we cared for you, as a mother nursing a child." That's why you listen to us, because we share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well. You know how much we cared for you. 
	How do you know how much I care for you? One is altruistic care. That is the way I talk, what I talk about, shows that I care about you more than just myself. If all I'm doing is putting things on the tall shelf, I really know Greek and Hebrew, I got systematic theology down pat, I sound really smart, I'm so smart you can hardly understand me, you may have a lot of respect for me, but what have I demonstrated about my care? I don't care. I care about me, but compassion is about caring about you above me. Is there obvious altruistic care in what I'm expressing, which means I say it in such a way that it can be understood?
	The Westminster Divines, when they wrote the Directory for Public Worship after all that difficult stuff in the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Directory of Public Worship said that when we preach we are obligated to consider—wonderful language, wonderful pastoral language—the necessities and the capacities of our people. Not just the necessities, but the capacities. That to pastor, not just to preach but to pastor, requires that we consider the necessity. What do they need to know? What do they need to change? Yeah, that has to be considered, but also what can they hear? What is their education? What is their background? What is their grief? What's going on in the culture? Can they hear what I'm saying? Then I need to say it in such a way that I'm caring not so much about my respect, my message, my reputation, but altruistic, other-oriented care.
	The second major aspect of compassion, which we don't think about so often, is altruistic risk. Am I willing to say things that you and I know will get me in trouble for your sake, to say what the Bible says, as difficult as it may be? My sermon this last Sunday was on gossip. That's a fun one. They're really inspired by that one, let me tell you. Because I was talking about civility in an uncivil culture, really hard for believers in this day and age depending on the blogs they listen to, the radio stations they listen to, the political party they're associated with. 
	For us to present the alternative universe that is the church for people who are living day to day in this super-heated, supercharged, word-bombing culture, many Christians have no sense that what the church is doing has any connection to that. To talk about particular commentators and words and parties, I knew I was going to be in trouble with some people. I was. Now, most people were thanking me after for being willing to take a risk. I'm not commending myself. I'm just saying I was scared. I don't do it often. Yeah, I know I'm just going to ... but they'll actually hear me if they know I'm willing to do it.
	You and I do know the preachers of whom, and maybe you've been consulted. I have had people come to me and say, "Will you please consult with me? Because if I tell my preacher, he'll just tell me what I want to hear. He just wants to stay on the safe side. I don't trust him anymore." Are you willing to risk for their sake, and do they know that you're willing to risk for their sake?
	Now, the reason I say that is because this is still bearing on the subject of application, isn't it? What are you willing to say? What is the text willing to challenge? Because ultimately these things, remember, credibility and compassion are bearing on the most persuasive aspect of our message, which is what people recognize about our character confirming our truth. Is my character confirming that truth, or is it actually undercutting the truth? Application is the main thing to be done.
	Now just for grins, while you can kind of think, "Oh, that ethos stuff is kind of important," and it may be fun to know about, it gets really scary when you think about what people take away from our preaching. Because what we think they're going to take away is all this great information we've been working on. If you actually study it, and this is known as a memory retention hierarchy, what did people remember from your sermon ... Now, this is going to be discouraging at first, but hang with me, okay? What is the most likely thing? Now remember, we've got explanation, illustration, application. Those are our building blocks. What are people most likely to remember from most sermons?
Speaker 5:	Stories.
Bryan Chapell:	Stories, okay. Which story are they most likely to remember from your sermon, first, middle, or last? Last. The most likely thing that they remember is the last illustration. That's the most likely remembered thing of most sermons. The thing that it's midnight and we're still sweating over it. I can't wake up my wife to ask her what my final conclusion is. I'll come up with something tomorrow. But the reality is what we give the least time to is the most likely thing to be remembered. That's just sad, but it's true, it's the last illustration. That's the most likely thing to be remembered out of most sermons. Now, it's not entirely true. If you fall down on the way to the pulpit or pick your nose during the sermon, they will remember that. Anything unusual they will remember above everything else, but of normal stuff, last illustration.
	If not the last illustration, what are they next most likely to remember? If not the last illustration, what? The first illustration. They're still awake at that point. The first illustration. If not the first or last illustration, what else are they most likely to remember out of the sermon? Any other illustration. Okay, we're out of illustrations. It is the most likely remembered aspect of any message, the stories.
	After that, what do they most likely remember out of your sermon? Explanation, illustration, application?
Speaker 5:	Application.
Bryan Chapell:	Application. Now, we won't like this, guys. You ready? The applications they will most remember are those that they most strongly disagree with. The applications they are most likely to remember are those that they most strongly disagree with. This is when we have roast pastor for lunch, right? "How dare you say that? Get in my face, criticize my family, talk about my political party, make us think about those people in a kind way. Doesn't that pastor have any courage at all?" If I most strongly disagree, I will remember. When you cross me, I'll remember.
	Next, most likely, application is that I, and you have to say it, strongly agree with. "I've been waiting for that pastor to talk on money for five years. The finance committee is wilting because he has no courage. Finally he talked about what I've been wanting." If I strongly agree.
	Here's what we don't like. If they only mildly agree, they will not remember at all. We should pray more. "Oh, well there's an original thought. I never heard that before." If they mildly agree, they will not remember at all. Interesting. 
	Now, I told you this would be discouraging. What's not on the list at all? 
Speaker 5:	The text.
Bryan Chapell:	The text is not on the list at all. If they're going to remember anything out of your explanation, what are they likely to remember? We'll say only the general topic. "It was about sin, and he's against it." They maybe remember the general topic. But what you and I know, though we hate it, is nobody goes home at lunch and says, "Wasn't that a wonderful second sub point under his third main point?" No, it's a wall of words coming at them. They don't even know the explanation, illustration, application structure. It's just this word, word, word, word, word coming at them.
	It may be a significant thought. It may be an important observation, something that kind of stuck out, but the reality is most people listen to sermons the way you float a river. If you're a kayaker, if you're a canoer, how do you float? You paddle for a while, and then you paddle for a while. How are most people listening to sermons? The same way you listen to sermons when you listen to other people. You dig in for a little bit, and then your mind kind of goes here, and then you dig in for a little bit, and your mind goes there. People may hear some of the dig in stuff.
	Now, this can be terribly discouraging, because you spent so much time, energy, and effort, hours and hours every week on the explanation. How can we possibly get to preach when we recognize this is what people remember? Because it's a lie. It's not actually what people remember the most. If you actually test people for the content of the message, this is what they will remember the most, but it's not what or whom they remember the most.
	What is the most remembered aspect of any message? Not the message but the messenger. What's the most powerful form of persuasion? Ethos. Does your life, does your word, do your attitudes, does the help that you offered confirm the message?
	I think about churches that I have pastored in the past beyond the one I'm with now. The previous one that I pastored was 30 years prior. If I go back to that church, do they remember my wonderful messages? They do not. What do they remember? Me. For good or for ill, they remember me, and they remember whether or not my life and words confirmed the truth of the text that they needed. Now, when you say that you have to be clear even what that means. Does my life, do my words, does my expression confirm the truth of the gospel that I'm confirming?
	Does that mean that people now when they get into trial, or crisis, or theological...are going to go in this little Rolodex in their minds, and they're going to remember what I said two weeks, two months, two years ago? Are they going to remember my messages? The answer is no. The reality is you don't remember your messages. "What'd you preach on this Sunday?" "Well, give me a second." We don't even get it.
	Here's why this whole thing falls apart. This is testing what is known as external memory, what you remember outside the message. But that's not all that's happening. There is internal memory to the message, right, in which I'm saying is what you're saying now cohering with what the text says, with what you said two minutes ago? Is this making sense? Is it cohering? Because the message itself is a transformative event. It's not like we're accumulating Wikipedias of your sermon in our brain that we're going to refer to down the road. The moment of repentance, of transformation, of inspiration is now.
	The reason that we have to say, "Is what I'm saying now making sense, and inspiring, and proving by the text?" is because ethos, which is a combination of credibility and compassion, is all established down here in the content of the message. It's not remembered. People are not saying, "I now know what the aorist is. I now know that it's established past meaning. It is not iterative nature, ongoing, continuing." That's not what's going on. What's going on is, "Is the Holy Spirit using this moment of your information and your character to change my heart?"
	Now, if your message is disorganized, what did you just communicate about credibility and content and compassion? First, I'm not credible because I'm disorganized, or worse I don't care, which is destroying ethos. You now say, "Well, no, no, no, no. I care. I just didn't get it together." No, you just said, “I don't care,” to everybody that was listening, all right?
	If what I'm saying doesn't make sense with what the text says, what did I just do? I just said I'm not credible. If I made lots of sense but did not speak to the capacities of my people, I said, “I don't care.” Which means all of this that is not remembered in terms of its particularities is absolutely essential to communicating the ethos that is the most transformative thing that is actually going on in the message. 
	Kind of the summary of all this is even though you can't test, as it were, content and application, you have to say that this—Broadus, long ago, when he was saying application is the main thing to be done—was not compromising. He was actually recognizing the dynamics of how people hear and how their hearts are transformed. We have to say not just what's the meaning of the text, but what's the significance of the text, and do I care enough about you to get that on the page? All those things are determining whether or not people can and will hear us.
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