When I was in seminary, Dr. Howard Hendricks used to tell us what he thought about preachers who wanted to make the Bible relevant. He thundered, “The Bible’s not irrelevant! You’re irrelevant!” What he was trying to tell us also applies to preachers who desire to mitigate what they find boring in the Bible. The Bible’s not boring! You’re boring! The point is that as communicators we should strive to have a delivery that serves and reflects the message we wish to preach. And boring sermons say in a non-verbal way something profoundly untrue about God’s word.
Enter Kevin DeYoung’s lectures on preaching that he delivered last year at Westminster Theological Seminary (HT: JT). Last night, I finished listening to the talks, and they are right in the same spirit as Hendricks. They are an effort to cure preachers from delivering boring sermons. These lectures are fantastic, and I cannot commend them to preachers highly enough.
The title of the series is the underlying question that DeYoung wishes to answer in these lectures, “How Can a Biblical Sermon Be So Boring?” His answer is in two parts, and you can download or listen to both of them below.
The Case for Clarity, Specificity, and Authenticity [download]
The Case for Ingenuity, Spontaneity, and Authority [download]
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