4.8 β’ 3.8K Ratings
ποΈ 16 May 2018
β±οΈ 10 minutes
ποΈ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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0:00.0 | Well, on Monday, we talked about what makes a good sermon, and today we have a question |
0:09.1 | about what place eloquence has in the pulpit, if any. |
0:12.8 | And it's a question from a seasoned preacher who asked to remain nameless, Pastor John. |
0:17.7 | Thank you for this podcast. |
0:19.0 | What is the role of creativity, imagination, and rhetoric in preaching? |
0:23.5 | I'm thinking of things from alliteration and assonance to structural and organizational |
0:29.5 | devices, to the use of metaphors, imagery, and illustrations. |
0:33.8 | What would you say, Pastor John, to this preacher? |
0:36.0 | This question has weighed on me for decades, so much so that maybe he knows we did an entire |
0:46.6 | desiring God national conference, I think, in 2008, under the title, The Power of Words |
0:55.2 | and the Wonder of God. |
0:57.0 | And the next year, Justin Taylor edited those messages into a book by the same title. |
1:04.1 | And my talk in that conference was, is there Christian eloquence? |
1:11.8 | And my burden was 1 Corinthians 117, which says, Christ did not send me to baptize, but |
1:22.6 | to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ |
1:32.6 | be emptied of its power. |
1:35.4 | And I think that is the key issue. |
1:39.2 | How do we reconcile the pursuit of creative, imaginative, compelling uses of language in |
1:48.2 | preaching and writing with the biblical warnings against replacing the power and offensiveness |
1:54.7 | of the cross with human finesse, or human art, or human cleverness? |
2:01.5 | Nobody can escape this problem. |
2:03.4 | No, nobody out there should say, I don't even come close to that problem, I'm not eloquent |
... |
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