This Sunday, I'm going to be deliver the Bible talk at the monthly combined service of our English and Arabic congregations. I'll be speaking in English, of course - and it'll be simultaneously translated into Arabic, for people to listen on headphones, UN style. The person translating will need a full text in front of them, from which to translate as I go. I'm going to speak on 1 Cor 15:1-11. My points will be:
- This is the gospel that Paul proclaimed to the Corinthians, and that they took hold of firmly ("believed", "received", "took their stand").
- We also must firmly take hold of this gospel. Real faith is a confident standing upon the Biblical message of Jesus, crucified and risen.
- We must pass this message on: to our children, and to an unbelieving world. The world seeks life in stupid things - wealth, power, career - and in so doing, they live in death, under God's anger. We have the message of real life, based on a Jesus who is really alive. We must tell this life-giving message to the world living in death.
This should be good for disciplined preaching. Because I have to: - write a full text of my sermon;
- prepare it early;
- focus on one main point;
- write simple, clear sentences.
You know - all those things we were taught to do for a good talk.
That shouldn't be too hard. I'm not a last minute kinda guy - am I? And it's not as if I'm in the habit of writing long, ponderous, incomprehensible sentences, with a multitude of clauses and subclauses, and a prolific superabundance of polysyllabic vocabulary - am I?
'Nuff procrastinating. Back to the talk.
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