Sermon Tone Analysis

There are wrong ways and right ways to study the Bible.

Wrong ways would be like those who  carelessly treat the Bible as if it is some kind of magical item.

We have all seen those toys you can buy at almost every store that you ask a question, then you shake it, and it gives an answer like, “yes” “maybe” “no” or “not sure, check back later.”

IT seems like some people must use that method with their Bible to make it say some of the things they say.

They ask it a question, shake it, and there is the answer.

It is not unlike the story of the preacher’s whose car broke down on a country road, he walked to a nearby roadhouse to use the phone.

After calling for a tow truck, he spotted his old friend, Frank, drunk and shabbily dressed at the bar.

"What happened to you, Frank?" asked the good reverend.

"You used to be rich."

Frank told a sad tale of bad investments that had led to his downfall.

"Go home," the preacher said.

"Open your Bible at random, stick your finger on the page and there will be God's answer."

Some time later, the preacher bumped into Frank, who was wearing a Gucci suit, sporting a Rolex watch and had just stepped our of a Mercedes.

"Frank." said the preacher, "I am glad to see things really turned around for you."

"Yes, preacher, and I owe it all to you," said Frank.

"I opened my Bible, put my finger down on the page and there was the answer -- Chapter 11."

/Reader's Digest/, March, 1993, p. 71.

We of course, do not study our Bible in that careless manner.

Indeed, we understand the study of Scripture to be serious, hard, intellectual work.

We understand that to gain a proper understanding of the Scripture we must proceed carefully and thoughtfully, exercising our entire mind.

We also understand we need to proceed in a manner that is dependent upon God asking him to help us understand.

As the Psalmist prayed, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.”

Our study of Scripture is not unlike that analogy used by Martin Luther.

Martin Luther said, “I study my Bible as I gather apples.

First, I shake the whole tree that the ripest might fall.

Then I shake each limb, and when I have shaken each limb, I shake each branch and every twig.

Then I look under every leaf.

“I search the Bible as a whole like shaking the whole tree.

Then I shake every limb—study book after book.

Then I shake every branch, giving attention to the chapters when they do not break the sense.

Then I shake every twig, or a careful study of the paragraphs and sentences and words and their meanings.”[1]

I try very hard to model this method to you in my preaching and teaching because it guards quite well against me making the text say what I think or want it to say and it enables me to say confidently this is what God’s word says and this is what it does not say.

This method is also particularly helpful when one comes upon a notoriously difficult text such as this one, one that seems as though there are as many different interpretations as there are interpreters!

My point in all of this is to say we must be very careful with how we approach God’s word, and nowhere is that more true than here.

This passage has been the victim of a not a few drive by misinterpretations.

Bad interpretations of this text are like a bad cold, they keep coming back.

After all, if one were not careful here, one could end up being the most pompous, arrogant, pretentious, snobbish, egotistical, spiritual elitist imaginable.

Does not Paul say as a “spiritual man” you are subject to no judgment and indeed, you judge all things!

Even more, does Paul not say here as believers we possess the mind of Christ so by all rights we should be more than qualified to instruct all people in every matter possible, even God himself, what’s more, we cannot be judged for doing it!

What a grandiose thought!

Everything I say and judge is pure and right because I possess the mind of Christ and no one can judge me and say I am wrong because I have the mind of Christ!

I am on the top of the world!

That, of course, is not what Paul is saying.

So what is Paul saying?

Put simply, Paul is continuing with his contrast between human and divine wisdom.

He is stating in the clearest and boldest of terms that the natural man, the worldly wise man, no matter how intelligent or genius he is cannot understand the wisdom of God, but we who are spiritual through possession of the Holy Spirit can understand and welcome and receive the wisdom of God!

This is not to say anything bad about human wisdom.

Certainly we have all gained from it and are glad of its benefits like the car, microwave oven, etc.

It is simply to say, human wisdom alone won’t get you anywhere and cannot get you anywhere with God.

God is unimpressed by it.

God regards it as foolishness.

My aim this morning is again to deepen your appreciation for and understanding of the Holy Spirit and to encourage you to live like one who possesses the Holy Spirit.

So let’s get into the details!

We are here confronted with a contrast between the natural man and the spiritual man.

The natural man, being so called, because he does not possess the Spirit of God.

The spiritual man is so called because he has possessed the spirit of God.

*/Natural Man/*

The NIV reads “the man without the Spirit.”

The KJV and NASB read, “the natural man.”

We were all of us, without exception, born natural men and women.

The adjective “natural” points to an absence of spiritual discernment, to the person whose horizon is bounded by this life.

As one Greek lexicon put it, the natural man is “one who lives on the purely material plane, without being touched by the Spirit of God” (BGAD).

Life on this level is without spiritual insight.

In other words, the “natural man” is any person who is unsaved, who does not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their one and only Savior from their sin.

We are all born this way.

In regard to spiritual things, the natural man has three dispositions or limitations.

He does not accept them, regards them as foolishness, and cannot understand them.

This is true, because the things of God are spiritually discerned.

*Does not accept or welcome*

The first limitation of the natural man we encounter is he “does not accept” the things that come from the Spirit of God.

The Greek word translated “accept” can be variously translated “receive” or “welcome.”

It has an air of welcome about it and is the usual word for the reception of a guest.

When the natural man is confronted with the things of God, he does not accept it.

He rejects it out of hand.

Illustration of Jack giving us fish

 

*Regards as foolishness*

The second limitation of the natural man we encounter is he regards the things of the Spirit as “foolishness.”

This explains for us why the natural man rejects the things of the Spirit too.

He rejects it because it is all foolishness to him.

Paul said the same thing in 1:18, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing” and in 1:23 “but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.”

*Cannot understand*

                The third limitation of the natural man we encounter is he “cannot understand” the things of God because they are spiritually discerned.

The emphasis of such language is inability.

Just as a blind person cannot see or crippled person walk or mute person speak a natural person cannot discern the things of God.

It is wholly impossible.

These are the three limitations of natural persons.

They do not accept the things of God, they regard them as foolishness, and they cannot understand them.

A Few Thoughts To Consider:

*First, the wisdom of God displayed in the crucified Messiah is rejected outright by the natural man.

*

The natural person is as Gordon Fee says not “simply incapable of understanding the things of the Spirit, but that, because of their being “merely human” (i.e. , without the help of the Spirit), they ‘reject’ the things of the Spirit” (Fee, 116).”

Natural reason and intuition are completely unable to receive the divine realities unaided.

None of this is to say the natural man does not make any efforts to know and understand and examine the things of God, but it is to say they analyze divine truth with limited, earthbound faculties and, not surprisingly, find this divine truth wanting.

They call it weak, silly, absurd, pathetic, and foolish.

For example, the worldly-wise scholars Paul encounters at Athens deem Paul a “babbler” (Acts 17:18) and scoffed at his preaching of the resurrection (Acts 17:32).

Gallio regarded the dispute between Paul and the Jews as silly talk (Acts 18:15), and Festus thought Paul to be insane (Acts 26:24).

I can remember many times in my attempts to share the gospel with unbelievers being told, “I don’t want to hear that nonsense” or “that doesn’t make any sense to me” or “don’t waste y time with such foolishness.”

Consider also with me the words of Christ in John 8:42-47.

*Second, our ministry must depend upon the power of the Spirit.*

Because it is true that we understand and discern the things of God by the Spirit of God, we must depend upon the power of God in the Spirit in our Christian lives.

Nowhere is this truer than in our efforts to witness and in our efforts to have a church that is God centered and Christ exalting and Scripture saturated.