The Reformissionary had a post pointing to Keller’s writings on Informational vs Experiential Preaching, which brings up a great illustration of how to apply multiperspectivalism in preaching. Here is the quote:
The “informational” view of preaching conceives of preaching as changing people’s lives after the sermon. They listen to the sermon, take notes, and then apply the Biblical principles during the week. But this assumes that our main problem is a lack of compliance to Biblical principles, when (as we saw above) all our problems are actually due to a lack of joy and belief in the gospel. Our real problem is that Jesus’ salvation is not as real to our hearts as the significance and security our idols promise us. If thatÄôs our real problem, then the purpose of preaching is to make Christ so real to the heart that in the sermon people have an experience of his grace, and the false saviors that drive us lose their power and grip on us on the spot. ThatÄôs the “experiential” view of preaching (Jonathan Edwards.)
Multiperspectivalism Application: The difference of ‘Christ-centered‘ preaching (norm, information) versus ‘gospel-centered‘ preaching (which uses a multi-perspectival approach) is HUGE. You can preach Christ and crush your people with the news, law and perfection of Christ. (I’ve seen a number of FUNdamentalist pastors do this.) It is only gospel that brings hope. Here’s how the perspetives play out in gospel preaching:
Norm: the “news” in the Bible (NOT advice which implies works)
Situation: The change of identity, worldview
Existential: The application of grace/hope
You can see this in one of David Fairchild’s recent sermons on Biblical Masculinity. (David is working through this at a level far beyond my meager brain. He should be releasing a series of articles about this and why going beyond tri to mulit is necessary to see through a series of lenses in the norm, situation and existential views. Piper fans have already seen some thought of this in his ‘doctrine’ feeding ‘passion’ to ‘Christian living’ which is part of the triperspectival view.)
