lousy preaching - lazy preachers

My grandfather is convinced that I only work one day per week and that only for 30 minutes. In his estimation I have the easiest job in the entire world. Little does he know. Luke 2 . . . the great debate! It confuses the date of Jesus' birth! This text was the basis for Sunday's message. There was probably at least 10 hours lost on the problems that the Quirinius debate creates from this passage. Long problem short is that Quirinius did not become the "governor of Syria" until the year 6 AD. This significantly delays the dates of Jesus' birth and creates other problems as well. Its a real dilemma in the text.

Thankfully there seems to be a resurgence today of exegetical preaching in churches. Exegesis is basically understanding the text on the basis of the text itself. It often follows a verse by verse format and lets the text say what it says. This is a great way to release God's Word and let it be God's world . . . but it requires a large time frame and a concentrated study approach. Grandpa is wrong if he thinks a preacher only works 30 minutes per week . . . at least if we are talking about exegetical preaching. That is as hard of work as you can find anywhere. If you don't believe me, just try to solve the riddles of the dilemma presented above in relationship to Quirinius and the birth of Christ from the Gospel of Luke.

Eisegesis is the more common pattern of preaching where your own subjective understanding is read into a text, rather than searching for the objective meaning of the text. This is the kind of preaching I grew up with and results can be downright strange. I still remember churches that buried their communion elements after the service in order that no one take the elements "unworthily". Or pastors that got up and condemned women for speaking in church, or a hundred other such weirdism that come from not studying . . . although they had often memorized the passages, they could not understand the underlying intentions and meanings and plays on words that come alive for Greek and Hebrew students.

On the other hand, it seems that scholarly pursuits seem to wring passion out of the preacher until most of them have understanding of the text, but no longer understanding of the people they are trying to communicate that text TO! Herein lies the goal of most successful communicators today, to find the right balance between those two perspectives. Yet 25 years of doing this has convinced me that the listener is far more critical to the success of the preacher than the preacher himself or herself. If the listener is prepared to listen and learn and hear from God, then even a less than perfect product of communication still accomplishes much.

I think grandpa is wrong for the most part. There isn't much lousy preaching out there, and even fewer lazy preachers . . . it is simply too much work . . . the weak of heart give up soon. Maybe I will invite grandpa to speak for me next week in church.