I confess that the twee Christians who preach, pray or speak in Bible passages (and songs) and engage in a 'just' God drive me bonkers. I've labelled them 'Bible Puzzle or Word Link' preachers.
I was listening to a sermon, not bad, a bit twee and contrived but I was coping, then suddenly the preacher's tone changed and we entered WordPuzzle mode:
"Father God I wonder how we managed to exist without the knowledge of your parenthood and loving care for you are the Kings of Kings and Lord of life. We come to you, the living stone, rejected by man but chosen by God and precious to Him knowing that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and have lived to gratify the cravings of our sinful nature and wrong desires and thoughts. We praise you Jesus that you are the way, the truth and the life . . . . "
Now, up until then, the sermon had been peppered with throwaway Bible references, but as the sermon approached it's climax it went downhill rapidly. Still, I managed to count on song and four Bible references (1 Pet 2:4, Ro 3:23, Eph 2, Jn 14:7) in that final twenty seconds.
Another fun thing to hear in a sermon is the tenuous link. I remember a sermon that contained this (and I kid you not):
"Abraham and Isaac, up the hill dead, down the hill alive, dead, the Gospel of good things to come!"
Why do we do it I wonder? Mind you I have to shamefully admit that I somehow stuck this in a sermon recently:
"We need not only need to hope for the ones we love but to love the ones we hope for!"
Now I know what I meant, but what was that all about?
Let's bless our people tomorrow with the words that we bring to them. May we be good servants of the word and present something worthy of Him and valuable to His people.
Pax
ps. I'll tell you about 'just' Christians later
2 comments:
Clear, simple, convincing preaching is sometimes the best for us pewsitters. Some of us enjoy more complex and scholarly sermons. Bible passage cross-stitch is very difficult for me to listen to, but judging from the large numbers of broadcast preachers I have heard who use this style, it must be attractive to somebody.
`seems that there's this mentality that says the more Bible passages you can throw in the more spiritual the preacher looks.
I've noticed the trend exists more in what I would call non-denominational and charismatic quarters where the lectern is thumped and the passages and hymn/song lyrics fly.
Last night I picked a random web radio and heard about five minutes of entreaty to changed life, all of which contained passage after passage and the odd song lyric.
I didn't bother to send a donation to support the work, neither did I ring in to claim my 'free' handcrafted wotsit that was on offer either.
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