I realize the ministry I do is fruitless apart from Jesus through His Spirit so I pray for words, for Him to work and for His blessing. I long to hear from Him what people need to hear and then I read yesterday I Corinthians 2:1,4-5 "I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God... My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power."
This led me to question my teaching and preaching. We are so worried about boring kids and boring adults with the Bible. We work on teaking our messages with story and chalk it up to the fact that Jesus taught in story. There is an addage about how it is a "sin" to bore people with the gospel. In this day and age, a great preacher is one who makes us laugh, who enables us to see the sermon in our head, who tells great stories, and of whom we feel like the service flew by quickly. Is this how Jesus describes His favorite people? It seems to me, His emphasis is more on the faithfulness of an individual to Him, His kingdom and His message, and a lot less about how eloquent our sermons are. We sit and ask the Spirit to come to us and help us prepare and then we add of this stuff we can think of to make Scripture more entertaining to listen to. I know this sounds like a rant. I am not fed up or frustrated. I just want to make sure we are doing all we can to honor the intent of Scripture and not compromise the message. I also fear that I may be guilty of seeking eloquence and good storytelling, allowing those to be my wisdom and persuasive speaking over allowing the Lord's Spirit do demonstrate His power.
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