Monday, December 20, 2010

Pompous Talk


….And the common people heard Him gladly (Mark 12:37 KJV)

A lot of preachers love to pontificate with great swelling words of verbosity and pious platitudes. Under the guise of being intelligent, they take simple truths from God’s Word and muddy it up with lofty words that no one can understand. They think they are deep, when in fact they are actually painting a cloudy picture that very few people can figure out. Is it really necessary to know Latin?

In stark contrast, Jesus Christ was the greatest communicator who ever lived, yet He didn’t use theological jargon. He spoke in simple terms that normal people could understand. We need to remember that Jesus did not speak the classical Greek language of the scholar. He spoke Aramaic, which was the common street language of the day. He was a master storyteller. He talked about birds, flowers, lost coins, sheep, plows, wells, farmers, planting seeds, vineyards, grapes, wine, wineskins, candles, bushels and other everyday objects that people could relate to.

Jesus taught profound truths in simple ways; and that’s why the Bible says the COMMON PEOPLE HEARD HIM GLADLY .

Some pastors today love to show-off their knowledge by using a lot of Greek words and academic terms in their preaching. They speak in an “unknown tongue” without even being charismatic. Pastors need to realize that virtually no one cares as much about Greek rhetoric as much as they do!

I love the practicality and simplicity of Jesus’ teaching. It was clear, relevant, and applicable. He aimed for application because His goal was to transform people, not merely inform them. This is the kind of preaching that is needed in churches today. It changes lives.



1 comment:

J said...

interesting post...

I have found that some people like it though when the pastor proclaims "the greek word literally means..." as if to reveal some new hidden meaning behind the text.

However, I was fortunate enough to hear a Biblical Scholar speak on Biblical Hermaneutics where he actually said that it makes him cringe when a pastor does this, because probably about 80% of the time...they are flat out wrong.

He explained that most although many pastors can read Greek words, they cannot read Greek sentences...thus missing the Greek context and therefore what may dictate the actual meaning of the word.

It was actually quite eye opening, and convicting...especially when this Bible scholar who has actually helped translate the Bible, spoke in a way so that anyone could understand (and not flaunting his knowledge of the Bible)

He also pointed out that sometimes people get so caught up in some secret meaning of some word, when the meaning is not in one word, but in the whole sentence/passage.