ChosenRebel's Blog

Thoughts on Preaching

I keep running into pastors who are trying to “get a message” for Sunday morning.

Please stop.

Please stop trying to impress, or “wow”, or prove yourself clever, or make them cry, or make them laugh, or make them like you, or think you are hip, or smart, or “balanced”, or sophisticated. Please stop thinking that we, your congregations, need a message from you. We don’t.

We don’t need your best thoughts.

Or even your most insightful thoughts.

We need to hear from God. We need His word, not yours.

So stop looking for messages.

Just assume that God has a word for us and it is the next paragraph in the next book of the Bible that you commit yourself to studying.

Get into your study. Get on your knees, or bend over a table with your elbows framing a Bible. Grab some friends and read the next paragraph and think hard about the text and its context. Dig into the language. Understand the grammar. Think through the antecedent theology. Dialog with the saints who have come before. Do some more praying.

The “messege” we need will be revealed   IN THE TEXT.

It is there.
It is His word.
It’s what we need.

Just tell us His word.

You are only a mouth.
It’s His word we want and need to hear.

You can’t change us. 

But He can.

Please, just give us His word.
Apply it.
Exhort us with it.
Command us to repent, to believe, to obey.
Show us how to apply it.

Please.