December 16, 2008
Extracurricular
I once had a minister who sprinkled his messages with data and survey stats. He purported himself to be a visionary who was up to speed on issues relevant to today’s culture. Doubting some of his statistics, I tracked down the source material and learned that the data he presented under the umbrella of ‘Christian’ was not mainstream Christianity, but rather taken from a collection of all the world’s religions. Now, I don’t believe he deliberately set out to mislead his audience, but I do think he failed to check the accuracy of his facts because he needed them to support his current vision. I’m envious of the Bereans. When they heard Paul preach all they had to do was examine, “…the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11b NIV
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Gail;
-----I have experienced this kind of thin in sermons so often I gave it a name. I call it preacher puff. Being a CPA, I am good enough with math to run at least simple numbers in my head. Sometimes I’ll start chuckling during a sermon when a preacher goes off on the ridiculous. One Sunday a preacher was making an illustration by the amount of junk that was hauled away from someone’s house, whom I think was moving, if I recall the story straight. This guy had nine semi-loads of stuff hauled away. A semi trailer is generally eight feet wide and forty long. Set three trailers side by side, then two more sets of three end to their ends, for a total of nine trailers. That is twenty-seven by one-hundred-twenty house filed to a height of ten feet. Big house. No wonder the guy had to move. No room left, either. I appreciate preachers trying to make spiritually relevant points, but come on! Most folks don’t even have to run the numbers to know eight semi loads of junk is way more than even a large home could possibly contain.
Love,
Steve Corey
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