In my first Theological Foundations class this semester our professor asked us the question "What do you think is the most important question in theology?" There were a few good responses actually. I ventured one myself: "How then shall we live?" To me our theology is only as good as the application of it in our lives. My professor gave one of those "ah, good question" noises and looked thoughtful. After pausing a moment he said, "What do you think, should sermons have an application part at the end?"
This question floored me. Of course you should! As an evangelical and a former youth pastor, in many ways the application is one of the main points of a speak, sermon, or teaching time. The professor told us that this question was one of great debate within Christendom and within theological circles? I was shocked. He explained it this way; the application section of a sermon (as we have now) is mostly a modern thing. The early church fathers, the medieval Christians, and even the reformers did not have application parts to their homilies or sermons. Apparently some people think that adding an application section to a sermon is wrong because:
1. The person writing the application has no idea how a passage of Scripture should be applied to every individual Christian.
2. The Holy Spirit is the one who applies the text to a person's life.
3. The theological biases of the preacher/teacher, which are already difficult to keep at bay when expounding the text, always come through in the application
4. Some other reasons which I forget.
Anyway, I found this whole "anti-application" argument very interesting and am going to give it some thought. Perhaps you agree or disagree with this sentiment. I'd be interested to hear other thoughts on this. By the way, the image at the top is of a preacher doing some cool Kung Fu stuff, it has little to do with my post but I found it striking and interesting.
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4 comments:
We are so used to being "fed" the application it might be refreshing to be left "hanging" to personalize it. Maybe we could go back to that old way of having a congregational "sharing time" the following Sunday to see how people applied the talk to their own lives!
Interesting!
maybe those who truly want to apply the sermon to their own lives will do that with or without the application bit.
maybe those who aren't listening, with their human and/or spiritual ears, don't plan on applying the sermon (with or without the bit) to their lives...
but- MAYBE there are those listening who think to themselves: that sermon was great but i don't know how it is relevent to me and i don't know how to apply it... then i think the application bit is VERY important!
when my ears are open, i always wait for that. sometimes i already know how i have to apply it, and often the Holy Spirit continues to teach me how to apply it... but so often i find that bit at the end to be the challenge i need to put my faith and knowledge into action and to not leave the sermon at church
I like having an application at the end of a sermon, but sometimes I have to chew on it for a few days to figure out if I fit that application. I haven't seen an application that didn't apply to me in some way yet!
I like it! It seems to make sense the idea of letting God take the individual where He wants them to go and where they need to go. Although thinking about the speaking I do I would have a hard time leaving out the application. This way of thinking is dominant in my profession as well. Within research, or even inquiries, like for instance the children's deaths at HSC related to the pediatric cardiologists; the whole purpose is application. How can we do things better for our patients? How can we prevent this from happening again? The potential application is what drives the inquest. Just thinking out loud!
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