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The Pre-introduction

Often, although not always, I use an introduction before the introduction. This is about rapport building. This is about connecting. This is about being human.
It is talking about the local high school football game. It is giving an update on the surgery. It might be talking about the weather or the latest news. It is about letting them know you are human and live in the same world as they do.
I am a big fan of video teaching. But, there are some things video can never do. Video cannot connect like a human can. Before you break open the Word, say hello.

Making the gospel attractive

Titus 2.10 says we are to make the gospel attractive. Attractive. The Greek word is kosmeo. It means to adorn. We get words like cosmetics and cosmopolitan from this word. Cosmopolitan Magazine is about being attractive. Let’s tease out this meaning further.
I would like to introduce you to two kinds of word studies. These have only been readily available to the average person in recent years. They taught us to do these studies in Greek class. I remember thinking, “Well, that is really cool, but who has time for that?” Today, there is an app for that. You can do in seconds what it used to take hours to do.
In addition to looking a word up in a dictionary, I’d invite you to look at vertical and horizontal word studies.

• A horizontal word study looks at how this underlying Greek or Hebrew word is used in this translation in other places. (Stay with me; this is possible with no knowledge of Greek or Hebrew.)
• A vertical word study is when we look at how the various translations translate this word in this verse. Often, there is not a one-to-one relationship between a word in one translation and a word in another translation. Translators speak of a pool of meaning. By looking at a number of translations, we dip into the whole pool.

So, let’s look at this word, kosmeo, as it is translated by the NIV in other places:
We see that this word has the sense of adorning or decorating the gospel. It is like tasteful makeup on a woman’s face. It accents the beauty that is already there. This is what a good introduction does. Indeed, this is what good teaching does—it accents the full beauty of the gospel.