Don’t take this as an endorsement, but if you’re interested in some “outside-of-the-box” thinking about preaching, you might want to check out the sermons you won’t hear in church contest. My quick take is, the contest was aptly titled. Still, interesting stuff.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to check out Stephen Wright’s article, “Jesus and Paul as Models for Preaching,” our feature article for the month of June. I will occasionally ask a new class of students who they think is the best preacher the world has ever seen. The first and most obvious answer, of course, is “Jesus.” But what about Jesus as a model for 21st century preaching? Wright, tutor in preaching at Spurgeon’s College in London, has some helpful thoughts on the question.

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Check out worshipodcast.com for some excellent audio podcasts on preaching and worship. The most recent item is a nineteen minute interview with Dr. Joel Gregory. You might also want to listen to the interview with John Witvliet, director of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. This is a quality site that works easily and offers good content.

As a resource for preaching, the Old Testament has been under-utilized, largely because many preachers don’t know what to do with it. There are some great stories, of course, and some helpful character studies. But overall, the Old Testament with its grand prophecy and poetry leaves many preachers at a loss. For this reason, Walter Kaiser’s The Majesty of God in the Old Testament is a welcome help.

There are other books that are just as helpful in terms of Old Testament interpretation, but Kaiser’s book as been written specifically for those who preach and teach. Each chapter focuses on a particular Old Testament text. Kaiser offers background help, exegetical comments, and a series of conclusions designed to lead to effective preaching. More than a commentary and more than a series of sermons, these chapters give the preacher enough material to work with while still allowing room for the preacher’s own initiative in terms of sermon design and delivery. I can see this as the foundation for a powerful series of ten effective sermons or Bible Studies.

The thematic foundation for the book is the majesty of God. Kaiser’s conviction is that the greatness and magnificence of God is at the core of the Old Testament message. Each of these texts offer the preacher an opportunity to expose the nature and character of God as it is seen across the panorama of the Hebrew Scriptures. The texts lay out as follows…

1. Magnifying the Incomparability of Our God (Isaiah 40:9-31)

2. Magnifying the Greatness of Our God (Daniel 4:1-37)

3. Magnifying the Word of Our God (Numbers 20:1-13)

4. Magnifying the Wonderful Name of Our God (Jeremiah 32:1-44)

5. Magnifying the Pardoning Grace of Our God (Micah 7:11-20)

6. Magnifying the Holy Spirit from Our God (Zechariah 4:1-14)

7. Magnifying the Awesome Character of Our God (Psalm 139:1-18)

8. Magnifying the Glory of Our God (Ezekiel 1:1-28)

9. Magnifying the Grace of Giving from Our God (1 Chronicles 29:6-19)

10. Magnifying the Holiness of Our God (Isaiah 6:1-13)

Of particular interest is the introduction to the book in which Kaiser speaks to some of the issues pertinent to the preaching of the Old Testament. I was interested in what he had to say about the preaching of Christ in the Old Testament. I’ll admit that I was a little surprised to see him take issue with Sidney Greidanus and his friend Bryan Chapell on the question. It’s not that Kaiser doesn’t think that Christian sermons should focus on Christ. It’s just that he is concerned that “I must not prematurely infuse New Testament values and meanings back into the Old Testament in order to sanctify it before I independently establish, on purely Old Testament grounds, the legitimate meaning of the Old Testament text (19).” Fair enough. The Old Testament is not provided simply as an illustration source for sermons from the New Testament. It stands on its own as a testimony to the power and majesty of our gracious God.

May it be preached more effectively and more often.

Kaiser, Walter C. The Majesty of God in the Old Testament: A Guide for Preaching and Teaching. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2007.

I spotted this on Amazon Daily this morning. It was included in one of those annoying emails that people send each other. It is, however, based on a Cambridge University study that has some interesting implications.

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh, and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it

“The basic takeaway,” according to Amazon’s Rich Sloan, “in case you gave up on the email, was that according to a Cambridge study, the human mind pays most attention to the first and last letter of a word, not the innards, to recognize the word itself.”

“My belief,” Sloan continues, “is that the human mind treats a lot of stuff this way, not just words. If it thinks it recognizes something, then it immediately drops it into a bucket as recognized and moves on. That’s where the business principle comes in, which is acknowledging that people form opinions like lightning. They are quick to put things in convenient buckets. And if you don’t quickly either distinguish yourself or somehow jump out at them to make them really focus on your product, your website, your storefront-whatever-then you can expect people to not really pay attention to you. Unless you stop them long enough to really ‘read’ what you’re all about, they very well may pass you by assuming that they knew what you were about even though they had no idea, really, what was ‘inside’ your offer.”

“It’s critical, therefore, for you to grab attention, stand out, be completely different in approach – do whatever it takes to not blend. This way y’loul at vrey lsaet be albe to hvae a railiestc soht of cnvocinig tehm to psruhacse form you.”

From a preaching perspective, it reminds me of how efficient the listening mind really is. The listener’s mind moves quickly If we don’t capture people fast, they’ll move on. If we’re clear and succinct in what we are saying, the mind is capable of capturing the essence of what we are saying even if we don’t say it precisely or beautifully. Fussing with our prose might not be as useful as we think.

In oehtr wrdos, keep it mnovig. Dn’ot wtsae pplo’es tmie. Seapk the turth and dno’t wrory aobut tgneatns. Poplee wlil rpnosed to yuor ergney and to yuor mggesase. It mghit not be pttrey, but it wkros.