I spent a week at the Engle Institute for Preaching at Princeton Theological Seminary. My absolute favorite class was called “The Old Testament is Dying; a diagnosis and treatment”. The lecture consisted mostly of statistics on our poor use of the Old Testament or cherry-picking texts over the past 100 years. The professor illustrated the death of a language as representative of our lack of usage of the OT. Furthermore, cherry-picking texts tells a truth, but not the whole truth. This pigkin (abbreviated language) is the common language of our happyoligists or prosperity gospel preachers like Joel Osteen. While there is truth preached, it’s not the whole truth. I was honored to be asked to assist in the Preaching to Millennials class as that is a personal favorite. Uniting the Head and Heart in Proclamation was inspiring and affirming, but nothing new was learned. I felt the greatest sense of community in the Overcoming Preachers Block class, but felt ahead of the curve. The Diverse Preaching for Diverse Listeners helped me to see that we all take away something different from the same passage based on location, presumptions, biases, and demographics. I am glad to be back and doing the thing I love the most.
