Relevant

“When I was in seminary and I took a preaching class, seems like they told you in the preaching class that the preacher was supposed to stand in the pulpit with the Bible in one hand and today’s newspaper in the other…The preacher stood with one foot in the biblical world and one foot in the modern world, and tried to bring those worlds together in the sermon…The trouble with life situation preaching or with much of our preaching — conservative or liberal — is that the traffic seemed to move one direction on that bridge. It was always the modern world putting the questions to the Bible; it was the modern world deciding what in the Bible was relevant or irrelevant, possible or impossible. So that most of our preaching is in the translation mode; we start with some modern category.

“But one thing we overlooked in reaching out to speak to the modern world — to translate this gospel into more contemporary categories — one thing we overlooked is that it was this brave new modern world that gave us Dachau, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. The modern world gave us not only TV and the telephone but the Nazis. That is the world we are supposed to make the gospel credible to?” (William Willimon, preaching.com).

Relevancy. It’s a buzz word in religious discussions. “We have to make the gospel relevant.” Since when? The message of a crucified Savior has never been a popular one with most audiences. Paul told the Corinthian church: “But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). Both groups were put off by the message but the apostles didn’t change their preaching. There are many today who scoff at the gospel message. So do we need to make it more palatable? It is the world that needs to change, not the message. “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

God loves you!

Mike