Jason Goodwin: Welcome to the preaching lab podcast. I am ⁓ excited today to be able to come to you guys from from rainy Ruston, Louisiana. ⁓ What about what about you? What about you, Adam? Is it is it ⁓ an hour north? Is it? ⁓ What's what's the weather like there?
Adam: We needed that rain. It is rainy and that's good. My bees have been behind because of this drought. So I've been needing some rain to get them going. They needed it.
Jason Goodwin: The bees needed the rain. That's something I didn't expect to have that information thrown out at us.
Adam: Well, know, May showers, what is it? April showers brings May flowers and it's very important. Yeah. And flowers bring ⁓ honey. So if you don't have the April showers, you don't have the May flowers, you don't have the honey. So very thankful for the rain.
Jason Goodwin: Right, and may flowers bring pilgrims.
Gary: Thank
Jason Goodwin: There you go. Gotcha, okay, well there we go. Well hey, as always guys, I'm joined by the one and only Adam Wayne Thomas, who had a birthday recently. He is now officially in the last year of his 40th decade or something like that. Isn't that how that works? Something like that, so.
Adam: That's something like that. I'm old. I remember my dad turned 50, I used to think like, ⁓ I don't have many years left with him, you know.
Jason Goodwin: Getting there, getting there. It's It's, yep, it's about over. Well, ⁓ joining us today, we won't say his age. We'll let him, ⁓ know, if he wants to confess such things, we'll let him, but we're 64. saying, it's a young 64 though. ⁓ The young 64 year old Dr. Gary O'Neill. ⁓ Brother, it is so good to have you with us today. How are you?
Gary: 64. Thank you. I am doing well. Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate this opportunity and always enjoy interacting with you guys and listening to the silliness and enjoying the serious parts of it. So it's always a pleasure.
Jason Goodwin: Yes. You know, it's funny, I had somebody ⁓ call me this week, it was asking about our church plant here in Ruston. And I told him, said, well, I said, you need to know something about our group. I said, we take our worship very seriously, but we do not take ourselves very seriously. And I think that's kind of a good motto for our preaching lab podcast. We take our theology and our work seriously, but we try not to take ourselves too seriously because, you know. Some would wonder why in the world we're doing this anyway. But we're thankful to have you. You know what you're doing. You are a doctor. You are a seminary professor as well as a pastor. You have ⁓ devoted your life to many of these things. We like to see Dr. O'Neill as the senior statesman of the preaching lab ⁓ cohort and group. We adopted him several years ago, whether he wanted to be adopted or not.
Gary: Mm.
Jason Goodwin: and we've been appreciative of his help in these areas of preaching and pastoring. ⁓ So just give us a little bit about yourself for those who may not know you. ⁓ Tell us a little bit about yourself, ⁓ Brother Gary, and how you came to Christ, ministry, and where you're at what you're doing now.
Gary: Okay. So I'm currently pastoring in Little Rock. ⁓ I'm at Oak Park Baptist Church here in Little Rock. We've been here for 12 years. I grew up down in South Mississippi. Going to a good solid church. ⁓ George Redden, some of you would know George Redden was my pastor growing up. He actually was the one who led me to the Lord. He was very patient with me. I was ⁓ very awkward, very shy as a kid. and he was very patient with me. He kept talking to me over and over again until I got it, until I understood it. I was 11 years old at the time. Went off, you know, started working, moved away from home, and that's when I was called to preach. Went to Bible College in Florida, met my wife in Florida. We've been married now for almost 42 years. Have four children and two grandchildren.
Jason Goodwin: Amen.
Gary: that we enjoy getting to spoil whenever we can. But we spent 10 years up in New Hampshire pasturing up there and then I came back down south to go to the seminary and get my master's degree and then moved to Tupelo where we spent 14 years and now 12 years here at Oak Park.
Jason Goodwin: So tell me, the period in New Hampshire always intrigues me. How did a guy of the South end up in New Hampshire, especially at a time where, I mean, here lately it seems like there's been a revitalization, a revival of churches there in the Northeast, but that would not have been the case when you were there. So tell us, how did that all transpire?
Gary: Well, I went to an independent Baptist Bible college and we had a pastor that visited the college, preached in chapel one week, and he had started a church actually in Massachusetts and he asked if I would go up and work with him there. So I had never been out of the South. My wife had never been out of the South. We had just had our first child. I think Amy was a year old in 1986 when we moved up to New Hampshire. We lived in New Hampshire, but the church was in Massachusetts. spent 10 years there. Loved the people, especially, we moved further up into New Hampshire after about three years and absolutely loved the people there. They were just country, you know, they were just country. It's nothing like what you hear so often of the Yankee and all of them. We really enjoyed our time there. So, dear friends, good people.
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm. Ever have a chance to go back or has it been?
Gary: It's been a while, goodness, let me think, probably since the early 2000s. We made a trip in 2000. We've been back to Boston for my wife to run the marathon three times. But, and it seems like one of those times we did get to go up and see some friends and stuff, but that's another two, three hours north of Boston.
Jason Goodwin: Okay. ⁓ wow, ⁓ wow. Yeah, yeah, well, ⁓ that's encouraging that you had those opportunities and I'm sure it was helpful as far as pastoral ministry and just the different things that you probably engaged there. ⁓ And then now that you've been at Oak Park for 12 years, how's ministry going there? And tell us about the other things that you do as far as a professor and teaching aspect as well.
Gary: Well, ministry here at Oak Park is going well. Like every church, you have your ups and downs and go through periods. We have seemed like we've just come through a period of struggling and always looking for new workers. And right now, we're looking for a worship leader. So if anybody is interested, you can get in contact with us. We are really looking for a worship leader.
Jason Goodwin: Okay, yeah.
Gary: But as far as other things that I do, I teach for the seminary, the VMA seminary down in Jacksonville. I'm actually the distance education coordinator, director. And so my role is a little larger than just teaching. But right now I'm teaching one class. Probably I'll teach one class in the summer and probably two classes in the fall. ⁓ I'm enjoying doing Life Word videos.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, that's a recent development, Or last couple months? Yeah.
Gary: Relatively recent, well probably the fall of last year, maybe October, somewhere in that time frame. Yeah, but I love that. Just a real short.
Jason Goodwin: Okay. Okay. Are you competing with Cliff Johnson for clicks and likes and stuff like that? is that, know, Mr. Day by Day? No.
Adam: You
Gary: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Jason Goodwin: Well, he goes into studio. He records several at a time. So don't let him fool you. It's not like he's, you know, it's not like he's doing, I mean, he's not even helping with this podcast, really. I mean, come on. what's, he's probably at baseball practice right now anyway. So we won't give him any more kudos. You've given him enough flowers. we'll... ⁓
Adam: you I think he takes his entire closet to Conway every so often. And I don't know if he has like wardrobe helpers that help him change clothes between takes, but yeah.
Gary: He tried to go to prison. Yeah. Right.
Jason Goodwin: Yes. Nah, that Cliff does it all by himself. You know he's styling and profiling. Yeah, that's exactly right, yeah. Well, the reason why we actually have you on the podcast today is because we wanna talk about an aspect of preaching that we think is very important. ⁓ I guess the aspect of preaching is preaching the whole Bible as Christian scripture. We actually think that the whole Bible is Christian scripture and a lot of the time,
Gary: Yeah.
Jason Goodwin: ⁓ Old Testament text either gets ignored or it gets preached in ways that we would, we don't think are helpful to the redemptive narrative or the redemptive arc of the scriptures. And you've written an article recently for our preaching lab. ⁓ people, we have it up, it'll be coming up on the website, called Preaching Christ from All of Scripture. And so we wanted to talk to you about that article today and just talk about why it is that we think it's so important that when preaching the Bible, especially the Old Testament, that we preach it in a way that is connected to Christ, that's connected to the gospel, that's connected to the redemptive narrative of Scripture. And so just to start out, What about this or this thought of preaching the Old Testament, preaching the scriptures as Christian scriptures, as all the same narrative, when did this kind of land on you ⁓ as a really important part of preaching?
Gary: ⁓ Gus started with it in Bible college. I read a book, Walt Kaiser's book on ⁓ exegetical preaching, ⁓ drawing a blank on the name of it offhand. But that really started stirring my heart that the way I had been taught or maybe not the way I had been taught, but what I had heard often as people preached in the Old Testament was probably ⁓ not the best way to handle scripture. And by that I mean so often I would hear I found myself easily doing this also. I would find something unique in the text in a passage and I would preach that unique thing without looking at the whole context of the passage and trying to understand it. For example, remember ⁓ hearing a preacher preach one day on the children of Israel coming out of Egypt and remember right off they went a little ways and they did it have any water to drink or the water they had to drink was bitter and the Lord told Moses to take this the stick the tree and throw it into the water and that made it sweet and so the point of this sermon was that when we put the cross in our bitter situations it makes it sweet and that's cute and that might be yeah it is but but that's the issue though when we preach like that
Jason Goodwin: Creative.
Gary: it is how creative can I be? What can I come up with to make a point out of this passage? ⁓ The Old Testament prophets would often talk about the burden of the Lord, the message that God had given to them, and how dare they attempt to preach a message that God had not given to them. And I think that's what we need to recognize also. No, we're not prophets in the same sense. as they were, but we'd better make sure that we're handling God's Word accurately.
Jason Goodwin: So I have a Kaiser book right here, preaching and teaching from the Old Testament, a guide for the church. Was it this book, potentially the Kaiser or maybe something like that? Okay.
Adam: So what?
Gary: No, exegetical... I'm drawing a blank on that. It'll come to me. This happens when you get old, so...
Jason Goodwin: That's okay, that's okay, that's okay. All right, Adam, go ahead.
Adam: So why do you think moralistic, because you kind of talk in your article about just the tendency of us taking Old Testament to more of a moralistic way of preaching. Why do you think that's attractive, ⁓ especially when it comes to Old Testament scriptures?
Gary: Well, because I reckon in one sense, it can be easy. We see these people doing something wrong and we see the outcome of it or we do see them making good decisions and we see the outcome. And it's very easy to take that and say, ⁓ okay. That's what I need to preach to my people. They need to do better. They need to stop doing bad or, you know, however it comes across depending on the situation. ⁓ And it can feel so natural of how we handle scripture. ⁓ the problem there is that it can become very divorced from anything having to do with Christ, with the gospel, with proclamation of ⁓ theology and so I think that's where the caution needs to come in with that.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, I think in it.
Adam: So you, whether, go ahead. One of the questions you ask, kind of as a diagnostic question is, can a Mormon or a Muslim or ⁓ a Jewish person sit under your preaching and amen 100 % of it? ⁓ Why is that such a revealing question that that shouldn't be the case?
Gary: will. So those other groups you talk about, many of them are very moral people, know, and their teachers and experts, whatever they're called, would present very moral messages. And so if I am just saying, you know, be, you know, be holy like, you know, Moses was holy or love God like David loved God or whatever, ⁓ they can sit there and agree with it even though the
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: of what we believe is so diametrically opposed to that. so, you know, hearing that question, and I did hear another preacher ask someone that had just preached a moralistic sermon, which was, you know, got a lot of amens, and you sit there and if you didn't think about it, you'd say, wow, that's a great sermon. But then the question came across, what would a Mormon or someone else have disagreed with on that?
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Gary: hit me. was like, a minute. There had better be something about what I'm preaching than someone who handles a scripture in a totally different way than I do. So that was one of those wake-up moments for me.
Jason Goodwin: Now, I think that's incredibly helpful ⁓ because we're gospel people. And if there's not a clear connection to the gospel in the sermon, or there's not a clear connection to Christ in the sermon, then we really have failed in making proper connections. Would you say that that's, I mean, that's kind of the initiative here, that it's not just, that it's not that we, We're not just trying to avoid moralistic, but we're trying to make clear gospel connections.
Gary: Right, and probably the foundational text for that would be 1 Corinthians 2, those first five verses where Paul was just adamant, you Corinthians, when I came to you, I made sure that what I was preaching was Christ and Christ crucified. And he said the reason he did that was because if he just presented man's eloquence or, you know, man's learning or man's theology or man's principles or man centered, then the faith stands in that rather than in the cross rather than in Christ. And so that admonition that comes across for us as preachers is that our preaching has to be surrounded by, founded upon, the cross in Jesus Christ. And that doesn't mean that we don't preach morals. You sometimes people will get the false idea that, hey, okay,
Jason Goodwin: So.
Gary: you don't preach. No, we do preach morals, but we don't stop with preaching morals. We do say be faithful. We do say live a holy life, but then we take that the next step and say the way, the only way you can live a holy life is by your relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, think some people want to say that there are no, that imperatives don't matter, and we're not saying that. We know that there are imperatives in the Bible, in both Old and New Testament. But because we're gospel people, we don't simply stop at these imperatives. We say, no, we are able to do these imperables in light of the gospel.
Adam: Yeah, in your article, in your...
Jason Goodwin: And I think that's where you draw this line because, mean, what's a parishioner? What's a congregant? What's a member of your church? How's it gonna land on them if all they hear is do better?
Gary: Mm-hmm. Right.
Jason Goodwin: I mean, that's, I mean, how do you deal with that? How do you walk away each Sunday if all you're hearing is you've got to do better?
Adam: In the article, in the article you actually do a really good job of explaining the effect that that has when you stop at moralism and don't go to the gospel. There's two effects that it can have either despair or pride. So talk us through that. Like why does moralistic teaching that doesn't take that next step to the gospel, how does that have a effect of either despair or pride?
Gary: Well, Well, some of us are very sensitive hearts, sensitive spirits, and we hear that message over and over again. You've got to pray better. You've got to do more. You've got to, you know, all of those commands and that becomes a heavy weight on us. Like, can't do it. You know, I'm doing as much as I can. I'm reading my Bible. I'm praying. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. And then every Sunday you get another, not necessarily a
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Gary: guilt trip, but it can come out to a guilt trip of, I've got to do even more. And then you get, they get to the point of despair and say, hands up, I just, I just can't do it, you know. So that, that despair is one avenue, but maybe the other one is even more dangerous where the guy that hears it or the lady that hears it just sells their conscious with, ⁓ I'm okay. Boy, that, that, you know, brother Adam, really needed that
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: message, but I'm okay. That message was good for them, but I've got this area. I pray enough. So they get satisfied or even worse, they come to the point of pride and say, well, look at me. I've made it. Both of those are dangerous. Both of them leave out the fact, no, you can't do it. We can't do it. But that is our union with Christ.
Jason Goodwin: Okay.
Gary: through the guidance and strength of the Holy Spirit that we can. There is hope there. The gospel does give hope for living a godly life and living a life that pleases the Lord.
Jason Goodwin: So what I'm hearing is all we gotta do then to make sure that we're preaching the Old Testament the right way is just to make sure that we include the gospel at the end of every sermon, right? I mean, that's just, we just gotta make sure that we hear the gospel or is there actually, there's some work that we've gotta do with the text to make sure that we're connecting the text to the gospel.
Gary: Yes, I'll go ahead and make my admission because for a long time I thought, okay, you know, get to the conclusion and I'll tack the gospel on at the end. Of course, you you've got to have the gospel in order to do this. But that's really not the point of finding, you know, the Christ connection or the gospel. There's something about every text which points to the gospel in some way. points to Christ in some way. And that's what we're driving at, rather than tagging it on to the end as an application point without letting our people see it clearly in the scripture, that the scripture itself is pointing us forward to the gospel or to Christ.
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Adam: So what are some of the ways, I think you had five in your article of how do you, what are some different ways you make that connection, especially maybe when it's not apparent. Like right now, I'm preaching through Luke and it just tends to be pretty easy to get to the gospel when you're actually dealing with scriptures about Christ. But when it's not as apparent, what are some of the ways of connecting it to the gospel?
Gary: Well, I have five questions that I asked to try to drive. you know, that cross connection, that gospel connection. And so I start off with what does this passage teach me about the need for the gospel? You're familiar with that, the fallen human condition, you know, that's part of us about humanity that is messed up, that requires salvation. So what does this passage teach me about man's sinfulness, ⁓ about man's rebellion, or about the work of Satan?
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: in our lives that attacks. So all of that. The first question is, what does this passage teach me about the need for the gospel? The second question is, what does the passage teach me about the promise of the gospel? What has God said in this passage that points me forward to a promise where you see the need and now He's saying, okay, I promise you I will take care of that need ultimately.
Jason Goodwin: Hmm.
Gary: through the cross of Jesus Christ. ⁓ Number three, I might not have all of these in exact order, number three ⁓ would be how has God provided for the gospel? How has he set about saving mankind? An illustration I think I used in the article was Abraham with ⁓ Isaac going to sacrifice him and you see God providing the the realm caught in the thicket where he here is a substitute. That points forward. That's a clear picture of Jesus Christ and Jesus being the substitute for our sins. So how has God provided for the gospel or for the promises of the gospel? ⁓ Number four would be how does that promise come to fulfillment? And that would be driving straight to the cross. What has God done? What about this passage points me forward to see how Jesus has provided salvation? And then the last one is our response. What does this passage teach me about how I should respond to the gospel message?
Jason Goodwin: Okay. Okay. So another thing, I think those questions are incredibly helpful because some would say, those who wanna get pushback about preaching the Old Testament as Christian scriptures, right? Some would say, well, we gotta be really careful because we can only preach the Old Testament as Christian scriptures or connected to a redemptive narrative where it's connected to those things in the New Testament. Like the New Testament has to give us explicit ⁓ understanding of a particular text to really preach it from what we would say a Christ-centered perspective. And yet those things that you just laid out are kind of like, no, we've got the freedom to make these connections because the Bible's gonna talk about sin. The Bible's gonna talk about a need for a redeemer. The Old Testament's gonna talk about these things and we're... where it clearly does, and maybe even where it's not so clear, but do we have permission to do that?
Gary: Well, if you go to the book of Acts... and just start noticing how they handled their scriptures. They often would take these historical narratives from their Old Testament and explain the history behind it, but invariably they're going to make a beeline to the cross. They're going to say, okay, this was pointing to, or this was in fulfillment of, or this was anticipating, and then go right to the cross and make those connections. And I think that we can ⁓ use that as a good example of how we can handle those Old Testament narratives also. We have the freedom to see that God is speaking about redemption, He's speaking about salvation, He's speaking about ⁓ the promises that He has given to us and giving those promises to us and how we respond to them.
Jason Goodwin: Well, I mean, some would say though, that, I mean, those were the apostles. I mean, the apostles kind of had ⁓ some sort of special dispensation to be able to make those connections, but we're not apostles. At least, you know, we don't think we're apostles. But so, so do we really have the freedom to interpret the Old Testament like the apostles did?
Gary: Well, so it wasn't only the apostles that made that kind of, ⁓ for instance, Stephen in Acts chapter 7, a deacon, you know, not an apostle, and he made those kind of connections. So, he did.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah. Yeah, but they killed him for that, so you know.
Adam: you
Gary: But we think it wasn't just limited to the apostles who handled their Jewish scriptures in that way and I think that we can have the freedom to do that also.
Adam: So you bring up biblical theology. ⁓ Why is biblical, maybe just define biblical theology. Because that's really even, that's something I didn't really get taught a lot as much as I did systematic theology. So what is biblical theology and why is it important in this type of ⁓ faithful Christ-centered preaching?
Gary: Well, and I'm not surprised that you received a lot more on systematic theology than biblical theology. It seems like in the last 10 to 15 years biblical theology has really been making a comeback. People are recognizing the importance of it. And it's not like the two are in competition with each other either. Symmetric theology is built on top of biblical theology. And by term in it biblical theology, we're not implying that
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
Gary: systematic theology is not biblical theology. We're saying it's a different type of theology. And even in the umbrella of biblical theology, could talk about the biblical theology of a certain section of scripture or even a certain book of the Bible. ⁓ A couple of years ago, I went through 2 Peter ⁓ and looked at all the times where it talked about the destruction of evil people. So went through the entire letter, pulling out all of those references. Basically what I was doing was a biblical theology of judgment in the book of 2 Peter. ⁓ And ultimately what we're talking about with biblical theology is broader than that to cover the entire Bible, Old and New Testament, where we're seeing themes that are repeated over and over and over again. Themes like covenant, themes like things like judgment, of those types of things. you trace the, ideally you'll trace that theme throughout the entire Bible and see overall what the scripture says and from that then you can turn that into your systematic theology.
Adam: Good, so let's do a case study. In the article you bring up, 1 Samuel 17. So how does that preach Christ without being overly allegorical or gimmicky?
Jason Goodwin: Yeah.
Gary: Well, I think you
Jason Goodwin: David and Goliath, for those who don't have 1 Samuel 17 off the top of their head, we're talking about David and Goliath here. And there's no, I mean, where's the gospel connection in that?
Gary: Yeah. So it's very easy to preach that as. facing your giants, know, you've got problems in your life and you know, you can face these problems with the Lord's help. So that would be a moralistic type of a message and it falls, I mean it just naturally falls into that and we've all heard it and I'm sure we've all done it in that kind of a way. I think there is a better way though to handle that passage and so for instance, biblical theology, you step back for a moment and you look at the entire book and actually when you're talking about 1st Samuel, recognize that that's only half a book. 1st 2nd Samuels were written as a unit. And so looking at the two together, you see the theme that runs throughout it is God is providing a faithful leader for his people or something along that line. God's faithful leader.
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: So as you're coming up to ⁓ 1 Samuel 17, you get closer and closer to it, you'll see the people's choice. They said, Saul is our man, he looks like he's a good fighter, he looks like he could go out and defeat our enemies for us, he's bigger than we are, he's taller than we are, he's the guy that we want to lead us, but he was a total failure. He is not God's choice of a leader for his people. And that's where David comes David ready to go. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine out there mocking our God? How dare he mock our God? We're Saul at the time. He's back in his tent. He's not about to be out there on the front line even though he's the one
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: that they chose because he would be able to fight their battles for them. So you see that contrast between man's choice and God's choice all the way through. But I think the key to the passage is what David says as he is going out to face Goliath. Just to summarize it, he says, ⁓ Goliath, I'm going to take your head off so that all Israel will know that there is a God in heaven. And he was basically putting his
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: confidence and his trust in the Lord. So that flow of thought there of choosing of the leader chosen by God, well then ultimately we get to 2nd Samuel 7 where David wants to build a house for the Lord and God says you're not going to build my house I'm going to build your house. One, David building a temple, the Lord building a lineage, a dynasty for David and your son is going to rule and reign after you.
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: he's not talking about Solomon there, he's talking about David's greater son Jesus Christ and making those connections like that where that really plays into the idea of Messiah, God's chosen one, God's anointed one with David and then ultimately pointing forward to Jesus Christ.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, the one who crushes the head of the serpent is the one who cuts off the head of ⁓ sin or Satan and all the rest of it. that's always been one of my favorite aspects of that connection is this is how we see Christ in these things. So that's a perfect example.
Gary: And I like what you did there. You went back. You know, you didn't just start in 1 Samuel 17 and go forward to the New Testament. You actually went back to see, well, this is a thing that didn't just start in 1 Samuel. It's a thing that has been recurring throughout the scripture.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. that's why Adam's question about biblical theology is so important is like Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, there's nothing new under the sun. There's nothing new in the biblical narrative, right? I mean, the biblical narrative is kind of repeating itself. It's reinforcing these things so often from both Old and New Testaments. And it's the job of the preacher. to recognize these connections and to bring them out for the sake of our people.
Gary: Absolutely, yeah. So we're trying to help our people become better readers of the Bible. And if they see us taking some unique creative approach to it, we're actually teaching them a bad way to handle Scripture. It shouldn't be surprising to us if all that our people hear stretches and our creative intuition or whatever to make a story, to make a sermon, it shouldn't surprise us when our people start handling Scripture in the same way.
Adam: So, so let, like, we've kind of talked about, know what the gut, you know, I like to think about balance. We know what the gutter is on one side. It's moralistic, Christless preaching. Is there a gutter that exists on the other side where you can be too, ⁓ too clever or take things to Christ and avoid some morality in the text? We know what the one gutter looks like. What might the other gutter look like?
Gary: Well, I think that's what we were partially what we were just talking about trying to be creative ourselves and look for any little thing, you know, the tree that's thrown into the water like we talked about earlier. ⁓ that's a picture of the cross, you know, when the text doesn't give you any indication or any hint that that would be anything like that. The red, the scarlet thread that, know, Rahab hung out her window.
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: ⁓ those kinds of, ⁓ you know, well it's red, it's got to be a picture of the blood. Well, you know, how creative do you want to get? Do you really have authority to handle scripture that way? So I would say that's the ditch on the other side. Moralism on one side and then man's creativity on the other side.
Jason Goodwin: I will confess though, Dr. Gary, Dr. O'Neill, I am a fan of typology. And I think Jim Hamilton's done a pretty good job of kind of giving us some guidance on recognizing typology. Where do you kind of connect all that in these types of things?
Gary: I'm most comfortable with typology when we see it clearly presented in the New Testament and we can point back. I do think it's broader than that, but I think you always just want to be careful that you're not coming up with things that you're imposing upon the text.
Jason Goodwin: Okay.
Gary: So, yeah, typology, Paul did that like with the rock that followed the water from the rock and that's a picture of Christ. when the New Testament gives you evidence like that, well, okay, clearly you can go back and see some of those. Other than that, I do think there's typology in the Old Testament that is right for us to look at and make those connections.
Jason Goodwin: you
Gary: be cautious that I'm not allowing my creativity to run away with it.
Jason Goodwin: Okay, now I think that's good advice. I think it's very helpful.
Adam: Yeah, I think I've listed some examples of stuff. I've been very fascinated by the topology type stuff, but one thing that I've have thought about is, well, and maybe I'm wrong in thinking this way, but when I stand before God and give account for my preaching, I think way down that list will be if maybe this one time I got a little too clever at taking things to Christ, you know, like, like I think that's probably gonna be way down the list. And so, you know, I don't want to be overly cute. I don't want to make a habit of that, but I would, if I'm going to go out on a limb and my preaching, I would rather go out on the limb of trying to get ⁓ get the Christ and and i just is that is that a wrong way to think
Gary: No, reality, isn't that pretty much where Spurgeon came down on it. He said he takes a passage and he makes a beeline for the cross. ⁓ Now, had, know, none of us will ever get to the level of his preaching ability and skill and he was tremendously gifted. And I think he did a lot that we're talking about just intuitively. He did a lot of that. So I just, I want to be cautious that I'm not handling Scripture in a way that my people cannot see and make connections to. If they leave saying, wow, Brother Gary showed us things this morning I've never seen before, that worries me, right?
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. I think that's wise too, just because again, if part of expositional preaching is helping our people to rightly read the Bible, we don't wanna make it more confusing or make it seem like we're making connections that they're not gonna be able to make. Yet at the same time, as the preacher, that is part of our job is to bring things out that may not be so clear. So it is a fine balance.
Gary: It is, but hopefully we'll bring it out and the light bulb will go off and then, ⁓ I see from the text, he's making this point, rather than from his authority as a preacher making the point. Do you see that description there? Yeah.
Jason Goodwin: Right, right.
Adam: Show them how you do it. That's where you avoid that. This is how I'm doing it.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's good, Adam. That's Yeah, two books you reference in the article. One is preaching the whole Bible, this Christian scripture from Graham Goldsworthy. If you're a preacher out there, you're looking for help on how to do this well. Graham Goldsworthy's book is a great book to pick up. And the other one is Brian Chappell's Christ-centered preaching, Redeeming the Expository Sermon. Both of these are very good helps, along with Brother Gary's article, of course. at getting ⁓ some guidance in how ⁓ to examine the Old Testament and to make those clear gospel connections that are there. We're not saying anything ⁓ that other Christians, the apostles, others haven't done throughout the centuries because we truly believe that all of scripture is Christian scripture, that we're not limited to just one testament of the Bible.
Gary: Thank you.
Jason Goodwin: to preach because we think the Old Testament is just as much Christian scripture as the New Testament is. And so we wanna encourage you guys to preach it that way with confidence and with boldness in doing so. ⁓ Adam, is there anything else you got for Dr. O'Neill before we let him go?
Adam: I do want to say, I just appreciate your ministry so much. Uh, Dr. Gary, I, I, you know, I, I sometimes I find myself copying things I hear that you do. One example, a couple of years ago, you mentioned that you own a, uh, Wednesday night or something had done trusting God by Jerry bridges. And I'd, I'd gone, I'd started a Wednesday night class last year. I taught a couple of things with this year. I was like, I want to do a book. And I thought, no, like Gary said, that book, that one book was good.
Jason Goodwin: Amen.
Gary: Thank you.
Adam: And so was like, I'm gonna do what he did. ⁓ And man, that was been one of the greatest and I've heard from the class, just what a great study that was. We're finishing it up tonight. And ⁓ I've just found that when I copy you, I know you're not perfect, ⁓ but. I've been led in really good areas when I copy you. So I appreciate you being there for me to kind of look over on your test and see what you're doing ⁓ because it's led me into some great things.
Jason Goodwin: Amen.
Gary: Well, talk to my wife and you'll be clear that I am not perfect very quickly.
Jason Goodwin: That's why God gives us ⁓ great helpmates to remind us of how our clay feet are very clay, are very clay. ⁓ Also, we didn't mention this, we'll mention this in closing. ⁓ Dr. O'Neill is also gonna be serving as our president of the BMA these next couple of years. So Lord willing, we'll at get to hear you preach from the associational standpoint a couple of times, and we look forward to that.
Gary: A human. Yes. Perfect.
Jason Goodwin: Very thankful that you've been asked to serve in that role and that you have been ⁓ voted in and doing those things. So that's pretty exciting for a lot of us who do value your ministry and the things that you're doing. So we pray that God would bless you in that role and use you ⁓ for the sake of our association. So that's a good thing as well.
Gary: Well, thank you guys. I don't know what the job entails. I'll be honest with you. So we'll see.
Jason Goodwin: Well, look, hey, we'll go back. got Cliff. Cliff can tell y'all, know, he's experienced that joy already. And so there you go. can just go to Cliff. I'm sure he'll be happy to walk you through it.
Gary: We'll have to do that. Hey, I wanted to mention before we get off the book I was trying to think of earlier, Walter Kaiser, Toward an Exegetical Theology. Excellent book.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, alright. ⁓ there, okay. Good, good, okay. Thank you, glad we got that now. All right, well, brother, we thank you for your time. We thank you for your willingness to serve us well and to help us think through these important matters like how to preach ⁓ the entire Bible. And we pray that we would ⁓ take these words as they are meant to be and benefit from them. We pray for you and your family and... Until next time, guys, if you're listening, ⁓ stay faithful. Preach the scriptures, ⁓ exhort, rebuke, ⁓ do the things that God in his word has told us to do, and in doing so, let's remain faithful to our pulpits, faithful to our ministries, and we pray that you would until next time. Adam, love you, brother, good to see you. Glad you're another year older. And ⁓ Dr. O'Neill, we're just glad that you joined us today. So we'll see you guys.
Gary: Thank you guys, love you too, appreciate you both.
Jason Goodwin: Bye bye.
Adam: We needed that rain. It is rainy and that's good. My bees have been behind because of this drought. So I've been needing some rain to get them going. They needed it.
Jason Goodwin: The bees needed the rain. That's something I didn't expect to have that information thrown out at us.
Adam: Well, know, May showers, what is it? April showers brings May flowers and it's very important. Yeah. And flowers bring ⁓ honey. So if you don't have the April showers, you don't have the May flowers, you don't have the honey. So very thankful for the rain.
Jason Goodwin: Right, and may flowers bring pilgrims.
Gary: Thank
Jason Goodwin: There you go. Gotcha, okay, well there we go. Well hey, as always guys, I'm joined by the one and only Adam Wayne Thomas, who had a birthday recently. He is now officially in the last year of his 40th decade or something like that. Isn't that how that works? Something like that, so.
Adam: That's something like that. I'm old. I remember my dad turned 50, I used to think like, ⁓ I don't have many years left with him, you know.
Jason Goodwin: Getting there, getting there. It's It's, yep, it's about over. Well, ⁓ joining us today, we won't say his age. We'll let him, ⁓ know, if he wants to confess such things, we'll let him, but we're 64. saying, it's a young 64 though. ⁓ The young 64 year old Dr. Gary O'Neill. ⁓ Brother, it is so good to have you with us today. How are you?
Gary: 64. Thank you. I am doing well. Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate this opportunity and always enjoy interacting with you guys and listening to the silliness and enjoying the serious parts of it. So it's always a pleasure.
Jason Goodwin: Yes. You know, it's funny, I had somebody ⁓ call me this week, it was asking about our church plant here in Ruston. And I told him, said, well, I said, you need to know something about our group. I said, we take our worship very seriously, but we do not take ourselves very seriously. And I think that's kind of a good motto for our preaching lab podcast. We take our theology and our work seriously, but we try not to take ourselves too seriously because, you know. Some would wonder why in the world we're doing this anyway. But we're thankful to have you. You know what you're doing. You are a doctor. You are a seminary professor as well as a pastor. You have ⁓ devoted your life to many of these things. We like to see Dr. O'Neill as the senior statesman of the preaching lab ⁓ cohort and group. We adopted him several years ago, whether he wanted to be adopted or not.
Gary: Mm.
Jason Goodwin: and we've been appreciative of his help in these areas of preaching and pastoring. ⁓ So just give us a little bit about yourself for those who may not know you. ⁓ Tell us a little bit about yourself, ⁓ Brother Gary, and how you came to Christ, ministry, and where you're at what you're doing now.
Gary: Okay. So I'm currently pastoring in Little Rock. ⁓ I'm at Oak Park Baptist Church here in Little Rock. We've been here for 12 years. I grew up down in South Mississippi. Going to a good solid church. ⁓ George Redden, some of you would know George Redden was my pastor growing up. He actually was the one who led me to the Lord. He was very patient with me. I was ⁓ very awkward, very shy as a kid. and he was very patient with me. He kept talking to me over and over again until I got it, until I understood it. I was 11 years old at the time. Went off, you know, started working, moved away from home, and that's when I was called to preach. Went to Bible College in Florida, met my wife in Florida. We've been married now for almost 42 years. Have four children and two grandchildren.
Jason Goodwin: Amen.
Gary: that we enjoy getting to spoil whenever we can. But we spent 10 years up in New Hampshire pasturing up there and then I came back down south to go to the seminary and get my master's degree and then moved to Tupelo where we spent 14 years and now 12 years here at Oak Park.
Jason Goodwin: So tell me, the period in New Hampshire always intrigues me. How did a guy of the South end up in New Hampshire, especially at a time where, I mean, here lately it seems like there's been a revitalization, a revival of churches there in the Northeast, but that would not have been the case when you were there. So tell us, how did that all transpire?
Gary: Well, I went to an independent Baptist Bible college and we had a pastor that visited the college, preached in chapel one week, and he had started a church actually in Massachusetts and he asked if I would go up and work with him there. So I had never been out of the South. My wife had never been out of the South. We had just had our first child. I think Amy was a year old in 1986 when we moved up to New Hampshire. We lived in New Hampshire, but the church was in Massachusetts. spent 10 years there. Loved the people, especially, we moved further up into New Hampshire after about three years and absolutely loved the people there. They were just country, you know, they were just country. It's nothing like what you hear so often of the Yankee and all of them. We really enjoyed our time there. So, dear friends, good people.
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm. Ever have a chance to go back or has it been?
Gary: It's been a while, goodness, let me think, probably since the early 2000s. We made a trip in 2000. We've been back to Boston for my wife to run the marathon three times. But, and it seems like one of those times we did get to go up and see some friends and stuff, but that's another two, three hours north of Boston.
Jason Goodwin: Okay. ⁓ wow, ⁓ wow. Yeah, yeah, well, ⁓ that's encouraging that you had those opportunities and I'm sure it was helpful as far as pastoral ministry and just the different things that you probably engaged there. ⁓ And then now that you've been at Oak Park for 12 years, how's ministry going there? And tell us about the other things that you do as far as a professor and teaching aspect as well.
Gary: Well, ministry here at Oak Park is going well. Like every church, you have your ups and downs and go through periods. We have seemed like we've just come through a period of struggling and always looking for new workers. And right now, we're looking for a worship leader. So if anybody is interested, you can get in contact with us. We are really looking for a worship leader.
Jason Goodwin: Okay, yeah.
Gary: But as far as other things that I do, I teach for the seminary, the VMA seminary down in Jacksonville. I'm actually the distance education coordinator, director. And so my role is a little larger than just teaching. But right now I'm teaching one class. Probably I'll teach one class in the summer and probably two classes in the fall. ⁓ I'm enjoying doing Life Word videos.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, that's a recent development, Or last couple months? Yeah.
Gary: Relatively recent, well probably the fall of last year, maybe October, somewhere in that time frame. Yeah, but I love that. Just a real short.
Jason Goodwin: Okay. Okay. Are you competing with Cliff Johnson for clicks and likes and stuff like that? is that, know, Mr. Day by Day? No.
Adam: You
Gary: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Jason Goodwin: Well, he goes into studio. He records several at a time. So don't let him fool you. It's not like he's, you know, it's not like he's doing, I mean, he's not even helping with this podcast, really. I mean, come on. what's, he's probably at baseball practice right now anyway. So we won't give him any more kudos. You've given him enough flowers. we'll... ⁓
Adam: you I think he takes his entire closet to Conway every so often. And I don't know if he has like wardrobe helpers that help him change clothes between takes, but yeah.
Gary: He tried to go to prison. Yeah. Right.
Jason Goodwin: Yes. Nah, that Cliff does it all by himself. You know he's styling and profiling. Yeah, that's exactly right, yeah. Well, the reason why we actually have you on the podcast today is because we wanna talk about an aspect of preaching that we think is very important. ⁓ I guess the aspect of preaching is preaching the whole Bible as Christian scripture. We actually think that the whole Bible is Christian scripture and a lot of the time,
Gary: Yeah.
Jason Goodwin: ⁓ Old Testament text either gets ignored or it gets preached in ways that we would, we don't think are helpful to the redemptive narrative or the redemptive arc of the scriptures. And you've written an article recently for our preaching lab. ⁓ people, we have it up, it'll be coming up on the website, called Preaching Christ from All of Scripture. And so we wanted to talk to you about that article today and just talk about why it is that we think it's so important that when preaching the Bible, especially the Old Testament, that we preach it in a way that is connected to Christ, that's connected to the gospel, that's connected to the redemptive narrative of Scripture. And so just to start out, What about this or this thought of preaching the Old Testament, preaching the scriptures as Christian scriptures, as all the same narrative, when did this kind of land on you ⁓ as a really important part of preaching?
Gary: ⁓ Gus started with it in Bible college. I read a book, Walt Kaiser's book on ⁓ exegetical preaching, ⁓ drawing a blank on the name of it offhand. But that really started stirring my heart that the way I had been taught or maybe not the way I had been taught, but what I had heard often as people preached in the Old Testament was probably ⁓ not the best way to handle scripture. And by that I mean so often I would hear I found myself easily doing this also. I would find something unique in the text in a passage and I would preach that unique thing without looking at the whole context of the passage and trying to understand it. For example, remember ⁓ hearing a preacher preach one day on the children of Israel coming out of Egypt and remember right off they went a little ways and they did it have any water to drink or the water they had to drink was bitter and the Lord told Moses to take this the stick the tree and throw it into the water and that made it sweet and so the point of this sermon was that when we put the cross in our bitter situations it makes it sweet and that's cute and that might be yeah it is but but that's the issue though when we preach like that
Jason Goodwin: Creative.
Gary: it is how creative can I be? What can I come up with to make a point out of this passage? ⁓ The Old Testament prophets would often talk about the burden of the Lord, the message that God had given to them, and how dare they attempt to preach a message that God had not given to them. And I think that's what we need to recognize also. No, we're not prophets in the same sense. as they were, but we'd better make sure that we're handling God's Word accurately.
Jason Goodwin: So I have a Kaiser book right here, preaching and teaching from the Old Testament, a guide for the church. Was it this book, potentially the Kaiser or maybe something like that? Okay.
Adam: So what?
Gary: No, exegetical... I'm drawing a blank on that. It'll come to me. This happens when you get old, so...
Jason Goodwin: That's okay, that's okay, that's okay. All right, Adam, go ahead.
Adam: So why do you think moralistic, because you kind of talk in your article about just the tendency of us taking Old Testament to more of a moralistic way of preaching. Why do you think that's attractive, ⁓ especially when it comes to Old Testament scriptures?
Gary: Well, because I reckon in one sense, it can be easy. We see these people doing something wrong and we see the outcome of it or we do see them making good decisions and we see the outcome. And it's very easy to take that and say, ⁓ okay. That's what I need to preach to my people. They need to do better. They need to stop doing bad or, you know, however it comes across depending on the situation. ⁓ And it can feel so natural of how we handle scripture. ⁓ the problem there is that it can become very divorced from anything having to do with Christ, with the gospel, with proclamation of ⁓ theology and so I think that's where the caution needs to come in with that.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, I think in it.
Adam: So you, whether, go ahead. One of the questions you ask, kind of as a diagnostic question is, can a Mormon or a Muslim or ⁓ a Jewish person sit under your preaching and amen 100 % of it? ⁓ Why is that such a revealing question that that shouldn't be the case?
Gary: will. So those other groups you talk about, many of them are very moral people, know, and their teachers and experts, whatever they're called, would present very moral messages. And so if I am just saying, you know, be, you know, be holy like, you know, Moses was holy or love God like David loved God or whatever, ⁓ they can sit there and agree with it even though the
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: of what we believe is so diametrically opposed to that. so, you know, hearing that question, and I did hear another preacher ask someone that had just preached a moralistic sermon, which was, you know, got a lot of amens, and you sit there and if you didn't think about it, you'd say, wow, that's a great sermon. But then the question came across, what would a Mormon or someone else have disagreed with on that?
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Gary: hit me. was like, a minute. There had better be something about what I'm preaching than someone who handles a scripture in a totally different way than I do. So that was one of those wake-up moments for me.
Jason Goodwin: Now, I think that's incredibly helpful ⁓ because we're gospel people. And if there's not a clear connection to the gospel in the sermon, or there's not a clear connection to Christ in the sermon, then we really have failed in making proper connections. Would you say that that's, I mean, that's kind of the initiative here, that it's not just, that it's not that we, We're not just trying to avoid moralistic, but we're trying to make clear gospel connections.
Gary: Right, and probably the foundational text for that would be 1 Corinthians 2, those first five verses where Paul was just adamant, you Corinthians, when I came to you, I made sure that what I was preaching was Christ and Christ crucified. And he said the reason he did that was because if he just presented man's eloquence or, you know, man's learning or man's theology or man's principles or man centered, then the faith stands in that rather than in the cross rather than in Christ. And so that admonition that comes across for us as preachers is that our preaching has to be surrounded by, founded upon, the cross in Jesus Christ. And that doesn't mean that we don't preach morals. You sometimes people will get the false idea that, hey, okay,
Jason Goodwin: So.
Gary: you don't preach. No, we do preach morals, but we don't stop with preaching morals. We do say be faithful. We do say live a holy life, but then we take that the next step and say the way, the only way you can live a holy life is by your relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, think some people want to say that there are no, that imperatives don't matter, and we're not saying that. We know that there are imperatives in the Bible, in both Old and New Testament. But because we're gospel people, we don't simply stop at these imperatives. We say, no, we are able to do these imperables in light of the gospel.
Adam: Yeah, in your article, in your...
Jason Goodwin: And I think that's where you draw this line because, mean, what's a parishioner? What's a congregant? What's a member of your church? How's it gonna land on them if all they hear is do better?
Gary: Mm-hmm. Right.
Jason Goodwin: I mean, that's, I mean, how do you deal with that? How do you walk away each Sunday if all you're hearing is you've got to do better?
Adam: In the article, in the article you actually do a really good job of explaining the effect that that has when you stop at moralism and don't go to the gospel. There's two effects that it can have either despair or pride. So talk us through that. Like why does moralistic teaching that doesn't take that next step to the gospel, how does that have a effect of either despair or pride?
Gary: Well, Well, some of us are very sensitive hearts, sensitive spirits, and we hear that message over and over again. You've got to pray better. You've got to do more. You've got to, you know, all of those commands and that becomes a heavy weight on us. Like, can't do it. You know, I'm doing as much as I can. I'm reading my Bible. I'm praying. I'm doing this. I'm doing that. And then every Sunday you get another, not necessarily a
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Gary: guilt trip, but it can come out to a guilt trip of, I've got to do even more. And then you get, they get to the point of despair and say, hands up, I just, I just can't do it, you know. So that, that despair is one avenue, but maybe the other one is even more dangerous where the guy that hears it or the lady that hears it just sells their conscious with, ⁓ I'm okay. Boy, that, that, you know, brother Adam, really needed that
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: message, but I'm okay. That message was good for them, but I've got this area. I pray enough. So they get satisfied or even worse, they come to the point of pride and say, well, look at me. I've made it. Both of those are dangerous. Both of them leave out the fact, no, you can't do it. We can't do it. But that is our union with Christ.
Jason Goodwin: Okay.
Gary: through the guidance and strength of the Holy Spirit that we can. There is hope there. The gospel does give hope for living a godly life and living a life that pleases the Lord.
Jason Goodwin: So what I'm hearing is all we gotta do then to make sure that we're preaching the Old Testament the right way is just to make sure that we include the gospel at the end of every sermon, right? I mean, that's just, we just gotta make sure that we hear the gospel or is there actually, there's some work that we've gotta do with the text to make sure that we're connecting the text to the gospel.
Gary: Yes, I'll go ahead and make my admission because for a long time I thought, okay, you know, get to the conclusion and I'll tack the gospel on at the end. Of course, you you've got to have the gospel in order to do this. But that's really not the point of finding, you know, the Christ connection or the gospel. There's something about every text which points to the gospel in some way. points to Christ in some way. And that's what we're driving at, rather than tagging it on to the end as an application point without letting our people see it clearly in the scripture, that the scripture itself is pointing us forward to the gospel or to Christ.
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Adam: So what are some of the ways, I think you had five in your article of how do you, what are some different ways you make that connection, especially maybe when it's not apparent. Like right now, I'm preaching through Luke and it just tends to be pretty easy to get to the gospel when you're actually dealing with scriptures about Christ. But when it's not as apparent, what are some of the ways of connecting it to the gospel?
Gary: Well, I have five questions that I asked to try to drive. you know, that cross connection, that gospel connection. And so I start off with what does this passage teach me about the need for the gospel? You're familiar with that, the fallen human condition, you know, that's part of us about humanity that is messed up, that requires salvation. So what does this passage teach me about man's sinfulness, ⁓ about man's rebellion, or about the work of Satan?
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: in our lives that attacks. So all of that. The first question is, what does this passage teach me about the need for the gospel? The second question is, what does the passage teach me about the promise of the gospel? What has God said in this passage that points me forward to a promise where you see the need and now He's saying, okay, I promise you I will take care of that need ultimately.
Jason Goodwin: Hmm.
Gary: through the cross of Jesus Christ. ⁓ Number three, I might not have all of these in exact order, number three ⁓ would be how has God provided for the gospel? How has he set about saving mankind? An illustration I think I used in the article was Abraham with ⁓ Isaac going to sacrifice him and you see God providing the the realm caught in the thicket where he here is a substitute. That points forward. That's a clear picture of Jesus Christ and Jesus being the substitute for our sins. So how has God provided for the gospel or for the promises of the gospel? ⁓ Number four would be how does that promise come to fulfillment? And that would be driving straight to the cross. What has God done? What about this passage points me forward to see how Jesus has provided salvation? And then the last one is our response. What does this passage teach me about how I should respond to the gospel message?
Jason Goodwin: Okay. Okay. So another thing, I think those questions are incredibly helpful because some would say, those who wanna get pushback about preaching the Old Testament as Christian scriptures, right? Some would say, well, we gotta be really careful because we can only preach the Old Testament as Christian scriptures or connected to a redemptive narrative where it's connected to those things in the New Testament. Like the New Testament has to give us explicit ⁓ understanding of a particular text to really preach it from what we would say a Christ-centered perspective. And yet those things that you just laid out are kind of like, no, we've got the freedom to make these connections because the Bible's gonna talk about sin. The Bible's gonna talk about a need for a redeemer. The Old Testament's gonna talk about these things and we're... where it clearly does, and maybe even where it's not so clear, but do we have permission to do that?
Gary: Well, if you go to the book of Acts... and just start noticing how they handled their scriptures. They often would take these historical narratives from their Old Testament and explain the history behind it, but invariably they're going to make a beeline to the cross. They're going to say, okay, this was pointing to, or this was in fulfillment of, or this was anticipating, and then go right to the cross and make those connections. And I think that we can ⁓ use that as a good example of how we can handle those Old Testament narratives also. We have the freedom to see that God is speaking about redemption, He's speaking about salvation, He's speaking about ⁓ the promises that He has given to us and giving those promises to us and how we respond to them.
Jason Goodwin: Well, I mean, some would say though, that, I mean, those were the apostles. I mean, the apostles kind of had ⁓ some sort of special dispensation to be able to make those connections, but we're not apostles. At least, you know, we don't think we're apostles. But so, so do we really have the freedom to interpret the Old Testament like the apostles did?
Gary: Well, so it wasn't only the apostles that made that kind of, ⁓ for instance, Stephen in Acts chapter 7, a deacon, you know, not an apostle, and he made those kind of connections. So, he did.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah. Yeah, but they killed him for that, so you know.
Adam: you
Gary: But we think it wasn't just limited to the apostles who handled their Jewish scriptures in that way and I think that we can have the freedom to do that also.
Adam: So you bring up biblical theology. ⁓ Why is biblical, maybe just define biblical theology. Because that's really even, that's something I didn't really get taught a lot as much as I did systematic theology. So what is biblical theology and why is it important in this type of ⁓ faithful Christ-centered preaching?
Gary: Well, and I'm not surprised that you received a lot more on systematic theology than biblical theology. It seems like in the last 10 to 15 years biblical theology has really been making a comeback. People are recognizing the importance of it. And it's not like the two are in competition with each other either. Symmetric theology is built on top of biblical theology. And by term in it biblical theology, we're not implying that
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right.
Gary: systematic theology is not biblical theology. We're saying it's a different type of theology. And even in the umbrella of biblical theology, could talk about the biblical theology of a certain section of scripture or even a certain book of the Bible. ⁓ A couple of years ago, I went through 2 Peter ⁓ and looked at all the times where it talked about the destruction of evil people. So went through the entire letter, pulling out all of those references. Basically what I was doing was a biblical theology of judgment in the book of 2 Peter. ⁓ And ultimately what we're talking about with biblical theology is broader than that to cover the entire Bible, Old and New Testament, where we're seeing themes that are repeated over and over and over again. Themes like covenant, themes like things like judgment, of those types of things. you trace the, ideally you'll trace that theme throughout the entire Bible and see overall what the scripture says and from that then you can turn that into your systematic theology.
Adam: Good, so let's do a case study. In the article you bring up, 1 Samuel 17. So how does that preach Christ without being overly allegorical or gimmicky?
Jason Goodwin: Yeah.
Gary: Well, I think you
Jason Goodwin: David and Goliath, for those who don't have 1 Samuel 17 off the top of their head, we're talking about David and Goliath here. And there's no, I mean, where's the gospel connection in that?
Gary: Yeah. So it's very easy to preach that as. facing your giants, know, you've got problems in your life and you know, you can face these problems with the Lord's help. So that would be a moralistic type of a message and it falls, I mean it just naturally falls into that and we've all heard it and I'm sure we've all done it in that kind of a way. I think there is a better way though to handle that passage and so for instance, biblical theology, you step back for a moment and you look at the entire book and actually when you're talking about 1st Samuel, recognize that that's only half a book. 1st 2nd Samuels were written as a unit. And so looking at the two together, you see the theme that runs throughout it is God is providing a faithful leader for his people or something along that line. God's faithful leader.
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: So as you're coming up to ⁓ 1 Samuel 17, you get closer and closer to it, you'll see the people's choice. They said, Saul is our man, he looks like he's a good fighter, he looks like he could go out and defeat our enemies for us, he's bigger than we are, he's taller than we are, he's the guy that we want to lead us, but he was a total failure. He is not God's choice of a leader for his people. And that's where David comes David ready to go. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine out there mocking our God? How dare he mock our God? We're Saul at the time. He's back in his tent. He's not about to be out there on the front line even though he's the one
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: that they chose because he would be able to fight their battles for them. So you see that contrast between man's choice and God's choice all the way through. But I think the key to the passage is what David says as he is going out to face Goliath. Just to summarize it, he says, ⁓ Goliath, I'm going to take your head off so that all Israel will know that there is a God in heaven. And he was basically putting his
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: confidence and his trust in the Lord. So that flow of thought there of choosing of the leader chosen by God, well then ultimately we get to 2nd Samuel 7 where David wants to build a house for the Lord and God says you're not going to build my house I'm going to build your house. One, David building a temple, the Lord building a lineage, a dynasty for David and your son is going to rule and reign after you.
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: he's not talking about Solomon there, he's talking about David's greater son Jesus Christ and making those connections like that where that really plays into the idea of Messiah, God's chosen one, God's anointed one with David and then ultimately pointing forward to Jesus Christ.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, the one who crushes the head of the serpent is the one who cuts off the head of ⁓ sin or Satan and all the rest of it. that's always been one of my favorite aspects of that connection is this is how we see Christ in these things. So that's a perfect example.
Gary: And I like what you did there. You went back. You know, you didn't just start in 1 Samuel 17 and go forward to the New Testament. You actually went back to see, well, this is a thing that didn't just start in 1 Samuel. It's a thing that has been recurring throughout the scripture.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. that's why Adam's question about biblical theology is so important is like Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, there's nothing new under the sun. There's nothing new in the biblical narrative, right? I mean, the biblical narrative is kind of repeating itself. It's reinforcing these things so often from both Old and New Testaments. And it's the job of the preacher. to recognize these connections and to bring them out for the sake of our people.
Gary: Absolutely, yeah. So we're trying to help our people become better readers of the Bible. And if they see us taking some unique creative approach to it, we're actually teaching them a bad way to handle Scripture. It shouldn't be surprising to us if all that our people hear stretches and our creative intuition or whatever to make a story, to make a sermon, it shouldn't surprise us when our people start handling Scripture in the same way.
Adam: So, so let, like, we've kind of talked about, know what the gut, you know, I like to think about balance. We know what the gutter is on one side. It's moralistic, Christless preaching. Is there a gutter that exists on the other side where you can be too, ⁓ too clever or take things to Christ and avoid some morality in the text? We know what the one gutter looks like. What might the other gutter look like?
Gary: Well, I think that's what we were partially what we were just talking about trying to be creative ourselves and look for any little thing, you know, the tree that's thrown into the water like we talked about earlier. ⁓ that's a picture of the cross, you know, when the text doesn't give you any indication or any hint that that would be anything like that. The red, the scarlet thread that, know, Rahab hung out her window.
Jason Goodwin: Mm-hmm.
Gary: ⁓ those kinds of, ⁓ you know, well it's red, it's got to be a picture of the blood. Well, you know, how creative do you want to get? Do you really have authority to handle scripture that way? So I would say that's the ditch on the other side. Moralism on one side and then man's creativity on the other side.
Jason Goodwin: I will confess though, Dr. Gary, Dr. O'Neill, I am a fan of typology. And I think Jim Hamilton's done a pretty good job of kind of giving us some guidance on recognizing typology. Where do you kind of connect all that in these types of things?
Gary: I'm most comfortable with typology when we see it clearly presented in the New Testament and we can point back. I do think it's broader than that, but I think you always just want to be careful that you're not coming up with things that you're imposing upon the text.
Jason Goodwin: Okay.
Gary: So, yeah, typology, Paul did that like with the rock that followed the water from the rock and that's a picture of Christ. when the New Testament gives you evidence like that, well, okay, clearly you can go back and see some of those. Other than that, I do think there's typology in the Old Testament that is right for us to look at and make those connections.
Jason Goodwin: you
Gary: be cautious that I'm not allowing my creativity to run away with it.
Jason Goodwin: Okay, now I think that's good advice. I think it's very helpful.
Adam: Yeah, I think I've listed some examples of stuff. I've been very fascinated by the topology type stuff, but one thing that I've have thought about is, well, and maybe I'm wrong in thinking this way, but when I stand before God and give account for my preaching, I think way down that list will be if maybe this one time I got a little too clever at taking things to Christ, you know, like, like I think that's probably gonna be way down the list. And so, you know, I don't want to be overly cute. I don't want to make a habit of that, but I would, if I'm going to go out on a limb and my preaching, I would rather go out on the limb of trying to get ⁓ get the Christ and and i just is that is that a wrong way to think
Gary: No, reality, isn't that pretty much where Spurgeon came down on it. He said he takes a passage and he makes a beeline for the cross. ⁓ Now, had, know, none of us will ever get to the level of his preaching ability and skill and he was tremendously gifted. And I think he did a lot that we're talking about just intuitively. He did a lot of that. So I just, I want to be cautious that I'm not handling Scripture in a way that my people cannot see and make connections to. If they leave saying, wow, Brother Gary showed us things this morning I've never seen before, that worries me, right?
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. I think that's wise too, just because again, if part of expositional preaching is helping our people to rightly read the Bible, we don't wanna make it more confusing or make it seem like we're making connections that they're not gonna be able to make. Yet at the same time, as the preacher, that is part of our job is to bring things out that may not be so clear. So it is a fine balance.
Gary: It is, but hopefully we'll bring it out and the light bulb will go off and then, ⁓ I see from the text, he's making this point, rather than from his authority as a preacher making the point. Do you see that description there? Yeah.
Jason Goodwin: Right, right.
Adam: Show them how you do it. That's where you avoid that. This is how I'm doing it.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's good, Adam. That's Yeah, two books you reference in the article. One is preaching the whole Bible, this Christian scripture from Graham Goldsworthy. If you're a preacher out there, you're looking for help on how to do this well. Graham Goldsworthy's book is a great book to pick up. And the other one is Brian Chappell's Christ-centered preaching, Redeeming the Expository Sermon. Both of these are very good helps, along with Brother Gary's article, of course. at getting ⁓ some guidance in how ⁓ to examine the Old Testament and to make those clear gospel connections that are there. We're not saying anything ⁓ that other Christians, the apostles, others haven't done throughout the centuries because we truly believe that all of scripture is Christian scripture, that we're not limited to just one testament of the Bible.
Gary: Thank you.
Jason Goodwin: to preach because we think the Old Testament is just as much Christian scripture as the New Testament is. And so we wanna encourage you guys to preach it that way with confidence and with boldness in doing so. ⁓ Adam, is there anything else you got for Dr. O'Neill before we let him go?
Adam: I do want to say, I just appreciate your ministry so much. Uh, Dr. Gary, I, I, you know, I, I sometimes I find myself copying things I hear that you do. One example, a couple of years ago, you mentioned that you own a, uh, Wednesday night or something had done trusting God by Jerry bridges. And I'd, I'd gone, I'd started a Wednesday night class last year. I taught a couple of things with this year. I was like, I want to do a book. And I thought, no, like Gary said, that book, that one book was good.
Jason Goodwin: Amen.
Gary: Thank you.
Adam: And so was like, I'm gonna do what he did. ⁓ And man, that was been one of the greatest and I've heard from the class, just what a great study that was. We're finishing it up tonight. And ⁓ I've just found that when I copy you, I know you're not perfect, ⁓ but. I've been led in really good areas when I copy you. So I appreciate you being there for me to kind of look over on your test and see what you're doing ⁓ because it's led me into some great things.
Jason Goodwin: Amen.
Gary: Well, talk to my wife and you'll be clear that I am not perfect very quickly.
Jason Goodwin: That's why God gives us ⁓ great helpmates to remind us of how our clay feet are very clay, are very clay. ⁓ Also, we didn't mention this, we'll mention this in closing. ⁓ Dr. O'Neill is also gonna be serving as our president of the BMA these next couple of years. So Lord willing, we'll at get to hear you preach from the associational standpoint a couple of times, and we look forward to that.
Gary: A human. Yes. Perfect.
Jason Goodwin: Very thankful that you've been asked to serve in that role and that you have been ⁓ voted in and doing those things. So that's pretty exciting for a lot of us who do value your ministry and the things that you're doing. So we pray that God would bless you in that role and use you ⁓ for the sake of our association. So that's a good thing as well.
Gary: Well, thank you guys. I don't know what the job entails. I'll be honest with you. So we'll see.
Jason Goodwin: Well, look, hey, we'll go back. got Cliff. Cliff can tell y'all, know, he's experienced that joy already. And so there you go. can just go to Cliff. I'm sure he'll be happy to walk you through it.
Gary: We'll have to do that. Hey, I wanted to mention before we get off the book I was trying to think of earlier, Walter Kaiser, Toward an Exegetical Theology. Excellent book.
Jason Goodwin: Yeah, alright. ⁓ there, okay. Good, good, okay. Thank you, glad we got that now. All right, well, brother, we thank you for your time. We thank you for your willingness to serve us well and to help us think through these important matters like how to preach ⁓ the entire Bible. And we pray that we would ⁓ take these words as they are meant to be and benefit from them. We pray for you and your family and... Until next time, guys, if you're listening, ⁓ stay faithful. Preach the scriptures, ⁓ exhort, rebuke, ⁓ do the things that God in his word has told us to do, and in doing so, let's remain faithful to our pulpits, faithful to our ministries, and we pray that you would until next time. Adam, love you, brother, good to see you. Glad you're another year older. And ⁓ Dr. O'Neill, we're just glad that you joined us today. So we'll see you guys.
Gary: Thank you guys, love you too, appreciate you both.
Jason Goodwin: Bye bye.
