Preacher, read fiction
“Sometimes preachers bore because they don’t understand the nature of Scripture. The Bible, after all, captures not only the intellect, but also the affections, the conscience, the imagination. That’s why the canon includes stories and parables, poetry and proverbs, letters and visions. Dull preaching often translates the imagination-gripping variety of Scripture into the boring tedium of an academic discourse or the boring banality of a ‘how-to’ manual.
So, if you find yourself translating a Psalm into the structure of a Pauline epistle before you preach it, you’re not letting the Scripture do its work in gripping the hearts of your people. And you don’t understand the meaning of the text—a meaning that’s about more than simply collected ideas.
Not even the most straightforward, rigorously doctrinal passages of Scripture are singularly intellectual. The apostles are visual preachers. Paul speaks of gouging out eyes (Gal. 4:15) and of giving his body over to be burned (1 Cor. 13:3), and he compares himself to a nursing mother (1 Thess. 2:7). James writes of a tongue aflame (James 3:6) and of fattened hearts in the day of slaughter (James 5:5).
The biblical revelation is far from boring. It’s the most exciting, engaging story imaginable, which is why it is aped all over the place in epic, drama, poetry, and song.
Preachers who would rage against boredom can start by learning to listen to the literary power of the text. This means, for one thing, learning to form a moral imagination that can be fired up by the Scriptures. For the sake of your congregation, limit your television and stop surfing the internet for hours on end. Read some good fiction and some poetry, and listen to stories being told—and thereby shape an imagination that recognizes literary structure, beauty and coherence.”
From Russell D. Moore’s article: Preaching Like the Devil, Touchstone Magazine, May/June 2010
G. Mark Sumpter
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