Sep 10, 2010

Cerebral Preaching


I am all for preaching that does not insult one's intelligence, but some preaching fails to travel the eighteen inches from the head to the heart. Here is a quote from an
article (albeit a bit dated, e.g., cassettes, overhead projectors) that makes a pointed critique of the problem.

"It is an overly-cerebral event. There is no confrontation. There is little application. There is no focus on the affections, to stir people to be broken over their sins or to be moved to love God more. The preacher's focus, mistakenly, is the intellect and the correct explanation of the passage of the Bible. The danger is that you could learn just as much from that approach by staying at home and reading a commentary.

"Al Martin says, 'The preacher must employ the rhetoric which Jael used upon Sisera, putting his nail to the head of the auditor, and driving it sheer and clean through his brain.' Most preaching today simply takes the tent peg and loosens the dandruff on Sisera's head, instead of fastening his skull to the ground.

"If preaching is to be searching and lively in application, it must go beyond shaking a few flakes loose, and get to the real business of fastening the truth firmly into the heads of the listeners."

Make sure to read the entire article.

3 comments:

Mark Hutchins said...

Amen to the article! The mind is or can be a source of vanity and an object of vanity if we aren't careful.

Thanks for sharing!

Charles Savelle said...

So true.

Kevin Ray Gabriel said...

Thanks for the reminder!