Saturday, March 21, 2009

Karl Barth on Preaching

“Preachers must not be boring. To a large extent the pastor and boredom are synonymous concepts. Listeners often think that they have heard already what is being said in the pulpit. They have long since known it themselves. The fault certainly does not lie with them alone.

"Against boredom the only defense is being biblical. If a sermon is biblical, it will not be boring. Holy Scripture is in fact so interesting and has so much that is new and exciting to tell us that listeners cannot even think about dropping off to sleep.”
– Karl Barth, Homiletics
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991), 81.

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