Classic Craigen

For those of us who have sat under the teaching of Dr. Trevor Craigen of The Master's Seminary, we are familiar with his famous syllogisms of systematic theology. Here is one that I found that is specifically for the expositor of Scripture (HT: Apelles).

IF the Illumination of the Holy Spirit is not the giving of new revelation but the internal witness of the Spirit that produces a fullness of conviction about the certainty and the reliability of the Truth, the Word of God, in the mind and heart of the believer AND

IF the Bible itself (1) refers to a growth in knowledge about what it teaches and (2) argues for teaching of the doctrines of Scripture to the believer and (3) calls for the reader to be diligent in his study so that he might rightly divide the Word of Truth AND

IF the Bible reveals that Christ raises up those gifted in teaching and preaching to have oversight of the flock in which they are found AND

IF the doctrine of the ministry of the Spirit is not seen as divorced from the Word of God but as essentially linked to it, using it, and through it working in the lives of God’s own AND

IF the Bible itself places an emphasis on the mind of the believer calling for it to be renewed and strengthened and, in so doing, places before the believer an array of imperatives both negative and positive to which he is expected to respond as he grows in knowledge and application of the Word of God to his own life that he might be spiritually mature

THEN the ministry of preaching and teaching must be (1) linked continually to the Word of God, (2) the product of an earnest study of that Word, (3) the impartation of a body of doctrine as well as that Truth being brought to bear upon life, and (4) carried out with prayer and with an expressed desire for the lives and hearts of the hearers

FURTHER This means that preaching cannot be done without earnest preparation and without proper regard to the context, grammatical and historical, in which it was first given. It entails both an understanding of just what the Spirit caused to be said to those alive at the time of writing and giving AND then carefully determining just what it means for believers who come to its pages after that time

BUT Since preaching will demonstrate to its hearers how the text has been carefully and prayerfully handled as it is interpreted

THEN The one preaching must be very careful to teach by example what he himself desires to be, namely one who properly and rightly handles the Word on which he bases his teaching and exhortation

SO THAT The hearers and fellow-students are left with the distinct realization that no text can be just made to say whatever the speaker wants it to say regardless of its context, that is, the hearer receives constantly a lesson in good Bible study