I ran into the same problem with two of my students yesterday. Both of them submitted sermon plans that required a little help. When I suggested alternate and more appropriate ways of approaching the text, they both agreed with me. The problem, they said, was that the texts and themes had been assigned to them by their Senior Pastors. It seems that these pastors had divided up their texts and assigned themes without taking their study of the text to the necessary level. In essence, they had prejudged their texts. I understand that there is value in knowing what we are going to be preaching on well in advance. The worship leaders like it. It definitely helps with marketing. Still, could I simply ask that we don’t determine what the text is saying until we actually study the text? The first step to understanding a text is to read it. I mean that we must read it with enough diligence and thought that we aren’t emerging with what we want the text to mean but what it actually means as God intends it. Is this too much to ask?
1feb
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