(Part 1)

JBTM Robert D. Bergen
22
another technique that was highly effective in conveying key information in a narrative:
the inversion. In the case of an inversion, the least significant person, not the most socially
powerful, would make the crucial pronouncement. Thematically significant words could be
made to stand out by having unexpected characters speak them. Examples include women
(e.g., Abigail [1 Sam 25:23–31], Esther [Esth 7:3–6]), underage males (young Samuel, [1 Sam
3:10–18], young David [1 Sam 17:45–51]), and slaves (an unnamed Hebrew slave girl [2 Kgs
5:2–3], unnamed Aramean male slaves [2 Kgs 5:13]).
2) Pay special attention to longer speeches. Proper expository preaching of Old Testament
narratives will inevitably highlight the content of the longest speeches within a narrative
account. This is so, because the biblical narrators placed their primary theological ideas in
the largest “speech bubbles” of the most important characters. The longer the speech, the
more important its content is likely to be.
Speeches in the Old Testament narrative can be pretty long; six of them are more than
a thousand Hebrew words long, and the longest has more than 8000 words! (The longest
ones are: Deut 5:1ff. (8062), Exod 25:1ff. (2552), Deut 1:5ff. (2258), Exod 20:22ff. (1279), Lev
25:1ff. (1270), and Deut 27:11ff. (1140).
You may be thinking, those statistics are interesting, but for expositional purposes, how
long is a “longer” speech in Old Testament narrative? The answer is “Surprisingly short”;
50% of the speeches in Old Testament narratives consist of 12 Hebrew words or less, while
90% of the speeches are less than 60 Hebrew words long. If you don’t have the time or inclination
to pull up a Hebrew text on your smartphone and count words, you can use this
informal rule: Any quote that is two verses long is likely to contain an important idea, and
any speech at least five verses long is likely to be really important—especially if it is spoken
by God or a prophet (e.g., Yahweh [172 words—Exod 20:1–17], Nathan [112 words—2 Sam
12:7–12].
5. Finalize. Besides writing out a summary paragraph summarizing the events of the
narrative you are planning to use in a sermon or Bible study, jot down thoughts and impressions
that stood out to you as you read it. Identify insights that were helpful to you and
ones you believe will be helpful to the people to whom you will be speaking. As an evangelical
Christian expositor, look for ways to use the passage in a manner consistent with the
practices of New Testament writers. The following section discusses New Testament usage
of Old Testament narrative in some detail.
Using the New Testament as a Guide for Preaching OT Narrative
As Christian proclaimers of Old Testament narrative, we can do no better than use
these literary and theological treasures in ways that reflect the purposes and employments
given them by the New Testament writers. Thankfully, we have many passages in the New
Testament that guide us in our attempts to understand how the New Testament writers
used Old Testament narrative.