Reconsidering 7.20.2023

 This was a blisteringly busy week in my Study. I am getting ready for two consecutive weeks of camp and have been preparing for a funeral. I am approaching the seam between two brief sermon series and need to do the heavy lifting for a long, exegetical series that will end the year.  And this crosses my mind. Would reordering the year have had greater cumulative impact? If I had chosen to sequence things differently, would I have “redeemed more time” or would things have played out the same way?

    Improvement tends to be incremental. It would be nice if there was a way to usher in revolutionary changes in any area of life, much less our preaching. Preaching is anchored in our individuality and personality. You can learn lots of different skills, but you are you and I am me and that is something that won’t ever change. Thus, we are left trying to develop new habits and skills over longer periods of time, learning to accept the incremental changes that come with discipline. 

    I have preached two Old Testament series in a row over the course of nine weeks. The way my mind thinks, I am asking myself “Should I have done one 10-week series? Should I have been more focused? Did we learn what we needed to learn and catch a glimpse of the cross in every message?” That’s a lot of questions over 10 weeks of preaching. The first OT series was from the wisdom literature. The second is from the book of Ruth. In the Hebrew Canon Ruth is linked to the wisdom literature, while in the Greek and Christian, Canon Ruth is linked with the “historical books”. I could have done a six-week series on the “writings” with only one sermon from Ruth. Yet Ruth’s story is so compelling, and the work has been very satisfying. 

    As I come to the end of this long week all this reordering, reconsidering, and continual review may seem like a waste of time. I find it not only rewarding but refreshing. It is always good to take inventory of old sermons preached and the decisions which led to them. We are always rushing to meet the next deadline. It is tempting to just blast ahead through the next study session, crank out the coming sermon, then move on to whatever is next in line. Even while moving forward, the time looking back is important to make sure that we are making progress and not just going in a circle.