“It is well and good for the preacher to base his sermon on the Bible, but he better get to something relevant pretty quickly, or we start mentally to check out.” That stunningly clear sentence reflects one of the most amazing, tragic, and lamentable characteristics of contemporary Christianity: an impatience with the Word of God.
The sentence above comes from Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today in an essay entitled, “Yawning at the Word.” In just a few hundred words, he captures the tragedy of a church increasingly impatient with and resistant to the reading and preaching of the Bible. We may wince when we read him relate his recent experiences, but we also recognize the ring of truth.
Galli was told to cut down on the biblical references in his sermon. “You’ll lose people,” the staff member warned. In a Bible study session on creation, the teacher was requested to come back the next Sunday prepared to take questions at the expense of reading the relevant scriptural texts on the doctrine. Cutting down on the number of Bible verses “would save time and, it was strongly implied, would better hold people’s interest.”
As Galli reflected, “Anyone who’s been in the preaching and teaching business knows these are not isolated examples but represent the larger reality.”
Read more at http://www.albertmohler.com/2014/05/14/why-so-many-churches-hear-so-little-of-the-bible/
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One may argue ‘how much scripture to quote’ as part of a church service or ‘how many scripture quotes’ to be used, but, if you do not preach the Word of God from the pulpit, you are not doing your congregation any favors! In my current {PC-USA} church (we’re shopping!) both the current pastor and the retired pastor who subs a lot love to use movie clips as part of the sermons. Many are movies that have not been widely seen; some clips are from movies that people didn’t like. Often, it is a mighty stretch from the secularized movie clip message to the supposed scripture passage of the day. Sometimes the “message” is the social gospel issue of the day. Sometimes the implication from the pulpit is that what the Bibles defines sinful is really a ‘gray area’ and that we should shun calling something sinful and just forgive and play nice. This type of pulpit pap is a primary reason for people to go elsewhere. People need to hear, again & again, what God has to say to us. Jesus was the fulfillment of the Law – not the abolisher of the Law (per current cultural norms, political correctness and the politics of inclusion).