Beeson podcast, Episode 438 Abraham Kuruvilla April 2, 2019 Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the Campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George. Timothy George: Welcome to today's Beeson Podcast. My guest today on the Beeson Podcast is Dr. Abraham Kuruvilla. He is senior research professor of preaching and pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary. Welcome, Dr. Kuruvilla to the Beeson Podcast. Abraham Kuruvilla: Thank you very much. Timothy George: We're honored to have you here and you're here at Beeson to give lectures on preaching and several different things. I think it's your first visit to Beeson, isn't it? Abraham Kuruvilla: Officially yes, but I have been here for a couple of conferences in the past. Timothy George: Have you in the past? Okay. Well we're honored to have you with us and I want you to begin if you would, just tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, your life story, how you got from there to here. Abraham Kuruvilla: Well I'm ethnically Indian, but I was not born in India. I was actually born in Kuwait where my father was working. A large number of Indians work in the Middle East, my father was one of them, working for the Kuwait Oil Company. I was born there and lived there for the first 10 years of my life. After he retired, we moved back to India. I lived there for another decade and then came to the U.S. for school and I'm still here. Timothy George: Yeah. Now you're a very interesting background in medicine before coming into theology. Talk a little bit about that. What got you interested in medicine? You're still a practicing physician. Abraham Kuruvilla: Yes, I am. Yeah. Well, to some extent, my parents were influential in that decision and motivated me to go in that direction and that's really what brought me to the U.S. as well. I came here to ... I started medical school and completed that in India, came to the U.S. to do further research and work on a PhD in Houston and that got me here. Timothy George: But then you've done further theological work at Aberdeen? Abraham Kuruvilla: Yes. I came to Houston to do a PhD in immunology and that's when I got involved in a church plant, made up almost entirely of international students like me and I was the defacto teacher preacher without an ounce of theological education. That's when I decided some day I am going to seminary and after my medical training, ended up at Dallas and then went to Aberdeen. Timothy George: Are you from a Christian family background? Abraham Kuruvilla: Yes. Timothy George: So this was a deepening of your faith. You already were a Christian, but this sense of being called now to be a minister of the Gospel. Abraham Kuruvilla: That is correct. Timothy George: A preacher of the word. Abraham Kuruvilla: Yes. Timothy George: With whom did you study at Aberdeen? Abraham Kuruvilla: Francis Watson. Timothy George: Oh yes. I have never met him, but I've read his works and hold him in high esteem. Abraham Kuruvilla: A delightful person, a polymath. Did you know he was an excellent, he is, an excellent pianist? Timothy George: No, I didn't know that about him. He's a person I've always wanted to have come to Benson. We still have to get him on our line. Abraham Kuruvilla: He's in Durham now and I'm sure he'll be happy to come. Timothy George: Yeah. Now, your particular field of medicine is dermatology. Abraham Kuruvilla: Skin, hair, and nails. Timothy George: Skin ... Abraham Kuruvilla: Hair and nails. Timothy George: Hair and nails. Is there any connection between dermatology and homiletics? Abraham Kuruvilla: Not at all. Timothy George: But you bridged that gap in your own person. I don't understand that. I mean, it's very unusual that you do this and yet you have an interest in both, a continuing interest in both preaching, teaching preaching, writing about preaching, we're gonna talk about that in a second, but also the physical care of your patients. Abraham Kuruvilla: Yeah, that's what I started off doing, my medical career so I have kept that going. I love the patient contact. There are two reasons why I keep it going. One is I'm a single person and I have no other contact with an unbelieving world outside of my medical practice. So with a desire to keep my finger on the secular pie, I'm continuing this albeit at a very low level, two, three half days a week and that's possible only because I'm a dermatologist. Nobody dies of athlete's foot or acne. Timothy George: Well, let's talk a little bit about your very significant weighty work in the field of preaching. You've written a number of books in this area. I want to talk about a couple of them. One of your books is titled "A Vision for Preaching: Understanding the Heart of Pastoral Ministry." What is your vision for preaching? Abraham Kuruvilla: I'll just give you my list of adjectives that I describe preaching with, firstly it's Biblical, secondly it's pastoral meaning defining who can do it, thirdly it's ecclesial defining where it can be done, then it's communicational talking about the rhetorical aspects, it's theological which is catching the thrust or the force of the text, not just systematic or Biblical theology, and then it's applicational. Then the last three are it's conformational, it conforms us into the image of God's son, it's doxological for the glory of God, and it is spiritual, all done in the power of the Holy Spirit. I try to be as exhaustive as I can and as comprehensive as I could be. Timothy George: When we think about preaching, many people think of the great preachers, either of the past or the present. It tends sometimes to be drawn toward personalities, but your approach is much more in some ways analytical. You're examining preaching in terms of its function, its essence in the life of the church, its component parts, its angles of vision, all those things seem to be important in your vision of preaching. What about the great preachers? Is that something we shouldn't worry about or even be attracted to? Abraham Kuruvilla: I think we are all children of our times and very likely so am I. I think at various times in history we have hit at particular needs of the church. For me, the issue of application is paramount. It's not enough to address the doctrinal issues as to whether Jesus was God or what is the trinity like, neither is it important at this point in a church ecclesial context, neither is it solely important to just bring all your listeners to the cross, but primarily I would say what is important in this day and age is how then shall we, who are already believers in Christ, now live. Therefore, catching the thrust and the force of the pericope, which in my non-technical sense, is just a preaching text. Catching its force and its thrust and applying it to the lives of the people of God to change their lives to conform them into the image of the perfect man, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the motor that drives my preaching. Timothy George: One of your other books is called "Privilege the Text, A Theological Hermeneutic for Preaching" and your answer just gave now focused on the text, the word of God from which preaching ... to which preaching should be accountable. Put it that way. "Privilege the Text," what is the importance of scripture and of the Bible itself in our preaching work? Abraham Kuruvilla: I just gave you nine ways of identifying preaching or nine descriptors of preaching. Curiously enough, it all stems, at least historically in my own evolution, stems from an understanding of the text and what the author is doing with what he is saying. So that is the core and at the heart of what I am trying to do in preaching. Catching the thrust, the force of the text, i.e. what the author is doing with what he is saying, and out of that comes the impetus toward application. So privileging the text, looking at the text. I had a delightful conversation with some of Beeson's students over lunch today and they were talking obviously about the sermon that I had just given. It's fun to be evaluated by students. Timothy George: By the way, for those who weren't there, you preached today from 1 Samuel 17, the story of David and Goliath. Abraham Kuruvilla: Yes, so they were quizzing me about what I was doing and this is the way I put it, I'm interested in how the story is told more than the story itself. Let me put it carefully. The event is not inspired, it's the account of the events that is inspired and profitable for doctrinal, proof, correction, etc. I need to privilege the text. How is it being told so that I can catch what the author is trying to do with what he is saying? Which is why I spent in the sermon quite a bit of time on the way the story is told, the description of Goliath's armaments and the description of David's armaments and the comparative numbers of the two. Each of them had five pieces, the irony of that, and so on. Timothy George: Yeah. It was a great sermon. This word, you use this word, we use it all the time here at Benson, hermeneutic, which is a big word, a confusing word to some people. Hermeneutics, scheme of interpretation, how you understand the Bible, what it is that you read and what it means. How important is that aspect, hermeneutics? Abraham Kuruvilla: Hermes, as you know, was the messenger from the gods to humans so he is the patron saint of all preachers. By the way, he was also the patron saint of vagabonds and thieves, so I don't know what that means for all of us. But it's an art of reading the text, to catch what its author is doing. If you wanted an example, I will probably use that in the lectures as we go along the next couple of days. If I'm ... Dr. George and I are sitting at a desk here for those of you listening, and if my foot is on top of his and he tells me, "Abe, your foot is on top of mine," I can file that piece of information somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain and say, "Thank you, Dr. George, for telling me where my foot was," and do nothing about it. But you weren't just giving me the location of my foot on top of your foot. You were doing something with it. You were telling me to take my foot away. Abraham Kuruvilla: Unless I catch what you are doing with what you are saying, there can never be valid application. I would not know what to do with that statement. This is true of Biblical texts as well and I think that's something that has been lacking in Biblical hermeneutics for the longest time, catching the thrust and the force of the text, what the author is doing with what he is saying. Pericope by pericope, week by week, sermon by sermon and thereby changing my life little by little to conform my life to the image of the son of God. Timothy George: So there's a spiritual purpose. Abraham Kuruvilla: Yes. Timothy George: A goal. Abraham Kuruvilla: Yes. Romans 8:29, to conform us into the icon of His Son. Timothy George: That's a term you've introduced, I think, I've not encountered it before. You talk about preaching being cristiconic, cristocentric but cristiconic. Talk about those two terms. Abraham Kuruvilla: I like to think that everyone of God's children have the inherent sense, knowledge maybe, that this book, scripture, is all about Jesus Christ. The question is how. I like to think of the scripture as cristological, cristocentric, otherwise known as redemptive historical way of interpreting it, have seen it in a different way for the most part, and there are exceptions to this, connecting every pericope in some way to the larger scheme of redemption and spending most of the time of the sermon on that larger scheme. My understanding of it is to see every text as pointing to what an ideal human looks like, exemplified by the ideal Man, capital M, the Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham Kuruvilla: Therefore, every pericope is a facet of the image of Christ, or if you will, a pixel of the image of Christ. Week by week, sermon by sermon, as I am aligning my life with the call of that pericope, I'm actually, if I do things right, I'm actually looking more and more like my Lord and Savior. I think this is the primary role of scripture. Everything else is secondary. Timothy George: The term icon, cristiconic, implies a vision or seeing something. Abraham Kuruvilla: Yes. Yes, I think there is an element of understanding the text as almost a picture. It's a picture that captivates our attention, that captures our passions, that lights a fire, sets us aflame for the magnificence of what life ought to be in God's kingdom. Timothy George: Yeah. We're talking about hermeneutics. Some, maybe a generation or two ago, there arose a term reader response hermeneutics, which basically says that the reader brings something to the text. It isn't simply your coming to the text, but what you bring informs your interpretation. That's been taken to some pretty wild extremes but would you comment on reader response? Abraham Kuruvilla: I try to anchor. Certainly nobody's a blank slate so we bring our preconceived notions to our interpretations of the text, no question about that. We have to be aware of them and be conscious of them, but at the same time, I think any interpretation that we espouse has to be grounded in the text and validated by the text, and we have to put that out into the community of believers so that we can argue and push and shove each other to get to a better understanding of what the author is doing with what he is saying. So while I realize that there is some role for my background and my history and my [inaudible 00:14:47] to be brought to the text, ultimately what I want to catch is what God, the author, is doing. What is He up to? I think it's in the community of believers where the Holy Spirit is working that it can be best articulated and accomplished. Timothy George: I think of the Holy Spirit as the one who inspired the text of scripture, but who also comes to illuminate our hearts and minds as we read and study it, bringing us to that realization that understanding, that application, in your term. Abraham Kuruvilla: Precisely. When it comes to the application, once we catch the thrust of the text, then it is the pastoral wisdom and authority of the shepherd of the flock, coming out of that person's burden and love for the flock, saying this is what the text is calling us to do, therefore let us start doing whatever it is that the preacher suggests. Timothy George: Wonderful. I'd like to ask you about one other aspect of studying the Bible, teaching and preaching it, and that's the history of exegesis. Now this is a particular interest I have, how the Bible, the word of God, has been interpreted in the life of the church through the centuries down to the present day and how important is it then for the preacher, the teacher, to be aware of that, to be in conversation with that, so that we're not simply bringing our own personal perspective but we're reading alongside the great teachers of the church, not that their opinion is always right by any means, but that without it, we are missing something that God wants to say to us today. What do you think about that perspective? Abraham Kuruvilla: I think that's very wise and appropriate and a good guardrail for interpretation. I think the word I like to think of is congruence. It may not necessarily always be consistent with how the text has been interpreted in the past, but it ought to be congruent with it, by which I mean to say this whole understanding of authors doing things with what they are saying ought to have been there way back then, but it's been more in hermeneutic circles the last 30, 40, 50 years probably as a result of secular linguistics and language philosophy telling us this is how language always works. Abraham Kuruvilla: To give yet another simple example, if I had a wife, I don't, and if she were to tell me, "Abe, the trash is full," and I don't catch what she's doing with that and I say, "Okay. Trash is full so I better go to Walmart and get her a larger trash can," that wouldn't do well at all. It wouldn't win me any brownie points. But if I caught what she said and I need to take the trash out. So this understanding of how language functions has blossomed in the last half a century. There are things in the understanding of texts, looking at the [inaudible 00:17:45] details and interpreting them in light of what the author is doing that probably wasn't very prevalent, at least in a rigorous systematic sense in the past, and that's only been in the last several years that that has been. Abraham Kuruvilla: Therefore, we may not catch what we're looking for in many of the old interpreters who were, as I said before, children of their times. They were doing something for another generation that that generation needed, probably setting their doctrines straight, so that's what they were preaching for, and I think we ... not that we have accomplished and fully achieved that, those things need to go on, but we also need to now be saying, "Okay. How then should I live as a result of the calling of this text?" Timothy George: You've mentioned once or twice in our conversation that you're a single person. Abraham Kuruvilla: Yes I am. Timothy George: You're not married and you're gonna give a lecture here I think in not so much a part of the preaching series but a separate lecture on singleness, on celibacy. Can you just say a word about that? What's it like to be a single person in the church today? What advice would you give for single people who are living a life of faith? Abraham Kuruvilla: Let me define how I think of celibacy for myself. It's got four parameters. It's by choice, not forced. For life, it's not single until or single after marriage. It's unto Christ, it's not so that I can earn and keep more money or anything of the sort, but it is for the cause of Christ. And it is in community, it's not hiding under a rock or in a cave anywhere, but fully entrenched in community. By choice, for life, unto Christ, in community. Abraham Kuruvilla: What is it like for me as a single person in church? Well, I hate to put it this way, but I'll borrow somebody else's words. It is to be saved, single, and second class. Timothy George: Explain that last one, second class. Abraham Kuruvilla: I think in evangelical circles, when half a millennium ago, a German monk decided to marry a Catholic nun, we Protestants threw the baby out with the bathwater. Surely there have been and probably still are abuses of an imposed celibacy. I think the voluntary celibacy of the kind that I am talking about, by choice, for life, unto Christ, in community, is of significant value that I think the church has lost out in not promoting it. Timothy George: If you had a constructive suggestion to make, what would it be? Particularly for evangelicals, for whom celibacy is a strange word and often as you say, not something that's honored as a God-given way of living. Abraham Kuruvilla: I would probably point them to 1 Corinthians 7 and affirm again that both marriage and celibacy are gifts and they are both equally valid platforms for ministry. The question is which one is your gift? Personally this is ... many students engage me in this conversation and I don't tell them to be celibate. I tell them follow your gift. If you think your gift is to get married, get married. If not, stay single. But I think we have a lopsided number. I think there are ... personally, I think there are more people with the gift of celibacy who end up getting married because that's the default pathway, than people with the gift of marriage remaining single. I'd like the balance to be corrected some more and I would encourage pastors who are listening to be open to the possibility that there are many in their congregations who might be called to singleness by choice for life, unto Christ, in community. Timothy George: My guest today on the Beeson Podcast has been Dr. Abraham Kuruvilla. He's the senior research professor of preaching and pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary. He's here to give our William E. Conger Jr. lectures on Biblical preaching at Beeson Divinity School. We welcome you to our community. Thank you for your service in ministry and God bless you and your good work. Abraham Kuruvilla: It's been a pleasure and an honor, Dean George. Thank you very much. Announcer: You've been listening to the Beeson Podcast, with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson Podcast at our website beesondinivity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work and we hope you will listen to each upcoming edition of the Beeson Podcast.