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Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction—and don’t be boring (2 Timothy 4:2, NIV and OGV).
The above verse contains two versions, the NIV and the OGV, or the New International Version and the Old Guy Version. Can you tell where the NIV ends and the OGV begins?
While the NIV has acceptable academic credentials in its origin, the OGV translation comes from the Greek plus my personal opinions, and probably not as academic.
I can’t help retranslating 2 Timothy 4:2 with the change of “preach the word” to “don’t be boring.” My worst fear in sermonizing for over 50 years was someone commenting about my sermon and saying, “It was boring.” I wanted to be biblically and doctrinally correct, but what’s the use of a sermon with the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed in correct exegesis that lulls people to sleep?
To keep things interesting and correct through the years, I devised a technique that I called “A Hoodie and A Sermon” — or does my sermon keep drawing the content together, using explanation and application, toward a focused conclusion?
A great sermon pulls what can be too open-ended into a tight circle of conviction and challenge. Wearing a hoodie during a sudden storm of rain and wind, reaching for the drawstring, only to find it missing. . .
. . .causes frustration with a person wearing the hoodie and, metaphorically, with those listening to preaching in the pew.
A good drawstring starts at one end of the sermon and continues to the end (like a hoodie string from one side to the other), starting with a point, utilizing teaching, illustration, and often humor to come out the other side with a conclusion that challenges listeners to change and grasp the grace found only in Jesus.
It’s all tied together, creating a tension that demands listeners to listen in anticipation of the next words, not yawning, looking at the time, sending a text, or thinking about lunch, but being convicted in spirit by the Spirit of God.
What a sermon! I always wanted to preach one of these. I hope I did, but often I failed. I kept trying, honing my craft, and staying humble when I came close to success.
I’ve listened to hundreds of sermons and preachers, and the difference between a mediocre and a great sermon is the preacher’s ability to create a storyline or plot or drawstring that, using artistry and soundness of thought, resounds the same theme that goes deeper with each word.
And of course, I must mention the Spirit, as the best technical sermon without the Spirit will be bone-dry. Often, I preached a sermon, thinking it was the worst sermon in the history of Christendom, only to have people in the foyer say, “Best sermon ever.”
Before I strangled them, I remembered that a sermon, based upon God’s Word, will never return void (Isaiah 55:11) – with or without the drawstring.