Proclaimer Blog
Talk Shmalk: for the purposes of clarification
Hey ho!
My post today is about more than preaching. I love the language of preaching and hate it when people introduce me to say I’m going to ‘explain the Bible’ or ‘give a talk’: I happen to think there’s something very special about preaching (theologically). I’ve written about that many, many times.
However, in my posts today (and this week) I was trying to help a broader range of people than just preachers: hence the language of ‘talk’. There are lots of teaching opportunities in church which – I don’t believe – are appropriate to call preaching: they are not the church gathered under the man of God bringing the word of God. These might be a small group talk, a women’s meeting, a youth group, a CU meeting: I used ‘talk’ to encompass all of these and more. The language was not the point of the post, and I hope that’s obvious.
Oh, and by the way, ‘sermon’ is not in the Bible either. In fact, it’s from old French meaning ‘talk.’ Voila!