Saturday, July 31, 2010

Preach simply: clear and understandable


Jesus didn't cloud his messages with technical or theological jargon. He spoke in simple terms that normal people could understand. We need to remember that Jesus did not use the classical Greek language of the scholar. He spoke in Aramaic. He used the street language of that day and talked of birds, flowers, lost coins, and other everyday objects that anyone could relate to.

Jesus taught profound truths in simple ways. Today, we do the opposite. We teach simple truths in profound ways.

Sometimes when pastors think they are being "deep," they are really just being "muddy. They like to show off their knowledge by using Greek words and academic terms. No one cares as much about the Greek as pastors do. Chuck Swindoll once told me that he believes an overuse of word studies in preaching discourages confidence in the English text. I agree.


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1 comment:

JimB said...

I dunno, sometimes the how the story has been told over 20 centuries can best be seen by tracing the language. In a few minutes on Sunday is probably not the place for a detailed description but that does not mean the study is not useful.

FWIW
jimB