Dec 21, 2011

A Caution Concerning Sermon Preparation


"Tragically many seminary-trained preachers view exegesis as an academically inclined exercise intended to display scholarship and research. Instead of spending time alone listening to Scripture, they regurgitate other scholarly opinions. Open Scripture is bypassed in favor of commentary helps. Of course, commentaries, at best, are written by gifted people intent on helping the readers discover the riches of God's Word. In no way do I wish to disparage commentators' ministry in God's service. Yet too many preachers seem frightened to practice a belief in a speaking God who meets them in Scripture. They dive too quickly into historical-grammatical research and see 'waiting on God' as suspiciously pietistic and vulnerable to eisegesis. Why delay the hard work of discovering a text's meaning when it is presumed to be available only through others' sound scholarship?"

Michael J. Quicke, 360 Degree Preaching: Hearing, Speaking, and Living the Word (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 141-42.
  

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sadly, those who approach Scripture as the author warns against have it exactly backwards. Too often, the end result is a dead "faith" devoid of the miraculous. Ironic, since faith itself has as its object a miraculous reality than cannot be perceived by the natural mind (such as, for example, salvation). I take note of and avoid such teachers assiduously.