1Corinthians 4:20, "The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power."
Today's chatting and sharing within The Church never slows down. Each Sunday service is marvelously replete with the attendant Preacher sharing along side God's Word his personal ideas, hopes, feelings, fears, visions, anecdotes, speculations, interpretations, and declarations of how things seem to be, all with the intent of increasing the spirituality and awareness of his pewsitters. And, any well trained Preacher in faithful service to his Lord will always at some points loudly spout some verbatim Scripture. This routine of verbalized sermons presented by salary retained Professional Church Talkers is largely a pointless failure.
Here is why:
1.) The sermons are powerless, as evidenced because a week or two the vast number of listeners will have no memory of the sermons.
2.) Jesus never spouted upon any given topic for 40-50 minutes, trying to deliver a highly leveraged sales pitch. He merely stated axiomatic facts, illustrated them with parables, with irrefutable logic, with The Torah, and with miracles, then let His listeners take it or leave it. He did not need to do a performance to get people to find a reason to come back.
3.) The sermons require no work or investment by the listeners, far different than standard learning protochol in schools.
4.) Modern sermons consist of undemonstrated verbation. Nothing happens but talk, not even in the shrieking Pentecostal church. Talk supplants deeds, and even worse, mental assent and intentions are called "committment," and "recommitting."
5.) The constant emotional appeals by Preachers, with nonstop button pushing, hypnotic background music during the "alter call," brain rattling and mind numbing music during "worship," and threats of imminent unGodly death when out in the bad world all combine to vontrol defenseless and gullible listeners. The Preachers are trained in their schooling and internships to do all this.
Jesus and The Apostles preached quite differently, and materially demonstrated what they taught, even unto martyrdom. Not today in America's consumer church, perpetuated by the Preachers who only talk.
Today's chatting and sharing within The Church never slows down. Each Sunday service is marvelously replete with the attendant Preacher sharing along side God's Word his personal ideas, hopes, feelings, fears, visions, anecdotes, speculations, interpretations, and declarations of how things seem to be, all with the intent of increasing the spirituality and awareness of his pewsitters. And, any well trained Preacher in faithful service to his Lord will always at some points loudly spout some verbatim Scripture. This routine of verbalized sermons presented by salary retained Professional Church Talkers is largely a pointless failure.
Here is why:
1.) The sermons are powerless, as evidenced because a week or two the vast number of listeners will have no memory of the sermons.
2.) Jesus never spouted upon any given topic for 40-50 minutes, trying to deliver a highly leveraged sales pitch. He merely stated axiomatic facts, illustrated them with parables, with irrefutable logic, with The Torah, and with miracles, then let His listeners take it or leave it. He did not need to do a performance to get people to find a reason to come back.
3.) The sermons require no work or investment by the listeners, far different than standard learning protochol in schools.
4.) Modern sermons consist of undemonstrated verbation. Nothing happens but talk, not even in the shrieking Pentecostal church. Talk supplants deeds, and even worse, mental assent and intentions are called "committment," and "recommitting."
5.) The constant emotional appeals by Preachers, with nonstop button pushing, hypnotic background music during the "alter call," brain rattling and mind numbing music during "worship," and threats of imminent unGodly death when out in the bad world all combine to vontrol defenseless and gullible listeners. The Preachers are trained in their schooling and internships to do all this.
Jesus and The Apostles preached quite differently, and materially demonstrated what they taught, even unto martyrdom. Not today in America's consumer church, perpetuated by the Preachers who only talk.
