“The text is or should be, the keynote to the whole sermon. The more bold, the more undoubted and undisputed, its tone, the better . . . Nothing remains then, but for the preacher to go out upon it, with his whole weight; to unfold and apply its evident undoubted meaning, with all the moral confidence, and all the serious earnestness, of which he is capable” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 175).
Have 'Em Delivered
Write to the Editor
Hopefully accompanied by a clever pun or two, light-weight as they may be.
Why didn’t Christ and the apostles preach this way? For years, I followed the advice of preaching verse by verse, chapter by chapter. Careful exegesis. With all the earnestness that Spurgeon recommended, this is what the text says, people. Here is what it means. Here is how you put it into practice. And here’s your poem. Now go, and be doers of the Word. And later on, I sat under a guy whose preaching was mostly stories. He was the most effective preacher I ever heard. When he was finished speaking, you wanted to do something, not because he told… Read more »
Stories get our attention and provoke our feelings but I distrust anyone who tries to get into the heart directly without going through the head first. Exegesis wears the trousers, to vandalize one of DW’s sayings. Know what’s even better than telling a story? Explaining a story everyone thinks they already know. We often think we understand the motivations of characters in biblical stories when we’re really speculating or repeating received wisdom without realizing how speculative it is. It’s refreshing to drop the assumptions and look at familiar stories from different angles. The example that pops to mind is Tim… Read more »
Many preachers don’t read too many stories.
You preacher types have a tough job.
God’s grace is sufficient–and you know it.