Grace... and nothing else
Can you be a responsible preacher, preaching nothing but grace? This was a question that I briefly debated last evening. Personally, I believe you can. You can talk about sin until you are blue in the face, and many mininsters do, but you always come back to grace...wait, let me personalize that, I will always come back to grace.
I preached from Genesis 4 in my last preaching class. It is the story of Cain and Abel. The theme of my sermon was the difference between what we offer God and what God offers us. Cain, both in his offering and his murder, offered God death. God, in His mercy, offered Cain life.
Grace is, I believe, the theme of the Bible. It has to be when everyone involved in it is a sinner. I thin people have an inherent knowledge of sin. They don't need it preached to them. I'm not saying it shouldn't come up. It should and sometime even in confrontational ways. But if anyone leaves your sermon thinking of their primary identity as "sinner" as opposed to "the one redeemed by Christ" then something went wrong.
The church has been a place of ungrace for far too long. It is time to start erring on the side of grace.
(BTW - this post was also motivated by the fact that I didn't write a post on the 24th and I'm hoping there is grace out there for me!)
I preached from Genesis 4 in my last preaching class. It is the story of Cain and Abel. The theme of my sermon was the difference between what we offer God and what God offers us. Cain, both in his offering and his murder, offered God death. God, in His mercy, offered Cain life.
Grace is, I believe, the theme of the Bible. It has to be when everyone involved in it is a sinner. I thin people have an inherent knowledge of sin. They don't need it preached to them. I'm not saying it shouldn't come up. It should and sometime even in confrontational ways. But if anyone leaves your sermon thinking of their primary identity as "sinner" as opposed to "the one redeemed by Christ" then something went wrong.
The church has been a place of ungrace for far too long. It is time to start erring on the side of grace.
(BTW - this post was also motivated by the fact that I didn't write a post on the 24th and I'm hoping there is grace out there for me!)
so you WERE in the kitchen for a bit before i arrived! i think that more than grace being the topic of every sermon, grace should be a technic used in each sermon. themes could vary, but the last question to ask in the crafting of the sermon i say is "what grace is to be found in the text?"
do you have a class with janna? you'd agree.
Posted by
Kathryn Craven |
12:05 PM
not only was I in the kitchen, but I initiated what turned into a very obnoxious conversation. My apology to all.
Grace as a technique is more intriguing than grace as a theme. You are right about the "grace in the text" thing. The four pages has actually become a good spiritual discipline for me.
Thanks, Kat!
Posted by
dlweston |
9:01 AM
i can't fault you too much for starting the conversation since you knew when to stop. it's all about timing. drunken seminarians od'ing on theology is not a good thing.
Posted by
Kathryn Craven |
6:02 PM