Great Insight on Modern Preaching

David Easler (there's your plug, buddy) has sent me the link to an article by William Willimon, the Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church on preaching to our modern culture. Willimon's warnings about accomodating our preaching to match the culture around us are timely and worthy of note.

For instance:
Sometimes in leaning over to speak to the modern world, I fear that we may have fallen in! When, in our sermons, we sought to use our sermons to build a bridge from the old world of the Bible to the new modern world, the traffic was only moving in one direction on that interpretive bridge. It was always the modern world rummaging about in Scripture, saying things like "This relates to me," or, "I'm sorry, this is really impractical," or, "I really can't make sense out of that." It was always the modern world telling the Bible what's what.


It is absolutely true that too many have understood their task of preaching to the modern world as more of a challenge of molding the truths of Scripture to fit a certain mold formed by the modern world. Or, as Willimon puts it: I don't believe that the Bible wants to "speak to the modern world." Rather, I think the Bible wants to change, convert the modern world.

May we all be found speaking the truths of the Bible remembering the words of Jesus in John 5:24...He came, not to make sad people happy, but to make dead people live.

You can read the rest of Willimon's article here: http://willimon.blogspot.com/2007/11/on-not-reaching-our-culture-through-our.html