Food for thought

From: Achtemeier, Elizabeth, Preaching Hard Texts of the Old Testament, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1998.

I was once asked in an interview to explain some of the characteristics that separate great preaching from mediocre preaching. Without going into all of the details of my response, probably the principle thing that should be said is that great preachers talk mostly about God and not about human problems. It is very easy for anybody to tell what is wrong with our world and what are the common struggles and sins of us human beings. We have only to look about us or to read the morning headlines. Even a twelve year old can compile a list of the evils in our society. But it takes a preacher to say what God is doing about them.