Preaching rants

Anonymous

Posted: 09.06.2003, 11:03

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Hi, what do you all like and hate about the sermons you hear?

I find it hard when people are dogmatic without explaining why. I find it particularly hard when they're being dogmatic about their own little hobby horse, which isn't even connected to what the passage is about which they're supposedly preaching from.

davidb

Posted: 09.06.2003, 11:04

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That was me.

davidb

Posted: 09.06.2003, 11:05

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I particularly hate it when people are dogmatic and I think/know they're wrong

Midge

Posted: 09.06.2003, 19:22

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Nothing particularly unusual, but I really enjoy sermons that make the Bible come alive - that make it seem to shine clearly with meaning and that are really relevant to issues in my life (and if they make me laugh, even better). Sermons I dislike tend to be exactly the opposite - they turn an interesting-looking part of the Bible into a boring endless dissection with no relevance or stimulation for my own life, or a rambling stream of consciousness that doesn't seem to say anything. I just hope it 'spoke' to someone else.

In the church I grew up in, I heard a lot of sermons that started with a pointless joke with no relation to what followed (e.g. about wheelbarrows), and then a message about a different bit of the Bible than what had been read, always avoiding any difficult/unusual/obscure issues, topics and texts, and always saying "Be nice to people".

But that's not too surprising, given that when I asked them why we didn't have more sermons about things like heaven, judgment etc., they said "We're not sure what we believe about that." The very worst sermon was one on Trinity Sunday, which consisted of the preacher saying "The Trinity is a difficult idea, so rather than preach about it, I'll go round the congregation with the microphone and get your thoughts." The thoughts included "I don't think God has 3 faces, I think he has 1000s of faces that we see all around us in the world."

I suppose the basic problem was there was no way the Bible could challenge us to change our minds about anything. Instead, what we already believed seemed to challenge our thoughts about the Bible.

davidb

Posted: 10.06.2003, 12:14

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Yes, I don't like it when the preacher has got such a closed, untouchable theology that they don't seem to see that the passage is saying the exact opposite of what they're claiming it says. eg "James 5 may seem to be saying people can be healed, but actually God doesn't do that anymore; it's really saying that our sins can be dealt with."

Or they want to make a minor point into the whole point. "This passage may seem to be about divorce, but it's actually mainly about how hard people's hearts are".

Or they miss out a section because it contradicts what they're saying. "The disciples didn't do anything at Pentecost - they just worshipped, and God turned up, and people got saved. Whoops, I accidentally on purpose missed out this enormous, passionate speech that Peter gave. That had nothing to do with people's response, honest."

davidb

Posted: 10.06.2003, 12:15

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These are all real examples, by the way. Sadly.

Midge

Posted: 10.06.2003, 14:56

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Interesting how this problem seems to be just as evident for people who say they think the Bible is fully God's word and perfect and we have to submit ourselves to it, and people who think the Bible is more of a mixture and are quite vague about what the point of the Bible is. (I don't think anyone in the church I grew up in ever made clear why we were interested in what the Bible said, or indeed why we were in church at all.)

Just goes to show how hard it is for us to let God and the Bible say new things to us, rather than imagining them in our own image and confirming what we already know.

(Actually, there was one sermon I remember on the use of the Bible, which we had when a family was visiting to have their baby baptised. The deaconess started by reciting "Jack Spratt could eat no fat" and saying how it and other nursery rhymes were not just entertaining stories for children, they had meaningful messages and morals about life in them. In the same way the Bible was full of stories:

[In a hushed well-entoned preachy voice] It begins with a tree in a garden, and it ends with a chair that speakssss.

And these stories have something to say about life too.)

davidb

Posted: 11.06.2003, 12:40

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I find it hard to believe when preachers tell us about trite conversations they had with God:

God said to me, 'Look over there', so I looked, and I said to him, 'What is it?' and he said, 'Look at your socks, they're hole-y', and I said to him, 'So?', and he said to me, 'That's how I want you to be, holy'.

OK, I've made that one up, but I find this sort of thing a lot. I'm sure God *could* have such conversations, but I expect that in many cases it's just God putting a vague thought into people's minds, and them beefing it up into a conversation for their sermon. Or sometimes, God wasn't talking to them at all - they were fooling themselves.

Call me cynical and faithless if you like.

Midge

Posted: 11.06.2003, 22:35

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I'd better not reply to this, or we'll turn into the two critics from the Muppet Show.

darkly

Posted: 12.06.2003, 02:13

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D4rk|y

davidb

Posted: 12.06.2003, 14:21

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andy

Posted: 19.06.2003, 10:51

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Preaching is just so ... so ...

Evangelical!

But I tend to really enjoy our ministers' sermons - I love a good lecture.

davidb

Posted: 19.06.2003, 14:34

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What do you like in particular?

davidb

Posted: 23.06.2003, 12:34

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This thread may become almost a diary of my gripes!

I hate it 9 times out of 10 when a preacher invokes Greek or Hebrew to make his point. This is often used to 'force' your audience to believe your point, because they're typically not familiar with the language so can't argue with you. But frustratingly often, the point they're making about the Greek or Hebrew is complete drivel.

A typical one is to break a Greek word down into its components, and make a point about that. This is often as bad as saying: "Now then, the English had a very wonderful verb, 'understand'. And it's made up of 'under' and 'stand' - isn't that wonderful? We've got to 'stand under' the Bible, not 'stand over' it."

Grumble grumble.

Midge

Posted: 23.06.2003, 19:47

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That was going to be my next grumble, which I was withholding so as not to turn into Waldorf. These name-droppings of 'the original Greek' and occasionally 'the original Hebrew' seem to fall into various types.

There's the one you described, where they reveal the 'deeper meaning' of the word by breaking it down. Strange how they only think it's relevant for some words tho - I've never heard them say "Now, John says he is not worthy to bend down and undo the thongs of the sandals of the one who is to come. Now the Greek had a very significant word here which we can't sense in the English word 'sandal'. The Greek word is hypodema, which means 'tied under'. So in a very real sense, these sandals really were tied under the feet. How demeaning it was to undo the thongs of those tied-unders!"

Then there's the idea that Greek was a language where somehow all the contexts where the word could be used exploded into the hearers' minds at once, rather than just the obvious meaning. Like "When Jesus said 'Follow me', he used a word which was used in Greek for a soldier following his general, for a person following a path, for one day following another etc. So this command 'Follow me' is rich with meaning. We should follow Jesus like our captain, like our way, like another of the same kind."

Worst of all is the "I know better than the translators" type where they reveal the shallowest meaning of the word - what it looks like. You know - "This verse talks about the Spirit's power. Now the Greek for 'power' is dunamis, which is where we get the words 'dynamite' and 'dynamo'. So the Spirit comes with electrifying, explosive power!"

Or "God loves a cheerful giver. Well, the word for 'cheerful' is hilaros, which is where we get the word 'hilarious' [which it isn't]. So a better translation is "God loves a hilarious giver." They're so cheerful to give, they're laughing their head off!"

Strange how we never hear "Paul lists witchcraft among these abominations. Well, the word is actually pharmakia. So a better translation would say that pharmacists will never inherit the Kingdom of God."

Or "It says that Jesus found Levi sitting at his tax booth. Well... the word here is actually trapezon, which is where we get the word 'trapeze'. So the NIV is wrong at this point. Levi was actually sitting on his trapeze when Jesus called him. "

Midge

Posted: 23.06.2003, 20:11

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But on the positive side, I heard a great sermon yesterday at an outsider-extra-friendly service. It started with Galatians 5 and talked about how God's Holy Spirit acted from Genesis 1 till today, when He comes to live in us to turn us from broken old buildings into the temples He delights to live in (like they do on some TV programme). It was v encouraging cos it said so much about God's grace and power and our everyday struggles and problems. That's the best summary I can come up with I'm afraid.

andy

Posted: 24.06.2003, 02:12

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Explanations of words such as "grace" (which means something more like "free gift" than the usual meaning something like "moving with poise and softness") can be extremely useful. Suddenly whole sentences of the new testament begin to make sense.