In working through C.K. Barrett’s 300 sermons, and comparing them to what I regularly hear traveling around the country, namely sermons that make me wince, I have come to the following conclusion:
Frankly, I have grown weary of sermons that have illustrations which do not illustrate the point of the appointed Biblical text, story sermons only loosely connected to the Bible, and in general sermons based on the perceived wants and needs of the congregation rather than on the substance of the subject matter of the Bible, in short, sermons with little Biblical or Wesleyan content that amount to little more than words of general encouragement or some sort of ethical harangue.
As Mr. Wesley was want to say to his preachers—you are not called upon to preach your experience, however profound, your opinions however lofty, your tradition however noble, or your own logic, however reasonable. No, you are called to preach the Bible in season and out of season, when it is well-received and when it is poorly received. And as CKB was apt to emphasize, it was not about the preacher and his eloquence. If Jonah could put his hand over his mouth and weakly utter ‘repent’ and ‘all Nineveh’ responded to God’s call, then surely it is mostly about the message, the living Word of God, powerful and active, and not so much about the messenger.
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